"Until Then I'll Spend My Money, Right On Down To My Last Dime..."

There are few sensations more unnerving than flying through the middle of a Gulf of Mexico thunderstorm. Battered and buffeted by storm clouds and pressure systems, swept to and fro by high winds, dodging lightning bolts and encroaching thunder claps, you cannot help but be awkwardly aware of your own mortality. Modern aircraft are designed to survive turbulence of apocalyptic proportions, including even being struck by lightning itself, but this fact, however well-meaningfully articulated by those in the travel industry, fails to strike a chord when ten and a half hours into a flight you are face to face with gathering clouds of rumbling, roaring significance.
I have, you may remember, blogged before about fun and frolics at 36,000 feet. Being not the most confident flyer in the world, I was obviously a little concerned that the thunderstorm landing into Houston, Texas, was laced with both a literal and metaphorical symbolism, an ominous, portentous harbinger of troubles brewing. On reflection, and leaning heavily on my ability to recite the Desiderata by heart, I am now confident that such fears were borne of fatigue and/or loneliness (delete where applicable). It can be disheartening to spend the duration of a long-haul flight on a half-empty plane with nobody to talk to, while the time-lapse and journey duration were obviously contributing factors to a high dosage of fatigue. Such rumblings of negative emotional thunder dissipated as swiftly as the real storm and, once customs had been dealt with the standard clash of cultures that inevitably emerge when the least subtle security nation in the world collides with weary and sarcastic British folk, soon it was time to enjoy the ultimate in travelling experiences, the airport reunion.
Richard Curtis has made many mistakes during his career as sit-com writer, rom-com creator and charity commissioner for the entire continent of Africa. The Boat That Rocked, for example, really sucked. He is, however, responsible for a wonderful little speech at the beginning of Love Actually, a film so perfectly simple in its scope and ambition that it is bewildering as to how it engenders such vociferous debate between film fans as to its merits (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view). I am firmly in the ‘pro’ camp, seeing it not only as a perfect Christmas treat, but a love song to my home city, not to mention the fact that the film was released during a particular moment and time in my young life that seemed to align cleverly with how I was thinking and feeling at that precise moment. With that in mind, the opening speech, delivered against a backdrop of real CCTV footage of genuine travelers greeting each other at the arrival gates at London Heathrow, has always struck a chord. However, beyond the obviously happy instances of greeting family members at the airport, and one or two other occasions that I have no need to go into detail about here, I had not enjoyed the happy circumstance of my own Love Actually moment until I landed in Houston. While not the arrival gates at Heathrow Airport, they were still arrival gates, and being face to face with someone that you have spent so much time talking to, and so much emotion thinking about, helps affirm those beautiful Curtis words: ‘It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s there.’
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is itself an interesting place to spend some time. It has all the quintessential Southern values and charm that I mentioned when previously blogging on my travels through the Deep South of America, but, as a college town, there is also a sense of urban Bohemia, a point enhanced at this particular moment by my current typing location in an independent-run coffee shop, populated by students with laptops and Ipods and time. There is, therefore, a pleasant juxtaposition between the general feel of student openness and acceptance, and old-fashioned traditions synonymous with this region, from the food to the politics. Here in America, this weekend sees the main celebrations for Mardi Gras, a pageant of huge proportions in this part of the world, with food, drink, carnivals, dancing, music, and a general celebratory spirit that may now be some way from the original religious sensibilities behind the festival, but nonetheless entrenching a positive feel of community. New Orleans is the world centre for Mardi Gras. It is already a city that lends itself well to street parties, with its roadside music culture already deeply ingrained, and during a holiday where much emphasis is placed on colour and vibrancy and a love of life, the entire region dials up this sense of spirit even more. This year, Louisiana is also celebrating their first ever Superbowl triumph after last Sunday’s win for the New Orleans Saints, a victory which has already prompted a huge ticker-tape parade through the French Quarter before Mardi Gras even properly started. After the travesty of Katrina and the damage done to the whole region both socially and economically, it was not just an ordinary Superbowl win for the Saints. More than just a sporting victory, it helped symbolize the recovery of the city of New Orleans and Louisiana in general, a sentiment enhanced going into this weekend’s frivolities also.
The UK does not celebrate Mardi Gras in the same way, save for a few of us belatedly flipping a few pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. I suspect that a New Orleans-style carnival atmosphere through the streets of London would be sensational, but no doubt the rigid powers that be would place such stringent health and safety embargoes on the entire event that it would be pointless. London has never been that sort of city, and probably never will be, save for the impromptu street parties that greet momentous national events like coronations, jubilees and English footballing success. Regardless of the UK’s own standpoint, as a Londoner of Jewish ethnicity it would not be unfair to argue that attending the once Pagan, now Christian celebration of Mardi Gras in New Orleans will place me a considerable way out of my comfort zone, but so far I am on the right side of excited.

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A few days later

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Mardi Gras has now been and gone, and I sit and type this back home in London, amidst swirling sleet and snow, that perennial illustration of the bleakest winter in recent memory. Dark, portentous clouds loom overhead as February closes out with its usual dismal fare, a fitting epitaph to a gloomy meteorological season. It is without question that I love London - my city, my home, my people. Recently, and perhaps connected to seeing more of the world than I could have anticipated, the feeling of excitement at returning to one of the world's great cities has lessened. Cynicism, complacency, tedium, perhaps all contribute to this. More likely is the great lifestyle change I am about to undergo, taking place in the heart of the capital, as I begin the daily commute and the weekly grind. In a few days time, I will be swapping a Fred Perry polo for a well-tailored suit, leather shoes in place of Puma canvas. Like the millions around me, I will take the train into work, praying I do not need an umbrella for the walking part of the journey, subconsciously hoping the gentle sounds of my Ipod can last just a few moments longer before I walk in through curved, glass doors into a curved, glass building. The times they are a-changing.

All the more important, then, that I have been lucky enough to enjoy my time off after finishing Law School. In this time I have learnt much about myself, and the world around me. I have travelled extensively, adventuring across a great continent, meeting new people, expanding my horizons and challenging my previous preconceptions. Had there not been a recession, a credit-crunch that caused major businesses and companies to hold back their intakes of new employees, I would not have enjoyed my American sojourn, and consequently not had the recent opportunity to return there.

Mardi Gras, then, became symbolic to me, not just as a holiday and series of festivals in the South of America, but because of its position at the start of the Lenting season, a time when those of Christian faith are compelled to give something up, or make some kind of positive change for the better. In many ways, I will be giving up a lifestyle, a way of being that I have grown accustomed to, but which ultimately, and like so much of our formative years, must come to pass. With this in mind, I was determined to enjoy my final moments of freedom.

New Orleans was a perfect place to start, with its one-of-a-kind community spirit, intense musical culture and intricate ethnic history, combining in a kaleidoscope of noise and colour and vibrancy. The Endymion parade through St. Charles was a real sight, with marching bands and floats, flying beads and decorations, not to mention the continued celebratory chanting of New Orleans Saints football fans. Spending the first day of Mardi Gras there alongside close friends was a unique and enjoyable experience, and a million miles from what I am used to back home.

This feeling of difference was heightened in the following two days, firstly in a town called Thibedaux, Louisiana, and then the even more remote Mamou, Louisiana, home to a Mardi Grass street-dance that has to be seen to be believed. Thibedaux is close to what I picture to be old-school America, with neat town squares and houses with railings, shutter-windows and ornate gables, peering over the streets below with decorative balconies. The Thibedaux parade featured some fairly hostile throwing of Mardi Gras beads from the travelling floats, causing yours truly to have to duck for cover on a number of occasions, but the spirit of this part of Louisiana, and the celebrations they put on, were far from hostile. Instead, I found a welcoming, community-driven locality, and was overwhelmed by the generosity of our hosts for the parade, with an endless supply of food, drink, music, sunshine and unparalleled balcony views courtesy of Kyle to enjoy the proceedings.

Similarly, the Mamou street dance opened up my eyes to an entirely new level of appreciation for Southern values. Here, in the midst of rural Louisiana, a small town takes to the streets to enjoy real Cajun music (guitar, accordion, snare, vocals), beer and three-step dancing. I arrived in polo t-shirt and skinny jeans, looking more Shoreditch than shoreline, and found myself deeply out of place from a sartorial point of view. Most of the men in Mamou take to the street-dance in hunting garb, with large army-style jackets, combat trousers and boots, often with traditional baseball-cap as a complimentary addition. Nonetheless, although a clear out-of-towner, I was once again welcomed to this fiercely local tradition with warmth and friendliness. My good friend Ashli's family were kind and polite, hospitably making me eat fresh catfish (delicious, I might add) and seeing to it that Sam and I were well looked after. In Mamou, we met all kinds of interesting folk, from the old high-school sweethearts dancing arm in arm in the exact same style that they must have perfected decades earlier, to the single wedding planner, drinking his troubles away in the bar, and happy to talk to me about The Beatles and to Sam about the Louisiana State University dance programme. Many suggest that rural Deep South backwaters are set in their ways and suspicious of outsiders. I found, both in Thibedaux and Mamou, communities deeply committed to their ideals and traditions, but proud of them in a positive and engaging way, with the overwhelming majority of the people I met eager to show me a good time and welcome me into their world. In a city as vast and disconnected as London, we could learn a lot from these displays of local and regional solidarity.

Back in Baton Rouge, I began to mentally prepare for the long drive into Texas, towards Houston, the airport and home. Is there anything harder than an airport farewell? If meeting someone special at the Arrival Gates is an uplifting experience, the complete opposite is true of parting at a Departure Lounge. What can I tell you about this particular Departure Lounge experience without resorting to sycophancy and hyperbole? Well, let's say that the world can move in mysterious ways. I have been, for a while now, a cynical sort, one who questions those who place emphasis on the whims of serendipity. Even now I am not certain if the series of events that led me to Baton Rouge, and subsequently back to this wonderful part of the world just a couple of months later, can be attributed to fate or some sort of masterplan, or if indeed we are, as John Lennon once put it, merely 'molecules bouncing around', and thus purely part of a random circumstance, a happy accident. I am, however, less cynical than I was, illuminated as I am by a new adventure, exciting and scary in equal measure, but offering a sense of hope, of idealism, of faith, amidst uncertainty and intrigue.

It is, at the last, a quiet thing, hard to surmise in cold language on a screen, yet eloquent enough in more silent parts of my heart. For many months now I have noticed two roads stretching out before me. I could have, as Robert Frost put it, saved one for another day, 'but knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back'...

"I shall be telling this with a smile,

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood,

And I...

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost, 'The Road Not Taken'.

Evidence Of Things Not Seen: Judaism in the twenty-first century

It is entirely appropriate, I believe, for the Jewish High Holydays to take place in our autumn. A time of change and newness, September represents important phases and stages in our lives: new school terms, new University years, new jobs. So for the Jewish New Year to fall during this busy period works well in my opinion. It sits nicely alongside these more secular occasions.

However, this year, perhaps more than any other, I have found myself questioning the festivals of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. For the uninitiated, these two festivals are generally considered to be the most important in the Jewish calendar; the first being a celebration of the birthday of the world, of the creation story, and thus a New Year under the Hebrew timescale, the second being the culmination of ten days of internal soul-searching and repentance for all manner of yearly sins and wrongs, ending in Yom Kippur itself: a 25-hour long fast where Jews refrain from eating or drinking, or other earthly luxuries from sex to shaving and even wearing leather shoes. On Yom Kippur, Jews openly articulate their wrongdoing from the previous year and ask for forgiveness from God.

On many levels, this is so important. What could be more suitable, in an age of selfishness and arrogance, where materiality takes precedent over spirituality, than to cast our minds back through the vastness of the previous twelve months and not only admit our failings, but to understand why we did them. I am a reflective young man, and feel such a Judaic device is to be applauded for the most part. The problem I have is in the nature of the repentance. It seems to me to be a little strange to be asking for forgiveness from a being, an entity, whatever you want to call him, her or it, that we have little or no evidence for the existence of, beyond what we have been told are ocular examples in scripture.

Let me be clear, today's blog is not to shatter the illusion of divinity that governs most world religions. I simply do not know whether there is or is not a God. Being brutally honest, I am one of those who goes about ritual or ceremonial duties more out of hope than expectation, believing it still important to maintain the tradition (and remembering the genuine history that prompted them) rather than completely do away with it, regardless of what the net result will be in the long run. I am, however, 100% certain in my own mind that it is possible to be Jewish and still have major doubts. After all, self-doubt is a paragon virtue of modern Judaism, so I suppose I should fit right in. There is, friends, a generational problem here, however. If I had this conversation with my mother, for example, her unflinching support for everything she has been told and taught in her life would no doubt eventually evolve into an argument with me about my lesser faith, my lapsed ability to trust explicitly.

So where do I fit in amongst the denominations of my religion? Do I fit in at all? There are, sadly, an annoying few who would claim I have no place in it whatsoever, a cabal of near-medieval prelapsarians whose literal ideology I believe to be not only morally wrong but equally socially dangerous. There are some, be they Jews, Muslims, Christians, you name it, who hold steadfastly to everything that scripture and custom and influential leaders tells them. For the most part, this is fine. In many ways it is to be applauded. There is much, as an example, within the Jewish Torah that is relevant to modern-day life, offering important distinctions between right and wrong, imploring responsibility and charity, kindness and forgiveness, moral guides to what is at times an amoral world. But it also talks about stoning rebellious sons to death at the city gates, or that homosexuality is an abomination, and even sanctions a father's right to sell his youngest daughter into slavery. By any modern moral standard, all of these are just plain wrong. The vast majority of British Jews will treat such commandments in the same way they treat meat from a pig: with some distance. There remains a minority, the same minority who consider me to be as Jewish as Egyptian footballer Mido, who will still cling to this prose as, forgive the pun, gospel.

Judaism could be doing a better job of putting on a united front. At a time when the wrongdoings of the state of Israel (goodness me that is worth a blog on its own), for example, turn attentions towards Judaism more generally, I am concerned that many people who know little about the religion in this country will see a group of people divided, of denominations clashing and bickering, resolutely and consistently articulating their differences rather than their similarities, the shared traditions and cultural elements that have sustained Judaism for thousands of years.

All across the UK over the next couple of days, Jewish families will come together both in synagogues and at home to celebrate a New Year. They will dip apple pieces into honey to help represent what we all hope will be a sweet year to come. These are the sort-of rituals that I can base a life on. Not just because I enjoy the taste of apple dipped in honey, but because it is a simplistic gesture that means a whole lot more. It is about the hope of a good year, yes, but it's also a symbolic moment shared with loved ones, and as Judaism is a family-centric religion, placing an importance on the family unit and shared family experiences, it is entirely appropriate to spread that hope around those we love and care about. Similarly, in ten days time, Jews will again congregate together as the autumn light fades and the gates of repentance start to shut, in order to break their Yom Kippur fast together, proving that even at our most personal and reflective of moments we still supplement this with a familial element. Such traditions, which include Shabbat meals on Friday evenings, or the Passover Seder, with its own myriad customs and traditions, and so on, can help Judaism thrive, and not the 'more righteous than thou' faction that stains any modern, liberal spirituality.

We need to respect each other more. I want to go about my business without being concerned at what a fellow Jew thinks of what I do. Mine is a private Judaism, one that all to often sadly clashes with its public counterpart. In my opinion (and remember this is just my opinion, with no disrespect meant to any one of my many friends and family members who think differently), we could all be afforded a little bit more leeway and freedom from judgment to be as religious as we want, or do not want, to be. Ultimately, it is more important, surely, to try to be a good person than solely a good Jew and nothing else. Liberalism, acceptance, open-mindedness is key.

This Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I will put on my suit and go to synagogue with my family. Most of it will go through one ear and out the other, and even then my ears will probably still be ringing from the gig I'm going to tonight at Wembley, even though technically Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown this evening. I'll probably not enjoy the company of those around me that much (becoming no doubt incensed by the same whispering, gossiping and general looking around for other people that I will no doubt also partake in), save for my friend Jack, who I will no doubt sit with and quietly giggle with when the choir comes in flat, or sharp, or both. I know that the Rabbi will offer a sermon on how important it is for young people to come to shul every week (why?), and to stay in contact after their Barmitzvahs (surely if you are a 'man' post-Bar Mitzvah you can decide for yourself if you want to go to shul or not, free from pressure or judgment from others?), and how the majority of the congregation only turns up twice a year and that this is not good enough (according to who?). I know I will probably disagree with him, but equally that somewhere in the sermon he'll say something profound that will grab my attention for a moment or two.

I know that I will get very little from my synagogue attendance over the next couple of weeks, until the final service of Yom Kippur, known as Neilah. On Yom Kippur I attend Neilah without fail every year, usually with both my Dad and Grandpa. It is important to me and without doubt I feel at my most spiritual, most Jewish, most at one with my family, community, congregation, the works, during Neilah on Yom Kippur. Poetically, it is a fascinating service, full of stylised prose and poetry, of close choir harmonies, all juxtaposing perfectly against the gloom of the gather dusk, where the candles in the synagogue flicker against the darkening skies. It is atmospheric and, frankly, wonderful. It is the only time I properly think about what I've done over the previous year, something I am meant to do over the entirety of Yom Kippur but which eludes me until the final couple of hours, after the anguish at my inevitable defeat at the FA Premier League Monopoly board game to my friend Jonny during the afternoon has calmed down.

It is clear, I am sure, that I am a walking religious contradiction, unsure of my place within my religion, or even if I want a place, caught between my own personal values and customs, and the wider communal pressure that is hard sometimes to ignore. In just a couple of paragraphs I talked about going to Wembley instead of seeing in the first High Holyday festival this evening, but also about a spiritual connection to later services and my strong support for many of the familial elements of Judaism. Being a good person should, nevertheless, not have to be connected to religion at all. It can be if you want it to, of-course, and this should be lauded; but it does not have to, and as I get older I'm beginning to feel that more and more, without wanting at the same time to say I'm not Jewish. I am what I am.

Clearly this is a religion of differences, and that is fine, as long as we can embrace them, whilst maintaining the traditions and cultural customs upon which it can thrive, rather than descend into a ranting fiasco of discord and disillusion. Of-course I am also aware of the irony, of how my pleading for a more liberal, open-minded, less judgmental religion has clearly clashed against some of my obviously narrow-minded thoughts about the ultra-orthodox mentality.

So be it. On Eruv Yom Kippur, which is the evening beforehand, Jews ask for forgiveness not from God but from mankind. That's something we can probably work on. Certainly I know I need to.