Sunday, September 22, 2013

Shalom, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen

I'm sitting on the floor of the airport now, stretching my legs before this long, long flight home. A man in a black hat and a long jacket is shoving a lulav and etrog into other people's hands, so they can complete the sukkot holiday's rituals, which is kind of a mitzvah, but also uncomfortably aggressive for my taste. I don't know what to think - I like to be left alone at the airport. I need my thinking time. The flight began boarding about ten minutes ago, and the masses flocked to the door, as if sitting down first really matters, because you're not going to have to do that for another eight hours - it's also not like your seat is going anywhere. I think my calm demeanor proves that I am officially a frequent flyer. (This is my 22nd flight in the last year?! I just re-counted that number a few times in utter disbelief - what a wondrous thing)...

Last night, my Pardes friends gather at my behest in the Aroma cafe on Emek Refaim. I had a most excellent turnout, which made me feel very loved, like my time here was a success, like I had been a valuable member of this temporary community. I began to struggle enormously with the fact that when I left, they would all stay, their collective identity would permanesce (apparently, this is not a word), and I would be doing my own continuing, but in a complete other sphere of reality unlinking to theirs. This was probably melodramatic, considering that that night alone, I had also gone to Ben Yehuda street for some last minute souvenirs and in just one hour, ran into five people I knew. If that happens in Jerusalem, it can happen in my new neighborhood of Lakeview, just with fewer camp folk.

On my last day (yes, we're working backwards here), I went to a sukkah lunch on a rooftop, where we could get a glimpse of the dome of the rock, glowing golden in the sun. About fifteen of us enjoyed tomato soup, cheese borekas, tofu salad, apple crumble and classic salatim dishes before lazing around in the late afternoon sun. I convinced a few people to talk a final walk to the parks overlooking the old city, and there we stumbled upon Yemin Moshe's stone walls and flower gardens, and a sequin-covered bride taking pictures with her husband. I explained to a small boy that breaking a glass screen to an old carriage by the famous windmill would be 'muksa' - not permissible on the Sabbath, but then I went and took pictures of the panoramic view from the Old City center through East Jerusalem, and off to my apartment in the distance. Perhaps hypocritical, or just synergistic in this unique nation.

The shabbos day ended with a seudah shlishit, meant to be had in a sukkah, but moved due to the first and only rainfall I experienced. The skies opened up and the heavens pour down, which seemed funny since rain prayers only get inculcated into services next week. Sometimes the people's prayers are granted before they even have the chance to make them, I guess. Or, everything is just beyond our control. We sang more shabbat songs, and I thought about how weird the whole culture of a bunch of 20somethings singing in a foreign language with mediocre voices in okay harmony really is - but I do love it.

I loved that, and everything else in the last ten months. Upon this, I will greatly expound after I've boarded my flight, settled in, tried to sleep, failed, watched the only movies I haven't yet seen in-flight (we're running out of good options here), and then decided to write again.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight...

Good Shabbos, Goodbye

On an everyday basis, one can avoid the holiness of Jerusalem. One can get caught up in the long aggressive supermarket line, the pain of converting shekels to dollars (it's never as bad of a price as it seems), the garbage and cats that equally litter the streets, and slipping on the too-smooth sidewalks wherever you go. If you choose to subsist on a diet of borekas and shoko chocolate milk, your demeanor will generally be positive, and none of these factors will dampen your mood (unless slipping makes you spill your milk or an Israeli bumps into you and your boreka goes flying).  

One day, every week, you can't avoid the joyous, peaceful holiness of the world's most spiritual city. You can smell challahs rolling out of ovens, and you can see the roads clearing out because it's shabbos! I have absolutely loved shabbat for as long as I can remember, but no shabbat, camp or youth group or Hillel compares to a shabbat in Jerusalem. To me, the air seems sweet, the calm washes over, and I'm willed to tears with the excitement that I have shabbat in Jerusalem, and so do all of these other people around me. On the way to my favorite local shabbat spot for Friday services, I was singing to myself like the coolest loser in town because I was just so excited that it was Shabbat. I was nearly distracted from the fact I had to leave Israel in just 24 hours. At Mizmor last Friday, you wouldn't have known that services were shortened for the holidays because those Jews just love to sing and dance, filling the lack of prayers with more nai-nai-nais - we had a grand old time praising the Lord. On the way home, I was being very reflective (all two blocks), and I thought to myself how even though my practice of Judaism has not changed so much, I am so much more affirmative in my theology, which is philosophically validating to my practice in ways I am happy to discuss should you be so interested (some religious studies major will probably now find this blog and interview me for a thesis on Jewish fanatics - 'be careful what yo wish for...') 

My roommate Molly's parents came to town for their first-ever trip to Israel, and we had a splendid feast at our apartment. They made delicious lemon pepper chicken, couscous, and yams, and brought challah from the shuk that tasted like it was laced with honey and other addictive sugar things. Late into the night, we sang some songs and played some games that continued that superspiritual shabbat feeling. I remember someone drinking nana tea, someone else doing a small fashion show of a new shipment from mom, and Candace and Molly both fighting through all kinds of sickness to be a brilliant hostess. I may or may not be to blame for these communicable cold-like diseases, but the most I can do is be helpful and apologetic. 

The awesomeness of the evening led to validation of my sleeping-in morning, and the fact that with 18 hours to go, I had barely packed.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Tel Aviv for 16 hours, transit for several more

I took a train from Modiin to Tel Aviv as soon as the first chag day of Sukkot ended. Thank goodness for one-day chagim in Israel - if public transportation had been suspended for three days straight, I couldn't have gone adventuring around like a tasmanian devil - 28 hours there, 16 hours here, 36 hours in Jerusalem and then, I'd be headed home to New York.

I arrived to Arlozorov central station around 10 pm and took a cab over to meet my friend Lonnie with her friend Rye. They were wrapping up dinner, enjoying a coffee on the house after a bill that never came - typical of Israeli service. The cafe was not kosher, the second such establishment I had sat in in Israel - it was weird to me. I began to realize how different Tel Aviv is from Jerusalem. Imagine a run-down landscape of beachfront condos, with a hayday thirty years past, plus a couple newer skyscrapers, a bunch of malls, and some trendy outdoor markets. That's the city.

We found our centrally-located airBnB apartment, a garden-level converted one-bed, with two flat-screen TVs, a washing machine, and scented towels! Our host also left us some cheap cookies and a bottle of wine - an excellent touch to the budget hospitality. We could smell the beach from the doorstep. After polishing off the bottle and getting settled, we took off for a boardwalk stroll, walking past all of the salty-aired lounges and beat-up hotels, quiet due to a clear off-season lull. On the way back, we stopped at a closing frozen yogurt shop for some superb tart yogurt with all kinds of exclusive toppings, like dates, tehina and klik chocolate. We sat on indoor swings and made conversation with the cashier, who moonlights as a MASA recruiter to Birthright groups, but looked too young to work at all. The night ended with the enjoyment of two flat screen tvs in our one-bedroom apartment, Lonnie and I felt caught up on all of the music videos we missed in the last ten years.  

In the morning, Lonnie and I headed over to Nachalat Binyamin, a long outdoor handicraft market. I was able to find gifts for two important people among the crowds looking over ceramic trivets and glass mezuzahs and beaded jewelry. In the dripping wet heat of the day, we were marketed out by the end, and wandered over to lunch at a small guest house in the narrow backroads of Kerem HaTeimanim. Among gaudy pink Victorian decor, we dined on a floral couch and were served an aperitif of vodka, cranberry and rosewater - because who doesn't want that concoction at noon... We wanted it never. It wasn't good, but it did match all the tacky pink pinstripes on the walls.

After lunch, we stumbled over to the beach, always just a few blocks away, and put our feet in the water, walking in the tide for a stretch, but with all of our belongings in tow. Pictures prove that we had a beautiful time - me, splashing and people-watching, Lonnie collecting the perfect shells. After a while, it was time to head home. The cab to the bus station cost more than the bus to Jerusalem. The central bus station in Tel Aviv is over seven stories - I only got that high before catching one of the last buses back 'home' before shabbat. Back in Jerusalem, it again took just as long to get home from the bus station as it took to get across the whole country (TLV-Jlem) - traffic gets pretty crazy in the final moments before everything shuts down for Shabbat.

If I had had more time to think about things, rather than rushing around the country, I might have been sad it was my last shabbat, but I was mostly just excited to wash the sand from between my toes, not feel sweaty, and finish up a month that really couldn't have been better.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Sick and still studying...

Being sick while traveling is the worst. Sure, there's the general food adaptation sickness that happens with new drinking water wherever I go, and that time in Chile when I'm not sure what I happened, but my body seemed to have completely exploded internally, but for the most part, I'm a happy healthy traveler. 

It's only logical that with five days to go, I would be sneezing and wheezing like there's no tomorrow. Surprise: five tomorrows, all of which I would like to take full advantage of. Starting yesterday, I woke up in a daze of sniffles. I had three hours of Torah, an hour of seminar, and then three more hours of halacha, plus lunch and dinner plans with other parties. After the first three hours, I was completely drained. I couldn't focus my eyes, which made reading difficult, as well as thinking, communicating, and generally being a human. I felt really bad for my study partner, but I had warned her. Somehow, we got distracted from the fourth chapter of the Book of Jonah and went to look at biblical history as documented in Genesis onward. In one sentence, we're told a father lived for less than 100 years and his son, to 962. We traced the order of our patrilineage (and humanity), from Adam to Noah to Abraham, etc. - a good chronicle refresher after so much in-depth, detail-oriented studying for the last three weeks. Back in class, we posed our analyses as questions about the meaning and morals behind the Book of Jonah, which we had just read on Yom Kippur. This concluding activity to the minicourse made me feel like I accomplished something in the course in terms of Hebrew and text studying. 

I gave up on going to the next class, with a headache and wanting fresh air. Unfortunately, yesterday was brutally hot, so I felt like my entire body was boiling and sticky. It was highly unpleasant. My friend Mitzi met me on Emek for some Burgers Bar, splitting a schnitzel wrap and sharing life advice. She's got a gig at Columbia this year, offering her sagely wisdom to the Orthodox community there, and if you happen to be one of her students, you're just the luckiest.

I raced back to school to lead the final study group session for my program. Of the six of us, only half could make it, but we recruited some random participants to come into the mix too. To hear about each of our growth and accomplishments over the last few weeks was, as always, a good way to open up a session. I've concluded that in my time here, I haven't necessarily changed, but I have grown to recognize how happy I am about myself, and where I am, Jewishly and otherwise. I've identified the biggest personal stumbling blocks from being any happier or more successful, and now I have the mindset to approach the next challenge with a better self-understanding. In a small group, we studied a short passage of sages' advice, saying that too much talking and studying leads to sin and lack of worldly understanding. This saying is quite validating for someone who is choosing to not spend all year, every day, in the beit midrash study hall of Torah, and instead, moving to Chicago to be a business consultant. 

I retreated home to deal with my cold for the subsequent three hours, and made little progress in that field, but despite my drowsy despair, I was overwhelmingly happy about the program I'd chosen to do here and the people I was with.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

A Blast and BreakFast

A few random facts: 1. I have started watching Orange is the New Black and it's so good. It's like Gossip Girl and The Wire and Shawshank Redemption and Shopaholic. 2. I have more mosquito bites than ever in my life, and I feel like I am constantly being bitten. 3. I am reading a book called "Integral Halacha" which a friend lent me, which explains liberal modern relevance of Jewish law. 4. I invited thirty people over for dinner tonight. 5. I am leaving Israel in 7 days.

I'll spare you the agonizingly bland details of my Yom Kippur day and skip to when things get exciting again. Around 5:30 p.m., my roommate Molly and I finished up the prepping for our BreakFast meal. The day before Yom Kippur, I made the mistake of sleeping till noon, and then going in to a full-fledged panic attack when the grocery store was locked before my eyes at 12:45. I had no food for the day, and no bagels for tomorrow. I went to some eating therapy at the boreka bakery down the block, grabbing a sampler of two mushroom and two potato borekas, and then ran over to the bagel shop. I procured a dozen bagels and felt proud, so I rewarded myself with a jug of Israel's finest chocolate milk, shoko from Yotvata dairy farm. Healthiest eater around? It's clearly me. So I spent the afternoon eating borekas and drinking shoko from the bottle, and having a steady stream of school friends drop off food for the BreakFast. As a good Jewish mom in training, I spent the hours before the fast ended worrying about not having enough food, when it was definitely not a realistic concern. A visiting friend of Molly's pointed out, astutely, that worrying about it was duly unproductive because every single store in Israel was closed, so I couldn't really do anything about the food situation. So, I went to synagogue to pray that the food would be enough.

At Mizmor L'David, the prayer was a fervent as it could be. Everyone seemed to cry out the dramatic Neilah service - so many proclamations of hope and declarations of faith in unison can't not inspire a sense of community, belonging, and the power of collective bargaining. Knowing people are saying the same words, shouting the same wishes together on every block of the city, in every town of the country, and all around the world - that has a bigness to it. And at the very end of the service, the shofar is blown one final time, and I felt that beyond-words feeling my teachers had been describing. The hollow wailing noise produced by a ram's horn has come to represent the overwhelming processing and feelings and traditions I've acquired from a lineage that's thousands of years old, and belongs to everyone I'm surrounded by here, too. It's cool. I'm into it.

And then, it hit me. After the shofar is blown, everyone declares, 'Next year, in Jerusalem!' which is a totally true and fair statement for them to make. (I think it's more prophetic/messianic than about reality, but whatever.) For me, however, I start a 12-month contract in Chicago in a few weeks, which means 'next year in Jerusalem' is highly unlikely for me. A tear came to my eye. Not more than one, but I definitely welled up. Leaving is always hard. Saying goodbye is tough. This was the beginning of a week of goodbyes.

So, I ate a granola bar and went home to play hostess and distract myself. And boy, did we host. We had expected guests and unexpected guests, two platters of lox, a lot of quartered bagels, an oatmeal kugel, sweet potatoes, Israeli salad, real orange juice, baked apples, couscous, cream cheese, and a thing of herring: a feast for the ages! Two Northwestern friends came from the other side of the city and while I do love my Pardes friends, it was so wonderful to have some Purple Pride in the room, too.

The remains of an epically devoured BreakFast: Party Like It's 5774
In between serving food and smushing on the couch between friends and trying to cool off our overcrowded living room, I was just so happy and grateful and in my element in every which way. Now, I'm thinking back to the Thanksgiving I hosted in Sevilla in my front yard, another good time in a good home with good people. Jerusalem will now always have that mark of home to me, too.

A Nun at Kol Nidrei

When I agreed to go to Nava Tehila, a Jewish Renewal congregation meeting in a tent at a nature garden, I didn't really know what to expect. I had heard about pillows on the floor, drum circles, and meditation chants. Generally, these types of activities are not my scene. But, when in Jerusalem...

So the five Pardesniks (my classmates)  picked some seats in the tent of spiritual garden love, coincidentally next to the rabbi and cantor duo, both female. In the row in front of me, a nun, with a habit and a huge wooden cross, sat with her prayerbook open. Behind me, a little girl with shiny long hair knew every word to every prayer. Just after services got started with some meditative tunes that had me in a trancy but weirded-out zone, I noticed some camp ladies stroll in, a small Nativ crew. One of the Groner summer retreat center guests, Gabby, was there and I was so happy to see a familiar face. Not that I should've been so surprised - camp friends are everywhere in this country. I'm going to have to start hiding from them. Over the course of the three-hour prayer session (felt like 45 minutes though), we used a combination of a traditional prayerbook with a few inserts, including a Leonard Cohen song, some call-and-response poetry and a few extra Shabbat songs that most people wouldn't include. I think this was the happiest start to a Yom Kippur in the history of ever.

The rabbi, in her alternating Hebrew and English (always ten Hebrew words to one English one, so who knows what we really got), had us break into small groups of three. Two Pardes friends I particularly like and I crewed up to talk about our deepest desires to forgive and be forgiven. It's interesting how the rabbi was able to command more than one hundred people in an outdoor space, with an indoor voice, into deep discussions about our relationships with our closest friends and ourselves. To find out that most people my age share regrets and troubles over former flames, stressful parent ties, and growing up. In a lonely Facebook world, where you think you're sharing everything, it's refreshing to realize you aren't opening up at all, until you sit down and just spell the truth out to near strangers. This rabbi, this space, and this community enabled a garden full of people from ages 6 to 86 to do that.

The service ended with a dramatic call-and-response prayer, popcorn-style, where anyone in the tent could just stand up and proclaim the next line of the poetic proclamation from the Selichot service. Everyone would validate the caller with an emphatic 'Amen!' response. At first, it seemed somewhat silly, a little heretical and evangelical at first, like a Southern Baptist church.  But I was having such a good time and I was so comfortable with my chair cushion and my sharing-is-caring forgiveness chat, that I was among the masses, shouting out Amen too. Whatever these renewal folk had mixed up and passed around, I was pretty down with drinking their ice-cold Kool-Aid. Perhaps a silly metaphor for a fast day, but I did not feel dehydrated one bit.

When we exiting the garden onto busy Emek Refaim, a trendy boulevard of shops and restaurants, we found the street flooded with all kinds of Israelis in white. Imagine worldly angels descending upon Broadway, not a car in sight, laughing and playing. Everywhere I looked, these angel-people were running into all the old friends they'd forgotten, plus finding all the great people they'd just met in the last few weeks. I was among the angel-people, gathered in a conglomerate of Pardesniks, my classmates, who had come from at least three different services and magically, unplanned, converged on that cosmic corner of Rachel Imenu.

The atmosphere was other-worldly, but so tangibly, and intangibly, real. Every particle in the space was absolutely ethereal. And I was absolutely exhausted by all of it. Whoever thinks Yom Kippur is a sad day just hasn't experienced it in Jerusalem.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Tangerine Moon and a Stained Glass Service

I reached 2500 views last week, which is pretty crazy. That's like 25 people looking at this blog every day I travel. Which, is weird, because I can't even name more than 10 people who I think would be that interested. There's also the statistic that tells me three people in Bulgaria have clicked here, and I really can't explain that either.

GoogleMaps does not explain inclines in walking directions, so never trust the app, I've learned the hard way. Last night, I got locked out of my apartment and ended up in a friend's home, with a British doctor making me tea and sambucas. No complaints there - best lockout ever. However, the time crunch put pressure on me to speed up and get ready for my one chance to actually go out on the town. Because I spend all my time doing crazy religious stuff, it was nice to stop by a birthday party and take an hour break from all the Judaism, theoretically. Everyone there was American and Jewish, most people recognizable from the New York or USY scenes of days passed. I'm looking forward to moving to Chicago where hopefully I'll play a little less Jewish geography. After about an hour, our Pardes school crew of six decided to take a hike - literally. We planned to walk across to Nachlaot for a Persian midnight Selichot service. This would mean I'd walked in Arnona, Talpiot, Emek Refaim, Katamon, Rechavia and now, Nachlaot in one night. And, each area required ascending and descending all kinds of inclines, some better suited for hiking boots and a staff. I was in my trademark beaten rubber flip flops. My feet and ankles were destroyed from the tomato picking of the afternoon. Somehow, I stayed a happy camper the entire time. We saw the Knesset parliament glowing up on a hilltop, and the brightest orange half-moon that looked like a tangerine slice dangling in the sky.

When we finally made it to Nachlaot, we were relieved to reach Ohev Zion Synagogue. We met up with a bunch of other Pardesniks around midnight and got a brief history of the synagogue from the wife of the founder's great-grandson. Last year, the community had withered, old and quiet. In 365 days, her husband and his brother had created Carlebach-style ritual experiences for a vibrant community of liberally-orthodox 20somethings. The place was a total mobscene. I ended up sitting behind the synagogue, in a courtyard looking through the stained glass at the shadows of men inside. People sang in an excited yet mournful way, pleading with God, celebrating the community, hoping for a better year - if I had gotten a seat on an wooden cushioned bench, I probably would've more comfortably enjoyed the service. There were droves of women huddling around the windows outside even, peering in, reading prayers off their cellphones and occasionally, texting or snapping pictures.
By 12:45, I was really too tired to be standing up and listening anymore, but the service had an intrinsically fascinating quality - these brothers have created something that really pulls people in.

I taxied home, sleepily, clutching the rider with me as our driver raced an invisible competitor through the bus lanes to get us home. I fell asleep quickly, knowing that I'd be facing my day of atonement the following afternoon. Yom Kippur had arrived, stealing from me a shabbat in Israel, replacing it with a fast day of repentance. We're hosting a huge BreakFast in our apartment, so my one day off from school will be busy with shopping and cleaning and prep. I can already taste my everything bagel with lox, tomato, onion and vegetable cream cheese. Can you?

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Tomatoes and Resentment

As usual, I found my morning Hebrew class to be immensely frustrating, annoyed by my own inability to translate everything. Maybe I should've studied for my quiz, and then I would be able to conjugate more than half the verbs... anyway, I was too busy exploring the Old City. I went into study buddy hour to look at Chapter 4 of the Book of Jonah (the story where he gets swallowed by a whale), but my buddy quickly got caught up on other things, aka Israeli-Palestinian conflict policy. Some of the teachers live over 'the green line,' in the West Bank, in settlements protected and provided for by Israel. It bothers me that these settlers don't pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority, since they live in the territory, but the rules around here tend to get a little funky. Not that I think the PA uses tax dollars responsibly - wow, this area gets so taboo so fast. We finished our study and determined that God is very compassionate and forgiving, and we should be toward one another as well. We also talked about God's relationship to non-Jewish peoples, which is incredibly important to recognize and understand in a world where I am often asked why the Jews think they're 'the chosen people' (read: prague, day one, walking tour guide). Bottom line: He's everywhere, and He cares about everyone.
Loaded stuff.

On that very religious note, we went to do something more hands-on and less text-based for the afternoon. Judaism in action in the form of picking tomatoes for poor people through Lekhet, Israel's national foodbank. The last time I was in Israel, we also picked tomatoes, but for an organization with comfortable t-shirts called Table-to-Table. On the way there, we had a contest to guess what we would be picking, and I guessed tomatoes because that's the only thing I knew for sure grew in Israel. I won the contest, and with that, a free Pardes t-shirt! Now I can prove to people I went to school here! After two hours in the most brutal sun, being attacked by thorns and feeling tomato juice squish in my socks (yum.), we retired to the water coolers and headed back to the bus. I have to say, had I not worked in a dining hall for 1000 people this summer, picking and lifting dozens of pounds of sunburnt tomatoes would probably have seemed gross, but it was pretty routine stuff. I got some great shots of me wearing a hat, so now my mom can't tell me I should've worn a hat because I have proof!

We stopped on the way home at a gas station where ice cream seemed to be a most necessary decision. After, we paused by a small man-made pond to do tashlich, a service that is done between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. I remember going to the brook behind Scarsdale Train Station and casting bread crumbs into the water, thinking that it was a symbolic casting away of sins. For lying, a breadcrumb, for being mean to my siblings a breadcrumb, for being selfish, a breadcrumb - and so on. This time, we had no breadcrumb and instead a few mumbly paragraphs of chanted Hebrew I didn't know. I prefer the personal bread toss. It's fun to feed the ducks too. But this 'pond' had no ducks, nor fish, and I had no bread. Oh well. We had some time to reflect on repentance and forgiveness and I thought how nice it would be to not feel resentment toward anyone ever - we did a breathing meditative exercise that was hopefully a first step toward releasing resentment from our minds. Sometimes you'd think I was at hippy camp, not torah school...

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Wanderers Wandering by the Western Wall

Sometimes, you can't sit in the classroom anymore. It's like the scene in the movie where your pencil is tapping and the clock is ticking and finally, ah, the metaphorical bell rings. I had wrestled through six mishnayot (teachings) of Pirkei Avot, which was funny, since one of our vocab words was 'to become dusty/to wrestle with' - yes, in this ancient language, it's common to have one word meaning a few separate, somewhat-related things.

After a short lunch break, in which I acquired and consumed four different flavors of boreka from the local boreka bakery, I was back to studying Pirkei Avot. The dean of our school came and worked through a similar six mishnayot, but this time with the group of six students in my one-month program. I brought cookies, and we all shared some feedback on our experience. We love Pardes, we love the learning, we wish we had more time, etc.

I was really ready to scoot outta there as soon as our session ended at 2:25, so I made the adult decision that skipping afternoon class would immensely benefit me. It did.

I hopped a bus (after the one I waited for never came, typical, GoogleMaps) and ended up having to walk another 25 minutes up and down the hills of Jerusalem, through the Yemin Moshe flower gardens and the artists colony. When I reached the bottom of a massive hill, I realized I'd have to climb eight flights of stairs to get up to meet Haley, a friend from NU who is studying abroad at Hebrew University. As I paused to breathe, a car pulled up and out hopped Yoni, a boy who works at camp with me. This random run-in thing keeps happening. It happened the day before with an Israeli in a coffee shop, who once staffed a summer week camp with me. It happens in the shuk, by the Kotel, on the bus - it's a little overwhelming how tiny this country actually is. Anyway, I was so glad to see Yoni because the up-and-down walk alone had been a little creepy since it was so empty and only strange men were out, despite the fact it was 3:30 pm on a Thursday in the middle of town. We trotted up all the flights together, breathlessly catching up on the last few weeks before reaching the Yafo Gate to the Old City and parting ways.

Haley found me hiding in the shade of the looming gate, and we began to venture through the Arab shuk, ending near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Church of the Redeemer. We listened to the late afternoon call to prayer before feeling we were in too deep, and there was nothing to buy anyway. We u-turned toward the Cardo, the ancient Roman-era marketplace now housing fancy tourist art. We found mosaics and columns and kids scootering around them. What a playground. Our next stop was Jeff Seidel's office, a keiruv center that provides young travelers with Shabbat plans and cultural tours and parties and classes and more. I was in pursuit of a prayerbook to rent for Yom Kippur, and ended up with a glass of sweet red wine and a halfhour talk about Chabad at Northwestern. Jeff is an interesting man to say the least, and good at what he does. He was able to arrange dinner plans and offer me a cab fare if I were to go to a Rivky's house to learn about fasting on Yom Kippur - if keiruv is aggressive, it's also generous. (I didn't go because my phone died and a bad rugelach made me sick).

When we finally left Jeff's office, we were worried we'd miss our one afternoon itinerary item that actually had a timeframe: get into the Aish center before 5. We found our way through the skinny stairwells and winding walls of the city to the entrance of Aish's magnificent new structure (keiruv central, Jerusalem!). Shoulders covered, I successfully schmoozed our way to the observation deck, fare on the house.  We ascended further and further up until we reached the sky. I felt like I was touching the sun. Or the Dome of the Rock, at least. We were in the center of all of Jerusalem, right by the Temple Mount, where the two Holy Temples stood, and now the Western Wall, still a hub for a peoplehood for over 2000 years. What a powerful place - it's just magnetic and splendid, yet not so overhwelmingly big that it's inaccessible or beyond emotion. I'm not the type to break down and cry, but I felt breathless again - it could've also been all those stairs. Haley and I rejoiced in the amazingness of the views, and took an excessive amount of photos, debating if we should ever descend.

Eventually, we did, and we decided to wander around the more residential parts of the old city. Flower petals and iron gates mark the area, in a pandemonium of crooked Jerusalem stones and yeshiva boys' prayers. It's just a poetic place. When we exited the city through the same gate we entered, we weaved through an outdoor art expo of giant painted globes with social messages. Four Haredim were smoking on an overlook of the highway. I wanted to yell at them because I found their personal presentation, black and white and cigarettes, to be appallingly inconsistent.

Haley and I plopped down at an intersection back in the hubbub of the New City, and talked about all the excitement and overwhelmtion that comes with being here, and all of my past travels and her future ones.

What I wouldn't give to get to repeat these two incredible years of nomadic status again - not to do anything differently, just to taste and smell and touch and remember everything all over again.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Sensory Overload: A Prosey Piece

How beautiful are your gates, o Jerusalem. I smile to myself as I push the door out of class, still relishing in the day's studies, decoding mysteries of a story that's 5774 years old. And a young, fresh people with unfettered attitude and resilience, is still writing the next page right outside that same classroom door. 

Broken glass on the sidewalks, abandoned kittens jump gingerly over the shards sticking into my well-worn flip flops. The stubborn purrs remind me what the British left behind from the mandate era, but animal rights aren't the big regional issue, I hear.

I walk down the uneven streets of Baka, losing balance, losing focus, getting lost. Family names on door frames inviting me to linger, to ring the door bells or just sit on the skinny sidewalks, praying no taxi driver without a conscience gives me my daily heart attack while I stare off into the sky, dreaming.

And then, the smell of fresh borekas wakes me up from the pit of my rumbling stomach. I follow the steaming scent trail and point to a round doughy ball, and two shekels later, it's demolished within seconds.

I pause in a bean-shaped bench to recline, watching the scenes in seder position. There is no order. A boy, twirling tzitzit strands in one hand, cautiously flirting with a shy denim skirt on the walkway. Scooters whiz by, birds sing, babies cry, teenagers gossip - no war is being waged in this place of peace, of normalcy. Across the sea, you would think you could cut the tension with the kosher butcher's knife; but, no, you'll barely feel it at all in the warm dry air. 

But, I feel the sweat gather on my shaped brow, and imagine the girl across the walkway in the olive polyester uniform feels much damper as she walks home for a night off of base. The cars keep going, keep honking, maybe just to be heard, to be noticed for a moment, while the world, my time, flies by.

I key into my building, ready for a cold shower to ease my burning pinked skin, to rinse off the ceaseless, breathless exhaustion of the day's learning, wandering, loving this land.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Singsongy Services

On just under eight hours of sleep, I was somewhat alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic for meeting Alisa to go to Yakar in the morning. The mechitzah minyan was recommended to her by a friend was liberal, easy-to-follow, and singsongy. We got a little lost heading into Katamon, the area neighboring mine, and asked a few people for directions. I was able to understand enough Hebrew to identify the synagogue as the one with the big tree. A handful of words can really get you by, but I still sometimes respond to strangers’ kindness with an excited ‘gracias!’ Wrong country.

The service wasn’t overcrowded, but full, so we had to move chairs four times because we hadn’t purchased tickets, as is customary for high holiday services. I also didn’t have a prayerbook with English, which really helps me keep engaged with the Hebrew words of the prayers. I missed America and Beth El and Northwestern and all things more familiarly Jewish.  Throughout the service, people seemed to burst into lai-lai-lais and bum-bada-bums arbitrarily but they all knew when it would happen, so it definitely was random. I had to stifle laughter in my total confusion. I got into praying for a good chunk of the musaf midday service, able to follow the shofar blowings based on what I learned in school this week, so that made me feel more into it. I really couldn’t see the service leader or totally hear what he was saying, half because he was mumbling and half because there was a curtain in my way. While I have a new appreciation for the Jewish prayer and study separation of genders, I can’t ever imagine myself truly enjoying a service where I can’t see the service leader. I’m a visual person. I need to feel connected to the voice I’m following, and it’s a lot easier when you can see the lips moving and the pages turning and the shofar being blown. The curtain gave me a good excuse to close my tired eyes and ignore the sort of randomness of what was happening around me. I would consider coming back, oddly, maybe.

I had to head back to my house quickly because my roommates and I extended an open invitation to our entire school group (about 70 people) to come and spend the afternoon reading and studying and conversing anything at all. We had a cozy turnout that allowed small conversations or bigger group discussions to flourish. I chose to ignore an argument about the binding of Isaac and instead read the most amazingly clarity-inducing essay by Former Chief Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (best titular name ever) about Rosh Hashana’s themes, purpose and current relevance. (Best of all, you can read it for free here, on the Amazon preview of the Koren Machzor!) I felt incredibly enlightened and totally overjoyed! Wahoo! This holiday DOES have relevance and purpose. I understood the holiday, God, the Jewish people’s history, and myself more because of a ten-page essay by a British guy. I’d say the afternoon was a huge win! I want everything I read to be this valuable. FCLR Sacks might be my new hero.

Late in the afternoon, I wandered to Shira Chadasha, a service with a curtain divider, but where women can lead certain parts of services and serve as visionaries with their male counterparts to design a meaningful prayerspace for both genders. I must have felt so at home that someone asked me to help her with the pages. I sang those prayers like the happiest Jew around.

The adventures continued at a faculty member’s condo for dinner, which included THREE kinds of meat. Everything was kind of my favorite, but if I had to pick one dish, it would be the meatballs. Hayim and Leah were such a relatable young couple who could ambiturn between pop culture references and Jewish life topics fluidly, with a sense of humor and love that makes you want to linger in their home or model yours after it. I left once again totally stuffed, walking through the warm night toward my apartment, thinking about how I had started the holiday from a place of complication and frustration and turned things around to read the best essay and join my favorite service so far in Israel. I went to bed, loving Jerusalem, feeling at home with the place and myself. 

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Leopard Prints and Socks and Clogs and Chags

Based on the week’s teachings, I was not feeling super-duper-excited to celebrate Rosh Hashana. Sure, the idea of apples and honey and matzah ball soup is always thrilling, but there’s a lot more philosophy to grapple with that comes with that. I was struggling with having the attention to prayer and the point of the holiday. Over the few days of classes, I had more enjoyed the intellectual aspect of the learning, even distracted during the meditation and spirituality lessons because I was too focused on the literary and philosophical analysis of the texts. I went to Pardes’ learners’ service for the first day, looking for a change of pace and hoping to derive more meaning from the day even if I wouldn’t be in a traditional 300-page liturgical service. While I did not find the meaning I was seeking, I found some really good babka, and a girl named Livia gave me a nice hug, and described how she was at a troubling, lost time in her life, so I felt really grateful and peaceful. I leafed through some more pages of a book about Jewish Law’s applications but the author failed to include a foreword about why following Jewish Law is compelling to so many people, so I was bored by the book quickly, not seeing a point to so much specification and discussion. I returned home with a book on the rationale and applications of the Jewish Renewal movement, thinking this highly spiritual movement would be a refreshing change. 

I invited Alisa over for lunch, and made up a mini-shmorgasbord of turkey sandwiches on challah rolls, couscous and borekas, in an effort to incorporate as many carbohydrate forms to one meal as possible. Alisa, a former financial analyst a year ahead of me, is in the month-long study program with me before she goes to a social entrepreneurial fellowship for six months in the north of Israel. I remember we talked about finding meaningful work and transportation mishaps and wigs, and we had a grand old time.

I had lounged about for a significant amount of time and then realized I had to hurry and get ready for my dinner – an hour walk away. This walk, up trendy Derech Beit Lechem through Baka, across the quiet Rakevet park, toward the Paamon gardens. As I was walking up Keren HaYesod, I decided to take a tiny extra hike through the gardens, enchanted by cactuses bigger than me and shiny sculptures, with fountain plazas where children played and parents prayed. I remembered leading services with someone who had never led before, back in 2008 on my Pilgrimage trip, my first Shabbat in Jerusalem. I had forgotten where the spot was, or that the service had happened but places come flocking back to memory quickly. I saw the golden glow of the Old City walls reflecting the afternoon sun, the same as it had 5 years and a few weeks earlier.

I continued up (you’re ALWAYS walking up when you’re in Jerusalem. Even when you’re going downhill, it’s only to go back up.) and pit-stopped in the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism, looking for a little more familiarity and comfort (and a bathroom). I ended up finding that in the arms of Maya Dolgin, who was there with her brother and these two other guys. I knew three out of the four, and it was really nice to see some familiar faces after half of my long, hot walk. I met the last of the four, a guy from Chicago, so I felt like I kind of knew him already. I continued my walk in the best spirits I’d been in all day, excited to find my friend Mitzi at our 7 p.m. meeting point.

Mitzi had invited me to one of her Rabbi’s houses, a mentor of hers who runs the Nishmat seminary’s year-long post-high school program. I know a handful of girls who have studied there and they are all kind, smart, well-rounded, open-minded people – Nishmat must be an amazing place. The rabbi lives in Nachlaot, Jerusalem’s most quintessentially Jerusalem neighborhood: windy paths, nameless streets, hanging gardens and so many pregnant religious women with beautiful scarves. Mitzi and I went to evening services at Kol Rina, a Carlebach-singing style service in a bomb shelter. Three Israeli women wearing a combination of leopard print and plastic platform stripper heels made me appreciate the diversity of Jewish people in Israel and the holiday that could bring such shoes into a synagogue. Still, I disagree with their fashion choices but I can focus on giving them an A for bringing out what they considered to be their best styles. 

Dinner was held in a square room with a basic vaulted gothic ceiling. This architecture had the effect that on one side of the room, you could perfectly hear the conversation at the other end of our 27-person table. Acoustics can be crazy. While not freaked out by hearing each far-away word about making aliyah from a girl from Oregon wearing clogs with socks, I enjoyed all twenty different symbolic foods, each blessed with a special play on words wishing us an enemy-free year of health and success. I was overwhelmed by the seven children singing songs, particularly the young boy next to me who kept wishing me a fruitful life of many children. This blessing comes with a tradition of eating a fish head, which he delighted greatly in. By the soup course, the boy was conked out on the couch. I was slurping up matzah balls and listening to a young yeshivish couple who had met at the table a few years earlier when independently exploring religion ask a hippy-dippy also observant older couple why they were choosing to home-school their son. It takes all kinds to make the world go round. By the main course, I was already stuffed from the abundance of new fruits, symbolic vegetables, huge matzah balls and sizeable chunks of the two enormous 2-kilo challahs smothered in honey.

We all went around introducing ourselves and saying our favorite thing about the Holidays in Jerusalem. I explained that I had come to Israel, with just excitement thinking I would find clear validation for every part of my identity and chosen path. Two weeks in, I have experienced more mental duress and emotional confusion than I have felt in the last eight months of nomadship. This place and it’s people force you into a constant state of questioning, but from that comes the potential for a remarkable path of self-discovery, evolution and betterment. And for that, I am extremely grateful. It’s better to grow and change than simply validate what you already think you know. Next thing I knew, I was explaining to a girl on the couch why I wasn’t planning to become more religiously observant or stay in Israel to study (I have three specific reasons, feel free to ask). Then, I talked with an Asian woman about her forearm tattoo of a Scottish mythical creature. The night ended with some good gooey chocolate cookies and the rabbi’s wife sending me and Mitzi off with water bottles for our long walks home. It was again, close to one a.m.

On my walk home, I was lonely, so I befriended some seminary girls, a flock of them from Passaic, New Jersey, who were a little confused by what and who I was. I’m sometimes confused about it too, but I’m not sure they’d really met any practicing Jews who hadn’t been to day school growing up.
Most of my walk was silent, dark and alone – but not as lonely. I think the break from chatting and noise and people and food was much needed. I ran into my friend Sara from Pardes right outside my apartment, and I couldn’t wait to divulge all of the crazy characters who had punctuated my evening.

And it hit me that the holiday weekend was only halfway through.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Supermarket Sweep into 5774

After just three days of classes, we were all wiped out, excited for a day off to get ready for a Rosh Hashana-Shabbat double header. From Wednesday night until Saturday night, we’d be celebrating like it’s 5774 because, in fact, that is the numeric year in the Jewish calendar. Over that time, I’d go to synagogue a thousand times, and eat a hundred meals.

Though I slept until 11, I felt a sense of urgency to get to the grocery store. All stores would be closed from Tuesday afternoon until Sunday, which seemed to give the citizenry a sense of total apocalyptic panic. Candace, Molly and I took the market by storm, stocking up on necessities like challah, cookies, and hummus. I also bought some tomatoes and borekas, my personal key foods. About two hours later, I had seen three people I knew and waited on line for 90 minutes before we walked home with 10 bags overflowing.

Holidays equal food, in Judaism. So, I felt compelled to spend my afternoon cooking up a storm yielding a huge platter of couscous, hummus with sautéed mushrooms and onions, and a lifetime supply of those mediocre frozen borekas. Though the dishes were less than sophisticated, the house smelled festive.

To start the new year on God’s good list, I went to the neighborhood minyan, a service with a mechitza divider, easy-to-follow tunes and mostly anglos singing in cute headscarves, kids playing in the courtyard and a stellar cantor. There, I sat with some other Pardesniks, students at my school, who would be hosting me for dinner. We walked back to their apartment, in a highrise complex on the edge of our neighborhood, with a great view down the hill toward the city center. Naomi and Carolyn made us a feast featuring roasted vegetable bruschetta, turkey-sweet potato pie with butter beans, and a peach-mango cobbler.  The passion-fruit punch with gummy worms really pushed me over the edge of fullness and delight. Our crew included a former Ramah Nyack counselor, a New Jersey future PwC consultant, a Booz Allen Hamilton 4th year from Ukraine on a sabbatical, a water scientist making a possible career switch, a youth director from the Pittsburgh Jewish Federation, and a British chick who has a total affinity for all things America, and an excellent sense of real humor.

Home at 1 a.m., I was intrigued by what the next four full days of celebration would bring, expecting the generally never-ending food comas, exhaustion and mumbly words of prayer.


Monday, September 2, 2013

What I Learned in School Today

I had more class hours today than I attended in an average week of college. This post is a 'typical day' post, but you might notice this is not a 'typical' school in any way. Here's what I studied:

8:30-11:15 am: In our intro to Mishneh class (early biblical commentary), we studied the 48 qualities of a student, and then in partners, categorized them, identified the top three we have, the top three we consider weaker, and the three we seek in a study buddy. Back in class, we went speed dating, sharing our qualities and what we're seeking, and then we went off to study the beginning of pirkei avot. My first hot date Jessica and I only got through three little grafs of goodness before our time ran out. We worked in the Hebrew and the English and our knowledge really complemented each other. Solid start to the day.

11:30 am - 12:15 pm: In a workshop on repentance, we sat at individual tables and answered 13 top secret questions about ourselves in order to think about what we could do better and what we want to accomplish. A classic, tasteful and interesting personal exercise. I approve.

12:15 pm to 1 pm: A debate on the structure of the Amidah during Rosh Hashana and whether or not the shofar should be blown during Malchuyot, and where Malchuyot should be placed (the answer is in the middle, as all additional or special blessings are put there). I was pretty unsatisfied with the answers from the Sages, and ended up in a complicated dialogue with a peer over why people need to call God the King in a special part of the prayer. If God's the King, he knows it. So what's the purpose of the blessing then? If He is The King, is God also Elvis? These, and other big questions were asked, but not answers.

2:30 pm - 5 pm: In an effort to do what I came here to do, explore my identity and grow as a human, I went to Self, Soul and Text with some skepticism. Our teacher, a rabbi and spiritual retreat leader, informed us the class would be about experiential education, where we would study a text about some sort of personal growth practice, and then emulate that practice. Daniel and I tore apart some divine attributes that people are supposed to try and embody, particularly, the Godly ability to forgive. We argued extensively over the meaning  of forgiveness, if there is a line on what sins are forgivable (stealing a stick of gum or being a mass murder - different, no?), and came up with a practical two step strategy to forgiving people.
Back in the classroom, we discussed whether or not God has a body, (which presupposed a belief in God), and we talked about imagining people you don't like as babies in order to recognize the pure goodness we all most intrinsically possess at one point. Then, everyone meditated and said this mantra and hummed this tune and I couldn't focus and kept opening my eyes and I was trying not to laugh but then I really liked the tune and ahhhhhh, it was a little bit of mindblowing.

So, even though I'd already 'studied' for a billion hours, I decided that I should attend the after-hours class...

5:15-6:45 pm: on Chassidut (the ways of Chassidic Jewish tradition), taught by a Hassidic rabbi named Levi, where he put the word Chassidut on the whiteboard and silently, over twenty minutes, people flocked to the board to throw up their preconceptions and notions about what Hassidic Judaism is. I wrote something about the Rebbe,other people wrote about kiruv (community in-reach) and Chabad and streimels (big furry circle hats) and the Old Country and scotch-drinking. I am looking forward to these stereotypes and assumptions being challenged in all 4 sessions I'm in town to attend. We're expected to have spiritual partners so we can work on that more mystical side of Chassidishism, learning to love our spiritual selves. I have a supercool partner and I think that in three weeks, she might unlock the secrets of the Chassidic masters that are embedded in my soul, I suppose.

So, you could probably say I learned a lot today...

Sunday, September 1, 2013

So Much Texting

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Now, this Jewish New Year, 5774, begins this Wednesday! Party! Last night, I went to my school's open class and service on Selichot, the art of repentance. Jews tend to harp on this theme as we finish up one year and begin to focus on how we hope to enrich ourselves for an even better next year. Pardes' study hall was filled with more than 50 people all learning from the same teacher and dissecting the same text. Our ancient scene was a story of temptation, adultery, confession and tragedy. A real Shakespeare meets One Life to Live kind of tale. In pairs and small groups, we examined the very short story, word by word, cracking down and squeezing out the nuances from each pronoun said and linebreak empty.

Through a basic literary analysis framework a la tenth grade English, I got so invested in trying to understand the protagonist's temptations, the identities he and his wife assumed, the confessions they made to each other, and how it all ends so abruptly. The whole story was about 15 lines and I probably could've discussed Rav Hiyya and his wife for hours on end. I geeked out completely.

I found I enjoy more the hard text study than the mushy gushy guitar and storytelling session that followed, but I totally appreciate that everyone connects in his or her own way. My cherry-red sunburn also started to really heat up at that hour, but I tried to focus on the exuberant joy of a tiny, tanned and wrinkled woman in her eighties, with giant bug glasses and a sequined beret. She was clapping and bopping and having the time of her life. If I'm going to confess, I wish myself as much happiness as she was feeling last night.

Today included a first day of classes where I was able to geek out over the book of Jonah, the history of Jewish commentary, and the origins of the noises a shofar makes. Mom, I took notes! That's huge! I'm suffering through every biblical Hebrew word I don't know but relishing in the joy of each syllabic triumph so much more. The hardships and the sweetness reflect what life is like here. Making aliyah (moving here forever) makes sense to me now.

Don't worry, I still have full intention of returning to America and geeking out over consulting frameworks and informational technology strategies, but even the tomatoes are much stronger and sweeter in Israel than America. Speaking of tomatoes, I went to a budget grocery store and bought all the things I need to make kindergarten lunches: apples, granola bars, PB&J and chocolate milk. Who says in my last month of pre-adulthood I can't regress my diet to age 5?

And to anyone who thinks school isn't fun, they haven't seen me at Pardes.