Week 3 in New Town (November 11th, 2026)
I had a dream last week in which Erik and I were in a conference room with a few local elders, discussing a “talent show” that it was our job to put on at the end of the month, and to sing three songs that R. and A. had chosen for us. I recall that we didn’t know how to sing any of the songs (in classic dreamlike fashion) and so the lead elder in the room said something like, “I don’t need you guys to perform for us just to perform! If you want to sing, sing; if not, then don’t!” At this we were both severely relieved, gladdened by the rare frankness of opinion, and we each chose a new song. I chose ‘Maoz Tzur,’ Rock of Ages.
The following morning when I awoke I researched the song and found that the little melody—which sounds like an ancient Hebrew tune—was actually a German folk tune from maybe around the 14th century. It was used by Martin Luther for one of his hymns, and through him Bach, in his four-part chorale, BWV 388. The melody there is slightly modulated, but if you listen closely it’s there as clear as day. Firstly, hearing a Bach chorale sing what I only knew as a Hebrew song was magnificent enough, but especially surprising was the fact that I’d listened to the Bach chorale a handful of times, only I never knew it was Maoz Tzur.
What was the dream telling me? Clearly the elder’s words were the main injunction there: stop performing for others! But it was a finer message: continue performing! In fact, perform as wonderfully as you can. But sing for yourself, perform for beauty’s sake, and never perform for the sake of performance. This last piece I know I am often liable to do, and so my feeling of relief in the dream was absolutely real. As for my choice of Maoz Tzur, perhaps it’s just because Chanukah is coming up and the song’s natural frequency is arising in my mind. But perhaps also it has to do with rededication, the song’s central conceit.
What then in my third week here—running with this interpretation—is being rededicated? Well, what did I accomplish in my third week? Mostly the week went similarly to the first two, and the two main moving parts were my work at the clinic and the Door. There was also an open house at the school and Erik and I signed up about half of our students for an upcoming narcan training class. We had to collect parent signatures too however (IRB standard procedure), and so while we did so, maybe about 80% of the parents recalled to us a family member, friend, or relative who had a close encounter with opioid overdose. Perhaps about half of those stories were true overdoses. And even if they didn’t have a direct encounter with opioids, just about all of the families nodded their heads when we explained the training class to them and immediately signed up, the overwhelming sentiment of the night being, “this is a worthwhile initiative.”
On top of that the other day Erik and I received a text message from L. that read “THANK YOU” in all caps for our work with them this month. From anyone else this wouldn’t really’ve been worth noting, but somehow from L.—who has been one of the most genuine guides we’ve had on this trip, perhaps the only true guide—the token of gratitude seemed to me sincere.
Maoz Tzur goes, “restore my House of Prayer and there we will bring a thanksgiving offering,” and immediately the first clause seems superfluous: why say that one must go to the temple to bring an offering? Why say that one must first go to the cafe if he wishes to buy coffee? Clearly the offering must be sacrificed at the temple; it cannot anywhere else. But perhaps the key is the first word, tikon—restore. Though one may believe his temple to be in order, and believe his sacrifices prepared, perhaps there must always be restoration first. In other words, we are liable to become jaded (speaking even just for myself); through daily action we are lulled into a false state of security. We wind up our clocks once and let them rip, hardly ever checking back in with the gears until something breaks. We take one look at the stars and set off under their sign, but how often do we afterwards look back up to check back in with our convictions?
This is the meaning of restoration, of rededication. The song goes on to describe the state of affairs that had led to this need for rededication: “an oppressor came and exiled me, for I had served aliens, and had drunk benumbing wine.” ‘Benumbing’ is Chabad.org’s translation—when the word ra’al is maybe closer to toxic, staggering—but I think it’s fitting here for my purposes. Daily we are benumbed by the momentum of our actions. Especially if our momentum is pleasurable. “Well,” our reasoning often goes, “I’ve gotten this far by doing X, why stop? Why reevaluate?” If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. And so we continue doing X, over and over again, all the while serving aliens—i.e. the siren’s song, spiritual torpor—until inevitably, invariably, we wake up one morning in the brightest of lights, in sobering exile.
And the most confusing part is that we may even get exactly what we wanted! Wanted, meaning, what we set out to obtain. “Aha! I’ve finally achieved Z!” We tell ourselves, instantly with a sour taste in our mouths realizing—at the precise moment we obtain Z—that it was perhaps never what we wanted. Or maybe it was originally what we wanted, but because we never thought to rededicate our intentions, and because we rode on the coattails of X for so long, that Z long ago ceased to be the object of our desire. But this whole process transpires degree by invisible degree, and so it’s often the case that we don’t realize, and then realize all at once that we’ve been exiled, like the fate of the boiled frog.
The good news (for me and not the frog) is that we are exiled back to ourselves, if we’re lucky. We’re exiled only from our delusions; slapped out of our drunken, benumbed stupor. And so once again, if we’re lucky, we find ourselves staring back up at the sky wondering only, “why exactly did I do X? Why exactly did I want Z?” Painfully we wonder, yes, but the object of this kind of inquiry is always healing.
And then shaking off the dust, we recalibrate our astrolabes and wind our clocks back up. Hopefully—ideally—with the knowledge that we’ve got to look up more often in our lives, that we’ve got to spend more time with our finger on the pulse.
So maybe in my dream I chose Maoz Tzur because I need to rededicate myself or my intentions, specifically as it relates to my time here in New Town: Are my objectives here really as simple as I demarcated them? Namely my intentions to “bear witness,” and make small spiritual progress via everyday kindness. I already understood at the start here that I was not going to save the world from itself, but perhaps now that I can see some tiny but tangible measure of my work, I am understanding that there’s more to my presence here than simply bearing witness.
What am I recalibrating towards then; especially now that I’m at the tail end of this trip? Perhaps the answer may only reveal itself once I’m back in New York. Maybe I’m meant to come back here—or maybe I’m really meant to take what I’ve learned in New Town and activate it somewhere else? The answer so far is unclear, but I have a feeling that my purpose here—or anywhere, really—hasn’t been truly fulfilled yet. I have a couple of clues, and a few leads I’m following, but only in time, surely following several more exiles, shall I reach anything that begins to look like a real answer to my question.
This past long-weekend Erik and I drove to South Dakota to see the Badlands and Mt. Rushmore. On the drive there we started with music, then shifted to an audiobook, and then finally fell into regular conversation. Mainly we discussed our first impressions of each other, the practice of journaling, and the physical life.
Neither of our first impressions were accurate to say the least, and as we’ve come to know each other we’ve realized that we’re more similar than not: specifically in our callings to heal. (I feel like there’s this kind of protective spirit that emanates from us both like thick fur, one that just wants to wrap around sickness and mend it. Its source was pain, and its primary objective at the start was to heal itself—like a wolf licking his wounds—but in time and maturity the spirit grew, and now we’re trying to become healers of others.)
One of our more superficial differences though is journaling, which I practice and he has yet to. I recommended it because at some level it’s quite useful, but I also gave the caveat: it’s a practice that can destroy the physical life if not checked. It’s a process of self-reflection, like looking up at the stars, and so in that way it’s a process of rededication to the self. But the stars are sparkling and majestic, and if you’re not careful—and I’ve been here time and time again—you can simply forget to look where you’re walking. So I suppose that’s the secret underside of rededication: one can ask “why Z?” so frequently—and change direction so often—that one forgets entirely that one must actually do X.
That being said, I must rededicate myself to the practice of honest and balanced self-reflection. Honesty must first flow to myself in order to flow to others, and for me, that often begins here, in writing. And it must be balanced because star-gazing can quickly degrade into navel-gazing.
At Mt. Rushmore Erik and I marveled at the size of the faces and the ideas they stand for. H. says I’m an idealist and unfortunately I think she’s correct. From those four heads I felt pouring out liberty, openness, justice, and just to stand before them felt like a rededication to the American ideal. But funnily enough the very next day in Rapid City I bought a collection of D.H. Lawrence essays, the second of which pertains exactly to this brand of American idealism. Hating the way that Americans think they invented “freedom,” he writes:
“Either we are materialistic instruments, like Benjamin [Franklin], or we move in the gesture of creation, from our deepest self, usually unconscious .We are only the actors, we are never wholly the authors of our own deeds or works. IT is the author, the unknown inside us or outside us. The best we can do is to try to hold ourselves in unison with the deeps which are inside us. And the worst we can do is to try to have things our own way…”
IT for him is the “dark forest” of the soul, through which many gods come and go, none ever able to be pinned down as we’d like them to be. So at some level D.H. Lawrence’s criticism is also a criticism of any kind of rededication process, because we can never know exactly what we want in the first place, let alone how to get there. And I think it’s a valid criticism: life, desire, adventure, all of this is much more in-flux than I’ve probably given it credit for. And yet to say what Lawrence does—that we cannot for a moment ever pin down our convictions—seems like a bad excuse. Perhaps he’s right that we are never wholly the authors of our own actions, but we can definitely look at them sometimes and say, “did I write this one? What about that one?”
Tonight Erik and I went to a Veteran’s day celebration and watched some incredible traditional dancing while the community rallied around its veterans. A little selfishly, when I wasn’t transfixed by the colorful suits and headdresses of the dancers, I was thinking about Judaism. Specifically, how I would seldom find myself at an analogous Jewish event. Is there even one? Simchat Torah has dancing, maybe—but I didn’t go this year. And most other Jewish celebrations I attend are personal ones, e.g. either weddings or Bar Mitzvahs. I found myself a little jealous: of the colors, of the music, and of the warmth of it all. On top of all that, I was welcomed-in so readily, almost as if I were at a family member’s house. Even the waitress from Better ‘B’ Cafe gave me a hug.
It’s funny. If this celebration was the “talent show” I’d seen in my dream, then I was technically supposed to sing Maoz Tzur in front of everyone. Unlike in my dream, that couldn’t be farther from what I wanted to do. But perhaps as I’ve just written, the singing of Maoz Tzur represents my reorientation process; a kind of self-calibration. O.K. So this is me trying to rededicate myself, to reorient myself: to Judaism, to journaling, to this trip, to my career. Whether or not any of these things have an ideal form, some kind of perfect “Z” that can actually be reached, I don’t know. Probably not. But I suppose at this point—just on the cusp of returning to my “normal” life—it’s better worth the ask than not.