Seeing is Believing

Yesterday was the last day of classes at Pardes - bittersweet, for sure. Now, everyone's caught up in the whirlwind of packing up and saying goodbye. But amidst all that hullabaloo, here's some Torah from my last gemara class.*

"If, in the land that Adonai your God is assigning to you to possess, someone slain is found lying in the open, the identity of the slayer not being known, your elders and magistrates shall go out and measure the distances from the corpse to the nearby towns..." (Deut. 21:1-2)

Deuteronomy 21 goes on to describe the ritual that the leaders of the city closest to the corpse need to do. The description ends with this declaration: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done. Absolve, O Adonai, Your people Israel whom you redeemed, and do not let guilt for the blood of the innocent remain among Your people Israel." And they will be absolved of blood guilt. (21:7-8)

The mishnah (Bavli Sotah, 45b) goes on to say:
לא בא לידינו ופטרנוהו, לא ראינוהו והנחנוהו
It didn't come to our hands - and we are exempt, we did not see it - and it rests/it's ok with us. (loosely, not such a great translation)

The gemara (Masechet Sotah 46b) asks the question - how is it that this corpse got there in the first place? There are 2 points of view, one placing the fault on the legal and security system, the other, taking a more systemic perspective, says that it's our responsibility for not ensuring this person's basic needs - or else why would s/he have been wandering around outside the walls of the city alone in the first place? They go one step further, saying exactly what those basic needs are - מזון, food, and לויה, companionship.

This verb "to see לראות," which comes up in the Torah verse, in the Mishna, and again in the gemara, drew my attention. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes about another use of it: "I was young and now am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging for bread. נער הייתי וגם זקנתי ולא ראיתי צדיק נעזב וזרעו מבקש לחם" (Psalms 37:25) This verse is at the end of Birkat haMazon, and is deeply troubling, because at surface value, it is blatantly untrue. Can we really say that everyone who is hungry is hungry because they haven't been righteous? Sacks writes that he learned that we can understand the word "see - ראיתי" like it used in the Book of Esther, where Esther cries out to the king, "How can I bear to see the disaster which will befall my people! And how can I bear to see the destruction of my kindred!" (Esther 8:6) Sacks writes, "'To see' here means 'to stand still and watch.' The verse [from Psalms] should thus be translated, 'I was young and now am old, but I never merely stood still and watched while the righteous was forsaken or his children begged for bread." (Sacks, To Heal a Fractured World, p. 58)

This idea of seeing, and of seeing what isn't always obvious or easy - the dead body outside the city walls and hunger in our texts, and many of the things here in Israel I've written about on this blog since August - has been a central part of my focus this year. I started this blog saying I intended to see what kind of land this was. For me, that's included going to the West Bank and learning how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict impacts real people, engaging with some of Israeli society's most challenging issues through Pardes' social justice track, and not being oblivious to the position of liberal Judaism in Israeli society. Last summer, I was sitting with one of my rabbis, Rabbi Lehmann, and I said that I couldn't imagine living in Jerusalem and not dealing with these issues (in that conversation, speaking specifically about Israeli-Palestinian issues, but I think it applies to all of these). Rabbi Lehmann replied, "You're right, I don't think you could live in Jerusalem and ignore them, but plenty of other people do so very easily." It's too easy to ignore, and to not see, or to see and simply stand by...

When I was in Israel summer 2007 as a counselor for a NFTY in Israel trip, we brought our participants to Jerusalem on their 2nd or 3rd day in Israel. We had them put on blindfolds on the bus as we drove into the city and to the Tayelet, where there is a beautiful overlook of the Old City. When we arrived, we led them off the bus towards the overlook, and I talked to them about the summer and their time in Israel being an opportunity for פוקח עורים - opening their eyes to all that Israel had to offer. For me, it's about balancing both of these - taking in the wonders of Israel and the sights, smells, sounds of this country, but also seeing what lies beneath the surface.

So as I close out this year, prepare for a month's vacation in the States and to transition into my second year studying here in Israel, I'm thinking about how to continue holding that balance. Shabbat shalom!

*Let's be honest, it's really a procrastination technique so I don't have to pack.

Haredim and Hamentaschen

Haredim...
Last week, my friend and fellow Pardes student Dan and I joined a group of leaders and staff from the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors meeting to take a tour exploring ultra-Orthodox (haredi) life in Israel. The tour took us to a girls' school in the haredi Jerusalem neighborhood of Geula, a business employing primarily haredi women in Modi'in Illit, and an employment center in Beit Shemesh. I learned a lot more on the trip than I was expecting, especially since Dan and I had been told that our primary role in being there was to talk about the impact that MASA (a project of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government that is one of the key financial reasons that enables me to be in Israel now) has had on us. It was a great opportunity to see a slice of Israeli life that I don't come into much contact with in my life in the liberal, pluralistic community of South Jerusalem.

The haredi community is usually very separate from the rest of Israeli society (or the society of whatever country they are living in). They live in tight-knit communities, marry within their communities, and remain within the haredi world for employment, avoiding contact with the secular world. This can be seen even by looking at the itinerary for my day exploring the haredi world. Our first stop, Geula, is a Jerusalem neighborhood inhabited almost entirely by various sects of the haredi community. The second location, Modi'in Illit, is an entirely ultra-Orthodox city/settlement, on the other side of the Green Line. It  has a population of 50,000, and is the fastest growing city and settlement in Israel.

The common thread among most of the places we visited was how haredim can participate in modern society while still remaining within the haredi community. In Modi'in Illit, we visited CityBook, a business that hires haredi women to do legal work that has been outsourced from an American real estate company. 10-15% of the work force is out on maternity leave at any given time, due to the emphasis on family and childbearing in the haredi community! I was really struck by how the company made both halachic (Jewish law) and cultural adjustments to their offices in order to be a viable employment option for these women. After consulting with rabbinic authorities, they put glass windows into all of the office doors, to enable a man and a woman to have a private business meeting without violating Jewish laws about men and women being alone. Culturally, they set aside a room in the offices for women to use when coming back from maternity leave for pumping breast milk, instead of using a closet or trying to find other private space like women in so many other offices have to do. That's not a legal adjustment, but it is acknowledging the cultural realities of the community. One of the women employees raised the point that haredi women have always entered the workforce; historically they were expected to be the family's primary breadwinners while the husbands studied fulltime in yeshivot. What's different now is that the community and businesses are approaching it on a more collective level, by placing offices and businesses in places that are physically the center of haredi life. The business even receives subsidies from the Israeli government, which wants to encourage employment of minorities, including the haredi and Arab sectors of the labor force.

In Beit Shemesh, we met with three soldiers from the Israeli Defence Forces unit Nahal Haredi. The rabbi who founded it (originally from Boston!) wanted to address the rift between the secular and religious parts of Israeli society. One of the biggest points of contention is army service - most ultra-Orthodox men don't serve in the IDF, unlike the rest of their peers who serve in some way, either through enlisting in the IDF or doing national service (volunteering in some part of Israeli society). A popular bumper sticker in Israel, reflecting this tension, reads "גיוס לכולם - Enlistment for All." This special army combat unit was created to make a space for haredi young men to serve in the army without having to compromise their religious practices and cultural standards. The unit is 70% haredi and 30% national religious (modern Orthodoxy in the US) - but everyone is religious. One of the soldiers said, "This is not the place for non-religious guys looking to spend less time in the army." The soldiers do two years of combat service, and their third year in the army focuses on vocational training and completing their high school diplomas, so that post-army, the men who participate in this combat unit can enter the workforce. In Israel, it's very difficult to enter the labor force in a meaningful way if one hasn't served in the army, and for haredi men, they have not studied secular topics or gained any marketable skills other than learning gemara.

It struck me the extent to which Nahal Haredi has caused the IDF to change, rather than creating change within the haredi community itself. These are two social institutions in Israel that, at least at face value, are incompatible. The army adjusted to make space for the haredi world, rather than the haredi world adapting itself to the army. Although the unit has been around for 10 years, they still struggle to recruit young men to it. Those who come are often those who haven't succeeded in yeshiva, and like young people in any society who don't succeed on their expected path, are drawn to drugs, drinking, fighting, etc. (instead of addressing potential learning disabilities or different aptitudes that might lead to a young man not thriving in a yeshiva environment). Many of the soldiers are told by their families to not come home, and if they do, to not come home wearing their army uniforms. There is a lot of anger and embarrassment still within the haredi community to some of their sons participating in Israeli society in this very basic way.

The funniest moment of the day occurred as we were leaving lunch with the haredi soldiers. They are young men, look like any other young Israeli soldier - wearing small kippot, very clean-shaven, have the sleeves of their army uniforms rolled up as far as possible (it shows how macho you are, obviously. Only weaklings roll their sleeves down). I asked a question of the speakers and got a rushed answer because we needed to be leaving. As I was collecting my things, one of the soldiers came over to me and very eagerly said, "What was your question? I can answer it!" I was dressed my most modestly for the day - long denim skirt, carefully layered shirts, looking very much the part of a modest Orthodox young woman. I thought, "You don't want this, honey. I know it looks like you do, but you really don't...I'm going to be a Reform rabbi, I study gemara...really, really not your type!"

...and Hamentaschen!
Last weekend was Purim! In Jerusalem, this resulted in a four and a half day weekend! We had a half-day of school on Thursday due to the Fast of Esther, no school on Friday and Saturday as usual, Sunday off for Purim, and Monday off for Shushan Purim. Shushan Purim is celebrated in walled cities (such as Jerusalem), in recognition of the fact that the Jews of Shushan (the walled Persian city where much of the Purim story takes place) had an extra day to pursue and kill their enemies than Jews in the rest of Persia. Excellent. Sheryl and I went to the shuk on Thursday afternoon; I had to buy ingredients for the Shabbat lunch I was hosting as well as materials for mishloach manot (packages of food and treats sent to friends and neighbors on Purim). The candy store was PACKED with others looking for the same thing. The next day, on Friday, as I walked past the high school near my house, I saw a teenage girl run out of the Purim party/carnival to pick up some baked goods from a parent waiting in a car in the street. Her costume? Sexy Santa.

Although it rained all weekend (and the Dead Sea has risen 8 centimeters!), the rain stopped (some) in time for Shushan Purim. Sara G. and I went to hear the megillah read at Kol Haneshama (well, two chapters of it), and then ran through the pouring rain to Pardes to see (and act in!) the Purim shpiel. The next day, by some miracle of heaven, I woke up in time to go to a megillah reading organized by Women of the Wall at the Kotel. (See this interesting article from the Jerusalem Post about women's megillah readings.) After some much needed lunch and a nap, I went to a seudah (festive meal) at my teacher Meesh's house, along with most of the rest of Pardes. One of the things I love about the Pardes community is that our teachers do things like open up their homes to the entire student body for holidays, it was very sweet of Meesh, her husband, and her kids to host all of us.


Noam and I in our costumes (he's the Rambam!) at Kol Haneshama megillah reading - Terry told me it looked like I wasn't in costume, I had just walked into the wrong synagogue!


Women's megillah reading at the Kotel

Taking it to the street

Last week, on Rosh Hodesh Adar (the first day of the Hebrew of Adar), I had multiple opportunities to get out of the beit midrash - where, contrary to what you might think from reading this blog, is where I spend most of my time.

That morning, along with several other Pardes students and other friends from around Jerusalem, I prayed with Women of the Wall. (see this post for more about WOW) It was a beautiful, unseasonably warm and sunny morning, a welcome change from the torrential rain of Rosh Hodesh Kislev. After, many friends, both in Israel and back home, asked how it was, and my immediate response was "uneventful." Considering that the first time I joined the Women of the Wall, Nofrat was arrested, anything else after that is relatively uneventful. In reality, there was a huge crowd of women (and a significant number of male allies) present to welcome in the joyful month of Adar with song, prayer, and dancing, and many on both sides of the mechitza who verbally and physically protested against our prayers.

There's a tradition that when Adar enters, joy increases, reflecting the joyousness of the Jewish community at having escaped genocide at the hands of Haman in the Purim story, and the general fun and craziness that accompanies the celebration of Purim today. That joy was definitely present that morning - with the warm (almost hot!) sun, we sang Purim songs "מישנכנס אדר מרבים בשמחה - when Adar comes in, we increase in joy!" as we walked the Torah to Robinson's Arch, the archaeological site next to the Kotel that has been designated for egalitarian and women's prayer and Torah services. Despite the anger that I heard and saw at the Kotel - several ultra-Orthodox women literally pushed their way into our group to try and disrupt our davening, while a large group of haredi men, armed with a megaphone, bellowed "GEVALT" (like oy gevalt - Yiddish for things that are really bad), yelled that we weren't Jewish, and that there is one Torah and it cannot be changed - the predominant emotion among the women I prayed with on Rosh Hodesh was that of the joy that one could find in any synagogue in Jerusalem on the morning of Rosh Hodesh Adar.

The same day, Pardes as a community had a "Yom Iyun shel Chesed" (translation: Mitzvah Day), in memory of two former Pardes students who were killed in a terrorist attack at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the summer of 2002. That afternoon, I got on a bus with 50 other Pardes students, faculty, and their family members to go to a farm outside of Rehovot to pick produce for an organization called Leket. Leket, whose name comes from the commandment in the Torah to leave behind in your field the produce that falls or doesn't get picked in the harvest for the poor of the community to glean, is a food rescue organization that collects produce from farms and leftovers from parties, wedding halls, etc. We visited a farm that exists purely to provide fruits and vegetables for those lacking food security, and spent the hot afternoon picking oranges (and eating a couple). It was great to be able to be outside on such a beautiful day, and we picked 3 TONS of oranges, which were distributed into kids' lunches for school the next day.

One of the challenges I've had since even getting to Pardes was thinking about transitioning from working and acting in the world to sitting and learning, for its own sake, full-time. This was compounded when Rav Landes, the rosh yeshiva at Pardes (the #1 in charge), in talking about etiquette in the beit midrash to the whole community, included among his etiquette rules that not only should cell phones and email not be used in the beit midrash, but the news shouldn't be read also. For me, my study of Jewish text in the beit midrash is incomplete without that connection to the rest of the world. Yes, I am studying Torah for its own sake this year, but not with blinders on. Pardes does not constrain its activities to the beit midrash - Yom Iyyun shel Chesed, and our weekly volunteering (there are no classes on Tuesday afternoons, and most students volunteer at various non-profits in and around Jerusalem). Reflecting on my time so far in Jerusalem, particularly through talking with Rabbi Gold and Shir Tikva's 11th and 12th graders while they were here last week, I realized that I really haven't limited myself to my learning in the Pardes beit midrash. Through my volunteering (more on that in a future post), time with Women of the Wall, and involvement with Encounter, I've embraced a teaching that Rabbi Gold shared with me last year: "My Torah is walking - I'm following it to the public square."

In that spirit...

Pardes is doing a community learn-a-thon this week to raise money for Haiti relief through AJWS, American Jewish World Service. As a community, we are all doing extra learning, our teachers are donating their time to teach evening classes on social justice issues, and we are reaching out to our friends and families to donate money in support of us and this dire humanitarian crisis. You can donate here.

And for a laugh, check out this Youtube video (starring me!).

Life's a Great Balancing Act

At a night encampment on the way, the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!" And when God let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision." ~Exodus 4:24-26

These verses, towards the end of this week's Torah portion, Sh'mot, have always seemed weird to me. They are out of place, a break in the narrative of Moses' first encounter with the Divine at the burning bush and his development as a leader.

In my chumash class at Pardes, we've been studying the book of Exodus all semester. More specifically, we've been studying Parshat Shmot all semester - we completed the first Torah portion of Exodus this week, just in time for it to be this week's portion. Studying it in this up-close, in-depth way gave me the chance to look at these verses on their own, rather than focusing on trying to place them within the narrative.

Rashi, the 12th century French commentator, in trying to understand why God is seeking to kill Moses, who has just been sent off to Egypt to free the Israelites, says that Moses didn't circumcise his son like he was supposed to, 8 days after his son's birth. However, he quotes Rabbi Yossi saying, "God forbid Moses was negligent! Moses said, 'I'll circumcise him and then I'll go out on a journey that's dangerous for the baby for the 3 days after his circumcision, instead I'll circumcise him and then stay put until he heals.'"

There's a conflict here between Moses' mission for the community and his responsibilities to his family and his son, a conflict that many people are personally familiar with. Moses' attempt to balance his communal and personal responsibilities almost led to his death! According to Rashi, these two are irreconcilable.

Ibn Ezra, a Spanish contemporary of Rashi, understands these odd verses by saying that circumcision can be postponed if the baby is ill or traveling, and that therefore Moses didn't circumcise his son on the 8th day so as not to delay in carrying out his mission from God. Ibn Ezra suggests that a messenger of God came to remind Moses to circumcise his child and then go on alone to Egypt, leaving the baby to recover with his mother at the night encampment. Ibn Ezra does not view the family's needs and the community's needs as completely in conflict, and finds a compromise allowing Moses to fulfill both, without neglecting his son or the Israelite people. This compromise requires the support of a third individual, Moses' wife Tzipporah, but with her help, he's able to find some balance in his life and his work.

ירושלים גם שלי: Jerusalem is mine too

This is a summary of a story I shared at Pardes' community lunch last week, for a project called "Take 5," where students share stories and reflections. The story was in response to the question, "Share a meaningful Jerusalem moment."

I usually don't like protests and marches. They're fun...but what's the point? What changes? So I was somewhat surprised to find myself eagerly anticipating last Saturday night's march to free Jerusalem. The march was in response to a number of incidents in Jerusalem over the past several months, showing the haredim's (ultra-Orthodox) increasing political power in this city, including the arrest of Nofrat Frenkel, violent Haredi protests against parking lots and factories open on Shabbat, and haredim moving into previously secular neighborhoods.

I am a liberal Jew, a Reform Jew, and for the past few weeks had felt incredibly lonely and disconnected from that in this city. Saturday's night march shifted that for me. When we arrived at Kikar Paris, where the march was due to start from, there was a crowd of about 100 people milling about, including many members of the Pardes community, holding signs that said "Jerusalem is also mine" and "The Kotel for everyone." That crowd of 100 grew to 400 before we started walking towards the center of the city, and by the time we reached Kikar Zion, our destination, the media estimated over 2000 people were marching. Children, teens, students, adults...totally secular, men and women wearing kippot, people who clearly had come straight from their Shabbat plans...Israeli, American, British, and more...

That Saturday night, I no longer felt alone. It's unclear (highly doubtful) that the protest will have any impact whatsoever on the power dynamics in Jerusalem, but it had a huge internal effect on me, reminding me that there are Jews of all varieties who share a vision of a Jerusalem that is truly a city for all Jews, secular, Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and everything else in between.

The evening didn't end with the conclusion of the rally. Several of us wandered up Ben Yehuda, observing the usual mishmash found there motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat, Saturday night). We came upon a group of Moshiach dancers, ultra Orthodox men dancing and singing to music from a speaker system. In our high spirits after the march, we decided to join in their dancing, with a mixed dancing circle - separate from the ultra Orthodox men, but next to them. They almost immediately shut off the music to prevent us from dancing more, but rather than leaving, we stayed as they did the ritual of Kiddush Levana - several of our group, including 2 liberal rabbis, male and female, joined with these ultra-Orthodox men as they said the set of prayers. A moment that could have been incredibly tense was instead a moment of hope and optimism for the type of Jerusalem we had envisioned earlier, one in which we all respect each other's ways of practicing Judaism, even if we don't agree with it. The tension was definitely still there, but was tempered by the beauty and holiness of the moment.

My friend Noam Sienna's story of the evening

Ha'aretz article about the protest

Jerusalem Post article about the protest

a little bit of Torah

I learned this this past week in my Rambam class with Rabbi Levi Cooper:

In Rambam's (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon) Mishneh Torah, he talks about the idea of kiddush hashem, the sanctification of God's name. The first few chapters on this topic focus on what kiddush hashem was at Rambam's time (12th century), martyrdom for being Jewish, and lays out rules and guidelines for what the circumstances are for an act to be kiddush hashem. Basically, when someone gives a person a choice "do this or I will kill you," there are guidelines for when you should do the "this" or be killed (kiddush hashem). One of these conditions (if several other conditions have already been established) is:

ואם אנסו להעבירו בעשרה מישראל - יהרג ואל יעבר -הלכת יסודי התורה, פ"ה, ה"ב

If he is forcing one to transgress in front of 10 people from Israel - he should be killed and not transgress (Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah 5:2)

The relevant part, in mine (and my teacher's) mind, is the fact that kiddush hashem is a public act. And not just a public act in front of whomever happens to be around, but in front of one's own community, in front of other Jews. Rambam specifically says "10 from Israel," not saying a minyan (in Rambam's mind, a quorom of 10 Jewish adult men) - an understanding of what is legally required for prayer. This isn't legal, it is not halacha (Jewish law). By making this a public act, in front of a person's community, Rambam is saying that what matters isn't God's presence or the individual's relationship with God, but rather the individual's relationship with their community. What is relevant is not what you do in your heart, but how you represent yourself to your community.

From an organizing perspective, this makes a lot of sense to me - we get public commitments from our targets, we strive to bring politics back to the public realm where they belong, rather than in the back room. We value transparency. An elected official can easily not follow through on something that he says privately to his friend, but this is much more difficult when that commitment is made in front of 2000 people and the media.

Another element is that this kiddush hashem is done specifically in front of your own community. When we do work to bring the world-as-it-should-be, but completely separate it from our communities, or are not public about it, it makes it a lot harder for others to join in that work.

To open this up for comments (which are ALWAYS welcome) - what are your thoughts on this? For what actions is this relevant for you? Does it only matter when we do things in public, or even more specifically, in front of our communities?

How do you say AGITATION b'Ivrit?

One of the classes I'm taking is a social justice track, which in addition to class 2 days a week includes guest speakers, tiyulum (trips), and coordinating the volunteering for Pardes students. Today we had a guest speaker, Rabbi Levi Lauer. It was INCREDIBLY agitational, a real shofar blast and wake up call, apropos to this week leading up to Rosh Hashanah. Levi is the director of Atzum (http://atzum.org), an Israeli non-profit organization working with the families of terror victims, Righteous Gentiles, and against human sex trafficking in Israel, and he was also the dean of Pardes for several years.

Major points of what he said that really resonated with me, that I’m still mulling over:

• The search for meaning is more of a Jewish value than comfort – this is incredibly counter-cultural in Western culture
• We exist only as we exist in relationship with the Other (Levinas)
• Never look into the eyes of another human being unless you’re prepared to take full responsibility for them (Peter Singer)
• B’tzelem elohim nivra adam – not “human was created in the image of God,” but “for the sake of God’s image you were created”
• It is theologically obscene to think that God cares if you turn on the lights on Shabbat but not if you care about Rwanda (for example)
• You need to have courage to fail – justice is brought into the world when we take on things, b’chol l’vav’cha, b’chol naf’sh’cha, b’chol m’odecha (with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your m'od - loosely translated as all of your all), that are TOO BIG and fail – but in the failing, we put justice into the hands of those who didn’t have it before
• God is relational: if God addresses you, it is an invitation to DEBATE, not to assent
• Hineni = here I am, ready for existential debate
• one of the best parts of Jewish culture is debate, one of the worst is the notion that words will suffice
• the real (dangerous) power of words is that they are so powerful that they dull you to the pain and the bodies in the street
• Tanach (from Genesis to Deuteronomy to Chronicles) is the story of God’s withdrawal from the world in order to make room for human agency
• There is no personal salvation in Judaism – why it’s so hard to be a Jew – it’s all collective – my salvation is bound up with my next door neighbor…there is either interdependence or stagnation
• Chevruta can be an internalization of the idea that we are created to be in relationship
• move Torah and learning to the street – live it, study Torah in order to make the world a better place
• before praying the Amidah, Rabbi Lauer asks himself, “did I do anything in the past 24 hours that merits asking God for ANYTHING?”
• that you’ll never do well enough is not an excuse to not do better – all or nothing will always lead to nothing

All of these points were incredibly agitational and he was a very charismatic speaker. But what happens tomorrow? My class was very shook up and agitated for the rest of the afternoon…but what is different now that we’ve heard this? I've heard Ruth Messinger speak on several occasions, and she always agitates me - but my behavior never changes the next day. One classmate asked if I still wanted to be a rabbi after hearing that, and my answer was emphatically yes. I deeply feel that by being a rabbi in a congregation, helping that community be in relationship with the Other and act on their values, through which we search for meaning in our collective Jewish life, then more justice is brought into the world.

The question I’m wrestling with now, in this week prior to the High Holidays, is how my study of Torah this year, Torah study that is purely for the sake of learning, can make the world a better place. How do I live my life (because this isn’t a year off from my life), no matter what I am primarily engaged in (learning, grad school, working, etc.) in a way that brings justice to the world?

Ultimately, much of what Rabbi Lauer said today is that it is more important to walk the walk than only talk the talk. 6-7 years from now, I don’t want to stand on a bimah on Rosh Hashanah and talk the talk. How will I walk the walk in this coming year? How will I be in relationship with the Other? How will I bring my Torah learning, that I am loving so much, to the street and live it?

(Shout-out to Christopher, who asked about classes and if I'd be writing about them in the blog! Best chevru-team ever!)

Y lloro, y lloro v'boche el hakirot...

Much to update about! In this blog post: visit to the Kotel and the Old City, 1st Shabbat in Jerusalem, classes, and exploring Jerusalem.

Boche el hakirot

The title of the blog post is a lyric from a David Broza song: "And crying, and crying, and crying to the walls." (in Spanish and Hebrew) We went to the Old City, specifically to the Kotel, on Thursday night for a mini-tiyul (trip). It was my first time in the Old City and the center of the city since I got here, and it's good to start getting my Jerusalem geography back. The Kotel is a weird place. On the one hand, especially at night, it is beautiful and I love people-watching there, seeing the diversity of the Jewish community walking by. On Thursday night, it being the middle of Ramadan, the prayers from "next door" were loud and clear, and I thought, beautiful. To my ears the Ramadan prayers sounded like crying, as one of our teachers was reminding us that the Kotel is sometimes called the Wailing Wall.

We looked at some verses from the Tanach about Jerusalem, including: "You will bring them and plant them in Your own mountain, the place You made to dwell in, O God, The sanctuary, O God, which Your hands established." (Exodus 15:17) I read the verses as a meeting place for all different cultures, a sanctuary built by God's own hands. That sounds like Jerusalem-as-it-should-be to me, a Jerusalem that I got a tiny glimpse of, as we stood in the Kotel plaza and listened to the Muslim community's Ramadan prayers.

The beggars at the Kotel, at least on the women's side, really really drive me crazy. I wish they didn't. They are humans - do I need to acknowledge them as human, if they don't acknowledge me as more than a walking American ATM? Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz writes about her resistance to giving to a particular homeless person outside her New York apartment, because the recipient's actual need is so much greater than her ability to give. Maybe I'm disturbed by the beggars because I feel like they are reducing my experience at the Kotel down to a contractual relationship - you give to me - when I'm trying to be in a place of covenantal relationship with Makom (a word for both place and God)? Which brings me to - is there a way in which the giving of tzedakah can be more than contractual? I have lots of tzedakah that people back in the States sent me to Israel with, I don't want to give it to women at the Kotel so that they will leave me alone.

There is a new pedestrian mall (since the last time I was in Israel in 2007) between the center of the city and the Old City, the Mamila Mall. It is disgustingly opulent, full of American stores - North Face, the Croc Store, The Gap, H. Stern, it goes on and on. The opulence of Mamila really stood in contrast with the poverty of the Old City, and really didn't feel to me like it fit in with Jerusalem at all. Jerusalem's not that chic!

Shabbat Shalom...

This past Shabbat was absolutely beautiful. It's very uncomplicated here to be immersed and observe Shabbat. But not perfect...I went to Kehilat Kol Haneshama (a Progressive synagogue) for kabbalat Shabbat (where I felt absolutely 100% comfortable wearing my kippah), but walking home alone, I didn't feel comfortable leaving it on (although I know other women who do). We hosted dinner in our apartment - lovely company, delicious food - and then on Shabbat morning I walked to services with Naomi, walking down Derech Beit Lechem, which may be my new favorite street. It's beautiful - lots of little alleyways, and old houses with flowers. I'm starting to get my bearings here, and it feels more like home. One of my goals for Jerusalem has always been to know it well enough to feel at home here, to know my way around, to have places that are "my" places. It's also really nice to be in Machane Yehuda on Friday morning, or walk into services and know people. Which happens often in Jerusalem, but still, it makes it feel more homey.

There was a Pardes picnic in the park for lunch, followed by a fantastic 2-hour long nap, and seudah shlishit with my roommates and some guests. I loved the singing we did in the park and at seudah shlishit, but I miss singing with JOI at retreats for hours out of Rise Up Singing, or camp-style song sessions. As lovely as the singing was, it didn't wholly feel like mine. But of course, at JOI, I missed singing more Hebrew songs. I want (and need) to figure out how to create a Shabbat that feels uniquely mine, not just the default of the people around me at any given time.

Back to school, back to school

Classes are challenging, and intense, and hard, and wonderful. So far I'm taking chumash (Torah, focusing on the book of Exodus), Talmud (right now focusing on sections having to do with Yom Kippur), women and mitzvot, social justice (as part of a social justice track), and intro to Rambam. It's an intense schedule, and there's still one more class period we haven't even had yet (but I will probably be taking siddur), but I love the learning I'm doing. Women and mitzvot and social justice in particular today were almost antagonistic, but in a great, debate-filled, exciting way.

Exploring Jerusalem

I've been reading Amos Oz's memoir about his childhood in Jerusalem, A Tale of Love and Darkness, a book that's been on my reading list for awhile, but I was saving for a trip to Israel. Neal Gold suggested waiting even longer, until after I'd been living in Jerusalem, and knew the city well enough to recognize streets and places. The part I read on Friday night describes the walk Amos takes with his parents on Shabbat afternoon to visit his uncle in Talpiyot: "Shortly before four we would finally turn left off Derech Hevron and enter the suburb of Talpiyot...we turned right into Kore Hadorot Street as far as the pine wood, then left, and there we were outside Uncle's house." Derech Hevron is a few blocks from my apartment, and I cross it to get basically anywhere I go, so I was wondering where Kore Hadorot was. And then, as we were walking home from the picnic on Shabbat afternoon (just around the same time as in the book!), I saw a sign for Kore Hadorot Street, just a couple blocks down the hill from my apartment, I walk past it at least twice a day.

All in all, my first week in Jerusalem has been fun, exciting, and challenging. I've realized it could be very easy (too easy) to walk to school in the morning and go home at night, without exploring Jerusalem and Israel further, or even hearing and using my Hebrew. A challenge to continue to explore...