Leaving Jerusalem

I wrote this while flying from Israel to New York a few weeks ago. It will most likely be my last post on this blog, which I started in order to reflect on my own experiences living in Jerusalem for two years, and to share them with all of you. Chag Shavuot Sameach!
 

May 20, 2011

El Al #1, TLV-JFK

Somewhere over Newfoundland… 

For the past year and a half, I have had the blessing of learning gemara with my dear chevruta, Sarah W. We started together as chumash chevrutas during our first semester at Pardes, and then began learning gemara during second semester, and continued studying together once a week this past year. This is dedicated to all of the Torah learning, laughs, and David Berman muffins when they were much needed that we shared together.

This year we have been studying Masechet Shabbat. At our final meeting as chevruta (for now), we studied a sugya, Shabbat 119a, that brought aggadot (stories) about how different rabbis celebrated Shabbat. It continued by bringing many of the well-known midrashim that are often heard and shared about Shabbat in lots of different settings. (For example, the story that two angels, a good angel and a bad angel, accompany a person home from services on Friday night to see if his house is cheerfully ready for Shabbat or not – if it is, the good angel says “May it be this way every week,” and the bad angel has to say “amen,” and vice versa).

The piece that has stuck with me all week – we studied on Sunday, 5 days before I left Israel, immediately after my final Shabbat in Jerusalem – asks how people merit or earn their riches.

רבי מר' ישמעאל ברבי יוסי עשירים שבא"י במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמעשרין שנאמר (דברים יד) עשר תעשר עשר בשביל שתתעשר שבבבל במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמכבדין את התורה ושבשאר ארצות במה הן זוכין א"ל בשביל שמכבדין את השבת

Rabbi asked R. Ishmael son of R. Jose: The wealthy in Eretz Yisrael, how do they merit wealth? --Because they give tithes, he replied, as it is written, "עשר תעשר" - give tithes so that you may become wealthy. 

(an agricultural mitzvah that can only be fulfilled in the Land of Israel)

Those in Babylon, how do they merit riches? --Because they honor the Torah.

 (Babylon was the site of a great deal of Torah learning starting in the 5^th century CE, where most of the material of the Babylonian Talmud was produced).

And those in other countries, how do they merit riches? Because they honor Shabbat.

Sarah and I, while discussing this sugya, talked about why it was these particular mitzvot, in these particular places, that make a person merit riches. In the case of Shabbat, Sarah pointed out, it is a very hard mitzvah to keep fully (whatever fully might mean for you) outside of Israel. In Israel, it IS Shabbat from Friday night-Saturday. It is impossible to forget about it, especially in Jerusalem, and for me, it was very easy to cultivate a Shabbat culture for myself in Jerusalem. I didn’t have to think about whether or not to drive or take public transportation, I just walked everywhere. No plans were made for Shabbat, and no one expected me to want to go out to dinner, go shopping, see a movie, etc. the air of Shabbat permeates everything.

One of the hardest moments for me this past week was when I ran a final errand on Thursday afternoon, and the cashier said, “Shabbat shalom,” as I walked out of the store. That’s how much Shabbat permeates Israeli consciousness, that we start greeting each other with Shabbat Shalom on Thursday or even earlier. But this time, I wouldn’t be in Israel to experience that all-encompassing Shabbat atmosphere of Jerusalem that I’ve grown to love so much these past two years.

I will miss that feeling. It will be hard to cultivate a Shabbat-centered week in the US,  even though I will be spending the summer with my family, where Shabbat dinner is always of the utmost importance, and even though I am continuing my rabbinical studies, and will be immersed in Jewish communities, most likely for the rest of my life. But outside of Israel, no matter one’s intentions, other distractions slip in during those 25 hours. The mail comes; the farmer’s market is only open on Saturdays.

Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is a place that inspires and challenges me religiously and spiritually. That may be the best way to sum up these past two years – everything I did was part of that: my beit midrash learning at Pardes, my academic studies at HUC, my involvement with Encounter, simply living in the crazy, throbbing, vibrant city of Jerusalem, where everyone seems to be wrestling with God and with their religious community every minute of every day. That in-your-face struggle won’t be there anymore, to inspire me to continue to commit myself to growing spiritually and to striving to be a better Jew and a better person.

About a year ago, I sat in an apartment of another chevruta, Ilan, singing songs at a seudah shlishit as Shabbat departed. One of the songs we sang was the familiar phrase, “לכול מקום שאני הולך, אני הולך, אני הולך לירושלים. לכול מקום שאני כהולך, אני הולך לציון" L’chol makom she’ani holech, ani holech l’Yrushalayim. L’chol makom she’ani holech, ani holech l’Zion.” Everywhere I go, I go towards Jerusalem. Everywhere I go, I go towards Zion. I decided that Shabbat afternoon, that before I left Israel “for good,” that I was going to have my own version of those words engraved on a ring. My version reads "לכול מקום שאני הולכת, אני הולכת לירושלים של מעלה l’chol makom she’ani holechet, ani holechet l’Yrushalayim shel ma’alah.” Everywhere I go, I go towards Y’rushalayim shel ma’alah – the heavenly Jerusalem. There is a teaching that there are two Jerusalems – shel matah (below, or earthly), and shel ma’alah (upper, or heavenly). There is the real, on the ground Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that sometimes smells like pee and has lots of traffic and suddenly gets quiet on Friday afternoon, and the heavenly Jerusalem we all hold in our hearts, the Jerusalem of our religious imagination and our highest aspirations for her. Jerusalem as-it-is and Jerusalem as-it-should-be. 

Wearing these words on my finger reminds me of that constant struggle and growth in Jerusalem, that I take it with me as I sit on this El Al plane, soon to disembark in cloudy and rainy New York, to jump into celebrating my brother’s college graduation (I’m so proud of you kiddo!) I don’t need to leave that behind. I can continue to grow, to continue to try and be the best person, and the best Jew I can be, to continue to work for not only Jerusalem as it should be, but for the world as it should be.

First D'var Torah...as a rabbinical student!

This is the d'var Torah I gave at HUC services this morning. It's on this week's Torah portion, Vayeshev, focusing on Genesis 38. It was really special to be able to give the d'var Torah while my parents and brother were here too!

We hear of a woman in this week’s parasha, Vayeshev. She leads to the death of not one, but TWO husbands. She is tricky and deceitful. She is a prostitute and a whore, so much so that she even seduces her own father-in-law.

Or do we? Let’s rewind. We hear of a woman in this week’s parasha, a widow, abandoned by her husband’s family. She is resourceful, modest, and brave. She is the progenitor of the Davidic line, mother of kings and saviors.

These women are one and the same – Tamar – whose experiences take up an entire chapter in the middle of the Joseph narrative. Tamar is married to Judah’s oldest son, who dies leaving her childless, and she is given to the next son to fulfill the practice of levirate marriage. This son ALSO dies, and hoping to save his youngest son’s life, Judah sends Tamar back to her father’s house. Tamar, knowing that it is her right to be married and have children, dresses up like a prostitute, sits on the road where Judah is traveling, sleeps with him, and becomes pregnant. Judah hears that his daughter-in-law has gotten pregnant by sleeping around, and calls for her to be burned. Tamar reveals the pledge Judah had given her – his personal staff, seal, and cord – saying the owner of these is the father, modestly giving Judah the chance to admit his wrongdoing rather than calling him out on it herself. Judah admits that he is wrong, and that Tamar is right. She gives birth to twins, Peretz and Zerach, and later, at the end of the Book of Ruth, it becomes clear that Tamar’s actions give rise to none other than the line of King David himself.

So which is she? Is Tamar morally compromised or rightfully strategic and resourceful? The detail that seems the most problematic and “yuck-inducing” to modern readers, that Tamar slept with her own father-in-law, is explained by Hizkuni, a 13^th century French commentator. He clarifies that although we are familiar with levirate marriage, yibum, as taking place between a woman and the brother of her deceased husband, in the time before matan Torah, yibum could happen with any male relative, including the father-in-law. Not only was this was widely accepted in biblical society, it was also fully legal, and therefore not morally problematic. So according to Hizkuni, Tamar was not behaving like a harlot, she was using the only legal road available to her to have children.

In fact, the strongest evidence for Tamar’s heroism and moral rightness lies in Judah’s response to her when she reveals his staff, seal, and cord: “Vayomer tzadkah mimeni – She is more in the right than I.” The word that Judah uses, tzadkah, doesn’t just mean that Tamar is correct in this situation. From the root צדק, for justice. Tamar had an injustice done to her when she was not given to Judah’s third son as she should have been. Although Tamar is coming from one of the most marginalized and powerless positions in biblical society – a childless widow who has been exiled from her in-laws’ home – she does not passively accept this injustice. Instead, Tamar acts strategically with the few resources she has – knowledge of Judah’s travel plans, a few carefully placed scarves, and her body, to bring about the result that she justly deserved. As it turns out, this bold act not only turned out well for Tamar, that she would have children and a secure place in her in-laws’ home, but her bravery led to the line of David, to the eventual Messiah for the entire Jewish people!

If Tamar’s future Messianic offspring and Judah’s words were not enough, the Torah grants Tamar an entire chapter in the midst of Genesis to let her voice be heard! The Torah itself validates Tamar’s moral rightness by giving her the space to be heard in such detail, much more than many other biblical women get. Every Shabbat, we sing the words of Psalm 92: צדיק כתמר יפרח  Tzadik k'tamar yifrach– the righteous will bloom like a date-palm. Or, the righteous, k’tamar, like Tamar, will bloom.

Even though to this day, people regularly think of Tamar as being no more than a prostitute, Tamar is revealed instead to be not only active and resourceful in protecting her own future, but right, צדקה tzadkah, in ensuring the future of the Jewish people. Sometimes we need to take a second look at a narrative that we’ve heard over and over again, in order to understand what it’s really about. Too often we’re quick to accept a popular narrative about our tradition or the world around us, particularly now during our time in Israel. Instead, perhaps we should to look below the surface, to think critically about each narrative that we hear and see. Without looking past our initial feelings of disgust for Tamar’s actions, we would not be able to see her for the proactive individual that she really is, an individual who acts to secure not just her own destiny, but that of the Jewish people as well.

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.

49 Days of the Omer, 2 Tablets, 613 Commandments...Shavuot Tally!!

3...cups of NesCafe
3...Tikkun Leil Shavuot(s) attended (all night study session...and if you can tell me how to make that plural, you get a prize)
1...Brandeis NEJS professor
10.6km...walked around Jerusalem over the course of the evening
2...renditions of Debbie Friedman's 613 Commandments
7...constipated men of the Bible (that we could remember)
8 hours...slept after staying up all night

Shavuot in Jerusalem is a special experience. There's a tradition of staying up learning all night in anticipation of receiving the Torah, a tradition that it seems the entire city takes part in. As I walked from place to place throughout the night, I saw others doing the same, filling streets that are usually silent and empty at 2 AM with bustling social chatter.

At home early in the evening, I was studying from a book of contemporary Israeli women's midrash called Dirshuni. The midrash I was reading told a story of a young woman sitting in services while the 10 Commandments were being read from the Torah. As she heard the commandment of Shabbat, "Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God: you shall not do any work - you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements," (Exodus 20:8-10) and the commandment "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's" (Exodus 20:14), the young woman's thought was "And the woman, what about her? Isn't she commanded in the holiness of Shabbat? Isn't she commanded to not envy the husband of her neighbor?" In the woman's anger and fear, the midrash describes as being gathered up in God's palm, where she confronts God with her questions. God answers her, describing how Moses, prior to receiving the Torah, was commanded to separate from all women, including his wife Tziporah. Because Moses wasn't mixed up with the rest of creation, including his own wife, prior to writing down all the Torah, it was just inconceivable to him that anyone other than men would be held responsible for keeping Shabbat, or that a woman could have the inclination to envy her neighbor. God implies that God's intention in giving the commandments was for men AND women, but Moses, who could only understand out of his own experience, missed that. The midrash ends saying, "Every beit midrash in which there is no woman, no complete words of Torah will go out from it." We need to include all perspectives in our learning, not just our own, otherwise our Torah isn't complete.

The first tikkun leil I went to was at Pardes; I heard Judy Klitsner, a Pardes faculty member in Bible who I haven't had the chance to learn with because she has been promoting her new book this year. She taught about the patriarchs of the Torah turning to non-Jewish mentors (Abraham to Malchi-tzedek, and Moses to Yitro his father-in-law). Then I went to Yedidya, a nearby synagogue, where I heard Jonathan Sarna speak on Judaism in post-revolutionary America. Judaism adopted the values around it, of democracy, republicanism, and a rejection of central authority. The Jewish community could no longer rely on the rabbi's authority to enforce communal norms regarding intermarriage, among other things. . As Judaism entered the free market, "it had to become compelling and interesting, it couldn't rely on being coercive." Sarna's thesis reminded me of the midrash describing the moment of revelation, in which God literally holds Mount Sinai over Am Yisrael, threatening to kill the entire community if they do not accept the Torah. This coercive, do-or-be-punished model of Jewish life no longer worked in the New World.

After Sarna's talk, I walked 45 minutes across the city to Tchernichovsky Street, where some of my friends were holding their own tikkun leil, independent of any of the formal institutions of learning that fill this city. I think this really reflected the spirit of Shavuot, and in particular the spirit of Shavuot in Jerusalem. Anyone can walk into any synagogue, beit midrash, or lecture hall to participate in the learning happening. You don't need to have a particular amount of Jewish learning or be a major donor (Major Donor!) in order to access the learning and teaching. And anyone can teach, not only the big names who are advertised on posters all over the city in the week prior to the holiday. And as a Jewish people, we need to be aware of the diversity of experience among us, the myriad of ways that we live in the world and experience revelation. We can't rely on just one understanding of the tradition, held by those in traditional roles of rabbinic and social authority.

As morning approached, we went to meet up with those heading to Robinson's Arch, sometimes referred to as the "Kotel Masorti" (referring to the Masorti, Israeli Conservative, movement). Robinson's Arch, in the archaeological excavations next to the Western Wall plaza, is the space dedicated for egalitarian prayer, where Women of the Wall holds its Torah services, and where boys and girls can both become b'nai mitzvah. Praying Shacharit at sunrise, in the heart of the Old City of Jerusalem, surrounded by a liberal, egalitarian community was one of the more powerful prayer experiences I've had this year. When we first got there and started to get ready to daven, we were unsure if it was even light enough to put on our tallitot - and I was praying with my beautiful new tallit that I got when my mom was here a few weeks ago, so this was very important! Gradually it got lighter, and the only noise heard, other than our own prayers and the faint mumble of prayer from the Kotel, was that of birds chirping and greeting the day. The tallitot around me, of both men and women, flapped in the early morning wind. We loudly and jubilantly sang the words of hallel...and then walked home and I slept from 7:30am until 3:00pm.

Sweet as honey, sweet as honey, sweet as honey on my tongue!

*Points to anyone who read closely enough to find the How I Met Your Mother reference.

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.

הגיע זמן לקחת אחריות - The Time Has Arrived to Take Responsibility

I went on two tiyulim (trips) the week before last that revealed two very different slices of life in Israel and the territories, slices of life that are hard to catch glimpses of.

South Tel Aviv

On Thursday, I traveled to Tel Aviv with the social justice track, to learn about the issues surrounding migrant workers, refugees, and the sex trade in Tel Aviv and in Israel. Our guide, John Mark, a Pardes alum and a lawyer who used to work for the UN High Commissioner on Refugees, led us around the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the Central Bus Station, a bus station that I have traveled in and out of several times without being aware of the multitude of populations that live around it, beyond a basic knowledge that it is not a neighborhood to be in alone late at night. We walked through the bus station itself, and noted the businesses run by and catering to various segments of the immigrant community - the Hebrew disappeared, travel agencies to homelands in Asia and Africa proliferated, as did grocery stores selling the junk foods of someone else's home. John Mark told us the complicated history of African refugees in Israel - many of whom have not received refugee status.

We walked down a street that John Mark described as the social center for the Tel Aviv immigrant community. I had seen it from the other end, the end right next to the bus station, many times, but had never walked down it. We visited a cafe owned by a Sudanese refugee, and heard another refugee from the Sudan, Ismail, tell his story. Ismail owns a small electronics shop in that same commercial area. He fled from the Sudan to Egypt with his family, but Egypt gives no rights to refugees - they cannot work or educate their children. He and his family illegally crossed the border to Israel in the middle of night. Ismail told us that when Israeli soldiers found him and his family, it was the first time he had an encounter with soldiers or police in which he was not kicked or slapped before questioning even started. The soldiers gave his kids water to drink, brought the whole family to the military base, where the kids were fed and received medical check-ups. For me, hearing this story was a confirmation of the image of the Israeli military that I had heard about growing up, an image that is continually challenged today.

Ismail's electronics shop in South Tel Aviv

Two summers ago, the summer of 2007, the Darfur refugee issue received a great deal of attention from the Israeli media. Ismail told about being at a protest at the Rose Garden, by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), for the Darfur refugees, a protest that I was at also, with my fellow madrichot from NFTY in Israel (Sara G., Jillian S., and Anna K.!). Seeing how our paths crossed, unknowingly, was powerful. There were other challenges along the way, but Ismail and his family now live in Tel Aviv. When we asked how his kids had adjusted to Israeli life and speaking Hebrew, Ismail told us, with a huge smile, that they come home from school singing Chanukah songs.

"The time has come to take responsibility" - Jerusalem rally for Darfur refugees, June 2007

John Mark raised the question of responsibility and community. Who is responsible for the world's refugees, those who would die if they returned home? To what extent is Israel responsible for them, as a country that has long valued bringing Jewish refugees to safety? John Mark said he, as an Israeli and Tel Aviv resident, feels that Ismail and his family are more in John Mark's community, non-Jews who live in Tel Aviv, than us Pardes students, foreigners, although Jewish, who are here for a year.

We studied a Talmud text in class, from Masechet Nedarim 80b-81a:

One ruling of R' Yosi contradicts another of his: With respect to a well belonging to townspeople, when it is a question of their own lives or the lives of others, their own lives take precedence; their cattle or the cattle of others, their cattle take precedence over those of others; their laundry or that of others, their laundry takes precedence over that of others. But if the choice lies between the lives of others and their own laundry, the lives of the others take precedence over their own laundry. R' Yosi ruled: Their laundry takes precedence over the lives of strangers...

This text and the challenges of welcoming in new populations to any community raise hard questions about how we allocate resources. In the world-as-it-is, it isn't as easy as simply saying, "Once everyone has a base level of needs filled, then we will provide for other needs (like our laundry)." But it's never that clear-cut in reality, as proven by the fact that R' Yosi himself cannot even come up with a conclusive position on it.

Hebron

The next day, I traveled to Hebron with Shovrim Shtika-Breaking the Silence, an organization that leads tours, primarily for Israelis, to the occupied territories to see the impact that maintaining a military presence in the West Bank has on the soldiers who serve there, the people who live there, and Israeli society as a whole.

Hebron is a twisted place. Currently, the city is divided in two parts, H1 and H2. H1 is entirely Palestinian, and under the control of the Palestinian Authority. H2 is home to 800 Jewish settlers, about 20,000 Palestinians, and 500 Israeli soldiers. H2, where we toured, is a ghost town. Streets are empty of cars and people, formerly bustling open air markets are boarded up and deserted. In order to maintain total separation between the Jewish and Palestinian populations, reducing friction, many of the streets in H2 are closed to Palestinian pedestrian traffic, and even more are closed to Palestinian cars. There are families that cannot leave their homes, because their front doors open up on to streets that they are not permitted to walk on. Everywhere we traveled, we were accompanied by a heavy police escort...to protect us from settler violence and harassment. Many of Shovrim Shtika's tours end with a visit to Ma'arat HaMachpela, the Cave of the Patriarchs, but the police decided we couldn't go, because they could not guarantee our safety from settler reactions.

an empty, deserted street, formerly a bustling commercial area

our police escort

There is graffiti all over Hebron - racist, hateful graffiti towards Palestinians, and images of Stars of David, Am Yisrael Chai. The latter are images and phrases that I consider mine, and I am not OK with what is being done in my name, using my symbolism.

graffiti on the wall between H1 and H2

I know people who have served in Hebron, are currently serving there, and will serve there in the future. This isn't something distant that effects other people, but has a real impact, not just on Israeli society at the macro level, but on real individuals in my life.

Friday morning, before leaving to meet the rest of the group, I read this editorial in Ha'aretz, "I Have No Brother." Yossi Sarid disowns the settlers as his brothers, writing:

"When I see a Jew running over a wounded Arab terrorist again and again, I am absolutely certain that any connection between us is coincidental, happenstance, and that I'm obligated to sever it completely...What do I have to do with these people? Brothers we are not, but rather strangers in the night."

Michael, our tour guide, offered a different perspective. He said that since, at the moment, Hebron is indeed part of Israel, he, as an Israeli, feels a responsibility for what is happening there. Saying "those Jews/Israelis are different from me" does not remove the responsibility. The part of that editorial that struck me the most was this: I immediately look at myself to make sure that they are not me.

Here is a wall at which to weep, Part II: Bethlehem

graffiti on the security wall next to Bethlehem
Bethlehem is less than 5 miles from my apartment. When I went there this weekend, I was not there on an organized trip, but for some tourism and to visit my friend Sara, who is living and volunteering in Bethlehem this year.

I traveled with my friends Naomi and Amy, starting with taking an Arab bus from Derech Hevron, a few blocks from my apartment (where I usually take buses headed in the other directions, towards the center of Jerusalem). Our first stop in Bethlehem was the Church of the Nativity. While I was there, taking in the art, the quiet, and watching the other tourists around me, it struck me how places that are holy, no matter which religion they are holy to, have a shared aura about them. It was incredibly easy to be peaceful and reflective there, even though it is by no means my holy site. The Christian tourists had a respect and an awe for being present at Jesus' birthplace, and were able to fulfill their own religious needs without pushing or shoving other people. Unlike some other holy spaces I know... In this week's Torah portion, Vayetzei, Jacob wakes up from a dream and says, "אכן יש יי במקום הזה ואנוכי לא ידעתי - Surely God is present in this place, and I did not know!" (Genesis 28:16) This occurs in the middle of nowhere, in a pile of rocks that Jacob is misfortunate enough to have to sleep on. If Jacob can find God there, surely it's possible to experience the Divine Presence in any place that people have treated as holy for generations.

On Saturday morning, we walked along the separation wall by Bethlehem. The wall is covered with graffiti, some of which deeply resonated with me, and some of which deeply angered me. It encapsulates the diversity of viewpoints found there - on either side of the wall, there is not one, single, unified opinion, but a full spectrum of opinions and beliefs regarding this incredibly complex situation.

I was struck by the ease of crossing between two very different worlds, and the deep contrasts between them. When I got off the bus on Saturday in Jerusalem, all of a sudden I was back in Shabbat world, watching Jews head to Shabbat lunch, when 10 short minutes before I had been surrounded by Christians and Muslims going about an ordinary day. Because I hold an American passport, I have the privilege and ability to go places that Israelis cannot (into the Palestinian territories), and places that aren't accessible to Palestinians. Bethlehem mentally feels very far, especially from Pardes. As the week started and friends at school asked me what I did for Shabbat, there was a double-take when I said I spent part of it in Bethlehem. Bethlehem seems so FAR! Even though it is actually very close, the putting up of a wall and establishing check points (both actual and metaphoric), distances the place and its people from my daily reality.

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?

to the North, back to Jerusalem, and north again...and then back home to Jerusalem

It's been awhile since the last time I wrote. There's a phrase in Israel, "acharei chagim". Everything happens after the holidays. Now that the holidays are over - since last I wrote, we celebrated Yom Kippur, Sukkot, and Simchat Torah - and I've gotten back into the routine of being in school from 8:30-5, things are a little less crazy. It very much still feels like summer here (will be in the 90s over the weekend!), but there have been a few rain showers - the weather is definitely messing with my internal clock; it hasn't really clicked that it's halfway through October already.

Pomegranates and Mangos and Wineries, oh my!

I had a whole week and a half off from school - the longest time I've had off (or taken off) since just after graduation. For the first part, before Sukkot started, I traveled up north to the Galil with Naomi, Laura, Lauren, and Evelyn. We rented a car, stayed on a beautiful moshav near the Sea of Galilee, ate delicious food, sang songs by candlelight on our porch at night, and went hiking in a river. The moshav had an incredible view of the Galil, and there were some of the best, juiciest, locally-grown mangos I've ever had. The son of the hostel owner, Dan, had shown us the hiking trail, and said we could call if we had any problems. After hiking through the river for 4 hours (a hike we had been told would take 2 hours), we're pretty much done with the wading/swimming. We give Dan a call, and instead of giving us directions back to our car, comes and picks us up in his dusty pick-up truck (complete with 2 Thai workers in the back), and brings us freshly picked pomegranates. As we bump through his pomegranate, mango, and lichee fields, Dan shares with us his view of Israeli society - "the problem with Israel isn't the Arabs, it's the Israelis." This conversation was sparked by the overflowing dumpsters and polluted campsites that we saw, remnants of the 2 previous holiday weekends. It's so easy to here to get completely bogged down with trying to comprehend/solve/deal with/challenge status quo around Israeli-Palestinian issues and to forget that this country, like any other, has a plethora of other socio-economic challenges. After our pick-up truck ride with Dan, we piled back into our acceleration-challenged (great for the mountains up north, really) rental car and went to the Golan Winery, for a classy wine tasting in our damp and dirty hiking clothes.

the view of the Kinneret from Moshav Almagor

It was incredibly refreshing to be out of Jerusalem for 3 days. As we were sitting in traffic in the city on the first day, trying to get out, we all just wanted to be out of the city already. It's a great city, and I am loving living here, but I never really understood when friends who had lived in Jerusalem told me that it is an intense city, and it is hard to live in. It's not always tangible, and I didn't notice it on previous trips when I was visiting...but it was great to be up north, out of the Anglo-bubble of South Jerusalem (where I live and go to school), and breathe some fresh air and speak some Hebrew. And it was also great to come back, and to come home to Jerusalem, and to come home to my apartment after being away for the first time since I moved in.

V'samachta b'chagecha - and you will rejoice in your holiday!

Sukkot in Jerusalem was pretty special. Before we left to go up north, Evelyn, Lauren and I ventured to the shuk arba'ah minim, the 4 species market, to buy our lulavs and our etrogs for the holiday. We built a sukkah on our porch - very cozy, Esti and I had a super cute movie night in it one night over vacation. There were sukkot ALL OVER the city - every restaurant, many homes and apartments - for more about Sukkot in Israel that feels very similar to my experience, read this post from 10 Minutes of Torah. My class had a bagel brunch in the sukkah on Pardes' roof during vacation, and Evelyn gave a d'var Torah that really resonated. A lot of the time we talk about going into the sukkah, this temporary, unstable structure outside of our homes, as a time that reminds us of our vulnerability. In times like these, surrounded by the impact of the economic crisis hurting ourselves, our families, and our communities, we already feel pretty vulnerable. There's another interpretation (and I apologize for not knowing where Evelyn found it), that the sukkah, with its 2-3 walls is like a hug. Hugs are comforting, and remind us that there is hope and support in the world, but they do not make everything better, just the confidence that one day, they will be better.

the sukkah at 2/10 Shneur Peleg!

Haifa, Haifa, Ir im Tachtit, Haifa, Haifa, ir amiti...

Haifa Haifa, a city with a subway, Haifa Haifa, a real city! (~David Broza)

Towards the end of vacation I spent a few days in Haifa with Orly. There are street festivals everywhere in Israel during Sukkot, and we went to a pretty loud one (with some delicious fried street food), and then wandered up towards the Haifa International Film Festival, where there was yet another street fair. We did lots of very touristy things, including the clandestine immigration museum (MUCH more fun than anticipated, especially when reading the particularly awful English exhibit explanations) and took a cable car up the mountain, just for the fun of it. I also got to see Joan and Joyce from Shir Tikva, who were in Haifa for the film festival!

Orly and I at the clandestine immigration and naval museum

the view of the Mediterranean from the cable car

V'samachta b'chagecha II

Friday night was yet another holiday, Simchat Torah. I went to Kol Haneshama, or as I like to call it, everybody's favorite Progressive Anglo synagogue in South Jerusalem. It was awesome. Lots of energy and spirit and dancing, ran into lots of people I know who I hadn't yet had the chance to see here. For the last hakafah, they did this beautiful custom I had never seen before - we all formed one circle, outside in the courtyard (rather than the small circles and dancing that had been happening up until then), and the Torah scrolls made the hakafah, went around the circle, instead of us. It was really nice to end on a quiet and reflective note, instead of dancing like crazy right up until the end. The next morning I went to another set of hakafot at Kedem, an egalitarian minyan with lots of Anglo students, and the last hakafah was for all those in the room working for peace. Most of the room hesitated, very few people immediately identified themselves as being peaceworkers. It's hard, especially since it is a primarily student community - I study fulltime now, I'm not directly working for the world-as-it-should-be, and it is a struggle I wrestle with every day, along with many of my friends and classmates.

Garbage garbage garbage!

On Sunday the Pardes social justice track traveled to Har Hiriya, a giant landfill outside of Tel Aviv, in the (slow) process of being converted to a giant park and environmental education center. It's literally a mountain (har=mountain) of trash that was built up from the 1950s until about 10 years ago. It's still used as a transfer station for trash - a lot of trash. We went the day after Sukkot ended, and the amount of debris (especially plant material) from the holiday was ridiculous, as was the amount of recyclable materials. The whole scene was very Wall-E-esque (a great movie, one that I first watched all the way through with Hilary A. Spear) - trash being compacted into bricks, trucks pushing through and sorting it. It was fascinating to be at this garbage dump, to see a side of Israel that I've definitely seen, that tourists don't see, and probably many residents don't see it either (definitely not a side of the US that I've seen).

garbage trucks from Tel Aviv and its surroundings dumping the day's trash

First Day of School...

...for me and all the children of Israel. As my roommates (Sarah and Naomi) and I walked to class this morning, every 5-year old in our neighborhood (which is a lot, because we live in a family neighborhood) was being walked to their first day of school by their entire family, shiny new backpacks and all. The first day of school was great, although overwhelming and exhausting - lots of people in not so much space, plus a long, long day, with new faces and new information.

Rabbi Landes, the rosh yeshiva of Pardes, taught a shiur to the whole school this morning. The piece from Talmud Yevamot that he taught opens with R. Hiyya and R. Shimon b. Rabbi arguing about which direction one should direct their eyes when praying - down to the Temple below, or up towards the heavens above. R. Ishmael bar R. Yosi comes in and says that his father's answer to this question was, "A man who offers up his prayers must direct his eyes to the Sanctuary below and his heart towards the heavens above."

The teaching off of it that I really liked was how these 2 directions represent the constraints of community and history (if you direct your eyes towards the Temple, which could alternately be interpreted as towards the community itself) and towards heaven is bringing your own self to Judaism. Both of these aspects - the community and the self - are needed for Jewish life, and they balance each other out. It reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote at the end of yesterday's post: "remember, you did not go empty-handed."

After a looong day of classes, the roommates and I braved the adventure known as an Israeli grocery store. Incredibly overstimulating, especially when faced with the task of stocking a pretty much empty pantry and refrigerator. It was crazier than MarketBasket, which I didn't know was possible. I'm pretty sure the people around us in line to pay just left their carts at the register and went on to continue shopping, then came back and nudged back into line. It was really sweet to come home (home!) to our apartment, unload the groceries, and cook dinner.

Tomorrow - first day of chumash and Talmud!

There might be giants!

Welcome to the blog! I leave for Israel, to spend a year (and hopefully 2 years) studying, this year at the Pardes Institute in Jerusalem, in exactly one week. I am busy, excited, overwhelmed, and impatient to get to Israel - but there's a long (color-coded) to-do list and lots of goodbyes beforehand.

The title for the blog comes from Parshat Sh'lach L'cha, in which Moses, under God's command, sends 12 scouts into Canaan to...

...see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns in which they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land. (Numbers 13:18-20)

What kind of land will I find? What are the fruits I will bring back? Will the people and communities be open, welcoming, nurturing, and challenging? Will the learning be the learning I am craving? Will the hummus be delicious? (I think that answer is an unequivocal yes.)

When I first studied this Torah portion, the summer I was a Machon (counselor-in-training) at Eisner, we framed the Shabbat service we led on the Shabbat before we became bunk counselors around the idea of "there might be giants!" The scouts don't know what challenges await them in the Land of Canaan, but are terrified at the strength and power of its giant inhabitants. Yet Caleb and Joshua describe the land as "tovah ha'aretz m'od m'od - an exceedingly good land." They are confident that the Israelites have the power, creativity, and resources to make a good life for themselves in this exceedingly good land.

There will for sure be challenges, maybe in the form of giants, in the months ahead (there are already some...like how to pack my life into 2 duffel bags, and see my brother and sister for too short a time between their return from camp and my flight next Wednesday), but there will also be an exceedingly good land, flowing with milk and honey and filled with fruit, to explore.