Home Again

Here I am, back in New Jersey, though still getting oriented to being home. My last day in Tel Aviv was really nice, with a swim in the Mediterranean (warm as a bath!), lots of walking around, and a nice time with a colleague from school shopping and visiting a museum. My flight back was long but relatively comfortable, as I scored an exit row seat. It was great (really better than great--amazing and wonderful) to see Miri, Elie, and Matthew, and I have also been very happy to be returned to my comfortable home and the everyday luxuries I take for granted--good, hot coffee, a clothes dryer, etc.

I have really enjoyed keeping this online journal and have been happy to hear from many of you. The act of recording, even if only a small fraction of my experiences, has given me a perspective I think I would have otherwise missed. I'm kind of sad to be leaving the blog behind--it's been a rare treat to have time to reflect on my life in something almost like "real time." But I am also relieved to be off the hook for the responsibility (self-imposed but still quite compelling) of keeping up with the posting. I hope that I will be able to keep writing regularly this year and that the gift of keeping a regular journal will be only one of the many things I take forward from my experiences in Israel as I return to "real life."

I return to work on Monday and anticipate a busy rest of the summer, but I hope you will be in touch--wishing you peace and happiness . . .

Shabbat, the end of Pardes, and now Tel Aviv

Though only three days have passed since my last post, it feels like much longer. I had a very nice Shabbat, which began with a lovely Friday evening service and then a really nice Shabbat dinner at the home of friends. Shabbat morning another friend and I went to a Reform synagogue in San Simon, about a half hour walk from my neighborhood. Even at 9 am, it was very, very hot. The reason we went there was that Cantor Beth Weiner, who was an important teacher to me quite a few years back, is the cantor and director of the congregation.

It was an amazing feeling to cross the park near the shul and come upon the building and hear, through its open windows, Beth chanting the shacharit service. She sounded just as she did all those years ago in Baltimore, yet here I was in Jerusalem. The service was beautiful, and I was called up for an aliyah, at which point Beth introduced me and explained who I was--in Hebrew. And I understood! It was a great feeling. Beth was my teacher fifteen years ago, when I was just beginning to learn about Judaism in a serious way as an adult. She taught me to read Torah and Haftarah and officiated at Eliana's naming.

There's a lot to share about being at her shul--too much to try to write here, but the most striking moment for me was hearing the sh'ma during the amidah. The sh'ma is one of the centra--if not the centra--Jewish prayers. When I first started attending Shabbat services as an adult, it was pretty much the only part of the liturgy I really knew. It is recited out loud at three points in the Shabbat service, and I used to wait for those times, because I knew that at least then I would be able to pray with the rest of the congregation, because I knew the words.

It's traditional to close your eyes during the sh'ma, which I usually do. Because it is the part of the liturgy that almost every Jew knows by heart, it tends to be a moment in public prayer when the voice of the congregation swells, and listening to an entire congregation chant it with my eyes closed, I am often quite moved. My good friend Johann once told me that the way to see G-d is in the faces of other people, and though I'm not at all sure what I think about G-d, I often feel that the closest access I have to the divine is in the voices of a congregation chanting together, particularly as I stand with my eyes closed and hear us all sing the sh'ma. It was a wonderful moment to hear it in Jerusalem, in a service led by Beth, having come so very far, both literally and figuratively.

I can now follow just about any Jewish prayer service, and in Israel, I've often prayed with a siddur (prayer book) entirely in Hebrew with no translation. I have come such a long way in the years since I had to wait for the sh'ma since it was all I knew. But chanting the sh'ma at Beth's shul, I felt not only amazement and a sense of satisfaction, even awe, at where I've ended up, I also felt keenly aware of how little I really know. Hebrew language and Talmud study are just beginning to open up to me. These three weeks of study have been intensely rewarding, but they also remind me that I could study all day, every day, for the rest of my life, and there would still be so very much left to learn. Still, I could not have imagined, sitting at Beth Am in my mid-twenties, that I would be praying with Beth in Jerusalem one day. That I cannot imagine today what awaits me twenty years from now, what surprises and opportunities will (G-d willing) present themselves, is a mystery and a blessing.

I was able to speak to Beth for a while, and then I headed back with my friend for lunch at her house, which was very, very nice. Then I had a nap and after Shabbat a bite to eat and start on packing. Sunday was my last full day of classes, and then I had a farewell dinner with friends. I got home right around 10:30, just as the person who rented me the apartment arrived home. We had talked on the phone a lot and emailed quite a bit, but this was our first actual meeting. She had been away on a professional development course, and we overlapped in the apartment for 12 hours. It was odd to be all packed up and have her arrive and begin unpacking, but it was fascinating to talk with her, if only for an hour or two, and hear about her experiences living in Israel for the past eight years. I went to Pardes for my last Talmud class this morning, and then we had a farewell lunch. It was really nice, though a bit too much like the last day of camp or school for me, with just a little too much hugging and picture taking.

Still, I was genuinely sad to say goodbye to my friends and my teachers, particularly my Talmud teacher, who was just phenomenal. My chevruta and I are going to continue to learn together, though (she lives in NYC), and our teacher has offered to help us with study sheets and email support, so it wasn't as sad a goodbye as it would have otherwise been. I left Pardes, picked up my bags, and shared a car service with another friend to Tel Aviv. I arrived a little after five, and I am staying at a hotel that is a converted movie theater. It's pretty cool. Once I settled in I went out to grab dinner and take a walk, and already I can see how different Tel Aviv is from Jerusalem. It feels much, much more modern and hip and much, much less religious. The energy is completely different, and so far I've heard much less English than I did in my area of Jerusalem. I had great sushi at a very trendy restaurant, and if you hadn't heard the Hebrew, you would have thought you were in New York, with the hostess taking names and sharply dressed young people waiting for tables at the bar. I didn't see any men with beards and only a few with kippot, and there are tattoos, trendy haircuts, and modern shops everywhere. You might think it was a different country from Jerusalem, though a brief foray into traffic reminded me that Israel--at least when it comes to the level of aggression and noise of its drivers--is Israel, whether Jerusalem or Tel Aviv.

I am going to the beach tomorrow morning--I am excited to see the Mediterranean for the first time--and then I am meeting a colleague from school for shopping and a museum trip. It is, as I was promised, at least as hot here as it was in Jerusalem, and far more humid, so I'm guessing an hour at the beach will be quite enough. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the city tomorrow, particularly the architecture, for which it is famous. I will try to get some photos. Tomorrow is my last day here, and I fly home Wednesday, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to even post here before I leave. I hope to have the chance to share some final ideas about the trip at some point, though. In the meantime, I hope all of you at home are well and having a great summer!

The End is Getting Near

As the end of my time here approaches, things are speeding up--it feels like this last week is flying by. I've been busy with classes and friends and feel like I don't have a minute to spare. This morning I went back to the old city to pick up my jewelery at Hadaya--it turned out beautifully! While I was there, I snapped a few pictures. Below are photos of the jewelry store, other shots of the Old City, and finally a view of the city walls from right outside the Jaffa Gate:

Once we had picked up the jewelry, I walked through the Old City and up Jaffa to the main shopping area near Ben Yehuda. I had brunch in a cafe/bookstore and read for a while, then I windowshopped and eventually made my way to Machane Yehuda and the shuk. I felt like quite the Israeli wannabe doing all my shopping on Friday; the shuk, of course, was packed. I bought enough rugelach for an army, as I am invited out for every meal this Shabbat--nice for me! Each of my hosts will get desert, and I also got some rugelach for the neighbors who have been so kind to me. I ran into several of my classmates on my travels, ending with some aquaintences with whom I shared a cab back home. Jerusalem does feel like a small world now--it seems everywhere I go I see people I know or who know people I know. If the rest of the world has 6 degrees of separation, I think Jews have 2.

I dropped the rugelach at my neighbors'--they were happily surprised--and then returned home to clean up and get ready for Shabbat. I'm now going to have a nap and a shower and then off to kabbalat Shabbat services, dinner at friends', and then another round of shul and meals tomorrow. Not a bad life! Though I am missing home more and more each day and can't wait to speak to Elie, who returns from camp today.

At some point I hope to have time to share my impressions of the synagogues where I've prayed here--though I am worried that this blog may suffer in the next few days as I get packed up, head to Tel Aviv on Monday and then fly home Wednesday. In any case, I'll look forward to sharing more when I see you all soon. Love and Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem.

A Great Night

Is it Wednesday already? I'm not sure where the first half of the week went! Things seem to be moving quickly now that I'm only a week from the end of my stay. Last night was a really great night. Tuesday is my "early" day--I'm done with school at 4. I went home to do email and relax for a bit, and then two of my friends from school came over and we took a taxi to the Israel Museum, which is holding its annual wine fest this week. For 55 shekels (about $18), we got tickets that included admission to the museum and the wine fest.

The museum houses the Shrine of the Book--which includes the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Isaiah Scroll, and the Aleppo Codex. I'm guessing some of you know what these are and some don't, but I won't elaborate on the specifics here--see the link to the side for more info. In a nutshell, these are a variety of textual artifacts that are between 2,500 and 1,000 years old that either remain canonical Jewish texts (the Bible) or are parallel traditions that didn't make it into the canon but reflect what life looked like for Jews of the past. As you know, I love the books, so this was truly a shrine to me--it was absolutely amazing to see these manuscripts. They look so very much like the Torah scrolls we read today, and if you ever had any doubt that Judaism is a living tradition, seeing texts that have remained central and are preserved in exactly the same way for 2,000 years will surely make the point clearly. One of the teachers in my school is a Soferet, or scribe. She writes sacred texts today, in New Jersey, using the exact same words, lettering, and procedures that people used two millenia ago.

One of the women I was with made an amazing point. She said that for her, seeing the scrolls and the codex was more meaningful than visiting the Kotel, and as soon as she said it, I realized I felt the same way. I get why the remains of the Temple have meaning for us as Jews, and it certainly doesn't have to be an either/or situation, but if you are going to compare the Temple building versus our sacred texts in terms of importance, I'll take text any day.

The museum also includes a scale model of the 2nd Temple and Jerusalem, which was fascinating, though I couldn't help being reminded of Christmas-time train displays (which gave me an irreverent giggle)--I think that's just what scale models tend to be associated with for me. By the time we finished looking at the museum, it was after 8 pm, and it was absolutely beautiful. I felt terrible that I hadn't brought my camera--the evening, the view, all of it was spectacular. We went into the sculpture garden and were given wine glasses and then started walking around to the many wineries' stands. At each we were offered a small sample of whatever we wanted to try. I usually only like white wine, so I stuck with Sauvignon Blancs and the like, though I did try a few roses. Israeli wine seems to run to the sweet, and I had a few muscats that actually tasted like kool-aid, but for the most part, the wines were good. I thought of my father, who is very much a "wine guy"--I think he would have really enjoyed it. Though each sample was only an ounce or so, it does add up after a while, so by 10 we were ready to move along. We ended up back on Emek Refaim at a great restaurant called La Boca, where I had an amazing red snapper dish. I got home after 11 and fell into bed. It really was a perfect evening--great company, food, wine, and the wonderful museum exhibits. I was pretty tired this morning but it felt completely worth it.

We've been talking a lot here lately about observance, movements in Judaism, women's issues and the place of women in our tradition, and what brings us together and separates us as Jews. It gets pretty intense at times. My Talmud teacher argues that in the end, it is text that brings us together, and that learning text is a bridge to the tradition and to one another. She believes that whatever our commitments and observance, if we take the text seriously together, we're able to have a conversation. I'm not sure that this view is completely true--I think I could be the most learned scholar in the world and there would still be Orthodox men who would deny my right to discuss text with them. But I do think that this endeavor--both the microcosm of my three weeks engaged in study here as well as the macrocosm of Jewish education and commitment to text in general--are the key to our continuity and evolution as a people. It was an amazing experience to see scrolls and books made by people who lived so long ago and so differently from me but who are in every sense still my closest family. The fact that I can sit in the Beit Midrash (study hall), open up a Talmud, and actually converse with some of these old family members is an even more precious gift.

interesting link on my previous post

For an interesting take on dati vs. lo dati from the first native Israeli Conservative rabbi:
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=598

Dati or lo dati?

Not much is new with me today, so rather than narrate, I'll use this post to share some of my impressions of Israel--or more precisely, Jerusalem, and attitudes towards Judaism and Jewish practice. I had always been told about how the Orthodox right controls religious life in Israel--it's sort of an accepted fact, and though it seems like a bad idea in principle (particularyto one raised with the American religious/state separation--though the reality vs. ideal in our own country is another whole story), I honestly didn't ever think that much about it.



It doesn't take long here, though, for it to sink in that the implications are vast. On a practical level, you can't take a bus in Jerusalem on Shabbat. You can't buy milk, at least not easily--there are a few quickmart type places, but they're few and far between. The streets are virtually deserted except for people heading to or from shul. Really. Everything is closed. There are lots of other practical implications, but one of the most interesting to me is that no one here really seems to know what to make of non-Orthodox Judaism. In Israel, when people try to locate a person on their religious map, they ask one question--dati or lo dati? Religious or not religious? It's as if the map has two hemispheres, divided by an equator that is a solid black line, and you are either in one hemisphere or the other--that's it.



In one hemisphere is kashrut (keeping kosher), Shabbat observance, the mechitza (the wall that separates men and women when they pray) and gender segregation, Torah values, etc. In the other hemisphere is driving on Shabbat, bacon, and married women who don't cover their hair.



And so the Jews who take tradition and mitzvot seriously--keep kosher, go to synagogue, observe Shabbat (though perhaps not in the most traditional forms) but also have egalitarian religious services and women who wear pants and more integration of contemporary culture and women rabbis, if you can even imagine--well, there's no place on the map for them. Literally, no man's (or woman's?) land. The question dati or lo dati doesn't even admit the possibility that such Jews exist. Even though we do, of course.



Do I sound a little angry? I am. But I'm not really alone. A lot of Israelis are angry, too. At a chief rabbinate that seems at best out of touch with people's lives and at worst down-right sadistic and at a culture that denies people the right to express their religious commitments with any kind of public sanction. The (Orthodox) chief rabbinate here controls who can marry, divorce, convert, and get public funding for schools and synagogues. That's no small amount of power. What's heartening to me is that there are real rumblings against the system, and not just from secular Israelis. Orthodox people are starting to complain. And there are now a good strong handful of non-Orthodox congregations here. Though most were founded by expatriates, there are now many with large native Israeli contingents. On both Shabbat mornings that I have spent at my neighborhood Reform congregation there were b'nai mitzvah ceremonies. At one, the parents were clearly not Israeli-born, though they spoke excellent Hebrew and their son, the bar mitzvah, was born here. At the other, the bat mitzvah and her whole familiy were Israelis. At both, the kids read Torah and haftarah, gave d'vrei Torah (in Hebrew), and accepted the mantle of adult Jewish responsibility. In a congregation of men and women, praying together, committed to a liberal, egalitarian, committed Judaism.



I understand, too, that there are now several native-born Israelis at the Conservative and Reform rabbinical schools here. To me, this is the most hopeful sign, as it will take Israeli rabbis and Israelis themselves--not just expatriates--to figure out how liberal Judaism can really become a part of society here--I don't think an imported Reform, Reconstructionist, or Conservative movement will ever really take hold. But I do think something has to change, and I am hopeful that--in the tradition of our history--we will continue to evolve and adapt our commitments and expressions and that Judaism, which has alwasy looked different in each country and generation, will also look different here in the years to come.

More pictures, Shabbat, and food adventures

So on Friday morning I made plans to meet with Michal, who is the Israeli coordinator for our school's Israel programs. She lives near my apartment and so picked me up at about 9:30 and took me to her office, which is at the Fuchsburg Center, which is the center of Conservative Judaism in Israel. It houses a yeshiva, synagogue, and various offices, as well as housing for visiting groups. Our students stay here when they visit.

I got a grand tour, including the gardens and balconies; the two photos below are the view from one of the balconies. The center is lovely and is in a great location in the center of the city. My meetings with Michal and some of the other staff went well, and when we finished at about 11, Michal suggested that we walk to the shuk, which is Jerusalem's open air market. Michal loves it there and couldn't believe I hadn't been yet. I had not been so enthusiastic to visit, as everyone says it is very crowded and claustrophobic, particularly on Fridays. Michal's enthusiasm was contagious, though, so off we trekked for the 15 minute walk. It was, as always during mid-day, very hot and sunny.

Once we arrived at the shuk, we started at a juice stand. There are many of these in the area, and the one we stopped at was amazing--carrot, beet, celery, and all kinds of fruit, fresh-squeezed in any combination. I had a strawberry banana smoothie, and it was the best I've ever tasted. The smoothie stand was on the road that runs outside the shuk, and once fortified with our wonderful drinks, we went in.

Here are the picture of the inside of the shuk. As you can see, food is out in the open, and I got to see several people handle challot (breads) and other merchandise as they shopped. People also help themselves to all manner of snacks; Michal assured me that although this isn't legal, no one is punished for this behavior, and in true Israeli fashion, explained that the mark-up on all the food takes into account the grazing.

It was very, very crowded and somewhat odoriforous--all the raw meat and fish, no doubt. I had some snacks--these fried cigar-shaped things stuffed with potato, and I bought cheese, smoked fish, a challah, and some pastries for my Shabbat lunch. The pastries and challah came from Marzipan, a very well-known bakery, and were incredibly delicious. However, full body armor would have been helpful in my acquisition of these treats--there was literally trampling in the bakery stall as I waited for my purchase to be rung up. After only a short while, I was ready to leave the shuk, and I walked out and down Jaffa Road. It looked a little bit familiar to me, and so I decided to wander. In fact, a short walk brought me down past King George Street to the area I had wandered with my friends last week. I couldn't resist a quick walk past one of my favorite sites so far in Jerusalem, the Red Heifer Bistro. For those of you not up on your Bible, the joke may not seem very funny, but it just tickles me that people would name a restaurant after the special temple sacrifice. Here's the photo:

After snapping this, I walked a bit more, had a quick lunch, and then took a cab back to my apartment.

I had a very nice Shabbat--Friday night services at one synagogue, Shabbat morning at another, Shabbat lunch at Pardes, and seudat shlishi/havdalah (the last meal and end of Shabbat) at the home of one of my teachers. I could write a lot more about all of that, but I will save my synagogue impressions and other details for another time. Instead, I'll finish bringing you up to date--today is a school day, and I've been here at Pardes pretty much all day, except for a trip across the street for lunch and then around the corner after to take a look at a nearby Judaica store. But it's lunch I want to talk about now.

A few classes ago, our Ulpan was discussing various Israeli foods, and a food I had never heard of came up--shakshooka. What the heck is shakshooka, you may ask? Well, my teacher and a classmate explained, it's a sort of soup/stew of tomatoes with poached eggs in it. Sounds great, right? Well, today we went across the street to the felafel place, and there was a sort of vat of something, and I asked what it was, and what do you know--shakshooka!

Someone else from Pardes was in front of me, and she said it was great and ordered it, so I went for it. Here's the deal--the felafel guy takes a big lafa (kind of a burrito shell type thing--you can get it on pita, too, I think) and puts in all kinds of fixings you like--I had onions, hummus, hot sauce, the shakshooka itself, and french fries. That's right--french fries! They call them "chips" here, like in England, and they go right into this wrap with everything else. I didn't go for the pickles, Israeli salad, eggplant, or other stuff, but believe me, you could put about 20 things into this wrap. Then the guy wraps it all up, wraps paper around it, and then wraps it in a plastic bag, too. Because it's messy. Really messy. Really, really messy. But it was delicious. So, I am now officially a shakshooka fan. I have Ulpan in a few minutes, so I have to finish up now--love to all of you!