Alone But Not Lonely

Sweetest friends!!

This Shabbos I spent ALL BY MYSELF for all three meals in the apartment my parents are graciously letting me use in their absence. Do I have zero friends?

 Maybe.

I wonder about that [and what true friendship means and how to be one] - but that is not why I was alone. In fact, numerous people invited me over to various venues in the New York-New Jersey area. The reason I stayed alone was because I craved some solitude to the extent that I didn't even want to leave the apartment for shul [but I nevertheless forced myself - hard to do krias hatorah without a minyan and without a torah]. Since I was single, I have not had this pleasure. It is not that I don't like people. I LOVE people. All types of people. I particularly like people I married and children they bore me. So every Shabbos is a delight for me. זיצן צוזאמן מיט יידין - Sitting together with other Jews is a hallowed Chassidic custom and I am afforded that pleasure every Shabbos. But when ALWAYS with other people one tends to forget who he is and is swallowed up into the greater whole [as opposed to Yonah who was swallowed up into a "greater whale"]. This Shabbos [as the last 2 weeks living all alone] allowed me to reconnect to my true self and to think.

Think. What a Jewish activity!!

Maybe I will share some thoughts I had in future posts [excluding those that are between me, myself, I and Hakadosh Baruch Hu].

In the meantime I just wanted to encourage everyone reading this to try to spend some time in solitude and reconnect to your holy unique soul.