Although I did not grow up Orthodox, I did grow up in the Jewish faith. There are two milestones that many Jews go through even if their families are not religious:

circumcision

Bar/Bat Mitzvah

I completed both of these rituals at their "regular" lifecycle points.

So how much of it is hiking, really .... and how much of it is just walking flat, easy, groomed trails?

Did you get the snip?

They were super into singing-- I was attending college to get a music therapy degree (I switched to music composition eventually). I was always more into music theory than I was into performance-- it's the math of music.

As a kid I was into Star Wars and got involved in online gaming in the 90s, before there were traditional online multiplayer games... had to do P2P connections. I read a lot of Star Wars.

As a kid I built my own PCs...

I became a meat cutter... Went down an artisanal bread rabbit hole...

I'm a foodie and I work as a specialty food broker (spent some years working for a specialty food distributor)

I'm on the Discord Hype Squad and I work with companies to build Discord servers (some as workspaces, some as community hubs).

I used to stream mobile games on my Youtube channel, specializing in theorycrafting explanations (if you're bored: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiVyhKnpqs )

I got very into Classic World of Darkness TTRPG and started the first CWoD community server....

I'm sure there's more but there's a limit to how much random stuff I feel like listing before it becomes ridiculous (and I am certainly an expert in ridiculousness)

I stopped believing. It took me years to realize I stopped believing though. I probably spent more time lying to myself thinking I still had faith, but didn't. Then I spent a good amount of time just keeping up appearances. Eventually my wife at the time and I had "the talk." For awhile we made it work, but honestly the religion was holding us together. She struggled a lot with many of the restrictions, but it took her some time to come to the realization that it wasn't working for her either.

We lived in an ultra orthodox town. By this point I had a job in a company that wasn't owned by religious Jews. I got promoted and my company paid to relocate us. I now live in a town that is "normal."

We spent some time not being religious, together. Eventually we realized that we both wanted different things and it wasn't going to work. We tried counseling. It wasn't something she wanted to pursue. We split up.

Eventually she stopped blaming me. In many ways we became better friends after we split up.

Every so often old friends contact me.

Yes. Yes.

Bacon came earlier. I ate bacon as a kid though.

Cheeseburgers are still a bit weird to me-- I prefer hamburgers. Spent 10 years keeping kosher and dunno why this one is still weird to me.

I certainly don't avoid milk and meat together, but I eat what I like.

You catch more flies with honey... errr... more non-religious Jews with vodka ;)

Do you eat bacon now ? Do you eat dairy and meat at the same time ?

Circle gets the square!

I think the holiday you referenced is the Hebrew word I've seen with the most anglicized spellings-

Hanukah

Hanukkah

Hannukah

Hannuka

Channukah

Channuka

​

.... you get it.

Why did you leave the faith? What were the consequences in your family and community?

That's funny. My conservative synagogue took yom kippur very seriously, but I'm sure not as seriously as any orthodox one!

It's really interesting to me that your curiosity and philosophical thinking for you in to an intense religion – I'd think it's usually the other way around 😬 what other extremely detailed topics are you into?

Man it's been ages since I've been to one of those but...yeah totally. The chabad of a college near me actually got in a bit of trouble for partying too hard!

Great story - you made it! That is an awesome part of being able to set an independent schedule on the safe AT compared to some other trails in the world. The Via Francigena is the same in that respect. I always appreciate the freedoms we have!

Both are acceptable English spellings of the Hebrew word, which is a conjugation of "chesed"-- Hebrew for kindness. I always found "ch" a more appropriate spelling as the sound is not that of an h-- it is more guttural, beginning in the back of the throat, rather than forward in the mouth.

I guess technically both look like typos as it's a transliteration.

Thank you!

Another great thing about the skirt is that I didn't have to take off my shoes to put it on (unlike the pants!)

Stranger placing a dollar bet it was the campus Chabad house. You wouldn't expect Shabbos dinner with an orthodox family and a bunch of strangers to be as fun as it is.

I am ethnically Jewish. My parents met on a Kibbutz in Israel when they were in their twenties. I grew up attending synagogue a few times a year. In college I came across an ultra orthodox synagogue on Yom Kippur (a very solemn holiday) and they seemed to be so much more motivated on that holiday than happy holidays at the conservative synagogue I grew up attending. I began attending more and more. Part of my personality is that I like learning very detailed skills/philosophies/topics, and ultra orthodox Judaism is just about as complicated as a religion can get. My curiosity was met with acceptance so I got more and more involved.

Chassidic is more correct as it includes the guttural "ch". Hassidic is sort of an anglicized pronunciation. Same with Chanukah being spelled Hanukah.

Thanks for the heads up about the rain suit as I was going to get one seeing as we are hiking through a rain forest. Love the orange skirt btw. Very fashionable.

Are you ethnically Jewish or did you convert? What happened in college that made you religious?

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Yes I had a cellphone with me that I used to write a blog most nights in my tent before bed. The east coast is actually very densely populated, and the AT is just a thin ribbon of wilderness, so I had service (at least at some point) pretty much every day. I carried an external battery pack that I would charge at hostels or anywhere I could. Generally the phone stayed on airplane mode. It also had my primary map on it as a PDF

Yes Roan Mountain is beautiful! We had a wonderful time there.

Funny story about that: while we were in that area we heard rumors about "the best breakfast on the AT". We were 17 miles away and it was to be a full moon that evening, so we layed down around 1PM and slept.

Our plan, which we executed flawlessly, was to wake up at midnight and depart. Our calculations told us that we would arrive at the hostel right as breakfast was being served, something like 7:30 in the morning if I remember correctly. We called ahead and let them know that we would be arriving in the AM, and they skeptically said "okay".

Well, it worked. We woke up at midnight and packed up. Someone played "River of dreams" by Billy Joel on their phone. Morale was through the roof. We hiked mostly under the glow of the full moon, and it was a cool windy night. Those mountains looked magical under the moonlight. We were like zombies when we showed up at breakfast in the morning soon after the sun had come up, and it absolutely was the best breakfast I have ever had in my life. After breakfast we went over to hostel's the bunk house and passed out