"There is nothing more irrelevant than an answer to a question nobody asks"...

- Reinhold Neibuhr as quoted by R. Nathan Lopez-Cardozo. (from this past sunday!!). Rabbi Cardozo continues, "the Jewish Tradition is an answer to the ultimate questions about human existance". This tradition commenced with Avraham Avinu, of course - a Ger. He notes the Midrashim on what a struggle it had to have been for Avraham Avinu, how it is impossible that it was a simple, smooth thing...I would comment that it's not unlike being a BT either; as much as the Charedi BT's/FFBWL's may imply that (in that peculiar-to-them manner), "once you do [insert process/event that they see as pivotal], everything just falls miraculously into place"...it's NEVER easy, as much as it may seem to have been. Godwrestling is a daily event. At times I am a walking, seething (only at times), glob of evidence of just this fact.
I can feel my place in Neibuhr's statement, often feeling radically irrelevant. I have thousands upon thousands of pages of resolutions (as well as tons notes of my own), to kashiot only I could imagine...because I have thousands and thousands of pages of questions nobody cares to ask...worthwhile ones as well as insane ones (I once arrogantly quipped that if people saw half of what I could show them, they'd leave Torah - because that didn't see the other half). Actually, if I were to go through them I would have to come to the conclusion that in fact, there is something more irrelevant than such an answer; even starting such a conversation. I have notebook after notebook of rambles, asides, essayic fragments about such distilled esoterica....but I don't want to commence a pity part here (I'd have to write last minute invitations)...so I will just say that R. Cardozo delivers some incredible Torah in this shiur. There is a 'brother' shiur on this same site that may contain other material; accessible by clicking in the "shiur categories" box.