Dedication and Introduction This book is dedicated to Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Bridge Across Forever, and One among others. I read all of his books. He helped me — and he hurt me. He helped me because Jonathan Livingston Seagull was the first book that taught me how to fly. Not literally. But spiritually, emotionally — how to have an independent mind. A spiritual imagination that belonged to me, not to the world. What mattered in terms of belief was not what the world declared, but what I could test, feel, and come to know from within. Bach gave me permission to doubt authority. To take even sacred ideas — especially sacred ideas — with a grain of salt. That phrase, 'a grain of salt,' is more than a metaphor. Salt is a preservative. In Torah, we call it the Brit Melach — the Covenant of Salt. Salt keeps things from spoiling. Wisdom, too, must be salted: just a bit of skepticism to preserve it. That small hesitation before swallowing an idea whole is what keeps your soul fresh, curious, and alive. Now you might say: Isn't that the opposite of what the Jewish people said at Sinai — Na’aseh v’nishma — "we will do and we will understand"? Yes. It is the opposite. But we’re not talking about the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. We’re talking about your own life, your own journey, your own inner search for truth. Even when reading Torah — especially when reading Torah — take it with a grain of salt. Not because the verses are wrong, but because your interpretation might be. This is why I prefer criticism over praise. Praise inflates. Criticism refines. Even if it’s sharp or unfair, criticism shows me where I hit something raw. It makes me reflect, revise, sharpen my voice. That’s what Richard Bach gave me: the courage to question everything. Including him. And for that, I thank him.
Chapter One: How I Learned to Fly (and Why I Forgot)
One of the things I loved most about Jonathan Livingston Seagull — aside from its unapologetic weirdness and simplicity — was the image of flying as something more than motion. Something spiritual. Something defiant. Something free.
When I had my recurring dreams about flying, I didn’t think of Jonathan at first. But later, I realized: that image, that yearning, had been living in me all along. I knew — intuitively, wordlessly — that the dream held something essential. A secret. The secret to flying.
But I didn’t yet know what “flying” really meant.
Because this is a deeply personal book, I feel it’s important to share something of myself — so you can better understand the source of my depression, and how I began to heal.
My life story is long, complicated, sometimes hilarious, and perhaps the subject of a different book. But here, I want to share several experiences that may offer insight into how my particular struggle with ego, shame, and self-image took root.
Although I worked for years as a rabbi, I am not writing this as a rabbi. I’m not a psychologist, or any formal kind of therapist. In 2013, after another THC-induced manic episode, I was hospitalized against my will in a Melbourne public hospital — for the second time. The first time was a decade earlier. My wife, who had taken me back after the first, had made it clear: “If it ever happens again, that’s it.”
And it happened again.
Upon release in 2013, I was divorced, penniless, and briefly homeless. It was then that I heard a clear inner message: stop representing Judaism.
Not because my teachings were bad — some of them were quite creative, even inspired — but because the role was killing me. Representing anything to anyone — being seen, judged, defined — was dangerous for me. My illness distorted it. My ego attached to it. The pressure devoured me.
So I let go of the rabbi title. And I began the long, quiet work of healing.
I Wasn't PlannedMy brother was seven years older than me. My sister five. My parents’ marriage was already unraveling when I was conceived. My birth may have delayed the divorce, but not for long.
I wasn’t breastfed. I was bottle-fed from birth. Sometimes by a nanny. Sometimes by my mother. But the physical closeness — the heartbeat, the gaze, the warmth — wasn’t there.
Decades later, my mother would laughingly say that as a baby, I clung to her shoulder “like a possum.” She barely had to hold me — I held myself there. A convenient detail for a mother of three.
But imagine it from my side: five feet in the air, draped over her shoulder, holding on with my tiny arms for dear life. No belt. No brace. Just survival instinct. A newborn’s fear of falling, literally and existentially.
When I wasn’t in my crib or being bottle-fed, I was clinging. Alone in the air.
Is it any wonder that self-love never felt native to me?
My First Memory Was a NightmareI was four. We were walking down a wet, cobblestone street at night. My whole family — father, mother, brother, sister — wore long black hooded raincoats. Their faces were hidden. I only knew who was who by their height.
I wore my little yellow slicker. My face was bare.
We reached our house. I rang the doorbell. It opened.
Inside, my entire family stood — still in their raincoats — grinning at me like monsters. I couldn’t come in. They knew something I didn’t. I felt alone. Terrified. Exiled.
Later, I would learn the truth: my parents were divorcing. My father had fallen in love with a younger woman in Phoenix. We moved from a spacious Tudor home in New York to a cramped, prefab townhouse in Arizona. My mother, once pampered, was suddenly forced into the workforce with no skills or training.
Inside Myself, I DisappearedBefore the move, I barely spoke. My parents feared I was developmentally delayed. My father once told me he left in the morning and saw me in a corner, playing silently with two toy cars. When he came home that evening, I was still there — same spot, same cars.
I wasn’t delayed. I was scared.
And so I retreated.
At age seven, I began having episodes where everything around me slowed down. A strange detachment, as if time bent. I described it to my mother, who said it was an “alpha state” — something geniuses experienced. But I now believe it was dissociation. A neurological way to escape. Like the “Matrix effect.”
For years, I couldn’t remember what I looked like. Mirrors surprised me. My sense of self swung between grandiosity and self-erasure. I didn’t know who I was.
Then Came the FlyingAnd then, years later, the dreams began.
Night after night, I dreamt I was flying. I was in an empty field. Alone. The grass soft beneath me. The air still.
I would allow myself to become “light” — and I’d lift off the ground.
No wings. No running start. No flapping.
Just release.
And I would rise. Drift. Let the wind — the ruach, the spirit — carry me. I traveled the globe like that. Not steering, just surrendering.
In the dreams, moving with the wind didn’t feel passive. It felt powerful. I wasn’t obeying gravity — I was collaborating with it. Dancing with the will of the universe. The more I surrendered to God, the more I felt free.
But Then the Fear Crept InEventually, the joy of flying gave way to a new fear: what if I forget how to fly?
I didn’t know how I was doing it. I just did it. My subconscious knew how to become light. But my waking self had no idea.
The timing was uncanny. I had just been released from the psychiatric hospital after a major manic episode. The shame was unbearable. But in my dreams, I felt free. I felt… happy.
And I was terrified of losing that.
The dreams stopped soon after the fear began. The gift stage ended. The work of understanding began.
Becoming LightYears later, I finally understood:
To fly was to become light.
To become light was to stop weighing myself down with ego.
To stop needing to justify my worth.
To stop imagining how others see me — whether with love or hate — and defining myself by that imagined reflection.
That’s the trap. That’s the anchor.
Whether we think people love us or hate us, it doesn't matter. If we’re still tethered to the mirror of their gaze — real or imagined — we’re not free. We’re not flying.
Flying means becoming active, not reactive.
It means stepping into the moment with integrity, not anxiety.
It means letting go of the question: “Am I enough in their eyes?”
And finally asking: “Am I alive in my own?”
That is what this book is about.
That is the secret to flying.
And now, we begin the journey of learning how to release that weight — gently, honestly, step by step — until one day we too can rise.
One of the things I loved most about Jonathan Livingston Seagull — aside from its unapologetic weirdness and simplicity — was the image of flying as something more than motion. Something spiritual. Something defiant. Something free.
When I had my recurring dreams about flying, I didn’t think of Jonathan at first. But later, I realized: that image, that yearning, had been living in me all along. I knew — intuitively, wordlessly — that the dream held something essential. A secret. The secret to flying.
But I didn’t yet know what “flying” really meant.
Because this is a deeply personal book, I feel it’s important to share something of myself — so you can better understand the source of my depression, and how I began to heal.
My life story is long, complicated, sometimes hilarious, and perhaps the subject of a different book. But here, I want to share several experiences that may offer insight into how my particular struggle with ego, shame, and self-image took root.
Although I worked for years as a rabbi, I am not writing this as a rabbi. I’m not a psychologist, or any formal kind of therapist. In 2013, after another THC-induced manic episode, I was hospitalized against my will in a Melbourne public hospital — for the second time. The first time was a decade earlier. My wife, who had taken me back after the first, had made it clear: “If it ever happens again, that’s it.”
And it happened again.
Upon release in 2013, I was divorced, penniless, and briefly homeless. It was then that I heard a clear inner message: stop representing Judaism.
Not because my teachings were bad — some of them were quite creative, even inspired — but because the role was killing me. Representing anything to anyone — being seen, judged, defined — was dangerous for me. My illness distorted it. My ego attached to it. The pressure devoured me.
So I let go of the rabbi title. And I began the long, quiet work of healing.
I Wasn't PlannedMy brother was seven years older than me. My sister five. My parents’ marriage was already unraveling when I was conceived. My birth may have delayed the divorce, but not for long.
I wasn’t breastfed. I was bottle-fed from birth. Sometimes by a nanny. Sometimes by my mother. But the physical closeness — the heartbeat, the gaze, the warmth — wasn’t there.
Decades later, my mother would laughingly say that as a baby, I clung to her shoulder “like a possum.” She barely had to hold me — I held myself there. A convenient detail for a mother of three.
But imagine it from my side: five feet in the air, draped over her shoulder, holding on with my tiny arms for dear life. No belt. No brace. Just survival instinct. A newborn’s fear of falling, literally and existentially.
When I wasn’t in my crib or being bottle-fed, I was clinging. Alone in the air.
Is it any wonder that self-love never felt native to me?
My First Memory Was a NightmareI was four. We were walking down a wet, cobblestone street at night. My whole family — father, mother, brother, sister — wore long black hooded raincoats. Their faces were hidden. I only knew who was who by their height.
I wore my little yellow slicker. My face was bare.
We reached our house. I rang the doorbell. It opened.
Inside, my entire family stood — still in their raincoats — grinning at me like monsters. I couldn’t come in. They knew something I didn’t. I felt alone. Terrified. Exiled.
Later, I would learn the truth: my parents were divorcing. My father had fallen in love with a younger woman in Phoenix. We moved from a spacious Tudor home in New York to a cramped, prefab townhouse in Arizona. My mother, once pampered, was suddenly forced into the workforce with no skills or training.
Inside Myself, I DisappearedBefore the move, I barely spoke. My parents feared I was developmentally delayed. My father once told me he left in the morning and saw me in a corner, playing silently with two toy cars. When he came home that evening, I was still there — same spot, same cars.
I wasn’t delayed. I was scared.
And so I retreated.
At age seven, I began having episodes where everything around me slowed down. A strange detachment, as if time bent. I described it to my mother, who said it was an “alpha state” — something geniuses experienced. But I now believe it was dissociation. A neurological way to escape. Like the “Matrix effect.”
For years, I couldn’t remember what I looked like. Mirrors surprised me. My sense of self swung between grandiosity and self-erasure. I didn’t know who I was.
Then Came the FlyingAnd then, years later, the dreams began.
Night after night, I dreamt I was flying. I was in an empty field. Alone. The grass soft beneath me. The air still.
I would allow myself to become “light” — and I’d lift off the ground.
No wings. No running start. No flapping.
Just release.
And I would rise. Drift. Let the wind — the ruach, the spirit — carry me. I traveled the globe like that. Not steering, just surrendering.
In the dreams, moving with the wind didn’t feel passive. It felt powerful. I wasn’t obeying gravity — I was collaborating with it. Dancing with the will of the universe. The more I surrendered to God, the more I felt free.
But Then the Fear Crept InEventually, the joy of flying gave way to a new fear: what if I forget how to fly?
I didn’t know how I was doing it. I just did it. My subconscious knew how to become light. But my waking self had no idea.
The timing was uncanny. I had just been released from the psychiatric hospital after a major manic episode. The shame was unbearable. But in my dreams, I felt free. I felt… happy.
And I was terrified of losing that.
The dreams stopped soon after the fear began. The gift stage ended. The work of understanding began.
Becoming LightYears later, I finally understood:
To fly was to become light.
To become light was to stop weighing myself down with ego.
To stop needing to justify my worth.
To stop imagining how others see me — whether with love or hate — and defining myself by that imagined reflection.
That’s the trap. That’s the anchor.
Whether we think people love us or hate us, it doesn't matter. If we’re still tethered to the mirror of their gaze — real or imagined — we’re not free. We’re not flying.
Flying means becoming active, not reactive.
It means stepping into the moment with integrity, not anxiety.
It means letting go of the question: “Am I enough in their eyes?”
And finally asking: “Am I alive in my own?”
That is what this book is about.
That is the secret to flying.
And now, we begin the journey of learning how to release that weight — gently, honestly, step by step — until one day we too can rise.