John Carrier

A few weeks ago, we got a new dining room table.  It’s awesome.  It seats six comfortably, and fully-leafed, it can accommodate 10-12.  We have hosted a couple of big Shabbat dinners with friends and family, and this Saturday we’re hosting our first Passover seder.  The funny thing is, we’re still going to need a card table on the end, because we’re expecting 13 for dinner, my personal record for mouths to feed in one meal.

So, one goal down, nine to go…with a twist.

A couple of months ago, I decided to start thinking about maybe considering (in a very preliminary way) the inkling of a notion of possibly changing the course of my career…and becoming a rabbi. 

Since then I’ve talked to my own rabbi and to rabbis at the three rabbinical schools he suggested I check out - JTS, Ziegler, and Hebrew College.  All the programs sound interesting, and all the rabbis gave me something different to focus on in preparing to apply, leaving me with a lot of work to do over the coming year, if I want to apply for admission to rabbinical school for the fall term of 2009.  And I do.  More than anything.

So to the extent I make this a cat blog and talk about myself, I imagine my journey to rabbinical school will predominate in the coming months.

Have you been down this road (or a similar radical career change / ecclesiastical calling), and can you tell me where the pitfalls are?  I’m all ears.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

–MK Gandhi

I’m in a bit of a quandary.  Perhaps you can help me out.

Since late last night (while up past my bedtime to prepare for Passover) I’ve been thinking of the famous, bumper-worthy quote above.  It has resonated with me since the first time I encountered it (in a collection of quotes, or perhaps on a t-shirt), and that resonance deepened when I read Gandhi’s autobiography a few years ago. 

It is a simple and direct yet elegant and profound instruction on how to live one’s life meaningfully, mindfully, and deliberately.  It is also incredibly existentially demanding.

That’s the trouble I’m having…not whether I can be the change - which is challenging enough - but exactly what change I want to see.

Where do I begin?

Where do I cease?

Beginning is easier: I want to live in a world in which people are less attached to their possessions and more committed to their relationships.  This is the primary change I want to see, a world where spending time with someone is more laudable that spending money on someone, or even worse, spending money on yourself to impress someone.

More concrete: everyone stop working so much - and I mean long hours, not hard work, since who really works hard anymore? - in order to buy stuff for your spouse or kids to make up for the fact that you work so much.  Leave work at a decent hour, go home, hug your kids, and gaze into your wife’s eyes for a full, uninterrupted minute.  Your kids will remember your warmth long after they forget what PlayStation is.  Your wife will not miss the trinket you could have bought with your overtime.

That’s the change I want to see.  I think I can start being that.

What change do you want to see?  Why can’t you be that change right now?