Yes, this is part of a serial.  No, this is not (quite) fiction.  Because of that, I cannot make any commitment to ‘chronological linearity’ throughout this series (or a pledge to weekly updates), as I am not telling over a story with a beginning/middle/end here; rather, I’m relating memories as they coalesce on my ‘front-burner’.

In a previous life (I was around twenty-one or so) I attended a yeshiva that did not allow college.  When I informed my rosh yeshiva of the fact that I felt compelled to go university notwithstanding the ‘no-college’ rule, he acquiesced; saying that I could do it – as long as nobody would find out about it.

“I don’t even want to know that you’re going to school – as far as I’m concerned, it’ll be like you’re not,” he told me.

Alas; the Navi says that trying to be “posei-ach al shnei sih-eefim” is, in the end, untenable.  For me, the situation ended up being no different.

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