Prepent5772/Day Four: What’s The Plan?

What’s the Plan? Labor Day: a last stretch of leisure before the tans fade and the sleeves lengthen and the year begins for real.  Over brunch I explain this to S., an Israeli who just moved to NY and is getting accustomed to the American way of life, the calendar, the small details that make […]

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Prepent 5772/ Day 3/4

Day 3/4 Ready?   Ready, Steady, Go! And off they go splashing into the cold lake in the late afternoon sun on the last official Sunday of summer. Some dive, some plop into the water, one stands on the deck, hesitant: ‘but it’s cold…’ He’s finally lured in –‘take a deep breath, just count to […]

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Prepent 5772/ Day two :: How are you?

So. How are you? How many times a day do I ask or get asked this question, thoughtfully or as most often, not? There are dozens of expressions and gestures with which we initiate conversations with friends or strangers. It almost always begins with a question and they’re almost always rhetorical, ritualized nods to the […]

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Prepnet 5772/Day one :: Where are you?

Where am I? I sit up in bed, two nights ago, and squint with surprise at the unfamiliar room, barely lit by a foggy dawn. It takes me a minute to remember: San Francisco, on my friends’ living room couch, stranded by Irene. Maps unfold and the GPS consulted when we are lost and need […]

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Prepent 5772 : 40 ways in 40 days to find your focus

Amichai Lau-Lavie’s High Holidays Blog 9. 1-10.9/2011   9/1/11 Introduction to PREPENT5772   I thrive on deadlines. Who doesn’t? We’re wickedly and wisely wired to improve, organize, complete and focus better when we know the time is up.  PREPENT5772 is an exercise in conscious attention to the annual process known as Teshuva –  Hebrew for […]

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