So after months and months of speculation, Alpha Epsilon Pi, the predominant Jewish fraternity is making its' return to the University of Miami. I've always wanted to join a fraternity and Alpha Epsilon Pi had always been my first choice, had plans of rushing in Spring 2008 at Maryland, had I not done things on impulse, I'd most likely be brother of the University of Maryland Alpha Epsilon Pi chapter and still pursuing my studies at the Smith School of Business. My father was a brother of AEPi at the University of Tennessee but then transferred to Boston University and did not go thru the Greek route during that transition. I've always been enriched in my religious roots, it was a little hard for me growing up in a reform household because I was the only one of three Jewish children who wanted to have a full three-hour Passover seder, but I was lucky to get my older brother, Evan, and my dad to allow me to say the Four Questions as I was the youngest child. Ever since I became a student at Miami, observing Shabbat on a weekly schedule has become a lifestyle. This past summer I had the opportunity to make the journey over to Eretz Israel and it was truly one of the most educational and inspirational trips that I've taken in my whole entire 20 years of living. Seeing the mountains that Hashem himself created with my own eyes was like eating ice cream for the first time. Visiting the Kotel and placing prayer scrolls in the crevices did not seem real. The trip was all dream to me, but the concept of living life is a dream in my own eyes. There's just a warmth and feeling of genuity with the Jewish religion that allows me to create such strong bonds with my fathers and sons. I'm hoping AEPi develops into a strong family of brothers, brothers who could live their lifes through the good and bad and still remain blood thick in the end. May we bleed blue and yellow forever and ever, until the last drops of our spiritual fluids enlight the world.
