Three Weeks Later – A New Beginning

It’s been close to three weeks since I last showed myself here.
And in those weeks… I’ve stumbled.
I’ve fallen into old patterns — watching, doing, numbing — until I felt stuck in the mud of it all.

And yet… I’ve been carrying your replies.
Your messages of chizuk.
Your words of brotherhood and emunah.
I read them. I held them.
But I couldn’t bring myself to return.

Why? Because the last time I wrote — my letter to God— I opened myself up so raw, so bare, that it left me trembling. I was vulnerable with you, with myself, and with Hashem in a way I had never been before. And that very vulnerability, that exposure of my little neshamale, made me afraid to step back in.

But tonight… I made the decision on a whim.
Spontaneity.
Usually, that’s the very spark that drags me downward.
But this time, I grabbed it by the reins and said: No — this moment, this impulse, will carry me upward.
And here I am.

I don’t want to keep writing about falls.
A mentor here once told me: write about your wins.
But right now, I don’t have wins to report.
So instead, I will write about strategies.
The ones I’ve tried. The ones I’ll try again. The ones I’ll test and bring back here with results.

And here is where I begin:
Growing up, I was always told what I could and couldn’t do. I dreamed of freedom, of the day I could choose anything I wanted. The day I could chase after all the wonderful opportunities this secular world has to offer. And when that day came… I thought I was free.
But over the years — in yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel, and now in the working world — I’ve realized something deeper:
Freedom without seder is not freedom at all.
It is chaos. It is destruction.
And for me, it has been the soil where sin grows strongest.

In every area of my life, I’ve lived last-minute.
Push it off. Scramble. Survive.
But these last weeks, as my ruchniyus dragged and even my work slowed, I saw it clear as day:
Without a seder in my life, I will fall again and again.
That is my personal chiddush.

So here’s my kabbalah: I will post here 3 times a week.
Last time I promised every night — and it broke me.
This time, I’m setting a seder. A rhythm.
Next post, b’ezras Hashem, I’ll share the schedule I’m working on. Not just work and learning, but even “scheduled chill.” Another mentor told me: even your downtime should be in scheduled. That spoke to me. So I’ll build it in.

For now, I’ll just end with gratitude.
Gratitude for this place, for the chevra here, for Hashem who still lets me breathe and begin again.