Jewish Life Digital Edition October 2013 | Page 17

dia (besides the numerous borders I would
have to cross, many of them war-torn) was
my mother. She was sick and pleading with
me to return home. When I told her that I
might travel forever, the silence on the other
side of the phone told me that she was crying. I couldn’t break her heart. I had to return
home. My spiritual quest would have to wait.

THE SUFI BOOKSTORE
It was autumn and I was 20 years old, trying
to find a way to express my newfound soul
amid the rush-hour subway traffic, the
homeless people, and the incessant noise. I
got a job in midtown entering data and delivering mail for a non-profit organisation, and
found my solace by going up to the rooftop of
the tall office building and looking out at the
massive city. Everything was still and silent. I
could see the Hudson River, glittering in the
distance, making its way out to the ocean,
and at last I could see the sky.
A few days a week, I drove my mother to
the hospital downtown and waited with her
while she received her treatments. I wish I
had spent more time with her. It was so hard.
I was at the peak of my life, beginning to explore the world, and she was stuck and scared.

I discovered that even amid the concrete
jungle, there were many others out there
who were searching for spirituality and
meaning in life. I found a whole network of
poetry readings, lectures, and classes on all
sorts of topics. I tried meditating with the
Buddhists, afternoon Yoga classes, and
many other attempts to connect with the
higher world. I read books from every religion I could get my hands on – all except
Judaism, that is. From my few visits in
childhood to a temple, it was clear that it
wasn’t for me. There was no spiritual content there worth delving into. I longed to
find a language in which I could pray, and
prayers and rituals that I could perform, so
I continued to search.
My evenings were spent writing deep
into the night, passionate poems about my
travels and my spiritual journey, and about
the sadness that I felt in my heart about my
mother, who was slowly departing from
this world. At last, I completed my masterpiece, a ten-page epic poem that encompassed everything that was happening in
my life. It was full of depth and pain – pain
from the fact that I felt alive for the first
time in my life, but was unable to truly

share it with anybody, and frustration that
I was slowly losing my mother and was unable to help her. It was entitled, “Ode to
Jack Kerouac, or Did You Ever Lose a Mother”. I printed out one copy and ran to a poetry reading at a bookstore downtown.
It was called Sufi Books and hosted classes and lectures by speakers of every faith.
Sufism is the mystical sect of Islam renowned for its tolerance towards all spiritual paths. Sufis are also known as Whirling
Dervishes, because of their ecstatic dance
circles. That night, a British poet performed
the translated poems of Rumi, a medieval
Sufi poet from Persia. The poems were
beautiful and ecstatic, about his yearnings
and love of G-d. One of the topics that he
often spoke about was how a person has to
see how everything in his/her life fits together like a perfect story.
After the reading, I met a young man
named Geoff, also an aspiring writer with
an interest in religion. His father was Jewish and his mother was an interfaith minister. We struck up a conversation in the
bookstore about our love of poetry and our
search for spirituality. The young woman
who worked behind the counter overheard

I DISCOVERED
THAT EVEN AMID THE
CONCRETE JUNGLE,
THERE WERE MANY
OTHERS OUT THERE
WHO WERE
SEARCHING FOR
SPIRITUALITY AND
MEANING IN LIFE.
JEWISH LIFE

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