For nearly 40 years, Hale Michael Smith was one of my dearest friends. First he was friends with my step-father, Myron Becker, even though they were a generation apart in age. Both of them had grown up in New York. Both of them had driven taxis in New York City. Both of them had entered the medical profession: Myron as an underage Navy corpsman in 1942, Hale as an older than usual medical student at Georgetown University. When Hale was invited to our home for dinner, the conversations about philosophy, especially the philosophy of dimensions, along with the taxi driving stories, were my favorite part of the evening. Hale became the older brother I'd grown up wishing I had.

Over the years, we continued having conversations. He introduced me to some of his favorite books, including the extraordinary 4 volume Anthony C. Yu translation of Journey to the West. In return, I would explain aspects of fairy tales and Jewish mysticism, based on my own readings.

We usually lived very far apart, and sometimes years passed before we'd see each other again, especially after I became an Army medic, but that never seemed to matter. When one of us needed a friend, the other was there. At least, I hope I was there for Hale the way he so often was for me.

About 25 or 30 years ago, he began writing. For the rest of his life he worked at clarifying, expanding and refining what he wished to communicate. No matter what was happening in his life, this project was the central thing. Nothing stopped him from working on it, not even a crashed computer that wiped out years of work. I have 5 crates filled with printouts of earlier drafts of sections of this book. If I still had access to my old emails, I'd have nearly 20 years of emails from Hale, with variant chapters as he wrote them. He never thought he actually finished, at least, never for more than a few days at a time. There was always more to say. He did tell me several times he felt that writing this book was what he was truly born for.