In Introduction

Welcome to the first post on my first blog ever.  I am bringing it to you as a long line of events in my life have finally come full circle to a point of deep introversion.  My life has been filled with many interesting experiences, some painful, some uplifting, some thought provoking, and I am finally capable of reflecting on them in concert, rather than as disjointed moments, taking me to my current station.

The name of my blog comes from a RadioLab podcast short by the same title.  The podcast is a D'var Torah discussing the Binding of Issac, using science, history, and politics as fodder for examination.  As much of my life has been spent silently suffering numerous painful experiences, hoping that one day I might see order in the chaos of existence, it seemed an appropriate title.

Much like the podcast namesake for my blog, the subject matter I will be utilizing in examination of my current circumstances will be quite broad.  Physics, biology, mathematics, psychology, political science and international relations theory, game theory, history, sociology, emergence theory, theology, and traditional Jewish sources have all had a part in my understanding of the world, and I intend to reference them as necessary during my discussions.  They are not, however, the focus of my blog, and while I intend to be as accurate as possible in my use of these disciplines, I am not an expert in any of them and I hope you will forgive any errors in my presentation.

My first posts will come in rather quick succession.  I already have some material prepared which will give some background and offer a window into my chaotic mind.  After two previously drafted statements have been published, I will spend some time writing a response to the RadioLab section referenced earlier.  Subsequent posts will come as thoughts fully materialize, and will not be on any periodic schedule, though I will do my best to make them relatively regular.

I will leave you with a very brief introduction to my life.  This is an anonymous blog, and I will be limiting personal details for my own anonymity, but I will share as much as I feel appropriate.  I was raised in a small township in the Midwest wrought with KKK members and Evangelical Christians.  The child of a mixed marriage, my father was raised in a conservative Christian family and my mother in a Conservative Jewish one.  I was brought up in a Reform synagogue.  As the only Jew in my very anti-Semitic school, I spent some time looking into religions outside Judaism during my early teen years before reaffirming my faith and taking on new stringencies in an effort to reevaluate the religion of my upbringing.  While still in high school, I came out to my parents as gay, and in response to their pressure and lack of support, I went back into the closet until recently.  During my time at university, I became quite involved in Jewish life and began exclusively attending Orthodox services and living an Orthodox Jewish lifestyle.  After graduation, I spent some time in Yeshiva, where I slowly came to terms with the fact, though not the reality, of my sexuality.  Over a year after leaving Yeshiva, I finally came back out to myself as a gay man, and have slowly shared this information with a handful of friends.  Since then, I have abandoned the religious practices which guided my life for nearly seven years.  I am now slowly recreating my Jewish identity and my relationship to the Jewish community.

I hope you enjoy my posts and find them interesting, insightful, useful, thought provoking, or at least worth consideration.  Please be respectful.  Know that some of my posts will be dealing with difficult material; I will do my best to warn you at the beginning of such posts in case the material might be too charged for you.

All the best.