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Anthony Bourdain’s recent suicide rocked a lot of people.
I loved his show No Reservations. It was real.
He was so real. Just him.
Passionate. Not perfectly polished.
As is.
Likable in his humanity. Not posing.
Him sharing his life and food with us.
And, then.
Whump!
He checked himself out.
Suicide.
Without much of an explanation.
He’s gone.
We are left holding the bag. Trying to make sense of this.
In a time when little seems to make sense.
To many, it felt like some hope was taken.
This man – even this man who seemed to be comfortable with his own self – caved into the ultimate pressure and took his own life.
Comparisons enter the mind.
Si ille or istae cur non ego?
If he or she can, why not me as well?
My world feels the diminishment.
And, I didn’t know him.
The futility of toil is underscored.
Over-zealous cheer and buoyancy awkwardly stares at its shoes.
Nonetheless.
Nevertheless.
In spite of the disconnect.
Yet.
I have hope.
Still.
Anyhow.
I have hope.
Not Optimism, Hope.
Optimism overlooks pain and horror.
Hope does not.
Optimism often glosses over the imperfections.
Hope is more real.
Hope is real and honest.
Hope isn’t perfectly polished.
Hope takes the good with the bad.
Hope is more like Anthony Bourdain than optimism.
Because hope is real.
While I mourn, I have hope. I hold in my heart deep, steadfast knowledge that I will survive longer that I will live long enough to laugh again from a deep part of my soul.
Truth: I am sad and scared.
Truth: The world seems crazier than I can remember it being, and it doesn’t seem as though it is going to let up anytime soon.
Truth: I still have hope.
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Rabbi Brian Doesn’t Understand
August 10, 2026
In the 18th century, in Hannipol, a small district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, in present-day western Ukraine, there was a rabbi known as Reb Zusya. Zusya, a pious man, taught about humility and had a strange habit of referring to himself in the third person. Instead of saying, “I am hungry,” or “I don’t understand,” he would say, “Zusya is hungry,”
