AVRUM'S BLOG is hosted and authored by me, Avrum Rosensweig, the founder and president of Ve'ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian & Relief Committee. I am also a writer, artist and a father.
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B'shalom, Avrum (avrum@veahavta.org) 
My New House One day
Moving is generally an onerous task that most people do not look forward. Much is said about it and the culture surrounding this lack lustre task such as: if a friend helps me move, then he/she has really proven his/her commitment to me. Further, what is the time called when your furniture and belongings are not in your old house anymore, and have not been delivered to your new place? Is that the moment we are closest to being homeless? Do you have good memories, or not so good, of moving? Some people look forward to it as it is refreshing to them. Do you? Your thoughts on moving?
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The Chafetz Chaim, a 20th-century sage, was visited by a friend who commented on how sparsely the wise man’s home was decorated.
He asked the Chafetz Chaim where all his worldly goods were. The Chafetz Chaim replied, ‘Where, my friend, are all your belongings?” The visitor said, “Why, I am simply passing through.” The Chafetz Chaim responded, “Indeed, that is my reason as well for having so few material things. I, too, am simply passing through this world and need very little.”
This lofty approach to life is one seldom practised by most of us. I have just gone through a move and was disappointed with the number of boxes required to hold my worldly belongings – “Avrum, downstairs study, CDs’; “Avrum, upstairs kitchen, cookbooks.”
Boxes were everywhere, filled with things I have amassed over 40 years. Some of them reflect moments in my history, such as my collection of tapes from 10 years of working in radio; others are packed with reminders and keepsakes.
Things, things and more things. I own three-dozen shirts, five suit jackets, five guitars, two sets of bongo drums and 12 harmonicas. While I was moving, I looked at the boxes and two things struck me: my father took nothing with him, and most of the things I own do not make me happier.
Moving – I was intrigued by the movers. They were skinny but strong, like the Sherpa (an ethnic group from the mountainous region of Nepal, highly regarded as experts in mountaineering and often hired as employees for expeditions in the Himalayas), able to manipulate a solid wood shelf with four drawers around a tricky turn in our hallway and down a set of stairs, with a keen geometric understanding.
The youngest of the movers was 21 years old. He told me he scored 94 in high school English. I encouraged him to read and write a lot. He seemed surprised I had taken interest in his intellect.
Another of the movers was more seasoned and rough. He told me he had furnished his house with items he’d received from individuals he moved. Recently, he bought a 42-inch Trinitron TV for $50. I gave him my old motorcycle gloves. I sold my bike this summer after my son was born. It seemed wise.
The third mover was in his mid-40s but appeared older. He’d been a mover for 15 years and the strain of lifting pianos (which pays an extra $20 per mover) and moving entire homes had affected him physically, like an old quarterback.
Moving – it is generally unsettling and high on the scale of things that cause people stress, especially when you are neither rooted in your new place or your old home. On the other hand, there is something exciting and refreshing about moving. A friend told me it allows him to cleanse his life, throw away the old and useless (a popular rule is, if you haven’t looked at it, touched it or used it in one year, toss it) and file and organize those things that make up one’s personal archive.
There are those people who move regularly. A colleague told me he had moved 15 times in 25 years – from continent to continent and then neighbourhood to neighbourhood. We all know people who live today in the very same home they lived in 40 years ago. Speak to them about moving and the best they can come up with are distant memories.
So with all of this, why do we move at all? Perhaps we do because the old Jewish adage meshaneh m’akom, meshaneh mazel (change your place, you change your luck) is true. Each move is a bid to make our lives better through change and fresh walls that allow us a new start and a homeful rebirth.
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moving always feels an opportunity to relive my past. as i try to get organized i look through boxes and invariably find letters or photographs that remind me of a certain period of my life, which bring up all of the emotions associated with that time. then i think “well, since i haven’t looked at this stuff since the last time i moved i should throw it all out,” but i never do. i think i’m afraid that if i get rid of the objects, i will lose the memories they evoke. or maybe that’s just my justification for being a packrat.