Thoughts during Eicha

I'm home from Israel now, but here and there I might continue to use this blog to post Judaism and Israel related musings. On that note, here's something I wrote yesterday during the fast day of Tisha B'Av, commemorating the destruction of the 1st and 2nd Temples.

I’ve never really connected to Tisha B’Av. The first time I observed it was the summer in high school when I was in Jerusalem. I sat listening to Eicha with my bare feet on the Jerusalem stones at the Kotel, and I thought, “Here we all are, a giant community at the Kotel, what are we crying about?” That same year, my Haredi cousin Yaakov gave a d’var on why we mourn for the Temple—it’s not the just the physical Beis HaMigdash we mourn and want to return to, he said, but the harmonious community and perfect observance that existed in the times of the Temple. But I knew that things weren’t so great during Temple times, like Yaakov described—weren’t Jews participating in idol worship and sacrificing their children to Molech? The most I ever related to Tisha B’Av was the summer I was in Tanzania, the only Jew in a place where most people didn’t even know what a Jew was.

So this year, I was surprised that as I sat on the floor to listen to Eicha last night, I suddenly connected on a powerful level. Maybe it’s because of Israel’s growing international isolation, or because I just spent a year in Israel becoming acutely aware of intrareligious tensions and the frictions and fissures in Jewish society, I don’t know. I’m pretty skeptical of mashiach and the rebuilding of the Temple—but if there is a mashiach, I don’t think we’ll merit his or her visit any time soon. Imagine the Temple rebuilt—what sort of prayer service would we hold there? (The mechitza question barely scratches the surface.) The idea of all Jews coming to worship in the same place sounds like a joke, a recipe for fighting and violence.

While I don’t believe that my cousin’s picture-perfect description of Temple times ever existed, I realized last night that it represents the ideal, God’s original vision for what could have happened. And so Tisha B’Av became, for me, a way of mourning just how far we’ve fallen short.

Our tradition teaches us that Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinat chinam (baseless hatred) among Jews. This Tisha B’Av, when I think about sinat chinam and the destruction of Jerusalem, I fast because:

· a conversion bill is currently under consideration in Israel that delegitimizes thousands of Jews-by-choice and non-Orthodox Jews, denies them rights in Israel, and threatens to alienate Diaspora Jewry

· a woman was attacked in a Tel Aviv bus station this past May by another Jew for having marks from tefillin on her arm

· of all of the women (and men) who are victims of mevasseret get (agunot)

· 30% of Jews and over 60% of Arabs in Jerusalem live under the poverty line

· 2 women have been arrested for carrying a Torah at the Kotel, and women praying out loud as a group at the Kotel have met verbal abuse and chairs thrown at them

· of the increasing isolation and criticism of Israel from the rest of the world, and Israel’s actions which have led to that isolation and criticism

· some Jews think it’s ok to kick Palestinians out of their homes in Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem

· of all of the frustrations my Peace and Conflict classmates expressed on Yom Yerushalayim; how even as we celebrate a “united Jerusalem,” it is so far from being reunited (there’s segregated bus lines, only half of the city gets trash pickup, residents of different faiths don’t interact, etc etc…)

· Jews in Hebron can teach their children to throw rocks at non-Jewish children, and be respected by some other Jews

· Israel is a top participant in human tracking and sex trade

· many Jews today reject Judaism without learning enough to know what they’re rejecting—not that I think every Jew should embrace Judaism necessarily, but I do believe people should make informed decisions

· of the amount of scorn, anger, and hatred expressed by Jews of all denominations towards Jews of other denominations

No religion or people is perfect, but there are a lot of places we as the Jewish people need to improve. I’m sure you may have more issues to add to my list. So last night, when I said the words, “Turn toward us, O Lord, and we will turn to you; Renew our days as in days of old” at the end of Eicha, I thought not of returning to the times of the Temple, but of working to improve the shortcomings of our own communities and the Jewish people as a whole.

The Jerusalem "Miss List"

[Random fun fact I just discovered: the Brussels airport has Greek Orthodox, Protestant, and Catholic chapels, a mosque, a synagogue (complete with an ark and a full set of Talmud Bavli!), and a Humanist counselor. :-)]

Every time I leave a place, I come up with a list of the things I’ll miss, and the things I won’t. I start doing it subconsciously as I’m mentally preparing to leave, and then once I realize I’m doing it I sit down and consciously add to the list. To end my blog, I thought I’d share the list for Jerusalem that I’ve come up with over the past couple weeks:

What I will miss
• The falafel—where else can I grab a yummy and sort-of healthy lunch for only 10 shekels (<$3)?
• The prayer options—approximately 12 synagogues/minyanim within a 15 minute walk
• Being in a place where even the security guard at the bank is saying psalms/learning the Torah portion (I couldn’t tell which) on a Friday morning
• The sense of כלל ישראל(community of the Jewish people); the feeling that complete strangers genuinely care about my well being
• Having so such easy access to so much Jewish knowledge
• The tomatoes, and the peppers, and the hummus
• The mangos, passionfruit and plums in the summer; the pomellos in the winter
• Speaking Hebrew
• My hevrutas (study partners)/hevruta learning in general
• The view from the Tayelet (a park by my home)

What I won’t miss
• The cats—the ones that jump out of dumpsters as I walk by, and especially the wailing and yowling ones who are fighting/mating at night
• The lack of diversity—I rarely interact with non-Jews
• Doing sponga (mopping, Israeli-style, with a squeegee and rags)— it’s so labor intensive!
• The friction between haredim and datim and hilonim
• Being instantly labeled by what I wear (I try not to wear hats and skirts on the same day lest I appear modern Orthodox and married)
• The bureaucracy and inefficiency— “Hello, welcome to our 24 hour service; we are now closed” (true story), how bills don’t come regularly and everything takes forever
• Living in a (self-)segregated city; separate bus lines, separate neighborhoods
• Waiting in line at the grocery store

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I've now just posted these last two posts (written in the Ben Gurion and Brussels airports) from the Jet Blue terminal in JFK, where I'm waiting for my flight to Syracuse in another 2 hours. It's really hard to believe I'm in New York. But on the other hand, I look around at the people in the airport, and I know instantly that I'm not in Israel (it's some combination of diversity, style of dress, and lack of Hebrew that does it, I think). Hello, USA.

Bethlehem

I’m writing this from the Ben Gurion airport, where duty-free prices are in dollars, almost everyone speaks to me in English, and (except for a disproportionate number of seminary girls), it already feels like I’m not in Israel any more.

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Yesterday, my friend Yael and I went to Bethlehem. I’d been there when my dad visited a few weeks ago and wanted some more time to explore; Yael wanted a chance to visit Bethlehem before she makes aliyah (becomes an Israeli citizen) and is prohibited from entering Palestinian areas of the West Bank.

We took a Palestinian bus ten minutes south from my apartment, where we got off and walked through the checkpoint into Bethlehem. Immediately on the other side, it feels like another country—cab drivers accosted us and vendors shouted about their wares in Arabic. We stop to ask directions and are greeted with, “Welcome to Palestine.”

First, we walk along the separation/security/apartheid wall/fence/barrier (pick your choice of words, though here it was most definitely a concrete wall). The checkpoint where we entered Bethlehem is right next to Rachel (the matriarch)’s Tomb, a Jewish holy site, so the wall here makes an indented bubble into the city in order that Jews can visit the tomb and still be on the Israeli side. We walk along the Bethlehem side, which is covered graffiti—some of it beautiful, some of it mundane, some of it profound and moving. One restaurant directly across from the wall has taken advantage of its location by spraypainting its menu on the wall. I observe how that the wall goes right up against Palestinian homes, but not against the Israeli settlements we see in the distance. A man driving by with his daughter sees us photographing the wall, and asks us what we think of it and where we’re from. He responds, “I’m from here, from Bethlehem. We are caged; they caged us with this wall.”

We made our way to the Old City of Bethlehem, next to the Church of the Nativity, where we wandered around for a bit before entering the church. We pushed our way into the hot and crowded underground grotto where Jesus was born in a manger. I am struck by the peaceful quiet inside the church—even in the crowded grotto, people are quiet and respectful of one another and of the space.

Back outside, we see several posters of militant-looking men holding guns. They remind me of the photographs I’ve heard that suicide bombers take (though I haven’t verified that this is actually done) before they go blow themselves up. We ask a few people about them—and are told that they are pictures of Bethlehem residents who were killed when Israeli troops entered Bethlehem. After they were killed, posters were put up of them looking militant to raise public opinion that they were martyrs who were fighting for the Palestinian people. I’m not sure what to think.

We take a cab back to the checkpoint, where this time we wait in line for probably a half an hour before being ushered through with our American passports. Back on the Israeli side, we decide to visit Rachel’s tomb. We're not allowed in on foot, but catch a tremp (hitchhike) with an ultra-orthodox couple. After passing through the gate, we drive for a few minutes on a road that is surrounded on both sides by concrete walls (no graffiti on this side); I feel incredibly uncomfortable. Inside the tomb building, Yael points out that women are praying facing the grave, despite the clear marker on the wall indicating the direction to Jerusalem. I decide to pray, and take out my siddur (prayerbook), but I stare at the words without reading them. I think about the concrete wall on either side of me and the people who live on the other side of it; about the women who seem (to me) to be praying directly to Rachel herself. The tradition tells us that Rachel is crying because her children (the Jews) have been expelled from Israel; I wonder if now she is crying because of how her children and their neighbors have failed to get along. This doesn’t feel like a place in which to pray. I stare blankly at my siddur again and then put it back in my bag.

Throughout the afternoon, Yael and I discussed how close Bethlehem is to Jerusalem (less than 2 miles, or about twice as far from my apartment as I am from Yael’s), and how far away it feels. A combination of factors—that there’s a concrete wall in between, that separate Arab buses go there, and that Israelis don’t and can’t visit there—set up a mental barrier in addition to the physical one that makes Bethlehem seem much further away than it really is.

סגירה Closing

The more of my friends who leave, the more it's finally sinking in that I'm leaving.

Yesterday morning, I closed my bank account. As corny as it sounds, it made me surprisingly sad. I remember how opening a bank account at the beginning of the year was so exciting, and felt like a real, concrete step towards living here. Closing it made it really feel like the end.

It's especially hard to leave Israel, a place that so many people believe is the Jewish homeland. In the same way that at the beginning of the year, my bank teller (a complete stranger) wanted to make sure I was settling in ok and that my apartment-mates were nice and that I had where to go for Shabbat meals, complete strangers are genuinely sad to hear that I'm leaving. Every time I mention to an Israeli that I'm going back to the States, I have to justify why I'm leaving and why I don't want to make aliyah (become an Israeli citizen).

All three bank tellers I talked to yesterday morning said it's חבל (a waste/shame) that I'm leaving and asked if I'm coming back.

And "אם אשכחך" is still my brain's background music, for the past week and a half. Only two more days.

Only in Jerusalem

Some anecdotes of my past few weeks:

1. Shavuot. This is the holiday in which we celebrate and commemorate God's giving of the Torah to the Jewish people on Mt. Sinai. It's also one of three holidays (Pesach/Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot) on which Jews were obligated to visit and bring offerings to the Temple before it was destroyed. It's traditional to stay up all night studying Torah, and then between 4 and 5am, thousands of Jews pour into the Old City to go to the Kotel/Western Wall. I headed there too, but a little late--unfortunately by the time I got close to the Old City around 5:45, few people were still heading in, and some were even heading out. It was kind of impressive to see so many people at the Kotel, but not exactly the best environment to pray in (not to mention on the women's side it was impossible to be part of a prayer group or to hear the megillah read). So, I prayed the first part of morning services there, and then headed to Robinson's arch nearby where there was an egalitarian group and I could actually be part of a community.

2. I stop to ask an older, religious-looking lady on the street for directions. She doesn't know, but she asks:
"את מתחתנת? Are you getting married?"
Me: "לא. No."
"למה לא? Why not?"
"Because I haven't found anyone to marry yet."
"Do you want me to find you someone to marry?"
"No, thanks."
"How old are you, 25?"
"No, 23."
"Oh, that's ok then. You still have time." (pause) "Are you sure you don't want me to look for someone for you?"
"No, that's ok. I'll look for a husband on my own, thanks."

3. Yesterday morning, on the bus, the man across from me is holding an adorable 6-month-old baby. A woman in the aisle stops to berate him for taking a baby that age on a bus without a stroller, or something like that, I don't completely understand. He smiles, and thanks her for the advice, she moves on. Moments like this are common in Israeli society, and I never quite know what to make of them. Is it that Israelis are pushy and nosy and interfering? (Taboo personal questions in the States, such as "how much do you pay for rent?" are completely commonplace here.) Or is it just that Israelis genuinely care for each other and want to look out for one another? Probably its a bit of both.

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In other news, Pardes has ended, both of my roommates have left, and I myself leave a week from today. There've been a lot of goodbyes in the past few days. I wish I had something profound, or at least interesting, to say about the end of the year, but I don't really. Somehow it still hasn't hit me yet...though every so often I'm able to realize it a tiny bit, and "אם אשכחך" (Psalm 137:5, "If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand wither") has been going around my head a lot recently.

Cohanim to the Left, Women to the Right: Tzfat/Mt. Meron on Lag B'Omer

Have you ever...

Sung Shabbat songs in a old, empty cistern with incredible acoustics?
Ridden on a crowded bus full of charedim, with yeshiva bachors drinking vodka and singing niggunim the whole way?
Been somewhere where there were separate sidewalks for men, women, and cohanim?
Ridden on a segregated bus (women in the back)?

These are some of the highlights of my weekend in Tzfat. Unfortunately my camera and my computer are currently in an fight and not speaking to one another, so I can't upload pictures--hopefully I'll be able to put them up another time. This post is full of Jew-jargon, so I'm putting a glossary at the bottom.

On Thursday night, I went with about 20 other Pardes students to a program at Livnot, in Tzfat (Safed in English). On Friday afternoon, we saw a parade with an ancient Torah in honor of the holiday of Lag B'Omer (more on that later.) A crowd of people surrounded the Torah and slowly danced it down the street, with musicians and a car blaring music. People would go up to the Torah and tie scarves onto it--I have no idea why--and so the Torah was completely covered in scarves.

Friday night, I was looking forward to Kabbalat Shabbat in Tzfat, the city in which the Kabbalat Shabbat service was written, but I was disappointed. We were staying in the Old City, which was overflowing with charedim (especially hasidim) who had come for Lag B'Omer. I've never seen so many streimels in my life. A few of us went to an outdoor Kabbalat Shabbat service happening in the square. It was exciting to be praying communally with the largest group of Jews I've ever prayed with...except that on the women's side, not a lot of praying was happening. Most women were talking, I couldn't hear the shaliach tzibur (prayer leader), and it was getting too dark to see my siddur (prayer book). So, after Kabbalat Shabbat, I gave up, wandered around in a futile attempt to find a synagogue that didn't have people spilling out into the streets, and finally went back to Livnot to finish praying on my own.

Saturday I synagogue-hopped. I went to shacharit at the Berav ("Carlebach") shul, and then met up with a couple of girls to walk to the Hungarian shul in a different part of the city where we were meeting our lunch host family, where I prayed musaf. Our lunch was nice and our hosts were very sweet. They had a fun family custom of eating ice cream and dessert first, then completely switching over the table to serve the meat meal. (Having dairy after meat isn't kosher, but dairy before meat as fine as long as its not the same meal.) That afternoon I went to mincha at a famous Sephardi synagogue, which was beautiful.

Saturday afternoon I went for a walk with several friends to the Tzfat forest and around the city. We visited the citadel, which had a great view. There was a grate in the ground, and the sounds of men singing in the cistern below were rising up from it. We went down into the cistern, and sang, too. The accoustics were amazing (it reminded me of singing in the dome of St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal and into the well in San Gimignano, Italy with the Ithaca Children's Choir). On our way out of the cistern, there was a whole group of teenage boys in long black coat-robes and short pants with white tights (kneesocks?) who asked if there were any other women inside before they entered--many ultra-orthodox men follow kol isha, the prohibition against hearing women (other than their wives) singing.

Saturday night was Lag B'Omer. Literally, it means the 33rd (the letters ל"ג, lag, stand for the number 33) day of the Omer, which is a count of 50 days between the holidays of Passover and Shavuot (the "Festival of Weeks" in English). The 33rd day of the Omer is celebrated for two reasons--according to the Talmud, it is the day a divine plague that had been killing Rabbi Akiva's students stopped, and it is also observed as the anniversary of the RaShBI's death (RaShBI is an acronym for Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai). The RaShBi is buried on Mt Meron, and thousands of Charadim visit his grave on Lag B'Omer. It is also customary to light bonfires--as the story goes, the RaShBI was hiding from the Romans in a cave, learning Torah by a bonfire. In order to keep his location hidden from the Romans, local kids lit fires in all of the caves, so the Romans couldn't tell which cave was the RaShBI's.

I went to Mt. Meron. Even the bus ride there was crazy--it was packed with people, and a group of American yeshiva guys were passing around shots of vodka and singing songs the whole way. Some pretty non-traditional nigguns (melodies), too: one that sounded like a Russian drinking song, one to the tune of the French national anthem, and my favorite, to the tune of "She'll be comin' round the mountain,"--"We'll be goin' to the Beis HaMigdash when Mashiach comes!"

Mt. Meron itself felt like a giant music festival, except where everyone was Charedi. According to news sources, there were 300,000 people there between the end of Shabbat and 3am, and a total 500,000 by the end of Lag B'Omer the next day. And yes, there were separate sidewalks for men, women, and Cohanim (to avoid the gravesite). There were giant bleachers set up of men watching the bonfire--entire rows of men dancing arm-in-arm on bleachers. I didn't go into the grave itself (too crowded for me), but a friend who was on the men's side said he had to cross his arms out in front of his chest so as to be able to breathe.

That night, back at Livnot, I could see the whole top of the mountain from a distance, all lit up by bonfires.

The next day, I had planned to take the bus from Tzfat to Jerusalem, but there weren't any buses; the roads were closed to everything but Meron traffic. Instead I had to go back to Meron (in jeans this time), where I took a Haredi bus to Jerusalem. The bus was a segregated bus, with men in front and women in back. I ended up sitting on the border of the men's and women's sections, and it turned out that the last person who needed a seat was a man and the only seat open was next to me. To my surprise, (instead of rearranging the men's section to put a kid next to me,) he took the seat. To my even greater surprise, he started a conversation with me. He was an American yeshiva student about my age; we talked about how I like learning gemarra (in very Orthodox circles, women don't study it), what I think of Obama's health care plan, and Obama himself (Yehuda liked him better than Bush, but wouldn't elaborate). Halfway to Jerusalem, the bus stopped in an open field-turned-rest stop that was filled with busloads of Charedim--an ordinary rest stop would not have been capable of supporting all of the Meron-bound traffic.

All-in-all, quite a surreal experience. After my 3.5 hour bus ride, it took a couple hours to adjust back to non-charedi Jerusalem life.

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Glossary:
Kabbalat Shabbat: a special service on Friday night to welcome Shabbat, before the regular evening service
charedim: Ultra-Orthodox Jews
hassidim: one part of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, with many sects
streimel: a type of fur hat some Haredim wear (see the wickepedia link here)
shacharit: the morning prayer service
mussaf: an additional service for Shabbat after the morning service
mincha: afternoon service
Sephardi: branch of Judaism from primarily Spanish and Arabic speaking countries; as opposed to Ashkenazim (like me and most American Jews), whose families came from Eastern Europe.
Beis (or Beit) haMigdash: the Temple, as in the Temple in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount; in this case referring to the 3rd Temple which will supposedly be rebuilt when the Messiah comes.
Mashiach: the Messiah
Cohanim: Jewish priests, descendants of Aaron, Moses's brother in the Bible. They still have some special functions in the Jewish community today, and are supposed to avoid dead bodies/graves.

Some (very) random reflections

I still need to write about the second half of my Passover break, but I wanted to share with you some very brief and very random reflections I've had over the past few weeks.
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A few days after Passover break, my hevruta Naomi and I got through a relatively easy amud (one side of a page of gemarra) in one 3.5 hour study session, and pretty much understood most of it. We felt very proud and accomplished...until we realized that if we were to do Daf Yomi,* it would be a full time job. (And, we were using a Steinzaltz.**)
*Daf Yomi is a practice of studying one daf (a full page of gemarra, front and back) every day. A person doing Daf Yomi takes 7 years to complete the entire Talmud.
**the Steinzaltz is sort of a beginner's edition of the Talmud, with vowels and punctuation, extra commentary, and translations into Hebrew when the Aramaic gets tricky.
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A couple weeks ago, there was a duststorm, or maybe a sandstorm, I don't know. Outside, it was hot and windy, and the wind was hot. It felt pretty uncanny to have this wind blowing and have it not cool me off in the slightest. From the Pardes Bet Midrash on the third floor (4th if you count floors American-style) everything outside looked white. Like fog, except you could tell it wasn't fog.
Just another reminder that we're practically in the desert.
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Every time I walk into a mall or supermarket and the security guard checking my bag asks "יש לך נשק?" "Do you have a weapon?", my initial reaction is still to snort and think, "And if I had one, would I tell you?" As an American, my association with security checks is limited to airports, and a person attempting to carry a gun into a mall is probably concealing it--so it seemed to me that the security guard's question was a weird one. Until one day I realized that in this country, a lot of people carry guns; mostly soldiers in uniform with their uzzis, but every so often you see a random civilian with a gun on his belt. As strange as it seems to me, "Yes, and here's my ID" is probably a perfectly legitimate response to "יש לך נשק?"
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Two weeks ago, I went with my friend Miriam to her volunteer placement, an Ethiopian absorption community in Mevaseret Zion. Ethiopian immigrants live in the absorption community for the first two years that they are in Israel; after that they are expected to integrate into Israeli society. They often face discrimination, have low employment rates and high school dropout rates.
It is also interesting to note that because of concern about their Jewish status, Ethiopian immigrants are required to convert upon moving to Israel. Because conversions in Israel are controlled by the (Orthodox) Israeli Rabbinate, the Ethiopian immigrants are expected to live an Orthodox lifestyle, and their children must attend Orthodox religious schools. It was also interesting, as Miriam put it, "to see who reaches out to this community" (and who doesn't). The majority of the volunteers--aside from a few Pardes students and some Hebrew Union College students--are from religious youth movements.
I had a good time playing with 3 of the kids from Miriam's "family." It turns out that my Hebrew is basically pretty sufficient when talking to 5-year olds, at least. I even got my hair braided and tried my first injera.

Rewind to Pesach Break--Take 1: the North

So now that life is settling into its regular rhythm again, its time to back up and tell you about my Pesach break.

Pardes had a 3-day tiyul in the Golan (the little "finger" sticking up into Lebanon and Syria in the northern part of Israel). It was beautiful, and full of wildflowers--most of the year the Golan is completely brown, so our tour guides kept reminding us how lucky we were to see everything in full bloom. Like the last tiyul, it was so nice to be outdoors for several hours a day, in breathtaking scenery. (pictures: Iris is a rare Golan Iris, with a turtle in the background. City on a hill is the ancient city of Gamla. The rest is hiking scenery.)



























































After the tiyul, I traveled around the Galilee (northern) region for several days. Natalie (one of my roomates) and I went to Tiberias for a night; its the city where Jesus is believed to have walked on water, and where the Rambam (Maimonides) and several Tannaim (rabbis from the Mishnaic period) are supposedly buried. Visiting these graves was certainly more meaningful now that I have taken a class on the Rambam and have spent a year studying the Mishna. (I'm pretty sure when visited these graves on the Birthright trip I led last year, I didn't know what a Tanna was.)

Natalie and I then met up with our friend Emily, and traveled to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, where we spent Shabbat. Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu is part of the religious kibbutz movement, which means that unlike on other kibbutzim, most of the kibbutz members are modern orthodox and keep Shabbat. We spent most of our time with the kibbutz volunteers and ulpan (Hebrew program participants). It was nice to get a glimpse into Kibbutz life...it reminded me a lot of camp, except with families.

Saturday night we headed to Haifa, and Sunday our friend Marcie joined us and my grandfather's cousin Dina showed us all around the city. I really liked Haifa, it's beautiful! The city is on a mountain, with the ocean at the bottom and the Baha'i gardens right in the middle of the city. It was also really refreshing to be in a city that's not Jerusalem--this could be my naivete at being a visitor for just a day, but I felt like Israelis and Arabs and Baha'i volunteers were all just going about their daily lives and it was no big deal, without the tension and self-segregation that occurs in Jerusalem.

Monday, we headed to Rosh HaNikra, limestone grottoes/caves carved out of the rock by the ocean, and then to Akko (Acre), where we wandered around the old city. Tuesday, we took a tour of the Baha'i gardens and went for a walk in Mt. Carmel national park, then headed back to Jerusalem! (Pictures: Baha'i gardens, Haifa bay, Rosh HaNikra, inside and outside of mosque in Akko, funky flowers in Mt. Carmel park, Khan al-Umdan, Akko)

יום הזיכרון ויום העצמאות! Days of Rememberance and Independence

This is spring in Israel: Passover, Yom HaShoah a week later, then Memorial and Independence days. These last two are right in a row; I found it to be kind of intense and quite an emotional roller coaster. Here are some brief reflections from Monday and Tuesday (pic is the front of my apt building all decked out for Independence Day):

Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day)
Sunday night, I went with a group of Pardes students to visit Ein Prat, an Israeli (I mean with Israeli students) post-college institution somewhat similar to Pardes. We began the evening with a class, on "The Torah of Babylonia vs the Torah of Israel". My hevruta (study partner) was Israeli, and I'm proud to say we hevruted (ok, so that's not really a verb) almost entirely in Hebrew. After dinner, we all gathered to stand for a memorial siren marking the start of Yom HaZikaron, and then had a small ceremony in honor of Israeli soldiers and civilians who have lost their lives. Part of the ceremony involved reading a list of names, all of whom were friends or family of people present, and then one of the Ein Prat students told a personal story of a friend from his unit he had lost. In a country where army service is mandatory, nearly everyone has lost someone.

Monday morning at 11am, Pardes gathered in the Beit Midrash for the sounding of the second siren of the day. This time, I was standing next to a window, and I watched cars, taxis, pedestrians--religious and secular and even a haredi-looking young man--all stop. I watched them stand, heads bowed, and I felt a tremendous sense of disconnect. Every single one of them has lost a father, husband, sister, friend, daughter, brother. It felt like a national, communal experience which I did not share. Then the siren stopped, and people instantaneously resumed their daily lives, got into their cars, began honking their horns, the frozen man with his groceries sprung into movement, bag swinging in hand.

We then had a panel of חיילים בודדים, or lone soldiers; in this case three Americans who had moved to Israel and served in the army, leaving their families at home. One of them made a point which particularly struck me; he said: "I imagine that many of you this year are searching. Figuring out who you are Jewishly, maybe considering making aliyah, starting families, searching for someone to start a family with. Whatever goals you are fulfilling this year, it is possible because of the soldiers who put your goals ahead of their own, who risked their lives for Israel." Obvious though it might be, it was an important reminder that however often I sometimes disagree with the actions of the Israeli army...well, I, Pardes, and the State of Israel wouldn't be here without it.

After the panel, I went to a class in which the dean's son, Shai, talked about moral issues in the army. He stressed that it is impossible to describe or prepare for what it is like to have to make split-second decisions under fire. He also gave examples of several ethical questions he personally faced serving in the war in Gaza last year; stories of seeing terrorists who he'd just watched fire a rocket into Sderot escape in an ambulance (he didn't fire at an ambulance), of seeing a Hamas gunman--while firing at him--pick up a schoolkid with a backpack to use as a shield as he ran through the range of Shai's soldiers (they didn't shoot, of course). Shai spoke incredibly eloquently, and reminded me of the complexity and the human element of the things we talk and debate about so theoretically.

That afternoon, we went on a tour of Har Herzl, the military cemetery. We could see the remains--flower bouquets, yardzeit candles--of the crowds who had been there at 11am for the siren, when every grave had a soldier stationed beside it and the cemetery was filled with families. We began with memorials of fighters who had lost their lives during the war of Independence and in the early years of Israel. It was very moving, especially only a week after Yom HaShoah, to look at the birthplaces on the stones and realize that many of these 1948 fighters were probably survivors of the Holocaust. From there, we moved through the cemetery, stopping at the grave of the Pardes secretary's brother, and ending with the newest part of the cemetery. This was the busiest part of the cemetery, and for me the most intense, with families and friends gathered in groups, crying, talking, remembering, singing. Here, the graves were only a few years old, and the men and women buried here--were they still alive--would have been more or less my age.

Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day)--62 years!

After Har Herzl, we had about 2 hours to mentally prepare for Yom HaAtzmaut. Like I said, and emotional roller coaster. The day (evening, since Jewish days begin at sundown) began with ceremonies happening in basically every neighborhood, followed by fireworks, parties, concerts...

All of downtown basically turned into one giant party. I went to Ben Yehuda St, the outdoor pedestrian mall, which was packed, with a DJ on Hillel St. People with giant blue and white blow up hammers, spraying each other with silly string, cotton candy, Israeli flags. After a pause to watch the fireworks, I and friends headed to the party in the Machane Yehuda shuk (produce market), which was even more packed, with a DJ and a bar set up in the middle of the shuk!

Then to Kikar Safra, where there was Israeli dancing. On our way, a giant block of yeshiva boys with black pants and white shirts and linked arms came dancing down the center of Yaffo street. It sounded like they were singing "Kfar Etzion Coev" (Kfar Etzion is in Pain)--earlier that day at Har Herzl, I had learned that Kfar Etzion, now part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, had actually been a Jewish settlement pre-1948. It was destroyed a day before Israeli Independence, and is apparently part of why they picked the day they did for Yom HaZikaron.

Kikar Safra was filled with both dancers and observers. I didn't know any of the dances, but it was fun to watch 17-year olds, 40-year olds, 80 year olds, men and women, all start dancing together as each song started. Apparently the dancing went until 3:30am. More yeshiva bachers on Yaffo St on our way out--happier songs this time. On our way home that night, we passed Gan HaPaamon (Liberty Bell Park), which was full of tents and people camping out for the night.

Tuesday was much more low key, but the entire city smelled like barbecue.

Yom HaShoah, Part II: Forgiveness

I also want to share a conversation my Peace and Conflict class had yesterday afternoon in preparation for Yom HaShoah. Our class was on the topic of forgiveness and reconciliation. We discussed the story Simon Wiesenthal shares in his book, The Sunflower. In a concentration camp, Wiesenthal was pulled out of work one day by a nurse who took him into a hospital room in which a Catholic SS officer is dying. The SS soldier begins explaining his life story to Wiesenthal, and then confesses to the atrocities he committed, the houses he burned down, the children he shot, ultimately asking Wiesenthal to forgive him. Wiesenthal, having listened for probably 2 hours, walks out of the room without responding.

But Wiesenthal's book doesn't end there. He ends his story by asking fifty-three people of different faiths; theologians, clergy, philosophers, etc the question, "What would you have done in my place?" and publishes their responses at the end of the book. My class read several Jewish sources (from Talmud, halacha, and liturgy) on the topic of forgiveness, and each person read a different response or two to Wiesenthal's question.

In our discussion, we read raised a lot of questions, among them:
-Can a person forgive on behalf of others?
-Can a person apologize on behalf of others?
-Can a person forgive unconditionally, i.e. whether or not the other person has apologized?
-Forgiving the person vs the act; forgiving the murderer vs the murder.
-What is the connection between time/distance and ability to forgive? Are we, the third generation after, in a particular position to forgive the Nazis (because we have that distance)? Are we, the third generation after, incapable of/unqualified to forgive the Nazis (because we have that distance)?

We also read an article* by Yehudith Aurbach. Aurbach claims that forgiveness is "basically a spiritual-moral phenomenon" and therefore that religious-cultural context shapes our understanding of forgiveness. It is more difficult, she argues, for us to reconcile with a party who has a different religious-cultural understanding of forgiveness than we do.

According to Aurbach, "forgiveness is one of the cornerstones of Christian theology," because Christians are supposed to model themselves after Jesus, "who forgave his enemies on the Cross without even waiting for them to ask for forgiveness." This is in contrast to Judaism, which "has stricter rules regarding forgiveness. Forgiveness can be asked only from the victim himself, and only the victim can forgive...Without Teshuva [repentance] there is no forgiveness." The Islamic approach, she argues, is more similar to the Jewish one: "Tawba (repentance), like its Jewish equivalent Teshuva...is considered a necessary condition for ghufran - forgiveness granted by God to the repenting sinner."

Aurbach claims that these different religious-cultural approaches influenced the different responses to Wiesenthal's question. All of the Jewish respondents, she said, agreed that Wiesenthal was right in not answering; all of those who said they would have forgiven the Nazi were Catholic or Buddhist. She quotes one respondent who said, "My whole instinct is to forgive. Perhaps that is because I am a Catholic priest...I sit in a confessional for hours and forgive everyone who comes in..."

I found Aurbach's article incredibly though-provoking, partly because of my interest in interfaith work, and partly because I fall exactly into her description of the Jewish approach to forgiveness. To me, one can only forgive on behalf of oneself. The idea of a Catholic priest forgiving someone (particularly for a sin he/she committed against a fellow person) has never made sense to me. Had the SS officer asked me/Wiesenthal to forgive specific crimes he had committed against me personally, I have no idea how I would have responded, but it would at least have been a question I could consider. But to ask me/Wiesenthal to forgive him for the crimes he committed against other Jews, is completely and absolutely out of my capability.

And, so I'm wondering, what do you think, especially in light of Aurbach's article? I'm especially interested in hearing from my non-Jewish friends, and from those of you with different perspectives than what Aurbach describes as the Jewish approach to forgiveness. Please comment!

* Aurbach, Yehudith (2004). The Role of Forgiveness in Reconciliation. In Bar-Siman-Tov, Y. (Ed.). From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, [p. 158-160] The Religious-Cultural Context

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Rememberance Day, Part I

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Rememberance day. At 10am, all of Pardes gathered in the Beit Midrash to hear the siren that was sounded all over the city (and the country). I wasn't standing near the windows, but my friends who were said that all the cars and buses stopped, and people got out of their cars to stand where they were.

Standing for the siren reminded me a lot of listening to the shofar blasts on Rosh HaShanah. Like the shofar, it was a call to listen, to pay heed, to remember, to reflect. And like I often feel as I stand for the sounding of the shofar, I couldn't quite figure out what emotion(s) I was or should be experiencing. It was hard to connect to such an enormous tragedy that happened before my lifetime and that I didn't personally experience, and it was hard to feel sadness/be moved at a proscribed, set minute in time.

After the siren, we had two presentations in a row: a powerpoint on 8 famous/important Jewish figures and the vibrancy of Polish Jewish life before the Holocaust, and a presentation by Morris Wyszogrod, an artist and survivor who had been in the Warsaw ghetto and in the camps and who shared his story with us (he also wrote about it in his book, A Brush with Death). During lunch, I went to a third presentation given my some of my fellow students who had gone on a Pardes trip to Poland during spring break.

Before lunch/mincha, we recited El Malei Rachamim, a prayer for the dead, and read out loud the names of family members submitted by Pardes students and family who had been killed in the Holocaust. As the names were read and I looked around the room, I was very moved. It reminded me, as I stood with a community of over 100 Jews (most of us from Eastern-European descent), that pretty much each and every one of us has several or more family members who were destroyed in the Holocaust.

After lunch, classes resumed as normal. I think it took all of us in my Philosophy of Halacha class a while to readjust, after such an intense morning. Our faculty stressed that having normal classes in the beginning and end of the day was intentional, though: For some, Jewish learning is a way to attempt to make up for what was lost. For others, having normal classes was a reminder of the importance not only of mourning the past, but also of looking towards the future.

Peacemaking

This is going to be the quicket blog post ever, because I'm about to leave in (literally) 10 minutes to go on a Pardes tiyul to the Golan, and then to travel around the Galilee for 6 days with my friends Natalie and Emily.

So this weekend, I climbed a fence in the West Bank, and was helped down the other side of it by a former member of Hamas. But, that sounds way more dramatic than it was.

I went to a Peace Activists Retreat held by IPCRI in the Talithakumi school in Beit Jala. It was a weekend of firsts--first Arab bus ride, first knafe, first trip to Bethlehem. The school a German school founded 150 years ago by German nuns for Palestinian kids. It's located in an area that's relatively easily accessible to both Israelis and Palestinians from the West Bank, which is cool. And, IPCRI even managed to get visas for 7 people from Gaza to come, which is no small feat, since pretty much no one is allowed to leave Gaza (they requested 28 or so visas).

Friday, the first day of the retreat, was workshops led by participants. I went to laughter yoga, a discussion on the difficulties of dialogue under occupation (many Palestinians see dialogue as "normalization" of the Occupation), and one on a program that brings together Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans.

Friday night was an awesome concert, which you can see here, including drumming by my friend Ilan. Afterwards, I went with several other participants to a restaurant in Bethlehem, with a stop for knafe on the way. It was really nice, except when that we got back at 1am, the gate to Talithakumi was closed, and the guard was alseep. Hence the climbing the fence part, to be helped down the other side by my new friend Ahmed (who yes, was once a member of Hamas, spent 10 years in prison, decided to become a peace activist, and moved to Jericho).

And...Saturday I will have to tell you about another time, because I really must run now. I will edit/update this post after my travels to the north!

Purim!

So Purim was a little less eventful than expected, mainly because of rain. I didn't end up experiencing Purim in Tel Aviv; it was raining, the street party was canceled, and most of my friends who had planned on going changed their minds (boo). But, I certainly celebrated Purim in Jerusalem (Shushan Purim)!

Sunday night I headed to Pardes for a community megillah reading. On my way there, I saw many people in costume and getting ready for the holiday--it was definitely fun to be somewhere where dressing in costume is the norm instead of just for the kids. After the megillah reading, Pardes had a giant Purim spiel, with each class level doing a skit, as well as anyone else who wanted to (it included such highlights as "the Hamentaschen (Vagina) Monologues" and a teacher parodying Pardes life in song). Afterwards, I celebrated at a friend's apartment.

Monday, Natalie and I gave Mishloach Manot (gift baskets with food) to our neighbors, and headed to our teacher Meesh's house for a seuda (meal). Again, on the way there, we saw others celebrating, dressed in costume, delivering mishloach manot. Our teacher hosted an incredible number of students for a barbecue meal at her house--we even had enough people who knew different chapters of the megillah that we were able to have an afternoon reading for those of us (myself included) who'd slept in and missed hearing megillah in shul that morning! All in all, a good time, and really nice to feel that I was amidst a community celebrating with me, amidst a city celebrating with us.

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In other random news, last night Natalie and I were prevented from crossing Derech Hevron (a big street near us) on the way to a friend's birthday party. They had completely cleared the middle lane (usually for buses and taxis), and stopped all traffic on all sides of the intersection, including pedestrians. Why? Because Joe Biden was about to drive by, of course! So we got to see his convoy come by.

Learn-a-thon!!

Tomorrow evening, I'll be learning extra hours as part of Pardes's Learn-a-Thon to support Haiti relief! Teachers have donated their time to teach extra evening classes on themes of Social Justice, charity to the poor, loving the stranger, etc. Students have pledged to spend extra hours studying, either in classes or on their own.

What can you do? You can support the relief efforts in Haiti by sponsoring me for these extra hours of study I will be doing! If you would like to sponsor me by the hour, you should know that I plan to learn an extra 6 hours...from 5pm until 11pm. You can donate at http://action.ajws.org/goto/pardes.

All proceeds will go to the American Jewish World Service, which has a long standing presence in Haiti. AJWS is focused on aiding population in the crisis zone not already targeted for large scale relief, such as poor and rural areas out side Port-au-Prince. In the long term, AJWS is committed to supporting long term reconstruction of infrastructure, community centers, clinics, schools, replanting of crops and farms to replenish local food supplies and generate income.

If you want to see a fun promo video made by some of my friends (and to get a glimpse of the people/place I've been studying with/at all year), go here.

Thanks in advance for your support!! And now, since I've got approximately 14 hours of learning to do tomorrow, I had better get to sleep. לילה טוב--goodnight.

Happy Adar!! מישנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה!

So Sunday and Monday last week was Rosh Hodesh (the first day(s) of the month of) Adar. During this month, we're supposed to be silly in anticipation of the festive holiday of Purim, which is at the beginning of next week. So Sunday and Monday kind of felt like a combination of Halloween and April fool's day, with people dressing up, singing songs, wearing funny wigs, playing pranks. On Sunday when the power unexpectedly went out in the Beit Midrash (library/study-room), the whole room spontaneously erupted into singing: "מישנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה"--"from when Adar comes in, we increase in happiness".

Monday of last week was also Pardes's annual "Yom Iyun shel Chesed"--"Theme day of Kindness" in honor and memory of Marla Bennett and Ben Blutstein, two Pardes students who were killed in a terrorist attack at Hebrew University in July 2002. After our morning classes, all of Pardes headed out to various community service projects in and around Jerusalem.

I started in Pardes, registering my fellow students with the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry. Then I headed to Emek Refaim with a group of 6 or so other students with information from the Halachic Organ Donor Society (HODS) and cards for registering to be an organ donor in Israel. Unfortunately, Jews are underrepresented as organ donors because of misconceptions that organ donation is prohibited by Judaism--it's not! (If you want to know more, check out HODS.)

Soliciting on the street was, well, frustrating, but we did get some people to sign up. In the US, I think there's a strong conception of what it means to be an "organ donor". Here, however, people heard the word "לתרום," "to donate", and ignored us because they thought we wanted money. Many people were confused by what it meant to be an organ donor. One woman told us she didn't want to become a donor because her organs might be donated to Arabs, which was pretty hard to hear. I also found that several people said they didn't want to be donors because they wanted to be buried whole, including secular Israelis: "I don't care about the Halacha, its just what I believe." The idea of needing to be buried whole definitely comes from Judaism--it made me wonder whether nonJews have issues with organ donation for this reason also, or only Jews? But we did find that the younger generation of Israelis seemed to be much more aware of the importance of organ donation, and many were already donors, so that was encouraging.

Two weeks ago I shadowed an optometrist in downtown Jerusalem. He specialized in vision therapy/developmental optometry, which is something that I knew existed but didn't know a lot about. Essentially, what Dr. Lederman told me is that many kids diagnosed with reading and learning disabilities actually have problems training their eyes to work together and focus properly. As he put it, "It's like diagnosing the hard drive because the keyboard is faulty. If you use the keyboard to test the hard drive, of course the kid is going to show up as having ADHD or dislexia." One of the vision therapists working for him told me that kids come in with severe ADHD diagnoses and leave medication-free. The second reason my visit to Dr. Lederman was interesting is because the majority of his patient population is extremely ultra-Orthodox Jews; I think partly because of the heavy emphasis on reading at such an early age in very Orthodox communities, and partly because he has gained a reputation in those communities, so rabbis refer their congregants to him. I was pretty surprised when I first arrived and thought I heard one of the vision therapists counting in German--then I realized it was Yiddish. Yes, that's right, they have a Yiddish speaking therapist, because many of these 6, 8, 11-year old kids don't know any other language.

Purim is at the beginning of next week--apparently, the whole city turns into one giant party. Walled cities celebrate Purim on Sun night-Mon, while everywhere else celebrates it a day earlier (and for some reason, all of Jerusalem counts as a walled city, even though most of it is outside the walls of the Old City). So, I might go somewhere else Sat night-Sun and celebrate Purim twice! I'm still not sure of my plans, though. Costume ideas, anyone?

Sometimes, the rabbis were pretty funny

Three prime examples from yesterday's halacha (law) class. We were discussing whether or not you can ask/get a non-Jew to do something that you are forbidden to do on Shabbat.

1. We were discussing doing something you shouldn't "for the sake of a mitzvah": The classic example of this is climbing a tree on Rosh HaShanah (which you're not supposed to do) to get down a shofar. Don't ask what on earth the shofar is doing in the tree. That's the example the rabbis use.

2. On whether or not you're allowed to speak in code: Apparently, it was a well-known code (different rabbis use it in different regions/periods) that "Clean your nose" meant to clean the charcoal off of a lamp wick, allowing the lamp to burn better. (The answer, for those of you who are wondering, is that you cannot command a non-Jew to "clean your nose" on Shabbat directly, but you can hint: "your nose is dirty" or "it's getting dark in here".)

3. So there's this term called a Pseik Reisha-פסיק רישא. It refers to doing something that is allowed, but that will cause something forbidden to happen as a consequence/side effect. The example that came up in class is if you need to open up your fridge to get food out on Shabbat, but when you open the door, the light is also going to go on. Literally, פסיק רישא means "cut off the head"...so where does this term come from? Say it's Shabbat, and your kid wants something to play with. So, you decide to cut the head off a chicken to give it to your kid as a toy. Its forbidden to kill a chicken on Shabbat. But you're not trying to kill the chicken, you're just trying to get the head! As the Gemorrah says, "פסיק רישא ולא ימות"-"Cut off the head and it won't die?!" You are effectively killing the chicken, and so you're not allowed.

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In other news, its a new semester, and I have a new roomate. Adi is also a Pardes student and recent college grad, and I think we're going to get along well. Carra was just here for the 1st semester, and went back to the States on Thursday :-(. Last week, I was supposed to go on a Pardes tiyul (trip) to the Arava (southern desert) and Eilat during our break. But Carra and I ended up getting sick and staying home...so we missed out on hiking in the hail, 40mph winds, and crazy desert flash floods! I heard a rumor that Eilat got 10 years worth of rain in about 24 hours.