.הכנסת השנה החדשה
Another long week has passed since my last post - sorry for the lack of updates.
This weekend was, as I described it in Hebrew class, שופ''ש אוחים (a weekend of guests). On Friday night, Jessica baked challah with a friend of ours from HUC, and then the same friend joined us later in the day to watch a movie and cook dinner. A second friend arrived just as our movie finished, and the four of us shared a delicious meal and pleasant conversation.
On Saturday morning, Jessica and I went to Shabbat services at the Conservative synagogue affiliated with the Conservative Yeshiva, which I always find meaningful. During the kiddush, we met Rick, who's thinking about applying to rabbinical school HUC or Hebrew College next year. He was an interesting fellow, and we invited him to join us for lunch. He agreed, and we welcomed him and three other friends to a potluck lunch filled with delicious foods.
Saturday night, we had our final guest, who came over for S&S (Snacks & Scrabble). That, too, was delightful. All in all, a wonderful weekend!
Sunday, for me, began a time of finally entering into the period of High Holy Days (after the long buildup over the month of Elul). We had special programming at HUC about Rosh Hashanah, including a walk-through of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy that I found very helpful in my own ability to appreciate and find meaningful Rosh Hashanah services.
I'm finding that the more I learn about the liturgy, the more meaningful I find it. One of my goals for this year (I forget whether I've written about it yet) is to become more familiar with Jewish liturgy and to strengthen my "prayer muscles." For so many years, I sat through services, finding certain parts engaging and others less so - but I never had an appreciation for the service as an entire unit (let alone Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur being a unit, let alone their being a unit with Sukkot, let alone their being a unit with Elul), and I want that to change. I think it's important not only for me as a rabbi but for me as a praying Jew to know what the service is, what comprises it, and how it can be meaningfully experienced. In some ways, I feel like I could have figured a lot of this stuff out already if I had taken the time in previous years, but on the other hand, at least I've decided to begin now ... and so far, I find my own expressions of faith growing with my knowledge.
For example, as I know more Hebrew now than I ever have (and I expect to be saying that every year for many years to come), I find that I can understand the prayers much better ... which is very handy here because we don't read a single word of English here in Israel even though we use the same Gates of Repentance machzor here as in the States. Knowing what the prayers are actually saying helps me follow the flow, feel comfortable where I am, and focus on what's being said in an impactful way. I can really focus in on the כוונה (intention) of the service and in turn, relate to the words.
So, what have these relations yielded? Here are some thoughts I've been having recently, inspired by Rosh Hashanah:
First of all, I want to highlight the latest progress in the development of my appreciation for Reform Judaism as normative and authentic. While theoretically, I believe that Reform Judaism is for Reform Jews as authentic as "orthodox" Judaism is for "orthodox" Jews, it can nevertheless be difficult to feel that way all the time. For example, when discussing with Jessica what do on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I mentioned that I wanted to continue our series of HUC services or go to the Conservative synagogue that we like. She said that if we're not going to have an Israeli "experience," we should stick with HUC as it will probably be similar to Moreshet Yisrael. I agreed.
But in subsequent conversations, we've been talking about how our HUC services are just as Israeli as any other service in Israel. They're entirely in Hebrew, the sermon was given by a non-American, and the music has an international, though certainly Ashkenazi, feel. The real differences aren't Israeli/non-Israeli but rather Reform/non-Reform.
So, should one go to a non-Reform service to have an "authentic" experience? Of course not. Modern Reform Judaism is just as much a part of the continuum of Jewish practice as any of the dozens of brands of "orthodoxy" out there, and to top it all off, I find the Reform Jewish experience meaningful. Our services are intentional, not minimalist; moving, not fleeing. My teachers at HUC are extremely learned--some might say pious--women and men who have made Judaism their life's work, and I'm proud to follow in their footsteps. It's tempting, especially here in Jerusalem, to think of ourselves as doing things the easy way or finding the most basic way of praying, but I do not believe that that's what Reform Judaism is, and when I'm a professional practitioner of Reform Judaism, I look forward to carrying myself with just as much pride and authority as any other self-respecting Jew.
While in the area of organized religion, I had a thought this morning at services about one of the greatest values of religion. I was listening to Avinu Malkeinu, perhaps my favorite piece of Jewish music, and it was having its customary significant impact on me. After the petition ended, I mused about the ability of that music and the choir and the Hebrew words to have a transcendent effect on me, to remind me that the corporeal world is an illusion and that reality is much more complex than our human senses can know. Something about the music helped me realize that.
And I realized in turn that religion can have this effect on all of its participants if they're open to it. There are certainly people in this world who can have truly transcendent, spiritual experiences on their own or in smaller communities, but generally, people need help. Sometimes help comes through a parent, friend, or mentor or a group comprised of those people. Sometimes, help comes through a non-human intermediary. And sometimes, help can come through communities. In my case, my Jewish community is the beneficiary of thousands of years of trial-and-error, of intense debate, and of serious study. Hebrew has become a holy language because of the infinitely deep contexts it has collected, and my prayer in Hebrew in a community of Jews has the ability to transport me beyond myself and, through relation to other Jews, beyond this physical world.
So, religion--at least my religion--is extremely powerful. But it's also entirely dependent on community. My theology, though certainly influenced by countless external factors, is my own ... but my ability to relate to theos is almost entirely in the communal setting. I think that if I'm like a lot of people, this is probably the primary raison d'être of religion worldwide.
Thus, religion is for us. It helps us connect through one another to the spiritual realities that compose and transcend this world - and therefore, I believe, all of religion is really about us. As much as we describe God and thank God and petition God and ask God for forgiveness ... it's really all about us. We say אבינו מלכנו שמע קולנו (Avinu Malkeinu, sh'ma koleinu) - our Father, our King, hear our voice ... and yet I believe it's much more about koleinu than it is about Avinu Malkeinu. When I ask forgiveness from God, it's because I recognize that I've done something that needs forgiving. We're taught that one doesn't receive forgiveness unless one has resolved not to repeat the transgression - so, we come to God with a contrite heart and readiness to change. Therefore, the value in "being forgiven" is not simply to receive God's forgiveness but rather to have changed in response to recognizing our own wrongdoing. I confess to confess, not to be forgiven by God.
Now, does that mean that I shouldn't think about God during prayer? I don't think so. I believe that there is a God but that God isn't able to be comprehended on this level. Nevertheless, there can be no greater achievement than to relate to God, so we shouldn't just give up. On the contrary, we should try even harder to transcend "this level." If thinking about God as a King helps us to do that, that's fine. For me, I don't believe that God rules over our daily actions, but I don't mind calling God King in order to further a theology that supports and enables people's connections to God. And, by participating in that communal prayer, I also build bonds between myself and my fellow community members, and those bonds can be of infinite value to my person and my super-person.
Because active t'filah (prayer) always comes to an end, and what we have left are the pray-ers who are ready to go about their daily lives, now in a stronger relation to one another than before the prayer service. It reminds me of Avinu Malkeinu - the music soars and transforms and concludes with a congregational melody that lacks the awesomeness of the previous lines. Similarly, we can be transformed and transported during prayer, but we always have to alight back on earth and continue living our lives. And those lives are made richer -- and re-transformation is made easier --- through the lives of others.
This can also be reflected in Rosh Hashanah's placement in the calendar: 25In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a holy convocation commemorated with trumpet blasts (Leviticus 23:24). According to (a) tradition, God created the world on Rosh Hashanah, on the first day of Tishrei (the seventh month). On the first day of creation, before which the world didn't exist, it was the seventh month. Thus, six months would, theoretically, have been in the history of this first day of existence. Why wouldn't the world be created on the first month?
One response I've been thinking about is that the world begins in the middle. Our acts of transcendence during prayer are timeless, and yet they are couched in history. Similarly, when we emerge from these moments, we will once again resume relating to the world in a timebound fashion, waiting for the next new beginning. Just as we can understand God to be "day by day renewing the works of Creation," so can we understand the very "first" creation to have taken place within a context of קודמות ("previousness" - both Hebrew and English made up by me).
So, those are a few of my raw thoughts that this period of holiness has inspired in me. I hope to continue to generate thoughts along these lines during the upcoming weeks, and hopefully I'll be able to share them here. And, of course, I look forward to elaborating on these ideas in a more significant fashion as I continue my path toward the rabbinate.
In the meantime, I wish all readers a sweet and good new year, despite and because of all its contexts and aspirations.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Cantors, Cooking, Cups, Concert, Camelot
About Rosh Hashana Services: It is in writing about moments such as these that I realize that language is inadequate - or that I don't have the skill to shape my words in such a way that you can understand the full majesty of what we experienced. Seated in a high-ceilinged room at HUC, from whose Eastern wall, made entirely of class, we watched the sun as it set (last night) and ascended (this morning) over the Old City, we listened to and joined in services of such magnificent music that it quite literally brought tears to my eyes. These cantorial students, these people with talent so great, their voices rang out so purely and fully together that they seemed like the heavenly host of angels praising G-d that we read about in the high holiday liturgy. It was especially moving to hear some of our friends, cantorial students, whom I'd never really heard sing, sharing and bearing themselves in front of the congregation and really sanctifying the day with their gifts and their passions. I felt like a guitar that had been strummed and I'm still resonating, within me I'm filling up with music and sound, waves that flow upwards and outwards and fill the whole of me.
In addition to the pheonminal choir of cantorial students, we also had the honor to hear Cantor Eli Schleifer, the director of the cantorial program in Jerusalem. His passion was matched by his control of the music, and his ability to connect the music to the words of the prayers to enhance and elevate the entire experience. He read the Akeidah, speaking the words of G-d and of Abraham with a bold, deep commanding voice, and the words of Isaac with a voice so tentative, so unsure, that he was transformed himself into a timid son following a half-crazed father in search of his G-d at the expense of his own lifeblood. There were so many powerful moments in his prayers, that I simply cannot recount them all. When he sang of mortality his voice began strong and softened until it was a tiny star in the vast, dark, heavens. All of his words, all of his prayers, were so deliberate, so artful. There wasn't a single misplaced note or syllable, not a single word that seemed to be sung by rote or out of obligation to the tradition - all was sincere, all was in a spirit of atonement and celebration, of truly marking life by the seasons in which we live it, by the emotions we experience, and by the limits of our physical bodies and the limitlessness of our souls.
I wish all of you could have been there. It was grand but also participatory, it was awesome, but also down-to-earth, it made me feel as though praying was a holy endeavor, while reminding me that prayer is also a vehicle and a vessel that needs to be brought out of the synagogue and carried around as part of every day life. If I can bring the service with me as I embark on the ten days of tshuva, I will have accomplished much.
Daniel and I were just discussing how difficult we find the ten days of tshuva, because we aren't sure what they mean and how we should act during those days. For instance, is it enough to say to everyone "If I have done you any wrong this year, I am sorry"? Or is that sort of a cop-out as you aren't personally probing to try to remember the wrongs you have committed and you aren't making yourself vulnerable to others by admitting your imperfections? And what if you honestly can't remember something that you did wrong? Or what if you can remember it but it really was just a small thing, and you think it would do more harm than good to bring it up again? Exactly what are we to do during these ten days? Another question is to what extent should we force ourselves to be better people for just these ten days? If I want G-d to judge me for who I am, perhaps I shouldn't change my behavior for ten days, perhaps it is dishonest. Or, perhaps I can take these ten days and try to change and improve myself, nad maybe some of it will stick into the next year. It's like a trial period for New Year's Resolutions - and surely if you do something every day for ten days, it is likely to make an impression on you, and affect your behavior at least in some small way for the rest of the year. I don't know, but I do know that it is important to try to be the best version of yourself at all times, and perhaps focusing on that for ten days will help with focusing on it throughout the year.
As the New Year is beginning, the weather is changing and we're beginning to feel a cold breeze settling on the city of Jerusalem. It will stay, and the sun will seem rarer, and it will be harder and harder to find warmth in the city. It seems like a hard time to begin a New Year - not in the spring when we can rejoice in the warmth of the sun and in the personal freedom that summer offers, but at the cusp of the rainy season, when we are chained to our umbrellas, slaves of our galoshes. But, perhaps too the rainy season is an appropriate way to begin the year, as it is the start of the agricultural cycle, and I am praying for a year that bears plentiful fruit, a year that grows toward the sun, a year that blossoms in vivid colors.
--------------------------------------------
We began our preparations for Rosh Hashanah with cooking, which is itself a deeply spiritual activity. A very wise person once told me that the action of knitting, a practical, creative endeavor of craftingthe long and narrow into the full, soft, and warm, was one of the most spiritual activities that life offers. I'm not sure if that holds true for me, but I would say that I can apply the same to cooking. I love the mysterious way that artcan be created out of the very stuff of the earth - the grain and the leaf, the fruit and the nut. We baked a splendid honeycake in preparation for the holiday. It is rich, dense, and fragrant, with candied ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. We're hoping to have some friends over tomorrow after services to share it with us. For today's potluck lunch, we made a simple yet elegant dish of mushrooms in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and white wine, and for the potluck dinner we are attending tonight, I tried to replicate the lasagne recipe that Paola taught me a few weeks ago. We spent most of the day yesterday cooking and shopping for food. In addition, we decided to splurge on some items we've been sorely missing: a challah cover, candle sticks, a vessel for ritual hand washing, a set of cups, a set of serving bowls, a steamer, and four mugs. Everything was on sale because of the holiday season and was quite reasonable, and we are pleased at the idea of leaving the apartment well stocked at the end of the year, as we've been so happy with all of the supplies left to us by the previous tenants.
---------------------------------
On Thursday, I took my final exam for my ulpan, and I am now enjoying a month's break. For my first day of break (Sunday), I went to the Ministry of the Interior and finally was able to procure a student visa, thus ending the painful work of half a year. I've begun studying for the GRE Subject Test in Literature in English, though my testing date has been pushed back until November. I have a lot of studying to do for the test, so while I am disappointed at the date change, especially as I am a little antsy that not everything will arrive to the schools I'm applying to on time if it is sent so late, I am pleased to have the extra time to reread Canterbury tales and quiz myself on the names of all of the characters that ever appeared in a work by Shakespeare or Dickens. I've begun reading in English again, I couldn't help myself, and even Hemmingway (who I'm reading now but have never read before) feels like a dear old friend. The lack of a novel these past months has felt deeply physical and personal, like a whole part of my life and my identity had been left stranded at the airport in Toronto. Being able to read in Hebrew helped a little, but I am so glad to be reunited with the English language. I am a bit nervous, however, that this long break will allow too many opportunities to forget to be diligent about language study, and I hope to continue to read in Hebrew and in Yiddish throughout the break. In addition to all this reading, I of course will be applying to graduate school, and am currently working hard at discovering my sense of purpose, so that I can write a statement of purpose to each of these universities. Wish me luck.
---------------------
On Thursday night, Daniel and I strolled to Yung Yiddish. We are rarely out so late at night, and there was an excitement to the bright lights of stores against the stillness of the evening. On the way, we passed through the shuk and I bought Daniel a molten chocolate cake. We passed through bustling Jaffa street and through an empty Rehov Yerimiyhu where we walked past a store displaying fancy, beautiful sukkot.
The crowd at Yung Yiddish was mostly secular this time, and the place was pretty full (maybe 45 people in the audience?). The performer, Theresa Tova, had a deep, pointed, strong, alto voice, and she sang Cabaret/Jazz style Yiddish pieces, many of them also translated into English (She's not a Hebrew speaker), with poise, and a smooth, easy sort of confidence. She was accompanied by a pianest and cellist that she had just met that day, yet the performance was not anxious, and where there were mistakes, they were corrected cooly. Theresa Tova exuded a love for the music that she was singing - an enjoyment of it, and also a belief in it. She had a jazzy, sassy, easy, sultry sort of stage presence. She explained each piece before she sang it, often with jokes and always with smiles. We loved her music, and we found ourselves clapping and singing along to Belz, Sheyn Vi Di Levoyne, Papirosn, and many others. We enjoyed it so much that we bought a CD and when we are back in the States we'll be glad to lend it to you. Theresa Tova is an actor. singer, and writer, based in Toronto (woohoo!) who performes in New York, Poland, Germany, Toronto, and elsewhere. Her mother was a Partisan during the Holocaust, and Tova learned Polish Yiddish in her home.
After Tova finished singing, Mendy Cahan, the head of Yung Yiddish, passed out cups for wine and vodka and made a warm toast to the New Year. Armed with our CD and these warm wishes, we set out into the evening to walk back to our apartment.
----------------------------------------------
It's been so long since I've written that I keep thinking of more that I want to say. Should I tell you about teaching a friend to bake challah and the two huge honey-glazed round challahs we produced? Should I tell you about the Shabbat meal we shared with two friends, or the Shabbat lunch we served to other guests the following day? Should I tell you about the new friend we made at shul on Saturday that we welcomed into our home for lunch the very day we met him? Or about my being called to the Torah for an aliyah at the Conservative shul we enjoy attending on Saturday mornings? I think it would be too much, and take too much of your time. Suffice it to say that it has been a full, full, few days (both in terms of being busy and in terms of consuming a lot of delicious food!)
----------------------------------------------
So instead of ending by telling you more about our week and our life here, I want to end with a thought for the new year. The following quote, which I read on the blog of the Velveteen Rabbi (see the links side of our blog page) struck me as particularly useful in conceptualizing Rosh Hashana:
She Writes: "Today is the birthday of the world." We say it every year; we'll say it on Tuesday and Wednesday, that 48-hour span of time which Jewish tradition mystically considers a single extended day of Rosh Hashanah. But the liturgy says something slightly different than what the simple English rendition would suggest. As Reb Duvid notes, harah means "pregnancy," conception or gestation: not labor, not birth. I've never carried nor borne a child, but I can see from here that they're very different things. Rosh Hashanah isn't the world's "birthday," exactly; it's the day when we celebrate creation's pregnant possibilities.
In studying for this English exam, I found myslelf rereading Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," which is about a magical woman who lives in a tower upstream from Camelot. She sits near a window and looks at the world through a mirror, weaving a tapestry that depicts the world that she sees outside. She is forbidden to look out of the mirror itself and to see real life. Ultimately, she sees Lancelot out her window and falls so in love with him that she cannot resist, looks out her window, and as her mirror cracks, she realizes the desolateness of the cursed life she leads. She leaves her tower, carves her name into a boat, lays down upon the boat and floats to Camelot, dying of cold along the way. It is a deeply mournful poem, of the desperate longing to break free from a life cut off from the world and in an act of desparation and of headlong bravery, to experience real life, even just for a moment before the coldness of death.
If creation is pregnant with possibilities, I think "The Lady of Shalott" urges us to take them. To take risks. Not to weave "by night and day a tapestry of colors gay" about the lives of others and the world that lies outside our doors, but to actually go out and to see the world and to live life. It is not easy to do. It is not easy for me to do - my natural inclination is to stay home where I am safe and comfortable, and perhaps this is why it seemed so exciting and unusual to me and Daniel to be out on Thursday night, as we are in fact inside most evenings. But my wish, my hope, my dream for the new year, is that as we enter into a time of the birth of the world, we will not only recognize its potential, but experience and be a part of that potential. I wish you all a sweet and a meaningful new year, a new year of experiences, of action, of headlong fanciful bravery that lasts more than just a moment, but for the whole long and enchanted journey of your lives.
In addition to the pheonminal choir of cantorial students, we also had the honor to hear Cantor Eli Schleifer, the director of the cantorial program in Jerusalem. His passion was matched by his control of the music, and his ability to connect the music to the words of the prayers to enhance and elevate the entire experience. He read the Akeidah, speaking the words of G-d and of Abraham with a bold, deep commanding voice, and the words of Isaac with a voice so tentative, so unsure, that he was transformed himself into a timid son following a half-crazed father in search of his G-d at the expense of his own lifeblood. There were so many powerful moments in his prayers, that I simply cannot recount them all. When he sang of mortality his voice began strong and softened until it was a tiny star in the vast, dark, heavens. All of his words, all of his prayers, were so deliberate, so artful. There wasn't a single misplaced note or syllable, not a single word that seemed to be sung by rote or out of obligation to the tradition - all was sincere, all was in a spirit of atonement and celebration, of truly marking life by the seasons in which we live it, by the emotions we experience, and by the limits of our physical bodies and the limitlessness of our souls.
I wish all of you could have been there. It was grand but also participatory, it was awesome, but also down-to-earth, it made me feel as though praying was a holy endeavor, while reminding me that prayer is also a vehicle and a vessel that needs to be brought out of the synagogue and carried around as part of every day life. If I can bring the service with me as I embark on the ten days of tshuva, I will have accomplished much.
Daniel and I were just discussing how difficult we find the ten days of tshuva, because we aren't sure what they mean and how we should act during those days. For instance, is it enough to say to everyone "If I have done you any wrong this year, I am sorry"? Or is that sort of a cop-out as you aren't personally probing to try to remember the wrongs you have committed and you aren't making yourself vulnerable to others by admitting your imperfections? And what if you honestly can't remember something that you did wrong? Or what if you can remember it but it really was just a small thing, and you think it would do more harm than good to bring it up again? Exactly what are we to do during these ten days? Another question is to what extent should we force ourselves to be better people for just these ten days? If I want G-d to judge me for who I am, perhaps I shouldn't change my behavior for ten days, perhaps it is dishonest. Or, perhaps I can take these ten days and try to change and improve myself, nad maybe some of it will stick into the next year. It's like a trial period for New Year's Resolutions - and surely if you do something every day for ten days, it is likely to make an impression on you, and affect your behavior at least in some small way for the rest of the year. I don't know, but I do know that it is important to try to be the best version of yourself at all times, and perhaps focusing on that for ten days will help with focusing on it throughout the year.
As the New Year is beginning, the weather is changing and we're beginning to feel a cold breeze settling on the city of Jerusalem. It will stay, and the sun will seem rarer, and it will be harder and harder to find warmth in the city. It seems like a hard time to begin a New Year - not in the spring when we can rejoice in the warmth of the sun and in the personal freedom that summer offers, but at the cusp of the rainy season, when we are chained to our umbrellas, slaves of our galoshes. But, perhaps too the rainy season is an appropriate way to begin the year, as it is the start of the agricultural cycle, and I am praying for a year that bears plentiful fruit, a year that grows toward the sun, a year that blossoms in vivid colors.
--------------------------------------------
We began our preparations for Rosh Hashanah with cooking, which is itself a deeply spiritual activity. A very wise person once told me that the action of knitting, a practical, creative endeavor of craftingthe long and narrow into the full, soft, and warm, was one of the most spiritual activities that life offers. I'm not sure if that holds true for me, but I would say that I can apply the same to cooking. I love the mysterious way that artcan be created out of the very stuff of the earth - the grain and the leaf, the fruit and the nut. We baked a splendid honeycake in preparation for the holiday. It is rich, dense, and fragrant, with candied ginger, cloves, and nutmeg. We're hoping to have some friends over tomorrow after services to share it with us. For today's potluck lunch, we made a simple yet elegant dish of mushrooms in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and white wine, and for the potluck dinner we are attending tonight, I tried to replicate the lasagne recipe that Paola taught me a few weeks ago. We spent most of the day yesterday cooking and shopping for food. In addition, we decided to splurge on some items we've been sorely missing: a challah cover, candle sticks, a vessel for ritual hand washing, a set of cups, a set of serving bowls, a steamer, and four mugs. Everything was on sale because of the holiday season and was quite reasonable, and we are pleased at the idea of leaving the apartment well stocked at the end of the year, as we've been so happy with all of the supplies left to us by the previous tenants.
---------------------------------
On Thursday, I took my final exam for my ulpan, and I am now enjoying a month's break. For my first day of break (Sunday), I went to the Ministry of the Interior and finally was able to procure a student visa, thus ending the painful work of half a year. I've begun studying for the GRE Subject Test in Literature in English, though my testing date has been pushed back until November. I have a lot of studying to do for the test, so while I am disappointed at the date change, especially as I am a little antsy that not everything will arrive to the schools I'm applying to on time if it is sent so late, I am pleased to have the extra time to reread Canterbury tales and quiz myself on the names of all of the characters that ever appeared in a work by Shakespeare or Dickens. I've begun reading in English again, I couldn't help myself, and even Hemmingway (who I'm reading now but have never read before) feels like a dear old friend. The lack of a novel these past months has felt deeply physical and personal, like a whole part of my life and my identity had been left stranded at the airport in Toronto. Being able to read in Hebrew helped a little, but I am so glad to be reunited with the English language. I am a bit nervous, however, that this long break will allow too many opportunities to forget to be diligent about language study, and I hope to continue to read in Hebrew and in Yiddish throughout the break. In addition to all this reading, I of course will be applying to graduate school, and am currently working hard at discovering my sense of purpose, so that I can write a statement of purpose to each of these universities. Wish me luck.
---------------------
On Thursday night, Daniel and I strolled to Yung Yiddish. We are rarely out so late at night, and there was an excitement to the bright lights of stores against the stillness of the evening. On the way, we passed through the shuk and I bought Daniel a molten chocolate cake. We passed through bustling Jaffa street and through an empty Rehov Yerimiyhu where we walked past a store displaying fancy, beautiful sukkot.
The crowd at Yung Yiddish was mostly secular this time, and the place was pretty full (maybe 45 people in the audience?). The performer, Theresa Tova, had a deep, pointed, strong, alto voice, and she sang Cabaret/Jazz style Yiddish pieces, many of them also translated into English (She's not a Hebrew speaker), with poise, and a smooth, easy sort of confidence. She was accompanied by a pianest and cellist that she had just met that day, yet the performance was not anxious, and where there were mistakes, they were corrected cooly. Theresa Tova exuded a love for the music that she was singing - an enjoyment of it, and also a belief in it. She had a jazzy, sassy, easy, sultry sort of stage presence. She explained each piece before she sang it, often with jokes and always with smiles. We loved her music, and we found ourselves clapping and singing along to Belz, Sheyn Vi Di Levoyne, Papirosn, and many others. We enjoyed it so much that we bought a CD and when we are back in the States we'll be glad to lend it to you. Theresa Tova is an actor. singer, and writer, based in Toronto (woohoo!) who performes in New York, Poland, Germany, Toronto, and elsewhere. Her mother was a Partisan during the Holocaust, and Tova learned Polish Yiddish in her home.
After Tova finished singing, Mendy Cahan, the head of Yung Yiddish, passed out cups for wine and vodka and made a warm toast to the New Year. Armed with our CD and these warm wishes, we set out into the evening to walk back to our apartment.
----------------------------------------------
It's been so long since I've written that I keep thinking of more that I want to say. Should I tell you about teaching a friend to bake challah and the two huge honey-glazed round challahs we produced? Should I tell you about the Shabbat meal we shared with two friends, or the Shabbat lunch we served to other guests the following day? Should I tell you about the new friend we made at shul on Saturday that we welcomed into our home for lunch the very day we met him? Or about my being called to the Torah for an aliyah at the Conservative shul we enjoy attending on Saturday mornings? I think it would be too much, and take too much of your time. Suffice it to say that it has been a full, full, few days (both in terms of being busy and in terms of consuming a lot of delicious food!)
----------------------------------------------
So instead of ending by telling you more about our week and our life here, I want to end with a thought for the new year. The following quote, which I read on the blog of the Velveteen Rabbi (see the links side of our blog page) struck me as particularly useful in conceptualizing Rosh Hashana:
She Writes: "Today is the birthday of the world." We say it every year; we'll say it on Tuesday and Wednesday, that 48-hour span of time which Jewish tradition mystically considers a single extended day of Rosh Hashanah. But the liturgy says something slightly different than what the simple English rendition would suggest. As Reb Duvid notes, harah means "pregnancy," conception or gestation: not labor, not birth. I've never carried nor borne a child, but I can see from here that they're very different things. Rosh Hashanah isn't the world's "birthday," exactly; it's the day when we celebrate creation's pregnant possibilities.
In studying for this English exam, I found myslelf rereading Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott," which is about a magical woman who lives in a tower upstream from Camelot. She sits near a window and looks at the world through a mirror, weaving a tapestry that depicts the world that she sees outside. She is forbidden to look out of the mirror itself and to see real life. Ultimately, she sees Lancelot out her window and falls so in love with him that she cannot resist, looks out her window, and as her mirror cracks, she realizes the desolateness of the cursed life she leads. She leaves her tower, carves her name into a boat, lays down upon the boat and floats to Camelot, dying of cold along the way. It is a deeply mournful poem, of the desperate longing to break free from a life cut off from the world and in an act of desparation and of headlong bravery, to experience real life, even just for a moment before the coldness of death.
If creation is pregnant with possibilities, I think "The Lady of Shalott" urges us to take them. To take risks. Not to weave "by night and day a tapestry of colors gay" about the lives of others and the world that lies outside our doors, but to actually go out and to see the world and to live life. It is not easy to do. It is not easy for me to do - my natural inclination is to stay home where I am safe and comfortable, and perhaps this is why it seemed so exciting and unusual to me and Daniel to be out on Thursday night, as we are in fact inside most evenings. But my wish, my hope, my dream for the new year, is that as we enter into a time of the birth of the world, we will not only recognize its potential, but experience and be a part of that potential. I wish you all a sweet and a meaningful new year, a new year of experiences, of action, of headlong fanciful bravery that lasts more than just a moment, but for the whole long and enchanted journey of your lives.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Walking around Jerusalem.
.הליכה מסביב ירושלים
Today, our Israeli seminar included a walk around Jerusalem. My instructor, Paul Liptz, recommended that we record our sessions for ourselves (and to help write our journal entries that we will periodically turn in). Lucky for me, I have a perfect outlet!
We started off this morning with a brief conversation about the attack I wrote about briefly yesterday. Basically, Michael Marmur wanted to discuss the HUC notification practices with us since, fortunately, the events of two nights ago weren't so serious as to require significant processing.
Then, we went into our three Israel seminar groups. In Paul's we spent a few minutes introducing ourselves and sharing our previous Israel experiences. It was interesting to hear the different experiences that people had had with Israel - some very negative and some extremely positive. There were even some Canadian/American differences that might be based on a difference of perspective that was addressed later in the class.
Professor Liptz' class started with a brief discussion of the transition from "pre-modern" to "post-modern" in Christian Europe and transitioned into a conversation on the more European/Middle Eastern social structure of many cultural sub-groups forming the whole (as compared to the American model where sub-groups are generally de-emphasized in face of the universal whole). We discussed the multiple sub-groups in Israel within Jewish and Israeli Arab spheres. Distinctions can be drawn based on religion, time spent living in the country, politics, location, economics, class, etc. This obviously served only as an introduction to a much (MUCH) larger conversation that will be taking place over the course of the year.
Then, we hit the road. Professor Liptz gave us maps that detailed the expansion of Jerusalem and showed that, prior to 1917, Israel was mostly controlled by Christians - although Jews were the majority, they mostly kept to the relatively small area of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, however, many Jews began immigrating to Israel, and their emerging contact with the British began immediately. (The Balfour Declaration was signed in 1917, but the British didn't have a strong bureaucracy in place until 1920/1921.)
We walked to the King David Hotel, where we discussed the centrality of the British to the region as it progressed from Ottoman rule. Key to our conversation was the hostility between Jews who wanted to cooperate with the British (the Haganah and other groups, championed by David Ben Gurion) and those who felt that palpable declarations of strength were required to win sovereignty from the British (the Irgun and other groups, championed by Menachem Begin). A major break between the groups occurred when Begin insisted on carrying out the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel while Ben Gurion opposed the action. Ninety-one people were killed, and this marked a low point in the outlook for Jewish independence and the closest Jews had come to civil war since the destruction of the Second Temple.
We didn't proceed along the timeline from that point (we're saving it for class) and instead moved to a different part of the city, near an old, unattended cemetery. There, Professor Liptz talked to us about the extraordinary complications involved in Jerusalem construction which include the requirement to maintain the outer walls of certain buildings (even if everything inside is torn down and rebuilt) and the inability to build over bones (so every contractor's nightmare is discovering human bones in her foundation). We also learned about the politics of land. As more Jews were moving to Jerusalem, some wealthy Muslims started buying land around the Old City to keep them geographically at bay. This policy resulted in Jewish settlements in various places outside the Old City that often tried to get as close as possible to the Old City.
However, a group of immigrants that distinctly did not want to be close to the Old City were the German Jews who no longer felt ... comfortable ... in Germany. They planted trees, built expensive houses, socialized with wealthy Arab Christians, and avoided the Old City at all times. They were "modern" and "civilized" and did all they could to bring the things they loved most about Berlin with them to Jerusalem. Today, the area where they lived is the neighborhood of Rechavia and is still fairly well-to-do.
Near Rechavia is Talbiyeh, which was prime real estate for wealthy Jews who were moving to Jerusalem. At the top of a hill, there's always a breeze in Talbiyeh. The houses are beautiful, and Golda Meir lived there while she was Prime Minister. Additionally, the Israeli President's house is located in Talbiyeh, as is a center affiliated with the philanthropic Bronfman family, adding to the splendor of the neighborhood.
We finished our tour in the German Colony, which was founded by Templars in the second half of the 19th century. These Christians built very solid houses, expecting to establish permanent residence to be passed through the generations. However, in 1939 or so, it was discovered that many of the residents supported the Nazi government in Germany. The British weren't too happy with Nazis living in their territory, so they were forcibly relocated to internment camps in Australia during World War II. As far as I know, they didn't return, and if they did, it generally wasn't to these houses, which are inhabited by "ordinary Israelis" today.
It was great to walk through familiar parts of Jerusalem and hear about the convoluted history that is entirely unapparent just by looking at the surface. I look forward to seeing how these interwoven narratives contribute to the genesis of the new Israeli society that I've landed in for the year. Should be fun.
Today, our Israeli seminar included a walk around Jerusalem. My instructor, Paul Liptz, recommended that we record our sessions for ourselves (and to help write our journal entries that we will periodically turn in). Lucky for me, I have a perfect outlet!
We started off this morning with a brief conversation about the attack I wrote about briefly yesterday. Basically, Michael Marmur wanted to discuss the HUC notification practices with us since, fortunately, the events of two nights ago weren't so serious as to require significant processing.
Then, we went into our three Israel seminar groups. In Paul's we spent a few minutes introducing ourselves and sharing our previous Israel experiences. It was interesting to hear the different experiences that people had had with Israel - some very negative and some extremely positive. There were even some Canadian/American differences that might be based on a difference of perspective that was addressed later in the class.
Professor Liptz' class started with a brief discussion of the transition from "pre-modern" to "post-modern" in Christian Europe and transitioned into a conversation on the more European/Middle Eastern social structure of many cultural sub-groups forming the whole (as compared to the American model where sub-groups are generally de-emphasized in face of the universal whole). We discussed the multiple sub-groups in Israel within Jewish and Israeli Arab spheres. Distinctions can be drawn based on religion, time spent living in the country, politics, location, economics, class, etc. This obviously served only as an introduction to a much (MUCH) larger conversation that will be taking place over the course of the year.
Then, we hit the road. Professor Liptz gave us maps that detailed the expansion of Jerusalem and showed that, prior to 1917, Israel was mostly controlled by Christians - although Jews were the majority, they mostly kept to the relatively small area of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, however, many Jews began immigrating to Israel, and their emerging contact with the British began immediately. (The Balfour Declaration was signed in 1917, but the British didn't have a strong bureaucracy in place until 1920/1921.)
We walked to the King David Hotel, where we discussed the centrality of the British to the region as it progressed from Ottoman rule. Key to our conversation was the hostility between Jews who wanted to cooperate with the British (the Haganah and other groups, championed by David Ben Gurion) and those who felt that palpable declarations of strength were required to win sovereignty from the British (the Irgun and other groups, championed by Menachem Begin). A major break between the groups occurred when Begin insisted on carrying out the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel while Ben Gurion opposed the action. Ninety-one people were killed, and this marked a low point in the outlook for Jewish independence and the closest Jews had come to civil war since the destruction of the Second Temple.
We didn't proceed along the timeline from that point (we're saving it for class) and instead moved to a different part of the city, near an old, unattended cemetery. There, Professor Liptz talked to us about the extraordinary complications involved in Jerusalem construction which include the requirement to maintain the outer walls of certain buildings (even if everything inside is torn down and rebuilt) and the inability to build over bones (so every contractor's nightmare is discovering human bones in her foundation). We also learned about the politics of land. As more Jews were moving to Jerusalem, some wealthy Muslims started buying land around the Old City to keep them geographically at bay. This policy resulted in Jewish settlements in various places outside the Old City that often tried to get as close as possible to the Old City.
However, a group of immigrants that distinctly did not want to be close to the Old City were the German Jews who no longer felt ... comfortable ... in Germany. They planted trees, built expensive houses, socialized with wealthy Arab Christians, and avoided the Old City at all times. They were "modern" and "civilized" and did all they could to bring the things they loved most about Berlin with them to Jerusalem. Today, the area where they lived is the neighborhood of Rechavia and is still fairly well-to-do.
Near Rechavia is Talbiyeh, which was prime real estate for wealthy Jews who were moving to Jerusalem. At the top of a hill, there's always a breeze in Talbiyeh. The houses are beautiful, and Golda Meir lived there while she was Prime Minister. Additionally, the Israeli President's house is located in Talbiyeh, as is a center affiliated with the philanthropic Bronfman family, adding to the splendor of the neighborhood.
We finished our tour in the German Colony, which was founded by Templars in the second half of the 19th century. These Christians built very solid houses, expecting to establish permanent residence to be passed through the generations. However, in 1939 or so, it was discovered that many of the residents supported the Nazi government in Germany. The British weren't too happy with Nazis living in their territory, so they were forcibly relocated to internment camps in Australia during World War II. As far as I know, they didn't return, and if they did, it generally wasn't to these houses, which are inhabited by "ordinary Israelis" today.
It was great to walk through familiar parts of Jerusalem and hear about the convoluted history that is entirely unapparent just by looking at the surface. I look forward to seeing how these interwoven narratives contribute to the genesis of the new Israeli society that I've landed in for the year. Should be fun.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A week in the life...
...שבוע בחיים
So, it's been such a long time since I've posted, but in a way that's a really good thing because it means that I've been pleasantly busy.
Last Monday, Jessica and I went on a self-guided tour of a nearby part of Jerusalem. She owns a book called Jerusalem Walks, which details several walks one can take around the city and provides ample historical context for the areas. We walked around Rachov Rav Kook, saw the Ticho house, and almost got locked into the Ethiopian Church. Unfortunately, it became too dark to read our tour book, so to spend the time that remained to us before a birthday party we were to attend, we decided to wander around for a bit. We ended up in the shuk, where merchants were trying to close down by selling their goods at reduced prices -- especially breads. We got some ruggelach for our friend and picked up some cheap pita and a mango. The party was pleasant - it was at one of the very few Irish pubs in Jerusalem. Definite character!
The next morning I went with HUC on a three-day trip to the northern part of Israel, the Galilee and Golan regions. I listed most of the places we visited under the "Things We've Seen in Israel" list, so I won't go into them here. One thing I will expand upon is our exposure to the debate about whether the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria.
The history behind Israel's acquisition of the Golan from Syria is long and complex, and I won't go into it here. The issue we explored was a contemporary one: Given that the border along the Golan is the quietest in Israel, does it make sense to consider returning the plateau to Syria in exchange for peace accords?
We met with a political activist who campaigns for the retention of the Golan in Israel. Currently, she and her organization are working to try to get a law passed that mandates a referendum before relinquishing the Golan. She says that most Israelis are against giving up the Golan in exchange for peace and that the Golan doesn't just belong to the 21,000 Druze and 20,000 Israelis (including her) but rather to all Israelis. She argues that we're not really at war with Syria, so giving them land for "peace" doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, Syria is known/suspected of conducting activities against Israel through third parties, and a potential cessation of that support would be beneficial to Israel. Although many Israelis say they don't to give up the Golan, there's also a large measure of uncertainty with regard to the question. That is, many Israelis, logically, want to know the terms of the deal before determining whether they support it or not. Before learning what, exactly, Syria wants in exchange for the Golan, they can't come down in support or against a hypothetical agreement.
For the most part, that's how I feel as well. I can't take a stand without a platform, especially considering how very basic my knowledge is. That having been said, however, in principle, peace is my highest priority, and if exchanging the Golan Heights would, in fact achieve some measures of peace, I believe I would be in favor.
On the bus ride back to Jerusalem on Thursday, I had the privilege of having a 1.5-hour conversation with one of our professors. I very much appreciated the opportunity to get to know him better and to learn from him in a more intimate setting. Overall, I've found the faculty here very approachable and knowledgeable.
This was reflected also the day after I returned from the trip. Jessica and I (and the rest of HUC) went to one of the Reform congregations in Jerusalem, Kol Haneshama, for Shabbat services. Afterward, those who wished were invited back to homes of congregants to enjoy a Shabbat dinner there. Jessica and I, along with three other students, were hosted by two delightful congregants who have been living in Israel for three years, one of whom teaches liturgy at HUC. The food was excellent, and so was the conversation. We were there for several hours, and we had a great time. I'm really pleased that HUC encourages such informal opportunities to learn from and get to know HUC faculty and community members.
Our Shabbat was delightful. We went to services at Har El, welcomed two of Jessica's friends from ulpan for lunch, and watched a movie. At the end of this Shabbat is the (Ashkenazic) traditional time when late-night S'lichot services are held. For a reason that eluded me and other students, HUC wanted us to travel as a class to the Great Synagogue, where Jessica and I attended Shabbat services a couple weeks ago. The Great Synagogue is an enormous Orthodox synagogue that inspires one to compare it to the Temple. It hosts a choir on major events, and S'lichot definitely qualifies.
We started the evening by meeting at HUC. There, two of our teachers prepared us for what we would see at the synagogue. We went through the liturgy and some music of classical Ashkenazic S'lichot services, and then we headed to the synagogue. We separated men from women and had a seat around 10:15.
S'lichot in the prayerbook we were using is 21 pages long.
We left at 12:30 am.
The service was interminable, the music (to me) was boring (I almost fell asleep a number of times), it was difficult to follow, and I didn't find anything meaningful about the service. On the one hand, I appreciate having had the opportunity to have this experience, but on the other, I'm really really not Orthodox, and that setting is definitely not for me. I'm sure I'll continue to explore different synagogues (most of them in some form of orthodoxy) in Jerusalem, but I know it will be hard for me to pray (rather than watch) there.
On the other hand, our hour-long preparatory session was very helpful. Without it, I would have been entirely lost, and I surely would have left early. What does this mean? It means that through effective training, I can learn to be more comfortable with Jewish prayer. Already, I've found prayer experiences and liturgy classes helpful in getting a handle of the rhythm of Jewish prayer, and I feel that it's important to be able to dance to that rhythm - if not all the time then at least when appropriate. Early in the year, Michael Marmur challenged us to consider whether we could be truly effective rabbis if we didn't appreciate and understand Jewish prayer. I took what he said seriously, and I've been trying to become more familiar and welcoming of structured prayer in my personal life. I'm making progress, and one of my goals for the year is to have significantly improved my comfort with prayer.
The last update I want to include is Jessica's and my experience at the Interfaith Encounter Association potluck last night. Jessica has written here about her contact with Yehuda Stolov, and I'd emailed with someone about possibly joining a group. Despite those contacts, though, neither of us had any idea what to expect.
We found the Swedish Theological Institute after a little searching and rang a bell. A few moments later, Yehuda let us in through the iron door and welcomed us into what looked like a large, well-kept house. We dropped our food off in the dining area, met someone who has recently started working at the institute and made our way to a living room area. Others were talking amongst themselves, and we didn't want to just sit in the corner and wait to see what happened, so we moved close to people and tried to engage in conversation.
What followed was a wonderful night of meeting Jews, Muslims, and a Christian who had come together on a poorly publicized official Day of Peace in Israel to celebrate IEA's task of building peaceful relations between people. Over the night we met Diane, a Sister of Zion living in the Old City of Jerusalem; Miri, a grad student at Bar Ilan University; Natan-el, an American who made aliyah 35 years ago and who makes practical Judaica in Jerusalem; an Israeli woman who works for an Arabic radio station; and several participants in different encounter groups.
We started the evening with a meal to break the Ramadan fast. Food included different kinds of bread, some delicious hummuses, rice, vegetables, cous cous, etc. It was delicious. There were some incredible dates, and several desserts, including a new food that I'm in love with: qatayef. During dinner, Natan-el gave a presentation about Rosh Hashannah as well as the history of the shofar (complete with demonstration!). A Muslim woman talked about Ramadan, and another translated her Arabic into Hebrew. (Because not everyone speaks Hebrew or Arabic, the lingua franca of the evening was English, though Jessica and I had plenty of opportunities to speak Hebrew.) Finally, a young Jewish man named Baruch talked about Yom Kippur.
In thinking about our wonderful evening, it's sadly ironic that only a few hours later, there was an attack near the Old City; a man drove a car into a group of Israeli soldiers. He didn't kill anyone, but within seconds of the attack, he had been shot dead. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, is pushing for a release of the current legal restraints on bulldozing the houses of terrorists' families. In my opinion, such action only furthers to cycle of violence, and given that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that such retribution doesn't deter terrorism, I sincerely hope that Barak does not get his wish.
The participants in the IEA, of which I hope to be one, are trying to build bridges that will make such violence only a piece of history. While I pray that more "influential" individuals will gain similar perspectives soon, I will continue to work to do what I can to build a more peaceful world. Hopefully by working together, we'll be able to make some progress.
So, it's been such a long time since I've posted, but in a way that's a really good thing because it means that I've been pleasantly busy.
Last Monday, Jessica and I went on a self-guided tour of a nearby part of Jerusalem. She owns a book called Jerusalem Walks, which details several walks one can take around the city and provides ample historical context for the areas. We walked around Rachov Rav Kook, saw the Ticho house, and almost got locked into the Ethiopian Church. Unfortunately, it became too dark to read our tour book, so to spend the time that remained to us before a birthday party we were to attend, we decided to wander around for a bit. We ended up in the shuk, where merchants were trying to close down by selling their goods at reduced prices -- especially breads. We got some ruggelach for our friend and picked up some cheap pita and a mango. The party was pleasant - it was at one of the very few Irish pubs in Jerusalem. Definite character!
The next morning I went with HUC on a three-day trip to the northern part of Israel, the Galilee and Golan regions. I listed most of the places we visited under the "Things We've Seen in Israel" list, so I won't go into them here. One thing I will expand upon is our exposure to the debate about whether the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria.
The history behind Israel's acquisition of the Golan from Syria is long and complex, and I won't go into it here. The issue we explored was a contemporary one: Given that the border along the Golan is the quietest in Israel, does it make sense to consider returning the plateau to Syria in exchange for peace accords?
We met with a political activist who campaigns for the retention of the Golan in Israel. Currently, she and her organization are working to try to get a law passed that mandates a referendum before relinquishing the Golan. She says that most Israelis are against giving up the Golan in exchange for peace and that the Golan doesn't just belong to the 21,000 Druze and 20,000 Israelis (including her) but rather to all Israelis. She argues that we're not really at war with Syria, so giving them land for "peace" doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, Syria is known/suspected of conducting activities against Israel through third parties, and a potential cessation of that support would be beneficial to Israel. Although many Israelis say they don't to give up the Golan, there's also a large measure of uncertainty with regard to the question. That is, many Israelis, logically, want to know the terms of the deal before determining whether they support it or not. Before learning what, exactly, Syria wants in exchange for the Golan, they can't come down in support or against a hypothetical agreement.
For the most part, that's how I feel as well. I can't take a stand without a platform, especially considering how very basic my knowledge is. That having been said, however, in principle, peace is my highest priority, and if exchanging the Golan Heights would, in fact achieve some measures of peace, I believe I would be in favor.
On the bus ride back to Jerusalem on Thursday, I had the privilege of having a 1.5-hour conversation with one of our professors. I very much appreciated the opportunity to get to know him better and to learn from him in a more intimate setting. Overall, I've found the faculty here very approachable and knowledgeable.
This was reflected also the day after I returned from the trip. Jessica and I (and the rest of HUC) went to one of the Reform congregations in Jerusalem, Kol Haneshama, for Shabbat services. Afterward, those who wished were invited back to homes of congregants to enjoy a Shabbat dinner there. Jessica and I, along with three other students, were hosted by two delightful congregants who have been living in Israel for three years, one of whom teaches liturgy at HUC. The food was excellent, and so was the conversation. We were there for several hours, and we had a great time. I'm really pleased that HUC encourages such informal opportunities to learn from and get to know HUC faculty and community members.
Our Shabbat was delightful. We went to services at Har El, welcomed two of Jessica's friends from ulpan for lunch, and watched a movie. At the end of this Shabbat is the (Ashkenazic) traditional time when late-night S'lichot services are held. For a reason that eluded me and other students, HUC wanted us to travel as a class to the Great Synagogue, where Jessica and I attended Shabbat services a couple weeks ago. The Great Synagogue is an enormous Orthodox synagogue that inspires one to compare it to the Temple. It hosts a choir on major events, and S'lichot definitely qualifies.
We started the evening by meeting at HUC. There, two of our teachers prepared us for what we would see at the synagogue. We went through the liturgy and some music of classical Ashkenazic S'lichot services, and then we headed to the synagogue. We separated men from women and had a seat around 10:15.
S'lichot in the prayerbook we were using is 21 pages long.
We left at 12:30 am.
The service was interminable, the music (to me) was boring (I almost fell asleep a number of times), it was difficult to follow, and I didn't find anything meaningful about the service. On the one hand, I appreciate having had the opportunity to have this experience, but on the other, I'm really really not Orthodox, and that setting is definitely not for me. I'm sure I'll continue to explore different synagogues (most of them in some form of orthodoxy) in Jerusalem, but I know it will be hard for me to pray (rather than watch) there.
On the other hand, our hour-long preparatory session was very helpful. Without it, I would have been entirely lost, and I surely would have left early. What does this mean? It means that through effective training, I can learn to be more comfortable with Jewish prayer. Already, I've found prayer experiences and liturgy classes helpful in getting a handle of the rhythm of Jewish prayer, and I feel that it's important to be able to dance to that rhythm - if not all the time then at least when appropriate. Early in the year, Michael Marmur challenged us to consider whether we could be truly effective rabbis if we didn't appreciate and understand Jewish prayer. I took what he said seriously, and I've been trying to become more familiar and welcoming of structured prayer in my personal life. I'm making progress, and one of my goals for the year is to have significantly improved my comfort with prayer.
The last update I want to include is Jessica's and my experience at the Interfaith Encounter Association potluck last night. Jessica has written here about her contact with Yehuda Stolov, and I'd emailed with someone about possibly joining a group. Despite those contacts, though, neither of us had any idea what to expect.
We found the Swedish Theological Institute after a little searching and rang a bell. A few moments later, Yehuda let us in through the iron door and welcomed us into what looked like a large, well-kept house. We dropped our food off in the dining area, met someone who has recently started working at the institute and made our way to a living room area. Others were talking amongst themselves, and we didn't want to just sit in the corner and wait to see what happened, so we moved close to people and tried to engage in conversation.
What followed was a wonderful night of meeting Jews, Muslims, and a Christian who had come together on a poorly publicized official Day of Peace in Israel to celebrate IEA's task of building peaceful relations between people. Over the night we met Diane, a Sister of Zion living in the Old City of Jerusalem; Miri, a grad student at Bar Ilan University; Natan-el, an American who made aliyah 35 years ago and who makes practical Judaica in Jerusalem; an Israeli woman who works for an Arabic radio station; and several participants in different encounter groups.
We started the evening with a meal to break the Ramadan fast. Food included different kinds of bread, some delicious hummuses, rice, vegetables, cous cous, etc. It was delicious. There were some incredible dates, and several desserts, including a new food that I'm in love with: qatayef. During dinner, Natan-el gave a presentation about Rosh Hashannah as well as the history of the shofar (complete with demonstration!). A Muslim woman talked about Ramadan, and another translated her Arabic into Hebrew. (Because not everyone speaks Hebrew or Arabic, the lingua franca of the evening was English, though Jessica and I had plenty of opportunities to speak Hebrew.) Finally, a young Jewish man named Baruch talked about Yom Kippur.
In thinking about our wonderful evening, it's sadly ironic that only a few hours later, there was an attack near the Old City; a man drove a car into a group of Israeli soldiers. He didn't kill anyone, but within seconds of the attack, he had been shot dead. Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, is pushing for a release of the current legal restraints on bulldozing the houses of terrorists' families. In my opinion, such action only furthers to cycle of violence, and given that the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that such retribution doesn't deter terrorism, I sincerely hope that Barak does not get his wish.
The participants in the IEA, of which I hope to be one, are trying to build bridges that will make such violence only a piece of history. While I pray that more "influential" individuals will gain similar perspectives soon, I will continue to work to do what I can to build a more peaceful world. Hopefully by working together, we'll be able to make some progress.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A Few Updates
I just got back from a short, yet productive, meeting with Yehuda Stolov, the head of the Interfaith Encounter Association, an organization for which I plan on volunteering a few hours a week. We began by introducing ourselves to each other briefly, and then discussing what kinds of tasks I'd be willing to do. We came up with three possible tasks for the year: helping with fundraising, sorting and keeping track of e-mail addresses, and translating encounter groups' reports from Hebrew into English. The last of these is the most interesting to me but probably the least helpful to them as right now Yehuda does this task himself and is probably more qualified for the task. But hopefully I'll get to do some of it as it would certainly be good Hebrew practice for me! Really, I didn't expect this volunteering to be particularly interesting, but I believe in and am excited about the organization and wanted to help out in some small way that fit with what I imagine will be my busy schedule this year. In addition to volunteering, I will also be taking part in an interfaith encounter group. Yehuda told me that there are three groups that would be good for me in Jerusalem and that while each received identical training they are all quite different because of the people who are in the groups. One is located on Mt. Scopus, at Hebrew University, and is composed entirely of students. One meets around the corner from where we live and is for young professionals. The third (least convenient for me to meet with in terms of location but perhaps the most interesting?) is composed of five young Jews from Jerusalem and five young Palestinians from Hebron, a city in the West Bank. It meets in Jerusalem once a week. None of these groups is meeting during the summer, so I do have a little while to think about which group(s) I'll be a part of - any of them I think would be a great experience.
A bit about the Interfaith Encounter Association, because I think they are a truly inspiring group. Yehuda told me that the organization was founded seven years ago, when a few participants of other interfaith dialogue groups decided to form a new model because they felt that the old model wasn't working. According to Yehuda, the old model only encouraged participation by those few individuals who had already begun some work in interfaith studies. It mostly consisted of lectures or panels with passive listeners, which has its benefits as the group can control what kind of information is presented, but is ineffective if the goal is to have people get to know each other and lose their fears of one another. IEA was formed to encourage larger numbers of people from all walks of life to participate in an interactive and open form of dialogue. The group is only focused on religious issues and takes no political stances, nor does it have political conversations. They believe that religion can be a solution to conflicts and not only a cause, and that through coming together to talk about religion, members of diverse groups can lose their fear of one another and see themselves in the other. IEA's goal is to be a social movement involving thousands of groups accross the country, and to change the social fabric of Israel in a grassroots way by getting people to simply talk to one another. Seven years ago, IEA consisted of two interfaith dialogue groups, now it consists of something like 23 groups and thousands of active members. Some of its projects include weekend retreats, School Coexistance Projects that bring together Palestinian and Israeli school groups to talk about neutral issues (one group was recently educated on dental care, for instance), Womens Interfaith Encounter groups, three Youth Interfaith Encounter groups, and a Middle East Abrahamic Forum including groups from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, and Israel. IEA has been recognized by UNESCO as an actor of the global movement for a culture of peace, a United Nations initiative. In 2006, IEA received the Immortal Chaplains Foundation's 2006 Prize for Humanity.
Flipping through the reports of various IEA events, I read about a Hannukah/Eid Al Adha party at a member's house, Palestinian and Israeli fifth graders doing a road clean-up together, a mother's day celebration where women from various groups came together to do programs on cooking, cosmetics, and sports, and art, a meeting of Christian, Muslim, and Druze women to discuss the issue of young marraige age, an evening of folklore and theater in a diverse community, meetings and presentations in churches, mosques, synagogues, and a Druze worship house, a meeting on the importance of dialogue led by a social worker and a psychologist, a bazaar at a community center where underprivileged people could come and get what they might need for an upcoming holiday, a conversation comparing and contrasting foods eaten by different groups, a discussion of holy day practices, a discussion of how different individuals relate to the idea of identity, what sounds like an intense discussion on predestination, conversion, sin, redemption, and asking forgiveness from G-d in Islam and Judaism, reading Hebrew and Arabic translations of Martin Luther King, Jr. together, an interfaith meeting of healthcare workers to discuss the influence of interpreters in healthcare settings, and the list goes on and on and on and on. In 2007, IEA held a total of 120 programs comprised of 96 inter-religious study sessions in the general program, 20 in the Women’s Program, and 4 in
the Young Adults program. The IEA website is quite informative, so if you want to learn more, you should definately check it out.
-------------------------
Yesterday, Daniel and I had some friends over for creme brulee french toast (made out of the challah which I've come to enjoy baking on Fridays) after Shabbat services. We played games, chatted, and had a great time. In the evening, we went to an HUC Havdalah event, a magical way to invite the week to begin again after the slow and lazy sigh of Shabbat.
----------------------
On Friday evening, Daniel and I went to the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue right around the corner from our apartment. It is a huge and impressive building. The foyer is home to an exhibit of artistic mezzuzot, which Daniel and I browsed eagerly as we nervously watched other people out of the corner of our eyes to figure out where we should go for services. Eventually we made our way up a grand flight of stairs, and parted as I headed further up, to the women's balcony. On the way, I walked next to an old lady with pleasantly crinkled leathery skin and smiling eyes, whose head was covered with a brown kercheif as though she were plucked out of a film about East European Jewish life in the 1800's. She said to me in Hebrew "A lot of stairs", and I smiled at her and walked up them slowly with her, just to be sure she made it to the top safely.
At the top, I sat next to a row of women with small children who chattered and cooed throughout the service, which would have been beautiful music to listen to had not the woman on the other side of me insisted on shushing the children almost constantly and chastizing their mothers for bringing them to shul if they were going to make so much noise. Everyone was very nice to me and there was a sense of community up there in the women's balcony. Not very many people seemed to be praying, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.
I had trouble following the prayers in the prayerbook - the chazzan faced the ark and prayed ferverently in an Ashkenazi accented Hebrew - but the prayer was nevertheless beautiful. The chazzan's voice was operetic and soulful, powerful, warm, and pointed, and it carried throughout the high-ceilinged, grand sanctuary. One of the most noticable features of the synagogue was its stained glass windows, tall, large, detailed, and glimmeringly colorful in the setting sun of Shabbat evening.
---------------------
On Thursday night, we had our accross the hall neighbors over for dinner. I arrived home from ulpan a bit early and began cooking and cleaning as soon as I got home. Mom, you would have been impressed to find me on my hands and knees cleaning the floor. I even dusted! (for those of you who don't know, I am an incredibly messy person, so this was no small feat). We made vegetarian quiche stuffed with parsnips, red pepper, parsely, and squash, steamed broccolli, oven roasted potatoes, and red lentil soup. Everything smelled delicious and we were very proud of ourselves when at 6:30 we sat down on the couch and waited for our guests to arrive, any minute. Any minute turned into a half hour, and we didn't know what to do - should we knock on their door? Wait longer? Should we assume they had forgotten and eat dinner? A half hour is a long time... Finally Daniel knocked on their door... three separate times.... and we waited some more. At 7:10 our neighbors arrived, flowers in hand. We think maybe the timing was a cultural difference we weren't prepared for, and our only question is, if they invite us over would it be uncouth for us to show up on time?
Our neighbors are Hebrew speakers whose English is not as good as our Hebrew, so the conversation was entirely in Hebrew. Thank goodness that they like to talk, because we can both understand much more than we can say. It was a lovely evening full of stories and laughter. We heard about their experiences in the army, how they met, about their children and grandchildren, their family histories, and more. We talked about literature and language, about food, and quite a bit about religion. They are very interesting, intellectual, warm, and patient people and we are excited at the possibility of growing close to them - and improving our Hebrew through interacting with them!
--------------------
Otherwise, things here have been quiet. Jerusalem is cooling down a bit - today there were clouds in the sky and the air was cool and calm until the afternoon - so much so that I may need to rethink my wardrobe in the upcoming weeks. Today I walked home from IEA in the afternoon and arrived home flushed from the heat, but the sun is setting now and the cool breeze from the window is pleasant and soothing. We haven't used the window fans in a few days.
I've been working on a presentation that I have to give on Thursday to my literature class about Amos Oz, and I imagine that it will be the primary concern of my week - devising questions to ask the class about the section we will read, looking up pertinent words, and reiterating to myself that I won't compleltely embarass myself when I try to speak Hebrew in front of the class with at least some semblance of an air of authority.
--------------------------
Daniel and I have noticed that while we love our blog, as it is a way for us to record, express, and process our experiences here in Isreal, it is in some ways a false way of keeping in touch because we don't have the opportunity to hear about all of your adventures. So, in your free time and when you get a chance, please send us e-mails, facebook messages, comments, phone calls, or whatever, and let us know how you are. We miss all of you so much.
A bit about the Interfaith Encounter Association, because I think they are a truly inspiring group. Yehuda told me that the organization was founded seven years ago, when a few participants of other interfaith dialogue groups decided to form a new model because they felt that the old model wasn't working. According to Yehuda, the old model only encouraged participation by those few individuals who had already begun some work in interfaith studies. It mostly consisted of lectures or panels with passive listeners, which has its benefits as the group can control what kind of information is presented, but is ineffective if the goal is to have people get to know each other and lose their fears of one another. IEA was formed to encourage larger numbers of people from all walks of life to participate in an interactive and open form of dialogue. The group is only focused on religious issues and takes no political stances, nor does it have political conversations. They believe that religion can be a solution to conflicts and not only a cause, and that through coming together to talk about religion, members of diverse groups can lose their fear of one another and see themselves in the other. IEA's goal is to be a social movement involving thousands of groups accross the country, and to change the social fabric of Israel in a grassroots way by getting people to simply talk to one another. Seven years ago, IEA consisted of two interfaith dialogue groups, now it consists of something like 23 groups and thousands of active members. Some of its projects include weekend retreats, School Coexistance Projects that bring together Palestinian and Israeli school groups to talk about neutral issues (one group was recently educated on dental care, for instance), Womens Interfaith Encounter groups, three Youth Interfaith Encounter groups, and a Middle East Abrahamic Forum including groups from Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, and Israel. IEA has been recognized by UNESCO as an actor of the global movement for a culture of peace, a United Nations initiative. In 2006, IEA received the Immortal Chaplains Foundation's 2006 Prize for Humanity.
Flipping through the reports of various IEA events, I read about a Hannukah/Eid Al Adha party at a member's house, Palestinian and Israeli fifth graders doing a road clean-up together, a mother's day celebration where women from various groups came together to do programs on cooking, cosmetics, and sports, and art, a meeting of Christian, Muslim, and Druze women to discuss the issue of young marraige age, an evening of folklore and theater in a diverse community, meetings and presentations in churches, mosques, synagogues, and a Druze worship house, a meeting on the importance of dialogue led by a social worker and a psychologist, a bazaar at a community center where underprivileged people could come and get what they might need for an upcoming holiday, a conversation comparing and contrasting foods eaten by different groups, a discussion of holy day practices, a discussion of how different individuals relate to the idea of identity, what sounds like an intense discussion on predestination, conversion, sin, redemption, and asking forgiveness from G-d in Islam and Judaism, reading Hebrew and Arabic translations of Martin Luther King, Jr. together, an interfaith meeting of healthcare workers to discuss the influence of interpreters in healthcare settings, and the list goes on and on and on and on. In 2007, IEA held a total of 120 programs comprised of 96 inter-religious study sessions in the general program, 20 in the Women’s Program, and 4 in
the Young Adults program. The IEA website is quite informative, so if you want to learn more, you should definately check it out.
-------------------------
Yesterday, Daniel and I had some friends over for creme brulee french toast (made out of the challah which I've come to enjoy baking on Fridays) after Shabbat services. We played games, chatted, and had a great time. In the evening, we went to an HUC Havdalah event, a magical way to invite the week to begin again after the slow and lazy sigh of Shabbat.
----------------------
On Friday evening, Daniel and I went to the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue right around the corner from our apartment. It is a huge and impressive building. The foyer is home to an exhibit of artistic mezzuzot, which Daniel and I browsed eagerly as we nervously watched other people out of the corner of our eyes to figure out where we should go for services. Eventually we made our way up a grand flight of stairs, and parted as I headed further up, to the women's balcony. On the way, I walked next to an old lady with pleasantly crinkled leathery skin and smiling eyes, whose head was covered with a brown kercheif as though she were plucked out of a film about East European Jewish life in the 1800's. She said to me in Hebrew "A lot of stairs", and I smiled at her and walked up them slowly with her, just to be sure she made it to the top safely.
At the top, I sat next to a row of women with small children who chattered and cooed throughout the service, which would have been beautiful music to listen to had not the woman on the other side of me insisted on shushing the children almost constantly and chastizing their mothers for bringing them to shul if they were going to make so much noise. Everyone was very nice to me and there was a sense of community up there in the women's balcony. Not very many people seemed to be praying, but everyone seemed to be having a good time.
I had trouble following the prayers in the prayerbook - the chazzan faced the ark and prayed ferverently in an Ashkenazi accented Hebrew - but the prayer was nevertheless beautiful. The chazzan's voice was operetic and soulful, powerful, warm, and pointed, and it carried throughout the high-ceilinged, grand sanctuary. One of the most noticable features of the synagogue was its stained glass windows, tall, large, detailed, and glimmeringly colorful in the setting sun of Shabbat evening.
---------------------
On Thursday night, we had our accross the hall neighbors over for dinner. I arrived home from ulpan a bit early and began cooking and cleaning as soon as I got home. Mom, you would have been impressed to find me on my hands and knees cleaning the floor. I even dusted! (for those of you who don't know, I am an incredibly messy person, so this was no small feat). We made vegetarian quiche stuffed with parsnips, red pepper, parsely, and squash, steamed broccolli, oven roasted potatoes, and red lentil soup. Everything smelled delicious and we were very proud of ourselves when at 6:30 we sat down on the couch and waited for our guests to arrive, any minute. Any minute turned into a half hour, and we didn't know what to do - should we knock on their door? Wait longer? Should we assume they had forgotten and eat dinner? A half hour is a long time... Finally Daniel knocked on their door... three separate times.... and we waited some more. At 7:10 our neighbors arrived, flowers in hand. We think maybe the timing was a cultural difference we weren't prepared for, and our only question is, if they invite us over would it be uncouth for us to show up on time?
Our neighbors are Hebrew speakers whose English is not as good as our Hebrew, so the conversation was entirely in Hebrew. Thank goodness that they like to talk, because we can both understand much more than we can say. It was a lovely evening full of stories and laughter. We heard about their experiences in the army, how they met, about their children and grandchildren, their family histories, and more. We talked about literature and language, about food, and quite a bit about religion. They are very interesting, intellectual, warm, and patient people and we are excited at the possibility of growing close to them - and improving our Hebrew through interacting with them!
--------------------
Otherwise, things here have been quiet. Jerusalem is cooling down a bit - today there were clouds in the sky and the air was cool and calm until the afternoon - so much so that I may need to rethink my wardrobe in the upcoming weeks. Today I walked home from IEA in the afternoon and arrived home flushed from the heat, but the sun is setting now and the cool breeze from the window is pleasant and soothing. We haven't used the window fans in a few days.
I've been working on a presentation that I have to give on Thursday to my literature class about Amos Oz, and I imagine that it will be the primary concern of my week - devising questions to ask the class about the section we will read, looking up pertinent words, and reiterating to myself that I won't compleltely embarass myself when I try to speak Hebrew in front of the class with at least some semblance of an air of authority.
--------------------------
Daniel and I have noticed that while we love our blog, as it is a way for us to record, express, and process our experiences here in Isreal, it is in some ways a false way of keeping in touch because we don't have the opportunity to hear about all of your adventures. So, in your free time and when you get a chance, please send us e-mails, facebook messages, comments, phone calls, or whatever, and let us know how you are. We miss all of you so much.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Busses and Babies, Art and Adamah
On the bus this afternoon I sat accross from a stern-faced older woman who muttered glumly about the traffic under her breath. Her bags looked heavy, and her lips were folded downward, firmly pressed into a frown.
Soon after we sat down opposite each other and stared out the window to avoid making eye contact, a young woman ascended onto the bus, baby carraige in tow. She lifted the baby out of the pushcart and sat down with him behind me.
First, I heard the cooing, and the mother whispering to her baby in English, "See? See the busses? See the babies and the mommies?" as they looked out the window. Then, I saw the face of the woman accross from me - her almond-shaped eyes sugared over like candy, and the wrinkles near her eyes shooting upwards like arrows pointing at her headscarf as she smiled a toothy grin. Soon, she was snapping, knocking on the window, and speaking what I can only assume was Hebrew baby-talk.
Others joined in. The whole front of the bus was watching the baby as it pretended to answer a cell phone and made loud noises to imitate car horns. We were stuck in traffic. We weren't moving at all. And rather than the tired, annoyed, silent bodies with sagging shoulders who can usually be found on the bus at this time, we were laughing, talking to each other, making funny faces, and smiling broadly.
------------------------------
Today in ulpan we heard a lecture about the symbolism of land/earth/dirt in Israeli art. Here's a bit of a summary. While land is an important universal topic in art, in Israel it holds particular social, political, and religious meaning. In the beginnings of art (ie. cave paintings) land wasn't itself a subject, but instead was a medium for the production of art - artists used blood and dirt in order to create representations of the world around them. In recent years, the French artist Jean Debuffet created paintings that were similar to cave paintings in order to highlite the connection between people and the earth. The lecturer noted the deep conection in the Hebrew language itself - Adam, meaning man (also the name of the first man in the Bible), and Adama, meaning dirt/earth/land. In the Bible, Adam is created out of the earth, and as Children of Adam, when we breath our last breath, we return to the earth once more. Many of Debuffet's paintings illustrate this concept, as they depict humans the color of earth, often using dirt as a material out of which to produce the work. In one painting in particular that the lecturer showed us, the human bodies are hidden amidst all the colors of the soil, and are so integrated into the material of the land that it is hard to see them - they are part and parcel of the soil itself. The lecturer said, and this seemed to be her main point throughout, that this art was about a universal concept, but that Israeli art tended to take these universal concepts and address them in Israel-specific ways.
In 1906, the Bezalel Acadamy of Art and Design, Israel's national school of art, was opened. Israeli art basically began at its opening, as the teachers created a new school of art, the Bezalel school, that combined European and Middle Eastern aesthetics and techniques.
From it's beginnings, Israeli art was preoccupied with the idea of land. Paintings represented Biblical Jews participating in festivals connected to agriculture, and pioneers working the land. Unline in many other times in Jewish (particularly European Jewish) history, when Jews were forbidden from owning and working land, in Israel Jews had the opportunity to reap and to sow, to plant and to eat what they had grown. It was strongly emphasized that the way to build the country was to work with the land.
To emphasize her point about the way that art represented connectedness to the land, our lecturer showed us a self portrait by Reuven Rubin, a famous Israeli artist from Romania, who painted himself with darker skin than he acutally had because it was the color of the ground and the color of people when they work in the sun in Isreal. In the painting he is also wearing slippers to demonstrate that he is a
t home in the land, which dominates the painting. In others of Reuven's paintings, the horizen line is abnormally high at the top of the painting, so that the sky takes up just the tiniest uppermost space of the canvas (see the picture to the left of this text). The land, then, takes up almost the whole painting, and the paintings all contain the fruits of the land - bananas, oranges, and other warm-weather produce. We also saw a painting by Nachum Gutman of an orchard - a symbol of fruitfulness and prosperity. The lecturer showed several slides of popular images such as publicity posters and children's books that emphasized working the land. The images are full of warm colors and demonstrate the joys of agriculture.
The lecturer then went on to talk about other forms of art that were universal in other places and became Israel-specific when produced by Israeli artists. She described the earth works movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's in the US which used the earth itself as the canvas for art. She described the work of Robert Smithson, who is most well known for his earth work "Spiral Jetty." This was a giant, 450 meters in diameter, spiral on the beach fo Utah's Salt Lake. He created a work of art in place that could not be kept in a gallery or museum. The ideas of his art were what the lecturer described as "cosmopolitical" and universal. The lecturere also described the work of Michael Heiser, whose work "Double Negative," also an earth work in place, consists of two trenches accross a large gap. The trenches together measure 1,500 feet long, 50 feet deep, and 30 feet wide. 240,000 tons of rock was displaced in the construction of the trenches. The trenches demonstrate the ideas of positive and negative space - of having and lacking.
In Israel, artists adapted the ideas of the land art movement and used them to create art that addressed the specific issues and significance of land in Israel. Avital Geva, a commander wounded in the 1967, created a land art project in which he gathered a group of Arabs and Israelis from a kibbutz and a nearby Arab village and together with them dug two holes - one in the kibbutz and one in the villaige. They moved the dirt from one hole to the other, symbolically saying tha the land belongs to both people, and can be shared cooperatively, rather than being fought over.
We also learned about some Palestinan art, but unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the artist about which our lecturer spoke. She showed us two works that were sculpted out of dirt and sand. The first, "Hagar" was of a face of a beautiful woman. The land was cracked and dry, but she was nevertheless created and formed out of it - the mother earth of the Palestinian people. The second, "I am Ishmael" was of a man's body constructed out of dry, cracked, sand and dirt, surrounded by rocks.
The lecturer then sped through a number of artists whpose work indicates that unlike in the more idealistic mood of the past, the land is no longer just a symbol of fruitfulness and of arriving home. The land has also become a symbol of war and death, as disputes over land are the cause for much strife and pain in Israel. In particular, we looked at the work of Moshe Gershuni, who paints the land red, covered with blood.
We saw a slide of a sculpture of chocolate soldiers - who appeared brave and strong. We were dold that the artist invited people to eat the chocolate and after a while the sculpture which had once seemed brave and beautiful appeared deeply sad, as though the soldiers had been victims of a bombing - heads detached from limbs, flakes of bodies strewn about. And soon it all disappeared.
We saw a work
by Menashe Kadishman called "Falling Leaves" which is on display in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. Piles and piles of metal circular faces with open mouths cover the floor between two walls. The artist encourages people to walk on the metal and hear the noise they make - those open mouths crying put from the ground. It is meant to symbolize those who perished and were buried in unmarked graves - that the ground we walk on contains so much pain.
We also saw a slide of a work that is meant to look both like a backgammon board - to which there are two sides but they participate together in cooperation - and like the mouth of a sharp-toothed monster. The work, our lecturer told us, was strongly influenced by the work of Yoko Ono, who has created a number of pieces that are chess boards with both sets of peices white - so that it is impossible for them to make war.
The last artist we discussed was Erez Israeli. His work, a lawn with red poppies, constructed out of tiny beads, sits on the floor of the Givon Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. The po
ppies are beautiful, but have mythological significance as the flowers that are said to grow in the places where heroes have fallen. Thus, in this represenation, the land is both beautiful and a place of death.
The lecturer, whose speech was interesting if somewhat repetitive, concluded by saying that the land was a very powerful symbol in Israeli art. It has meanings of ownership and belonging, of being home, of work, of fruitfulness, of strength, but also of death, conflict, war, and pain.
In any case it was definatley an interesting lecture, particularly as before today I knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about Israeli art.
Soon after we sat down opposite each other and stared out the window to avoid making eye contact, a young woman ascended onto the bus, baby carraige in tow. She lifted the baby out of the pushcart and sat down with him behind me.
First, I heard the cooing, and the mother whispering to her baby in English, "See? See the busses? See the babies and the mommies?" as they looked out the window. Then, I saw the face of the woman accross from me - her almond-shaped eyes sugared over like candy, and the wrinkles near her eyes shooting upwards like arrows pointing at her headscarf as she smiled a toothy grin. Soon, she was snapping, knocking on the window, and speaking what I can only assume was Hebrew baby-talk.
Others joined in. The whole front of the bus was watching the baby as it pretended to answer a cell phone and made loud noises to imitate car horns. We were stuck in traffic. We weren't moving at all. And rather than the tired, annoyed, silent bodies with sagging shoulders who can usually be found on the bus at this time, we were laughing, talking to each other, making funny faces, and smiling broadly.
------------------------------
Today in ulpan we heard a lecture about the symbolism of land/earth/dirt in Israeli art. Here's a bit of a summary. While land is an important universal topic in art, in Israel it holds particular social, political, and religious meaning. In the beginnings of art (ie. cave paintings) land wasn't itself a subject, but instead was a medium for the production of art - artists used blood and dirt in order to create representations of the world around them. In recent years, the French artist Jean Debuffet created paintings that were similar to cave paintings in order to highlite the connection between people and the earth. The lecturer noted the deep conection in the Hebrew language itself - Adam, meaning man (also the name of the first man in the Bible), and Adama, meaning dirt/earth/land. In the Bible, Adam is created out of the earth, and as Children of Adam, when we breath our last breath, we return to the earth once more. Many of Debuffet's paintings illustrate this concept, as they depict humans the color of earth, often using dirt as a material out of which to produce the work. In one painting in particular that the lecturer showed us, the human bodies are hidden amidst all the colors of the soil, and are so integrated into the material of the land that it is hard to see them - they are part and parcel of the soil itself. The lecturer said, and this seemed to be her main point throughout, that this art was about a universal concept, but that Israeli art tended to take these universal concepts and address them in Israel-specific ways.
In 1906, the Bezalel Acadamy of Art and Design, Israel's national school of art, was opened. Israeli art basically began at its opening, as the teachers created a new school of art, the Bezalel school, that combined European and Middle Eastern aesthetics and techniques.
From it's beginnings, Israeli art was preoccupied with the idea of land. Paintings represented Biblical Jews participating in festivals connected to agriculture, and pioneers working the land. Unline in many other times in Jewish (particularly European Jewish) history, when Jews were forbidden from owning and working land, in Israel Jews had the opportunity to reap and to sow, to plant and to eat what they had grown. It was strongly emphasized that the way to build the country was to work with the land.
To emphasize her point about the way that art represented connectedness to the land, our lecturer showed us a self portrait by Reuven Rubin, a famous Israeli artist from Romania, who painted himself with darker skin than he acutally had because it was the color of the ground and the color of people when they work in the sun in Isreal. In the painting he is also wearing slippers to demonstrate that he is a
t home in the land, which dominates the painting. In others of Reuven's paintings, the horizen line is abnormally high at the top of the painting, so that the sky takes up just the tiniest uppermost space of the canvas (see the picture to the left of this text). The land, then, takes up almost the whole painting, and the paintings all contain the fruits of the land - bananas, oranges, and other warm-weather produce. We also saw a painting by Nachum Gutman of an orchard - a symbol of fruitfulness and prosperity. The lecturer showed several slides of popular images such as publicity posters and children's books that emphasized working the land. The images are full of warm colors and demonstrate the joys of agriculture.The lecturer then went on to talk about other forms of art that were universal in other places and became Israel-specific when produced by Israeli artists. She described the earth works movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's in the US which used the earth itself as the canvas for art. She described the work of Robert Smithson, who is most well known for his earth work "Spiral Jetty." This was a giant, 450 meters in diameter, spiral on the beach fo Utah's Salt Lake. He created a work of art in place that could not be kept in a gallery or museum. The ideas of his art were what the lecturer described as "cosmopolitical" and universal. The lecturere also described the work of Michael Heiser, whose work "Double Negative," also an earth work in place, consists of two trenches accross a large gap. The trenches together measure 1,500 feet long, 50 feet deep, and 30 feet wide. 240,000 tons of rock was displaced in the construction of the trenches. The trenches demonstrate the ideas of positive and negative space - of having and lacking.
In Israel, artists adapted the ideas of the land art movement and used them to create art that addressed the specific issues and significance of land in Israel. Avital Geva, a commander wounded in the 1967, created a land art project in which he gathered a group of Arabs and Israelis from a kibbutz and a nearby Arab village and together with them dug two holes - one in the kibbutz and one in the villaige. They moved the dirt from one hole to the other, symbolically saying tha the land belongs to both people, and can be shared cooperatively, rather than being fought over.
We also learned about some Palestinan art, but unfortunately I didn't catch the name of the artist about which our lecturer spoke. She showed us two works that were sculpted out of dirt and sand. The first, "Hagar" was of a face of a beautiful woman. The land was cracked and dry, but she was nevertheless created and formed out of it - the mother earth of the Palestinian people. The second, "I am Ishmael" was of a man's body constructed out of dry, cracked, sand and dirt, surrounded by rocks.
The lecturer then sped through a number of artists whpose work indicates that unlike in the more idealistic mood of the past, the land is no longer just a symbol of fruitfulness and of arriving home. The land has also become a symbol of war and death, as disputes over land are the cause for much strife and pain in Israel. In particular, we looked at the work of Moshe Gershuni, who paints the land red, covered with blood.
We saw a slide of a sculpture of chocolate soldiers - who appeared brave and strong. We were dold that the artist invited people to eat the chocolate and after a while the sculpture which had once seemed brave and beautiful appeared deeply sad, as though the soldiers had been victims of a bombing - heads detached from limbs, flakes of bodies strewn about. And soon it all disappeared.
We saw a work
by Menashe Kadishman called "Falling Leaves" which is on display in the Jewish Museum of Berlin. Piles and piles of metal circular faces with open mouths cover the floor between two walls. The artist encourages people to walk on the metal and hear the noise they make - those open mouths crying put from the ground. It is meant to symbolize those who perished and were buried in unmarked graves - that the ground we walk on contains so much pain.We also saw a slide of a work that is meant to look both like a backgammon board - to which there are two sides but they participate together in cooperation - and like the mouth of a sharp-toothed monster. The work, our lecturer told us, was strongly influenced by the work of Yoko Ono, who has created a number of pieces that are chess boards with both sets of peices white - so that it is impossible for them to make war.
The last artist we discussed was Erez Israeli. His work, a lawn with red poppies, constructed out of tiny beads, sits on the floor of the Givon Art Gallery in Tel Aviv. The po
ppies are beautiful, but have mythological significance as the flowers that are said to grow in the places where heroes have fallen. Thus, in this represenation, the land is both beautiful and a place of death.The lecturer, whose speech was interesting if somewhat repetitive, concluded by saying that the land was a very powerful symbol in Israeli art. It has meanings of ownership and belonging, of being home, of work, of fruitfulness, of strength, but also of death, conflict, war, and pain.
In any case it was definatley an interesting lecture, particularly as before today I knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about Israeli art.
The value of being Jewish.
.ערך קיום יהודי
Jessica briefly mentioned in her previous post that she was instructed to get a letter from an American rabbi attesting to her Jewishness in order to receive a student visa. The whole notion is absurd because one doesn't need to be Jewish to be a student in Israel, and the fact that it would even come up is troubling and frustrating to Jessica and me. That the officer at the Ministry of the Interior would even think to ask for such confirmation (even in error) belies the gross neglect of religious freedom in this country. Sure, if Reform Judaism is treated as a separate faith (as suggested by Rabbi Yisrael Rozen), we could have equal rights, but so long as we claim Judaism as our own, progressive Jews in Israel will continue to face religious and legal barriers that fly in the face of Deuteronomy 16:20's invective, "צדק צדק תרדף" (Justice, justice shall you pursue).
This is because, if the Ministry really wanted to push the matter (which I don't expect), the authority of the American rabbi that Jessica finds would have to be examined. Perhaps Jessica's pedigree would be up for discussion. Of course, Jessica is unquestionably Jewish even by the most orthodox standards, but someone who (A) didn't have a rabbi, (B) didn't have a Jewish mother, or (C) wasn't Jewish would certainly have a hard time receiving this visa! I can't believe that even here this letter is required, but that it's asked for is indicative of a pro-Jewish bias that exists in Israel to such a large degree that it can't even be seen.
And what's it based on? Israel was founded as a Jewish country and has been struggling with that title for the past sixty years. People have been asking, "What does it mean to be Jewish?" for a very long time, but I doubt the question is often raised of, "What's the value of us being Jewish?" If a magic genie gave me the option of making Israel a true model of civil liberty, a bastion of peace in the region, an anti-war advocate, and a democracy that values the voices of the few and seeks to bring peace and security to the whole but lose its Jewish identity, I don't know what I would do. Is being Jewish so important that I would choose it over an automatic guarantee of ethics?
On the one hand, I believe that Judaism is a gateway to ethical living and that the Torah is a medium through which we can gain wisdom and Truth. On the other hand, I don't believe that Judaism and the Torah are unique in these roles but rather are specifically efficacious and beneficial to those who identify with them. Why are there Jews? I don't know. But I believe that it's good for the Jewish people for us to be Jewish, and insofar as the Jewish people has a strong track record of "getting it right" in terms of ethics and spirituality, I'm proud to espouse the values of my religion. Yet being Jewish is neither necessary nor sufficient to being ethical, and if ethics are my ultimate priority (and my support of Judaism is a support of unification and ethical living among and outside of our people), should not ethics (or, religiously speaking, perhaps even "pure" spirituality?) outweigh Jewish identity?
I don't know.
Take the example I laid out during Wexner Post 3 about giving money to the questionably Jewish organization that I believed in. Why does Judaism have to enter into the equation at all? We might cede that Jews have a tendency to be more likely to be involved in social action/progress than a non-Jew (though I'm far from claiming that as an existential truth), but nevertheless, I would never feel comfortable making such a decision based on religion alone.
And yet, I also struggle with the notion that not only Israel's orthodox Judaism has an obvious, occasionally unjust bias towards Jewish identity. Also our very own movement has struggled and continues to struggle with this concept, as do I. Take marriage between Jews and non-Jews as an example of assumptive priority of Jewish identity. As of right now, the "official" position of the Reform Movement is as follows:
"The Central Conference of American Rabbis, recalling its stand adopted in 1909 that mixed marriage is contrary to the Jewish tradition and should be discouraged, now declares its opposition to participation by its members in any ceremony which solemnizes a mixed marriage. The Central Conference of American Rabbis recognized that historically its members have held and continue to hold divergent interpretations of Jewish tradition.
In order to keep open every channel in Judaism and Kelal Yisra-el [the Jewish People] for those who have already entered into mixed marriage, the CCAR calls upon its members:
1. To assist fully in educating children of such mixed marriage as Jews;
2. To provide the opportunity for conversion of the non-Jewish spouse; and
3. To encourage a creative and consistent cultivation of involvement in the Jewish community and the synagogue."
However, a statement given by CCAR president Harry Danziger in 2006 at the CCAR convention complicates the Reform movement's stance:
"I look back thirty-three years to the Atlanta convention of 1973, called by some the Battle of Peachtree. There after years of debate and too often acrimony, a ten line resolution was passed opposing officiation at intermarriages. Pamphlets and articles attacking one side or the other abounded. There were even threats of a split in the Conference as there had been before over Zionism.
Five years later, in 1978, Alex Schindler, zichrono livracha, proposed a comprehensive outreach program through which we turned our attention, not only to weddings – the beginning of a new household – but to outcomes – the nature of the family thus created.
In 1983, there were passionate divisions in this Conference over the proposed resolution on children of intermarriage, what has been termed “the patrilineal” resolution. The debate was intense. At the end, we broke new ground in response to new realities, and we proclaimed that, for us, the gender of the Jewish parents would not be the determinant of who is a Jew. Most of us came to live by it. Some still question it. That is part of who we are.
Move forward yet another eleven years. In 1994, in Philadelphia, I was invited to be part of a major program at the convention. Two rabbis and two lay leaders spoke. I was invited to speak on why and how I do in fact officiate at intermarriages. And the president of the Conference at that time, Shim Maslin, who deserves great credit for that program, was a leading proponent of the 1973 resolution. Beit Hillel – They studied and listened to the views of the other side.
This week we have workshops and programs that deal with how we respond to intermarriage, how we engage and involve, yes, and honor, the non-Jewish partner who lives as a Jew albeit without conversion – what some of us call a ger toshav – what I sometimes call a “common law Jew”. The official position may continue to be a ten line resolution in Atlanta, but the practice has become a consensus that there is more than one respectable way to deal with those issues."
So, in combining these two sources, we find that the Reform movement "officially" discourages interfaith marriages and, in the case of an interfaith marriage, encourages the raising of Jewish children, participation in the Jewish community, and the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse. Individual rabbis (including the president of the CCAR) may (and many do) disagree with any of these points and act according to their conscience. So there's an internal struggle in the movement about whether it's of existential value to marry a Jew.
What seems to be agreed upon is that a rabbi should encourage participation in a Jewish community and, ideally, the raising of Jewish children. A point of contention is whether a non-Jewish spouse should be encouraged to convert. Rabbi Richard Address, who was at the Wexner institute last month, told me that sometimes he's had non-Jewish members of his community angry because--in their perception--Rabbi Address was pushing them to convert; and he's also had members of his community angry because--in their perception--Rabbi Address wasn't pushing them enough to convert. Even on a personal level, this is a tricky situation.
But my question is: If a couple is raising their children Jewish and participating in the Jewish community, what value is there to the community for the non-Jewish partner to convert to Judaism? Obviously, if a person discovers a personal meaning in converting to Judaism, she should follow her convictions on whether to convert. But communally, what statement are we making by saying that, all other factors being equal, Jew A is more valuable to us than non-Jew B?
I can't ignore the fact that a Jewish identity is neither sufficient nor necessary for active participation in Jewish family or communal life. Nor can I ignore the fact that Jewish identity makes that participation significantly more accessible (or that an active non-Jewish identity can disrupt a family's Jewish participation). So, is emphasis on conversion a numbers game? "Sure, we agree that a non-Jew can raise Jewish children, but since a Jew is more likely to do so, we want as many Jews raising children as we can."
But that brings us right back to the original question (and please forgive me for traveling in circles; if it's not clear, this forum is largely an opportunity for me to work through complex issues) - Why be Jewish in the first place? Israel, the Jewish state, has done some terrible things. Jews all over the world act immorally and non-Jews act morally. What's the big deal?
Let's cut to the chase: I think that there is a big deal, but I can't back that up. I don't know where the feeling comes from, but I recognize that Jewish history is full of innovation and ethical progress that is worthy of praise. I also recognize that the Jewish community is like a family, and there's no necessary reason to be born into a family; one is simply a part of a family and inherently loves it. So, I suppose I have a blind love for the Jewish people and want to see us live morally and progressively in as many ways as possible.
Does that justify the following caveat in the HUC rabbinical school application?
"In addition to the above requirements, please note that applicants and their spouses, partners, fiancés or fiancées must be Jewish by birth or conversion."
In other words, if I admit to having a non-Jewish girlfriend, I won't be admitted into HUC.
Now, this statement doesn't define Judaism, nor was it ever mentioned during my entire application process. I have heard of students omitting the fact that they have non-Jewish partners and getting into HUC regardless (though as I understand, it generally doesn't happen that someone graduates from HUC with a non-Jewish partner). Nevertheless, the statement is there: Rabbis should have Jewish partners.
This is a topic I discussed with some Wexner Fellows in Stowe. Does a rabbi need to have a non-Jewish partner?
On the one hand, a congregational rabbi is meant to be a leader and example in the Jewish community. There are many Jews, one of my Wexner colleagues included, who would expect a rabbi's partner to participate fully in all congregational activities and have a strong Jewish identity that can be shared with the community. The rabbi's should be a model of a strong Jewish family, and the rabbi should be able to have an uncompromisingly Jewish household to raise children and welcome guests.
On the other hand, if I were talking about anyone else, I would continue to repeat that all those things can happen in an interfaith marriage. A non-Jewish partner can contribute to the Jewish community, participate in a Jewish household, and raise Jewish children. We often stress that rabbis are just like everyone else ... only with more specific knowledge about Jewish topics ... so why should the household of a rabbi be any different? If anything, a rabbi would be virtually guaranteed to have a Jewish household regardless of the religion (or non-religion) of the rabbi's partner, so a rabbi, in a way, could be given even more leniency to cohabitate with whomever she desires.
Furthermore, not all rabbis are communal leaders. Some rabbis become professors, work in Hillel, serve with non-profit organizations, teach at day schools, etc. Are we saying that a Jewish professor has to be married to a Jew if the word "rabbi" comes before (or after) the word "doctor" in his title?
Moreover, as I've mentioned, being Jewish doesn't necessitate that someone is going to be involved in a Jewish community. A rabbi could have a Jewish partner who is entirely disengaged from the Jewish community. If we are looking for Jewish engagement, perhaps there should be a "participation test" for the rabbinical school applicant's partner rather than a "religion test."
Ultimately, the question is: Are we comfortable with playing a numbers game with people's family lives? Are we comfortable saying that, because it is more likely that a Jew will raise a Jewish family, we should encourage Jew-Jew partnerships? I might be able to make that statement if I believed that being Jewish was an existentially superior state than being a non-Jew. I believe that being Jewish is special and unique and wonderful and should be promoted and supported. I believe that being Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Sikh/Agnostic/Humanist/Unitarian/Alternative/Druid/Tribal/Hindu/Etc. is special and unique and wonderful and should be promoted and supported. I believe, ultimately, that being moral and promoting peace is the greatest value to be promoted and supported and that our focus should be on creating welcoming communities that foster positive interpersonal relations on all levels - familial, communal, and inter-communal.
It's a tough call, whether Jews should have a mission to promote Judaism. As a future rabbi (and according to my own beliefs), I say that Judaism should be supported and that it's generally a good thing for people (especially Jews) to involve themselves in a Jewish community. But, if someone is fulfilled by participating in another community and is going to work to bring peace to the world, I can only offer my blessings and wish them peace.
Jessica briefly mentioned in her previous post that she was instructed to get a letter from an American rabbi attesting to her Jewishness in order to receive a student visa. The whole notion is absurd because one doesn't need to be Jewish to be a student in Israel, and the fact that it would even come up is troubling and frustrating to Jessica and me. That the officer at the Ministry of the Interior would even think to ask for such confirmation (even in error) belies the gross neglect of religious freedom in this country. Sure, if Reform Judaism is treated as a separate faith (as suggested by Rabbi Yisrael Rozen), we could have equal rights, but so long as we claim Judaism as our own, progressive Jews in Israel will continue to face religious and legal barriers that fly in the face of Deuteronomy 16:20's invective, "צדק צדק תרדף" (Justice, justice shall you pursue).
This is because, if the Ministry really wanted to push the matter (which I don't expect), the authority of the American rabbi that Jessica finds would have to be examined. Perhaps Jessica's pedigree would be up for discussion. Of course, Jessica is unquestionably Jewish even by the most orthodox standards, but someone who (A) didn't have a rabbi, (B) didn't have a Jewish mother, or (C) wasn't Jewish would certainly have a hard time receiving this visa! I can't believe that even here this letter is required, but that it's asked for is indicative of a pro-Jewish bias that exists in Israel to such a large degree that it can't even be seen.
And what's it based on? Israel was founded as a Jewish country and has been struggling with that title for the past sixty years. People have been asking, "What does it mean to be Jewish?" for a very long time, but I doubt the question is often raised of, "What's the value of us being Jewish?" If a magic genie gave me the option of making Israel a true model of civil liberty, a bastion of peace in the region, an anti-war advocate, and a democracy that values the voices of the few and seeks to bring peace and security to the whole but lose its Jewish identity, I don't know what I would do. Is being Jewish so important that I would choose it over an automatic guarantee of ethics?
On the one hand, I believe that Judaism is a gateway to ethical living and that the Torah is a medium through which we can gain wisdom and Truth. On the other hand, I don't believe that Judaism and the Torah are unique in these roles but rather are specifically efficacious and beneficial to those who identify with them. Why are there Jews? I don't know. But I believe that it's good for the Jewish people for us to be Jewish, and insofar as the Jewish people has a strong track record of "getting it right" in terms of ethics and spirituality, I'm proud to espouse the values of my religion. Yet being Jewish is neither necessary nor sufficient to being ethical, and if ethics are my ultimate priority (and my support of Judaism is a support of unification and ethical living among and outside of our people), should not ethics (or, religiously speaking, perhaps even "pure" spirituality?) outweigh Jewish identity?
I don't know.
Take the example I laid out during Wexner Post 3 about giving money to the questionably Jewish organization that I believed in. Why does Judaism have to enter into the equation at all? We might cede that Jews have a tendency to be more likely to be involved in social action/progress than a non-Jew (though I'm far from claiming that as an existential truth), but nevertheless, I would never feel comfortable making such a decision based on religion alone.
And yet, I also struggle with the notion that not only Israel's orthodox Judaism has an obvious, occasionally unjust bias towards Jewish identity. Also our very own movement has struggled and continues to struggle with this concept, as do I. Take marriage between Jews and non-Jews as an example of assumptive priority of Jewish identity. As of right now, the "official" position of the Reform Movement is as follows:
"The Central Conference of American Rabbis, recalling its stand adopted in 1909 that mixed marriage is contrary to the Jewish tradition and should be discouraged, now declares its opposition to participation by its members in any ceremony which solemnizes a mixed marriage. The Central Conference of American Rabbis recognized that historically its members have held and continue to hold divergent interpretations of Jewish tradition.
In order to keep open every channel in Judaism and Kelal Yisra-el [the Jewish People] for those who have already entered into mixed marriage, the CCAR calls upon its members:
1. To assist fully in educating children of such mixed marriage as Jews;
2. To provide the opportunity for conversion of the non-Jewish spouse; and
3. To encourage a creative and consistent cultivation of involvement in the Jewish community and the synagogue."
However, a statement given by CCAR president Harry Danziger in 2006 at the CCAR convention complicates the Reform movement's stance:
"I look back thirty-three years to the Atlanta convention of 1973, called by some the Battle of Peachtree. There after years of debate and too often acrimony, a ten line resolution was passed opposing officiation at intermarriages. Pamphlets and articles attacking one side or the other abounded. There were even threats of a split in the Conference as there had been before over Zionism.
Five years later, in 1978, Alex Schindler, zichrono livracha, proposed a comprehensive outreach program through which we turned our attention, not only to weddings – the beginning of a new household – but to outcomes – the nature of the family thus created.
In 1983, there were passionate divisions in this Conference over the proposed resolution on children of intermarriage, what has been termed “the patrilineal” resolution. The debate was intense. At the end, we broke new ground in response to new realities, and we proclaimed that, for us, the gender of the Jewish parents would not be the determinant of who is a Jew. Most of us came to live by it. Some still question it. That is part of who we are.
Move forward yet another eleven years. In 1994, in Philadelphia, I was invited to be part of a major program at the convention. Two rabbis and two lay leaders spoke. I was invited to speak on why and how I do in fact officiate at intermarriages. And the president of the Conference at that time, Shim Maslin, who deserves great credit for that program, was a leading proponent of the 1973 resolution. Beit Hillel – They studied and listened to the views of the other side.
This week we have workshops and programs that deal with how we respond to intermarriage, how we engage and involve, yes, and honor, the non-Jewish partner who lives as a Jew albeit without conversion – what some of us call a ger toshav – what I sometimes call a “common law Jew”. The official position may continue to be a ten line resolution in Atlanta, but the practice has become a consensus that there is more than one respectable way to deal with those issues."
So, in combining these two sources, we find that the Reform movement "officially" discourages interfaith marriages and, in the case of an interfaith marriage, encourages the raising of Jewish children, participation in the Jewish community, and the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse. Individual rabbis (including the president of the CCAR) may (and many do) disagree with any of these points and act according to their conscience. So there's an internal struggle in the movement about whether it's of existential value to marry a Jew.
What seems to be agreed upon is that a rabbi should encourage participation in a Jewish community and, ideally, the raising of Jewish children. A point of contention is whether a non-Jewish spouse should be encouraged to convert. Rabbi Richard Address, who was at the Wexner institute last month, told me that sometimes he's had non-Jewish members of his community angry because--in their perception--Rabbi Address was pushing them to convert; and he's also had members of his community angry because--in their perception--Rabbi Address wasn't pushing them enough to convert. Even on a personal level, this is a tricky situation.
But my question is: If a couple is raising their children Jewish and participating in the Jewish community, what value is there to the community for the non-Jewish partner to convert to Judaism? Obviously, if a person discovers a personal meaning in converting to Judaism, she should follow her convictions on whether to convert. But communally, what statement are we making by saying that, all other factors being equal, Jew A is more valuable to us than non-Jew B?
I can't ignore the fact that a Jewish identity is neither sufficient nor necessary for active participation in Jewish family or communal life. Nor can I ignore the fact that Jewish identity makes that participation significantly more accessible (or that an active non-Jewish identity can disrupt a family's Jewish participation). So, is emphasis on conversion a numbers game? "Sure, we agree that a non-Jew can raise Jewish children, but since a Jew is more likely to do so, we want as many Jews raising children as we can."
But that brings us right back to the original question (and please forgive me for traveling in circles; if it's not clear, this forum is largely an opportunity for me to work through complex issues) - Why be Jewish in the first place? Israel, the Jewish state, has done some terrible things. Jews all over the world act immorally and non-Jews act morally. What's the big deal?
Let's cut to the chase: I think that there is a big deal, but I can't back that up. I don't know where the feeling comes from, but I recognize that Jewish history is full of innovation and ethical progress that is worthy of praise. I also recognize that the Jewish community is like a family, and there's no necessary reason to be born into a family; one is simply a part of a family and inherently loves it. So, I suppose I have a blind love for the Jewish people and want to see us live morally and progressively in as many ways as possible.
Does that justify the following caveat in the HUC rabbinical school application?
"In addition to the above requirements, please note that applicants and their spouses, partners, fiancés or fiancées must be Jewish by birth or conversion."
In other words, if I admit to having a non-Jewish girlfriend, I won't be admitted into HUC.
Now, this statement doesn't define Judaism, nor was it ever mentioned during my entire application process. I have heard of students omitting the fact that they have non-Jewish partners and getting into HUC regardless (though as I understand, it generally doesn't happen that someone graduates from HUC with a non-Jewish partner). Nevertheless, the statement is there: Rabbis should have Jewish partners.
This is a topic I discussed with some Wexner Fellows in Stowe. Does a rabbi need to have a non-Jewish partner?
On the one hand, a congregational rabbi is meant to be a leader and example in the Jewish community. There are many Jews, one of my Wexner colleagues included, who would expect a rabbi's partner to participate fully in all congregational activities and have a strong Jewish identity that can be shared with the community. The rabbi's should be a model of a strong Jewish family, and the rabbi should be able to have an uncompromisingly Jewish household to raise children and welcome guests.
On the other hand, if I were talking about anyone else, I would continue to repeat that all those things can happen in an interfaith marriage. A non-Jewish partner can contribute to the Jewish community, participate in a Jewish household, and raise Jewish children. We often stress that rabbis are just like everyone else ... only with more specific knowledge about Jewish topics ... so why should the household of a rabbi be any different? If anything, a rabbi would be virtually guaranteed to have a Jewish household regardless of the religion (or non-religion) of the rabbi's partner, so a rabbi, in a way, could be given even more leniency to cohabitate with whomever she desires.
Furthermore, not all rabbis are communal leaders. Some rabbis become professors, work in Hillel, serve with non-profit organizations, teach at day schools, etc. Are we saying that a Jewish professor has to be married to a Jew if the word "rabbi" comes before (or after) the word "doctor" in his title?
Moreover, as I've mentioned, being Jewish doesn't necessitate that someone is going to be involved in a Jewish community. A rabbi could have a Jewish partner who is entirely disengaged from the Jewish community. If we are looking for Jewish engagement, perhaps there should be a "participation test" for the rabbinical school applicant's partner rather than a "religion test."
Ultimately, the question is: Are we comfortable with playing a numbers game with people's family lives? Are we comfortable saying that, because it is more likely that a Jew will raise a Jewish family, we should encourage Jew-Jew partnerships? I might be able to make that statement if I believed that being Jewish was an existentially superior state than being a non-Jew. I believe that being Jewish is special and unique and wonderful and should be promoted and supported. I believe that being Christian/Muslim/Buddhist/Sikh/Agnostic/Humanist/Unitarian/Alternative/Druid/Tribal/Hindu/Etc. is special and unique and wonderful and should be promoted and supported. I believe, ultimately, that being moral and promoting peace is the greatest value to be promoted and supported and that our focus should be on creating welcoming communities that foster positive interpersonal relations on all levels - familial, communal, and inter-communal.
It's a tough call, whether Jews should have a mission to promote Judaism. As a future rabbi (and according to my own beliefs), I say that Judaism should be supported and that it's generally a good thing for people (especially Jews) to involve themselves in a Jewish community. But, if someone is fulfilled by participating in another community and is going to work to bring peace to the world, I can only offer my blessings and wish them peace.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Student Visa: The Saga Continues
At the Ministry of the Interior today I waited for an hour in a hot room for my name to be called. One of the staff had not shown up to work and no one seemed to be clear on whose responsibilty it was to take over her appointments, so those of us who were supposed to meet with her didn't know how long we would have to wait before meeting with grouchy and begrudging staff members.
In the meantime, I saw all kinds of people go to their appointmens with all kinds of disappointments as a result - people who didn't speak Hebrew or English who couldn't fill out the forms, one very pregnant woman with a stroller who was four shekels short of the right amount of money to pay for her visa (someone on line gave her some money, which was nice) and people who were told they didn't have the right forms. I didn't see that many people coming away with visas successfully, so I knew I was in for something unpleasant.
I was right. The woman was impatient and impolite. She took my letter of admission and said, "What is this? This is not what I need." After much prodding, she explained that she needs a letter addressed to the Ministry of the Interior stating that I am a student at Hebrew University, not an acceptance letter addressed to me (which was good enough in the US and Canada to obtain a visa). She also requested a letter from a Rabbi stating that I am Jewish. This makes me quite angry as my program has no requirements that you have to be Jewish to study, so not only is it rediculous, it is completley irrelevant. In any case, she signed my forms and said I could come back without an appointment and give her those letters and pay the fee and she would give me a visa. I have trouble believing that it will be that easy, especially that it will be that easy to get in to see her without an appointment, but I guess I'll give it a shot. I e-mailed some folks at Hebrew University to inquire about getting the letter, and hopefully I'll hear from them soon. If not, I need to leave the country in early October so that I can get a new three month tourist visa.
In the meantime, I saw all kinds of people go to their appointmens with all kinds of disappointments as a result - people who didn't speak Hebrew or English who couldn't fill out the forms, one very pregnant woman with a stroller who was four shekels short of the right amount of money to pay for her visa (someone on line gave her some money, which was nice) and people who were told they didn't have the right forms. I didn't see that many people coming away with visas successfully, so I knew I was in for something unpleasant.
I was right. The woman was impatient and impolite. She took my letter of admission and said, "What is this? This is not what I need." After much prodding, she explained that she needs a letter addressed to the Ministry of the Interior stating that I am a student at Hebrew University, not an acceptance letter addressed to me (which was good enough in the US and Canada to obtain a visa). She also requested a letter from a Rabbi stating that I am Jewish. This makes me quite angry as my program has no requirements that you have to be Jewish to study, so not only is it rediculous, it is completley irrelevant. In any case, she signed my forms and said I could come back without an appointment and give her those letters and pay the fee and she would give me a visa. I have trouble believing that it will be that easy, especially that it will be that easy to get in to see her without an appointment, but I guess I'll give it a shot. I e-mailed some folks at Hebrew University to inquire about getting the letter, and hopefully I'll hear from them soon. If not, I need to leave the country in early October so that I can get a new three month tourist visa.
Monday, September 8, 2008
As Promised, Our Trip to Tel Aviv
Our trip to Tel Aviv began on Thursday afternoon when we packed up and made our way, via Egged bus, to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station - which is a madhouse on Thursday afternoons. After waiting on what seemed like an endless line, we finally got into the bus station, which is sort of part shopping mall and part bus station, bought tickets, and waited on line for our bus. We were pushed and shoved onto the bus in polite Israeli fashion, and sat down to enjoy the 45 minute ride, which went much faster than expected because of crazy Israeli driving.
We disembarked at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station. Which is CRAZY. The Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is supposedly one of the biggest in the world. It contains floors and floors of shops, office, buildings, etc. and an entire Shuk. There were more shoe stores in the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station than I think I've ever seen in my whole life. Wikipedia tells me that it has more than 1000 shops and restaurants. We had a lot of trouble finding our way out - the building is seven stories tall and our exit was on the fourth floor, but we couldn't find any signs to indicate that it was there. We had to ask a few times, and eventually we found ourselves on the Tel Aviv streets.
We walked, backpacks on our backs like regular hostel-hoppers, to our hostel, Sub kuk Malega, where we dropped off our belongings before going out into the city for the evening. The hostel is located in a sort of less-nice area of Tel Aviv, but not far from the nicer areas and quite close to Jaffa. On the bottom floor it is an Indian restaurant. The front room has a few tables, and a buffet, and in the back patrons recline on sheet-covered couches while they eat their lentils and rice. The second floor is a guest-house lounge - one computer with comlementary internet, live music every night, couches, a pool table. The third floor is the guest house, featuring two bathrooms, a refrigerator/sink area, two private rooms, and a dorm room (where we stayed) full of bunk beds. The shower, we were surprised to find, was no more than a shower head with a drain underneath, in the bathroom - no stall or tub - and there was a squeegee-like mop to use to push the water toward the drain when you have finished your shower. Not exactly the Ritz, but it was a place to sleep. On the fourth floor, the roof, rows of couches were set up facing a large screen where they projected movies, and you could order food and drinks from the bar on the roof as well. It was a pretty hip alternative kind of place, and we were quite excited about it, despite the showering conditions.
We dropped off our bags and headed for the city, not going anywhere in particular, but hoping to buy a map and then decide. It took us a while to find the map but in the meantime we browsed through a series of stores with colorful skirts, a few bookstores, etc. We walked through Nachalat Binyamin Market, and had dinner at a fabulous hummus restaurant there - we shared hummos and salad, and it was definately excellent. After walking around a bit more, we made our way back to the hostel, where we watched James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas on the roof, and then went to bed.
The next morning we were up bright and early - too early for the free breakfast offered by the hostel. We bought breakfast from a bakery on Allenby and then caught a cab to the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. The museum presents the history of Jews from the Destruction of the Second Temple until today, in a thematic (non-chronological) fashion). It begins with sort of the basics of Jewish life - family and community, and describes community organizations as they existed in various communities, as well as the celebration of holidays and the life cycle. Next, it moves on to the idea of faith, and contains 18 models of synagogues around the world - we spent a lot of time there, gazing at synagoges of all shapes, sizes and colors. We learned about Jewish art, architecture, and literature around the world, and we went to the 'return to Zion' area which included a model set of two family trees - one sephardic and one ashkenazic - that demonstrated how some of these extended family members might have ended up in Israel. There was a memorial area to all of the destructive events of Judaism's past, and we spent a lot of time reading the "Scroll of Fire" which had 365 pages in memorium to tragedies of Jewish history. We also walked through a bit of ancient history, where Daniel tried to decipher some ancient Greek (it was all Greek to me). We didn't get to see all of the museum because we had to get going to our next adventure, but we did get to see nearly all of it, and what we did see we of course saw in great detail.
Our next stop was to Habima, the national theater of Israel, to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat in Hebrew. We asked the taxi driver to take us to Habima, and he dropped us off by the Habima Quarter, where Habima used to be located, but, as we learned, is no longer found. We asked a number of different people including those inside the office of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, but they couldn't help us. We were getting pretty nervous about the whole thing when Daniel called Habima (he'd conveniently written down the phone number before we left, just in case) and the person who picked up directed us on somewhat of a long walk - off of the small maps given to us by the hostel - to a new building where Habima now performs. We arrived just in time to pick up the tickets and sit down before the show began.
Habima was one of the first Hebrew language theater groups, founded in 1918 under the Moscow Art Theater. It left the USSR in 1926 and came to Tel Aviv for good in 1928. Since 1958 Habima has officially been considered the national theater of Israel.
The show we saw was excellent. It was so much fun because we knew all of the words in English already so it wasn't a problem that we didn't understand all of the Hebrew. In the Elvis scene the actors made fun of Americans quite a bit, mispronouncing Hebrew in American accents, etc. The production was colorful and energetic, the dancing and singing were fabulous, and we had terrific seats right near the front. We were very pleased with the whole event, and were only disappointed that they weren't selling CD's.
After the show, we walked to Beit Daniel - the center for progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv. We got there quite early, so we went to a restaurant and had some dinner beforehand. Beit Daniel is very large and the congregation was quite full with people of all ages in attendance. The cantor was for sure American and had a lovely voice, and sang familiar (American) tunes. A guitarist accompanied her, and the rabbi had a melodic, sympathetic, deep alto voice. The service on a whole was really quite lovely.
We walked back from Beit Daniel to the hostel by way of the beach - meaning that we basically walked the entire length of the city. The beach at night was a bustling place full of big fancy hotels and folks out and about enjoying the cool(er) weather (Tel Aviv is very humid and felt much hotter than Jerusalem). We arrived at our hostel quite late, and went to bed.
In the morning we decided to wait for the hostel's breakfast, which was to be served at 9:00. We sat at the tables in the front, I did a little homework, and we read together from my book of Israeli short stories. 9:30, and still no breakfast. Apparently the cook hadn't arrived yet - it seems that most people who stay in the hostel don't wake up as early as we do. At 10:00 we were served a delicious breakfast of fresh Israeli salad, cream cheese, laffa, cheese, apples, honey, and granola. Full and happy, we went on a walk to Jaffa.
We passed many many many closed stores, it being Shabbat, and were a bit discouraged. When we finally arrived at Jaffa, we realized it was definately worth it, as the view of the Tel Aviv beach was absolutely astounding. Jaffa is an ancient port city, inhabited by 7500 BCE, and is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, for instance it is the site where Jonah took a ship to Tarshish because he was fleeing G-d's command to go to Nineveh and tell the wicked people there to change their ways. King David and King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used it to import cedars for the construction of the First Temple. The Maccabees captured Jaffa from the Selucids, and the Romans burned it during the Jewish Revolt, killing thousands of inhabitants. It was in Christian hands until it was conquered by Arabs in 636 CE and served as the port of Ramla. Jaffa was captured by the Christians during the Crusades, and there was a lot of fighting there during that time. In 1268 it was captured by the Egyptian Mamluks, and in the 14th century the city was completely destroyed for fear of new Crusades. In 1799 Napolean captured and ransacked Jaffa. In the 19th century Jaffa was an industrial area known for its soap factories, and was also the center of book printing in Palestine. Jaffa also became a center for citrus growing. In the late-1800's and early 1900's the population swelled considerably and suburbs were built that in 1909 were reorganized into the city of Tel Aviv. In the early 1900's there were many Jewish residents in Jaffa, but in 1920 and 1921 Arab anti-Jewish violence caused many to resettle in Tel Aviv. In 1936 the Arab leadership of Palestine declared a general strike which paralyzed the economy of Jaffa, and as the uprising continued many Arabs hid in the narrow hiding places of Jaffa. As a consequence the British Royal Engineers blew up homes and buildings in Jaffa. During the Israeli War of Independance, Israeli forces took over the largely Arab city. Today, Jaffa is home to a heterogeneous population and the old city area of Jaffa has become a tourist attraction full of souvenir shops and art galleries.
Daniel and I gazed at the terrific view of Tel Aviv from Jaffa, and then, like the tourists that we are, we walked through art galleries, and gardens, and took lots of pictures. We particularly liked the Art Nova Gallery, which is full of soft art paintings - pictures made out of colored fabrics and fibres.
It was hot, and we were tired, so we made our way back to the hotel around noon, grabbed our belongings, and took a shared taxi home. We arrived in time for me to take my take-home mid-term before bed.
I had trouble putting pictures in this post, so they are in the next one. Enjoy!
Field Trip to Mt. Herzl
When we learned that we were to have a field trip today and that we were leaving from a coffee shop near to the campus, Paola and I arranged to meet before class to have breakfast at the coffee shop. It was lovely - I had tea with fresh mint and a piece of carrot cake, and Paola had a pastry with custard inside and a cup of coffee. We chatted for a bit and Francios, another student in our class, joined us as he finished his breakfast. We mostly talked about coffee shops - how they are different in America than Italy and France. In Italy, apparently, most people either sit and chat in coffee shops, or because most people drink espresso, they don't take their coffee to go but instead down it in one gulp before they continue on their way. So, there is nothing like in America where people walk around with their Starbucks cups to go. Apparently that does exist in France, but not with the same frequency as in America. Apparently in France still most people who get coffee do it in a social way to sit and linger, but in France it costs money to sit at an ice cream shop or a coffee shop, and the prices vary depending on where you want to sit. Francios says his favorite coffee shop in the whole world is in Venice. Incidentally the most interesting thing about the conversation, I think, was that it was all in Hebrew. I never cease to be proud that I can understand and participate in conversations in Hebrew.
The class piled onto a bus that took us to Mt. Herzl, a national cemetary on top of a hill where Theodore Herzl is buried, as well as several prime ministers, Zionist leaders and hundreds of soldiers who fell in the line of duty. Our first stop was to the Herzl museum (http://www.herzl.org/), which is a relatively new museum (I think built in 2007??). It is an interactive multimedia production that explains Theodore Herzl's life and Zionist vision. The exhibit is almost entirely in videos, and the videos were in Hebrew for us, so I'm not sure that I caught everything. The exhibit began in a room that is meant to look like Paris in the late 19th century. On one screen is a reenactment of the Dreyfus trial. When it concludes, another scene plays on the screen on the opposite side of the room. Here, a student acts out the role of Herzl, but his director (or stage manager?) doesn't think he is doing a good job and decides to tell him about Herzl's life and work in order that he can better act out the role. This conceit continues throughout the museum as it shifts between an actor trying to connect to Herzl and information about Herzl himself. In one room, we sat in between large plastic people in an audience in front of a grandiose stage at what was supposed to be the Basil Conference. In another room, we were in the auditorium for this actor's final performance. Also housed at the museum are Herzl's writing desk and a recreated version of his parlor room, as well as many of his personal affects. Although I didn't understand everything that was said, it seemed that the museum went through a sort of basic outline of Herzl's life in an aggrandizing way, using the words "dream" and "vision" quite often. It ended with a bit about Israel today and how Herzl's vision has come to pass, that despite all of the hardships that Israel has faced its existance is a triumph. So it wasn't exactly a neutral and non-ideological museum, but I thought for what it was it was quite well done.
A bit about Herzl in case you don't know - but as usual I am no expert and am not sure I understood everything that was told to me in Hebrew, so it's best to check with a book or some other more reliable resource if you really want to know something about him. The following is a summary of what I remember with some aid of the website of the Herzl museum: Herzl was born in 1860 in Budapest, Hungary to well-to-do parents who took part in the Enlightenment that was sweeping Europe at the time. His parents did not maintain traditional Jewish practice in the home, but Herzl and his father attended synagogue on Shabbat and the festivals, and Herzl had a bar mitzvah. In 1878 Herzl and his family moved to Vienna where Herzl attended the University of Vienna and became a doctor of law. There he experienced anti-Semitism in his fraternity and noted an atmosphere of increasing adherence to German nationalism and an increasing exclision of Jewish students from opportunities and student life. He practiced law for a short while before deciding instead to pursue a career in writing. He became a newspaper correspondant in Paris for a Vienna-based newspaper and in 1894 Herzl attended the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army who was unjustly accused of treason. The anti-Semitic atmosphere that Herzl experienced in France, in which the Jew was increasingly becoming a symbol of corruption, immorality, and greed, strongly influenced him in the writing of his first book, Der Judenstaat (the Jewish State), which was published in 1896. In the book, which was in it's time quite controversial, Herzl wrote that the only way to solve the problem of anti-Semitism toward the Jews was for the Jew to have their own state. He had come to believe that Jews could not simply dispel anti-Semitism by becoming like their non-Jewish neighbors and that Emancipation had not succeeded in ending hatred of the Jews. Herzl also asserted that despite their scatterdness throughout the world, the Jews constituted one nation (language that mirrored the nationalistic sentiments of other 'nations' at the time). In contrast with other Zionists, Herzl believed it was important to gain legal recognition of the rights of the Jewish people in Israel before settling there. He contacted world leaders and philanthropists and worked to gain diplomatic ties and to receive a charter, which was granted by the Turkish Sultan. In 1897 Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress in Basel and in the same year he began the first Zionist newspaper, Die Welt, in Vienna. At the sixth Zionist Congress in 1903, Herzl proposed that the Jews settle and build a Jewish state in Uganda, but as this proposal threatened to split the Zionist community in two, he declared that this would merely be a temporary solution. Herzl passed away in 1904. In 1949 his body was reinterred on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, as he had requested that when a Jewish state existed in Israel, he wished to be buried there.
When we left the museum, our to
ur guide led us to Herzl's grave, which is a black square tombstone at the highest point on Mt. Herzl where the four letter's of Herzl's name in Hebrew are engraved starkly in gold against the black gravestone. We talked about the simplicity of the grave and how it is more important to remember the person, in Jewish tradition, than to memorialize with an elaborate grave.
ur guide led us to Herzl's grave, which is a black square tombstone at the highest point on Mt. Herzl where the four letter's of Herzl's name in Hebrew are engraved starkly in gold against the black gravestone. We talked about the simplicity of the grave and how it is more important to remember the person, in Jewish tradition, than to memorialize with an elaborate grave.From there, we visited the graves of a number of important people, including Jabotinsky, a right wing revisionist Zionist leader, Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel, and Levi Eshkol, the third prime minister of Israel. Each of these tombstones is simple, a black tombstone much smaller than that of Herzl that has the name of the dignitary, and other important information, but nothing ostentatious.
The grave of Yitzhak Rabin is somewhat different. Because Yitzhak Rabin was the only prime minister ever ass
asinated, and his assasination was such a powerful moment in Israeli history, his grave is marked by a larger and more dramatic monument. It is a semicircle of two parts - a black and a white. The semicircle symbolizes that Rabin did not live the length of his natural life, and the black and white in opposition to one another, with a space in between them, show the controversy and the atmosphere of disagreement in Israeli society that led to and followed his death.
asinated, and his assasination was such a powerful moment in Israeli history, his grave is marked by a larger and more dramatic monument. It is a semicircle of two parts - a black and a white. The semicircle symbolizes that Rabin did not live the length of his natural life, and the black and white in opposition to one another, with a space in between them, show the controversy and the atmosphere of disagreement in Israeli society that led to and followed his death.We also visited the grave of Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian born Jew living in Palestine during the Second World War who was trained by the British military to parachute into Yugoslavia to help save the Jews of Hungary. She was arrested at the Hungarian border, imprisoned and tortured, and was executed by a firing squad. At her grave we sang a poem of hers, Halika l'Caesaria (Eli Eli), which his a very well know and oft-sung song.
We visited the graves of many soldiers, including those who perished in the Second Lebanon war. There was a group of soldiers also visiting the graves, and this struck me as very powerful - what must it be like as a soldier to visit the graves of soldiers, knowing that you might be buried in one yourself? We asked our teacher about it - what the soldiers were told and why they went, and she told us that soldiers in the Israeli army, especially in the past and less so now, consider it an honor to die fighting for their country, and that really these visits to grave sights were at least once considered motivational - that soldiers would want to fight and to be a part of the community of heroes, both living and dead, who fought for their country. Nevertheless, it felt deeply tragic to look from the photos that were placed on the graves of falen soldiers to the faces of living soliders with bowed heads mourning for the fallen and perhaps thinking of what might befall them as well.
We visited a memorial to the soldiers who faught in the War for Independance who were Holocaust survivors, many of them without surviving families. The tour guide told us that many of the bodies went unrecognized and are in graves without names because there was no one left who knew the names of these soliders. The monument looks like a deep hole, but the inside is shaped so that it also looks like an upside down house, because these soldiers' homes had been destroyed. It also looks like it could be a tunnel to Yad VaShem, the Holocaust Memorial that is closely connected to Mt. Herzl, and it demonstrates that these soldiers (and the establishment of Israel) are deeply connected to the events of the Holocaust.
We also visited a memorial to victims of terror, which included the names of all of the victims of terror since the establishment of the State of Israel.
Incidentally, as we walked from site to site, I overheard a Jewish student speaking to a Palestinian student about all of this - the Palestinian student had never heard of most of the figures whose graves we were visiting and did not know the history of Zionism at all, or really why Jews had come to Israel in the first place. I appreciated the mutually respectful conversation I overheard and was very proud that our class had created a safe space for such a conversation to occur, but I also think that this lack of knowledge (which I'm sure is absolutely reciprocated by Israeli lack of knowledge of Palestinian history/perspectives) illustrates the deep and tragic divides in Israeli society.
In sum it was definately an educational trip and it was nice to get out of the classroom and go somewhere. And, wonder of wonders, we returned in time to practice prepositions for an hour before ulpan let out!
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