By J.P. Leskovich

I. What Made You Decide That?

Why?

Everyone always asks why, like small children,

yearning to learn and absorb everything they can,

yearning to see all with their wide-open eyes.

Why?

Maybe we feel that an explanation,

that knowledge,

will gives us solace in a lonely world—we feel that filling our minds with facts and figures and analyses will hold us close and whisper, “it will be okay.”

Why?

I don’t have the answer to that.

Why?

I don’t know everything or have an answer to every question. I too am just stumbling through the forest at dark, trying to find my way back to the warmth of the fire.

Why?

That’s what life is—making your way through an unknown terrain, doing what you can to make a mountain out of a molehill and enjoy the way to the fire as much as the fire itself.

Why?

I don’t have an answer to that.

Why?

I told you! I’m on the same journey as you. I’ve merely found a guide and some fellow hikers.

קדושה .II

Holiness is the moment you touch, and
your stomach cannot contain the butterflies within,
so
they escape and fill your world with
the color and wonder of a Chagall painting;
 
Holiness is the moment the Torah is raised
in front of the whole congregation, and
the air is thick with a palpable sense of
thousands of years of singing,
thousands of years of lives,
thousands of years of broken glass;
 
Holiness is the moment you look at your watch and
realize you’ve laughed away four hours together,
as if they were seconds, and
each other’s company is the warm embrace
of a loving mother;
 
Holiness is the moment you hug, and
the tears streaming down your face are
out of mind, and
you melt into one another–all you know is
the support you feel in this moment;
 
Holiness is the moment you see one another,
not as pieces of a puzzle or
as individual ingredients, but as
a full person, gleaming
with the wholeness that cannot be imitated;
 
Holiness is the moment you smile,
knowing the ding of your phone is them
beckoning
to you;
 
Holiness cannot be explained, but
it can be felt
in the breeze,
in the laughter of those you love,
in the moments you can’t describe, but
the tingling in your spine
tells you
it’s special.

III. Allow Me to Introduce Myself

I am Naphtali.

I bonded with those who welcomed me, an endless feast with overflowing cups of laughter and Miller High Life. We unwound the knots in our minds and on our tables, forging a world once foreign to me, a world that’s now my home. We welcomed the bride as the sun slipped behind the mountains, the songs and harmonies feeding my hunger for belonging and guiding my lost soul to a place I could settle and cease my wandering.

I am Naphtali.

I prayed for the first time since I was a small child, feeling it meant something more than I once understood. Alone and with others, I connected with God, opening my heart to and laying myself down before God. The Eternal revealed Godself to me, whispering in my ear, holding me gently, making Godself known. Through joy and through tragedy, prayer seeped its way into my life and my consciousness.

I am Naphtali.

I stubbornly pleaded with God and struggled with myself and the demons who taunt me cruelly. I found answers to my pleas and took the upper hand in my struggle by tapping into my spirit, discovering who I was and immersing myself in my new yet familiar identity, desperate to make up for lost time. My pleas to God and my struggle with myself unveiled the community I had been longing for, reinvigorating my thirst for life, unlocking my lost identity.

I am Naphtali. I have bonded and I have prayed and I have stubbornly pleaded and I have struggled. I am Naphtali. Out of the valley of death I have emerged stronger, with God and my community by my side. I am Naphtali. I know who I am and I shall make my life a blessing.