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.

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.

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.

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.

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?