Luke Ford

Levi was a mighty blogger before the Lord. He thought he was the bomb because he’d been on 60 Minutes.

One evening in shul, he noticed that his prayer got no respect from the Almighty, while the davening of the rest of his shul reached the pearly gates.

Levi was very wroth. The Lord said to Levi, why is thy countenance fallen? If thou does well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

So Levi rose up and he blogged those who bugged and their bloods screamed forth unto the Lord.

God said unto Levi, you are cursed. You shall be a fugitive and a vagabond.

Levi said, but everyone who Googles me will slay me.

And so the Lord set a mark upon Levi, lest any finding him should kill him.

On Shabbos morning, Levi waited in his lair until the sun was high and then he walked to the river, the river he hadn’t crossed in eleven years. He left his blog at home.

As he entered the path to the river, a mighty man loomed up in front of him. “You’re not welcome here,” said the man.

The man was a giant and Levi felt like a grasshopper next to him but inside was a good land flowing with milk and honey.

“Yes, I am welcome,” said Levi. “I have the Mark of Levi. You can’t slay me. I’m very welcome.”

Levi had always hated gatekeepers. He didn’t want to recognize their necessary function. Their purpose was to test him. He wasn’t strong enough much of the time to go up against them and prove himself worthy. Today however he summoned his inner resources and said the Lord of the River wanted him there.

After a five minute wait, an awkward wait, his friends passed by and expected him to join them on the road to the river, but he waited for the decision, his fate was in others’ hands, he hated that, at least on his blog, he ruled, but now he was vulnerable and anxious.

Then he got permission to path and he carried on to the river. “A company of nations shall come from me, kings will emerge from my loins,” he muttered to build up his strength.

It did no good. Levi was greatly distressed, so he divided his personalities in two. One was strong and tough and would blog anyone. The other was humble and gentle.

At the river’s edge, Levi wrestled all day with a man. And when the man saw that he could not prevail against Levi, he touched the hollow of Levi’s thigh, and gave him a limp.

And so it was with a limp that this Alexander Technique teacher walked on to his next river late in the afternoon. He had to hear some Torah but that required crossing another stream he hadn’t touched in eleven years.

Walking in, he heard an attractive woman say to a group of men, “Is that the guy…” And then he was out of earshot, sheltering his nerves in the bathroom. He had no more strength for the fight.

On the way out, he merged with the crowd and sat in the back.

Afterward, he saw an acquaintance from the days he used to swim this creek daily. “Are you OK?” he was asked repeatedly. “Is everything all right with you? I still read you regularly. You never cease to amaze.”

He limped away, wanting to go home, not ready for more of this social bliss, but there was a familiar stream just across the street, he’d swam there many a day and never had trouble, and he knew that just after mincha, there’d be an awesome shalosh sheudos.

Greg Leake emails: Hi Luke,

I think everybody experiences this phenomenon to some degree. Some people are very brave and just have occasional moments of weakness.

When it gets to the stage that you write about, it’s a little over the top.

You have done a lot to try to address different foibles that you perceive in yourself. However, most of these 10 step courses and psychotherapy are various cerebral methods that are designed to try and confront various ills. Naturally, the Alexander Technique is physiological, and so you might not be able to place it in the same category as confronting sexual addiction and what-have-you.

If you really want to change your central nervous system’s response to the whole of life in a hugely transformative way, learn to box.

When I was teaching, my favorite students were intellectual young men who had confronted life by intellectualizing and verbal acuity.

I enjoyed watching them become bolder and more confrontational until finally they were the most assured ones in the room. Sometimes I would have to get them to tone it down a little. They had gone from passive resistance to aggressive resistance in a period of time without the necessary monitors built in to keep them from popping someone in the snoot. I taught them to do that, too.

In boxing you don’t fight air (like some katas in martial arts). You have to physically meet the challenge of your opponent, and there is no time-out for trying to diminish you opponent’s ego through verbalization. You literally re-train your central nervous system’s response to stimuli.

In World War II they taught naval aviators to box. Why? Here the guy is strapped into a small cockpit with scarcely any ability to move, let alone box.

Boxing trained the airmen to fight. To fight back even with their heads reeling. Not simply to fly the plane, but to fight using the plane.

Some of the most psychologically healthy men I have met were professional fighters. No anxieties, no fears, no fanciful projections about the future. They left it all in the ring.

Naturally, there are other venues to pursue — ultimate fighting, wrestling, etc. I prefer boxing; I have a fondness for it, and I could go on at length about why I favor boxing over some of the other full-contact combat sports. So it it possible that some of these other vehicles could be suitable, but for a variety of reasons I think boxing is pretty good. I have been pressured by intimidating people, both socially and through physical threats. But when you know you can throw a knock-out punch with either hand, those threats are often minimized.

By the way, I thought your answer to your Jewish friend about philosophy and Christianity was good. Life automatically poses philosophical questions, and so having a philosophical context in religion is not particularly a bad thing. However, there are some Christian groups that are regrettably still very fundamentalist in their approach. Some I know will refuse to admit the existence of anything that is not found in the Bible. I mentioned to someone yesterday that Thomas Merton said you could not find the word ‘cat’ in the Bible. So does this mean cats do not exist? I would suggest that those followers of Christ could expand their perspective a little.

Rabbs, if you’re out there reading this, although I sort of disagree with you on a lot of issues, for some reason I kind of miss your presence, and I hope you are doing well. I always enjoyed Torah Talks and I certainly don’t mind throwing a guy a few bucks occasionally when he is down and out. However, you guys are just too old for me to take on as dependents. Best of luck anyway.