Moishe House London - Joel - December

Here in London it makes sense that December should be a time for hibernation. The shortness of the days - light at 8, dark by 4 at times - is more pronounced here than many other places. Back at the start of the month I felt I was doing quite well with the season, but by two and a half weeks in, the solstice still to come, the darkest time of the year, I felt ready for a change.

It's at times like these you look for extra stores of will and resource. I feel now, looking back, like I got through that pre-solstice dip on pure energy, resilience, faith and creativity. As the long term at college finally reached its end I turned my attention more firmly towards 'Yeshivah of the Absurd', the theatre project I've been working on, first for performance in the house to an audience small enough for the space and then taking it up to Limmud Conference in Warwick for a Christmas Day show to who knows how many. In the end it was a tremendous success. We created a kind of interactive fantasy Jewish learning playground (if you thought such a thing were possible), with a healthy dose of misanthropy and darkness. I think from the photos below (taken from shemspeed.com) you'll get an idea of the kind of spectacle and stir we caused. 150 people turned up and to us performers it felt like a shot of adrenaline.

One more picture for you - at the end of last month I said I was to be featured in a Time Out article on fashion and faith. Well, link to the article is here and this is the photo they featured: