Lag someach!

Happy 33 B'oimer, yahrtzeit of Adoinenu Ribi Shimon Bar Yochoi zecher Tzaddik livrocho, author of the Zoihar haKodosh. I had a great shabbos and now I am listening to all of the songs that I've been missing. It's hard on me to cut out music, especially this year when I'm keeping Sefira from rosh choidesh Iyyar until 3 days before Shavuos.

As I was walking back from the Sephardi shul tonight, where there was a Hillula D'Yoma for RaSHB"Y, I got picked up by one of the koillel rabbis who gave me a ride back here. He asked me my name. Now usually I just give a simple answer, but it's not so simple and for some reason I started explaining the whole deal. I don't know if I want to give out my last names here on the internet, but basically the story goes that my father is not Jewish. He's Irish, and his last name is Mc------- - very Irish. I never really thought of changing it until my Rosh Yeshiva suggested it, but he was right - it will be hard on my kids in yeshiva to have a name like that, especially since yeshivas are discreet and "aren't interested in advertising" that a certain bochur has a goyishe grandfather. Not to mention, as unfair as it may sound, that my prospects for shidduchim would not be as good with such a name. The Rosh Yeshiva asked a shaila of both Rav Reuven Feinstein shlit"a and Rav Aharon Shechter shlit"a, who strongly advised my changing my name. So I'm starting to go by my mother's maiden name, at least in yeshiva, and I'm using it more and more in Boston, too. So I said my last name was ....., but legally it was Mc..... because my father was not Jewish. The rabbi looks at me incredulously. "Wow, but you look like you just walked out of Boro Park!" ;-) It's not for lack of trying. I'm also 19, but with my beard people tend to put me at somewhere between 21-26. So I'm a walking false advertisement! Hehe. HaKadosh Boruch Hu also blessed me with a quite good language ability, so I also speak yeshivish too well for someone who's been a baal teshuva for 19 months, and only getting better, plus Hebrew.

So what does my father think about all this? Well, I don't plan on telling him about the name change just yet, maybe I will when I'm ready to get married. And as for me being religious, my grandmother (mother's mother) told me, "Ça ne lui fait rien que tu es religieux, je sais." (It doesn't matter to him that I am religious). Of course, the reason my grandmother had to tell me is because my father just doesn't communicate well. He never has, and this is no exception. It's certainly got to be weird for him, the product of an old-school New England Irish Catholic home to have a (gasp) ultra Orthodox Jewish son. Whenever we talk, it's always just about silly things, small talk. Neither of us can manage to bring up anything serious. Everytime I get the urge to give him a call, I don't end up doing it. I just don't like the uneasiness that comes with it. And he doesn't call me, really ever. My grandmother advised I ask him why he never calls me. It's a good idea.

OK, it's late. I should wind things up for the night. Yeshiva countdown: 13 days!