Big Decision

I guess I thought that since I was back in Colorado, I didn't need to write on this blog any more, but then tonight I realized that might not be the case. I think it is good for me to track my movements as well as tell other people about my travels.
I have been in Colorado for two weeks now. It feels much longer than that. The place is so different and my attitude toward it too. Actually it is probably much more the latter. I feel out of sorts here, out of place. Like it is home and yet not.
Many sleepless nights and tear-soaked pillows allow me to say this decision in public form. I have decided to make aliyah, aka move to Israel. It is a big step, I realize. I also have been looking at all the things I have to do to accomplish this, esp by my goal of December. As in three or so months. All I can do is make lists. And I am, a lot of them.
I know this is the right decision. At this point, I don't know what else to say.
I think I will make a new blog about my escapades navigating the aliyah world as a single olah. Stay tuned.

Back in CO

I am now back in Colorado, for just about two days now. I am still quite jet-lagged and massively tired in general. Having said that though, I can't really sleep. Being here again is more of a shock than I had anticipated. I probably just need the structure and focus a routine provides. That will hopefully come in the form of a job. I need to update my resume and begin sending it out to places to make that happen.
I am finding that I am making decisions in the moment. I have an idea what I would like but really just go for it when the situation arises. Take for example eating. Kosher restaurants just don't exist here, what am I supposed to do when I go out to eat then? Last night I opted for the vegetarian compromise. Meaning, I ate at a non-kosher place and ordered a pasta dish w/o meat, thereby not combining meat and dairy nor eating non-kosher meat. It was an appropriate compromise at the time. However, I love Chick-Fil-A (at least I did when I left). So I ate there, and clearly their chicken is not kosher. I needed to eat there for other reasons and now that is out of my system, something tells me that I probably won't be going back.
I am looking forward to going to shul on Friday, but I am anticipating quite a change. I am mostly gong there for the people this week and little else. To be back there will be something else after having experienced more than two dozen shuls in Israel.
I heard someone say something to the effect of: the journey really begins when the plane touches down again. Meaning that the real travel starts only when you return from the physical travel. I tend to think it is a combination of both. So for this part of the trip, I don't know how long it will take, or where I am going, all I know is that I will never return to where I was previously.

Less than a week to go

I leave on Saturday. What does that mean? It means I am not sleeping. It means I am trying desparately to grab a hold of all I can here in Israel (like holding onto sand). I am finally taking pictures, but moreso of people and things I've done rather than aestically pleasing ones. And I am trying to get myself in them to show that more than my camera went on vacation but that I did too. I am going back to my favorite restaurants and shops. I've had samboosak twice this week already. And orange/carrot/pineapple juice by the liter. And Independence park and Gan Sakar and Nadine's pub. And many more things and places that fit the same category.
I am still open with strangers, but to a much less degree. And I am not necessarily kind with my time. I realize that I don't have all the time in the world, so I will limit spontaneous conversations to a few minutes usually. I don't like that any more.
I am now thinking actively of what I want to be like in CO, becaues it will be a reality shortly.
Don't ask for specific answers because I don't have them yet.
The phones have been having problems. First off mine is just running out of juice and the battery goes whenever it feels like it. But more importantly is that the international lines are very jammed because of all the activity going on here. It is a very busy time in this country, coupled with tragedies. I am sure you all heard of the shooting in the old city on Friday. I have walked those corridors numerous times and had planned on doing so that evening. It's very real for me. And then the pedestrian street, Ben Yehuda, had some sort of publicity thing (Jewish Agency for Israel or something). Three nights in a row they had a bomb scare where they made us take different routes. Every time it's only been a scare though. By the third night, I was becoming slightly desensitized to the fear and irritation was setting in. How quickly our perspectives can be altered.
I am in denial about leaving too. The friends I've made here are threatening to kidnap me. I told them that might be against Shabbat Halacha, but they'd have to check with their Rav. They too are in denial about my departure.
So the plan is to go to a Tel Aviv beach on Tuesday I think. And Tzfat sometime. I am not sure what is in Tzfat, but I have the desire to go again. Spend 7hrs on a bus and $15 for no apparent reason, why not? Wednesday I will be in J-lem for sure. Thursday is a friend's celebration for something in the IDF that I really want to go to. He's in one of the elite units and this is a pretty big deal. I have not a clue where this is being held. Friday is pre-Shabbat and I just have to be in J-lem. Then I leave Saturday.
With that I sign off (plus my time is up on the computer)/
I will see you all very soon.

Shabbat in Jerusalem

I realized this past shabbat that I really had not commented on it recently. Shabbat in Jerusalem is vastly different than any where else in the world. Okay, that is somewhat presumptuous of me to say the whole world, but I can imagine.
I realized too this Shabbat how familiarity eases the mind. For the time I've been studying at the yeshiva here I have been going to services on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. All at different shuls. There are so many different places (and ways too) to daven here that I felt it unfair to limit myself to just one. So, I've been to Sephardic, Ethiopian, Italian, Carlbach, reform, conservative, and many "general" orthodox. Where the m'hitzah is placed used to be important to me and initially I found it a barrier I constructed to inhibit my davening. These days I clearly have a preference but I don't allow it to stop me from getting the most out of the place as I can.
I have been to places where the walls truly shake during Kabbalat Shabbat and others where most of the congregation is subdued. Some congregants are warm and welcoming to a clear stranger. Others are frigid and unwilling to assist in my fumbling around the service. Keep in mind these are still orthodox services and my knowledge of them is not vast. How quickly they go and what I can hear because I am in the women's section and what I can understand because my Hebrew is not great are all variables in each place.
Well, this past Friday night, I went back to the conservative synagogue (Medreshet Israel). I had been there for one night and one morning service. Going back gave me such a sense of knowledge. I felt less insecure and I could really be in the moment much more. And all this from only going once before. So to think about people who have been going to the same place for decades is astonishing and I cannot imagine what they feel when they walk through the doors. For me it is a delicate balance because I enjoy learning and experiencing the new and yet there is something to be said for the familiar.

I'm back to some fun/strange activities. I can't even plan my days any more because the random is so much more fun. Take for example Yom shishi, Friday before Shabbat starts. That day I had planned to go to a beach in Tel Aviv with an Israeli friend. He didn't call so I helped my roommate make some bead necklaces. Then we took those over to a reggae festival to sell them. I was hippied out in dress and I was selling necklaces I had made to hippie religiously observant jews in a bar garden. Very surreal. And someone even bought one of the ones I made. I spent a few hours there and listened to live music and danced with people with dreadlocks that rival Bob marley--except the tzitzit which were hanging from their torsos or the kippot which was on their heads did not exactly fit the expected scene. Free love, expect you don't touch members of the opposite sex. Truly, it was a bizarre mishmash of cultures.

Then I went to shul from 6-8:30p. Wrote in my journal a bit (one thing I just don't see myself giving up even if I become traditional shomer shabbat), and then I walked over to the kotel at 12:30a. Going to the wall after midnight is something else. I am going to miss doing that greatly.
I was there for a couple hours in total. Saturday morning I got up to attend services at 8:30-11:30a. Then Shabbat lunch with fellow yeshiva students. They were all raised in the conservative moment and had this connection that I was on the sidelines of. Lunch lasted 4.5hrs. Then I played rummicube while we waited for third meal. From 6-10:30p we did mincha, third meal, ma'ariv, havdallah. It was one of the best shabbat's I've had in Israel. I didn't sleep (though that is not that unusual) and yet I was fully energized everywhere I went (again, fairly typical).

Shul hoping here is giving me the confidence to do so in Boulder, which is good. I feel more confident in going into Bonai shalom or Aish kodesh or the reconstructionist one in town by myself. And to think there will be moments which will be in English! I cannot imagine anymore.

Also, here the streets are fairly quiet, except for ~10% of those that aren't shomer shabbat and the tourists which aren't either. Cars are silent, buses don't run, people are respectful and they speak to you on the street. Usually they will say "shabbat shalom" or the like. This is very different than what happens 24hrs later though on Sunday (yom rishon) when people don't even notice others, let alone speak to them. I guess Shabbat here is somewhat akin to Sunday morning in CO. Being part of the majority is something which I think most people take for granted. I didn't notice how much of a difference there was until I experienced the other side and now to have to go back to a secular or Christian centered world will be a culture shock all over again.
I still have one more full shabbat this coming weekend. And then I have a Friday night because I fly that Shabbat. That will be the first change--riding in a car and spending money on Shabbat. I imagine I will sit at the kotel much of those times.

That's just a little peek into one of the experiences I've had doing Shabbat in Jerusalem.
Hope all is well in the States and I will see most of you soon.

A week gone by, back to tourist season

Has it really been a week? Again? I am pretty sure I have been saying that all summer long. And with the end approaching, I feel that time is going by even faster (that is except for when I try to sleep in the stifling heat). I have just under three weeks remaining in this country. I am finally being a tourist again in Jerusalem. Tonight I went into all the touristy-artist shops in the city center. However, I was able to tell them in Hebrew I was just looking and walked around a little more confidently than in days past. I find it a fascinating experience to go around as a tourist and as a resident. I know where I am going, and I see familiar faces, that being the resident part. However, I am going to places that really only tourists go and viewing sites from that perspective.
I have also begun the process of trying to figure out what I am going to do once in Colorado again. What will I do when it is time to daven Shacharit or mincha or ma'ariv? Will I pull out my bencher in a restaurant or at the breakfast table? Will I maintain my level of kashrut? Can I? Do I want to? Where will I satiate my need for Jewish studies? Do I continue to wear skirts, and why? Shomer Shabbat and what does that mean? These are really only a few of the questions that I find myself facing on a daily basis.
I am back to visiting the old city quite often. There is just something in that place which is truly remarkable. Perhaps it is the energy of the people who visit which make it tantalizing. Perhaps it is the history. Ani lo yoda'at. I went to the kotel on Tisha B'Av. It was jam-packed with mourners. An entire people mourning the loss of their people for ages. The day is so sorrowful, it is contagious. I stayed in during the day because it was just too hot to go out, and it wouldn't have been smart to do so while on a full fast. Monday night at the kotel was one of the most intense times I've been there. Thousands of women (I didn't pay attention to the men) in collective prayer and sorrow. We were standing at the very place that 1937 yrs ago fell to the Romans. We touched our history. I could vividly imagine the bloodshed. The rocks had not been disturbed for nearly 2000 years and there I was, looking at them, touching them. I cannot express how surreal the experience was.
There is little else like the old city for me.

And then we fast forward to today. One of my IDF (Israeli Defense Force) friends was talking about explosives in tunnels, below Gaza. He spoke of bombing the tunnels which are used to transport goods into Gaza. By goods, I really mean weapons and intelligence. I sat there and wondered what the next day was going to bring. What will happen to Tisha B'Av in the distant future? The idea of an enemy has not yet disappeared.

The intense heat adds to the tension. Actually, that is why many wars in this region occur in the summer time. The heat is just too much. Jerusalem is experiencing yet another heat wave. Around 100F and coupled with 100% humidity. I am sweating from places that I didn't know had sweat glands. The air is thick with pollution and dirt that never seems to dissipate. No air conditioning, no fans, no relief. I thought about riding the bus for the evening--just because it is air conditioned, but then I remembered that they give me motion sickness. Didn't seem like an appropriate trade off. So here I sit and sweat. Even the evenings aren't nearly pleasant any more. We are hoping for the spell to break in the next day or so. Then again, they've been saying that for two days.

That's about all from here. I still haven't decided what I am going to do on my last week. My dad once said, a long time ago actually, no decision is a decision. I have a feeling that is going to pan itself out fairly accurately this time around.
Wish you all well, and I will see you in three weeks.

time for a poll

Hello all--
I hope this finds you well and staying cool in the midst of a nasty hot summer. All over the world it is hot, but never mind that global warming thing.
Anyway, no political rant at the moment, I am actually hoping to get some input from anyone willing to share.
I have a couple questions of various nature.
First, I have something like 8 days off at the end of my trip that I presently have nothing scheduled. The options are practically endless.
A) Go to Eilat, Israel: ~46C, touristy, sea and sand and sun and fun. Least expensive option
B) Go to Petra, Jordan: ~45C, touristy, big rock where Indian Jones was filmed. Middle $ option.
C) Go to Cyprus: ~28C, calm, ocean, little villa in little village. Most expensive option
D) Stay in Jerusalem and really get in me before I go, see it as a tourist and resident, again.
E) None of the above, will require suggestion.

The other question I had is significantly lengthier in terms of an answer. Here in Jerusalem, religion is a very big deal to put it mildly. The question I'd like to pose is "what is the definition of religion?" I don't want an answer that can be found on wikipedia or google either. This is one of those questions that can only be answered individually and yet has much larger implications.

I've had a long day, moving my things from one apartment to another in the ucky heat. And emotionally I had to say goodbye to my roommate. We only were together for a few weeks and during that time we had some of the most special conversations. He is also the first person I've had to say goodbye to that I'm not sure I will see again. It's been pretty rough and that will only continue to be the case over the next week or so. Off to bed.

An American in Israel

I've been noticing things that happen here with a compare/contrast eye. There are activities that happen in various cultures that are not unique to them and just different than America. Then there are behaviours which I really think only happen in Israel. I say this with very little experience outside the States. Some examples:
When riding a bus, a person from the back will send up a 200 shekel note (worth ~$50) up to the front for the bus driver. On the way back will be a bus pass and the correct change. No one blinks an eye; no one thinks of 'borrowing' from the change. And if you don't know what to do (because frankly when someone taps you on the shoulder and hands you a large bill and speaks in a foreign language, knowing what to do is somewhat of a mystery the first couple of times), there is an idea that you are breaking a social norm.
Also, this society is very much child oriented (at least in the more religious cities). This too is evident on the bus. Women get on with their strollers and groceries and the bus driver takes off before she has a chance to sit. People reach out and hold the stroller. As the woman gets off, people jump up to help her exit with all the stairs and the driver waits while this happens. This same driver won't wait for someone who is running to the bus if they don't make it there on time. Fascinating.
Policemen drive up and down the pedestrian mall, both in cars and on horseback.
Guards sit outside restaurants with guns. And they sit outside of the supermarket and all the banks and it's accepted, in some cases, required. Even pizza joints.
I find the terminology used to describe native Israelis, sabre, is becoming more and more clear and accurate. Harsh on the outside and just the sweetest people on the inside.

This place, and for now I'll limit it to Jerusalem because that is really where my exposure lie, is truly a dichotomy. And extreme too, most things are black and white, very little, if any grey. You are religious or you're not. You're native or you're olim. You keep kosher or you don't. Keep shabbat or not. Middle ground is not a concept or attitude many choose to adopt. This can be very difficult to handle. For someone like me, my world is grey (or colorful as I choose to see it). Do I keep Shabbat? yes in the way that works for me. I dress in skirts because I like it, not because I think it is more modest (whole other discussion there). It is quite frustrating really if I allow myself to get wrapped up in it. And that is the key, not getting inundated with the issues and allowing myself to be manipulated in one direction or another.

Okay, fun note. So the room I am subletting is actually going to be up with its lease much sooner than initially thought. As in this Friday (rather than Aug 10). Leaves me homeless. Fine. Whatever. Well, my roommate has had sufficient run-ins with the nasty landlord and has decided to take a passive-aggressive approach to the whole situation. Let me also say that the landlord has no idea I'm there. Nor was there a security deposit or any forwarding information, etc. My roommate likes to paint and has taken to doing so on the walls. The art work is rather beautiful and I would love to move into a place like that if I were the next tenant. Then things got devious and roommate decided to move to a new medium: wax crayons. I was in an interesting dilemma: I could participate or not. I seized the opportunity to draw on walls. In the kitchen above the cabinets I left a keyboard in black and red. Then I had the idea that words are super powerful and what a wonder to put those on a wall. So last night, roommate and Dekel and I took those crayons and wrote all over the wall various emotions. We had over 300 words in the end and it is amazing. I took pictures because this is something that won't happen in the states. Fascinating.

Yeshiva is going great. Like I said last time, I really cannot fully grasp everything that is happening. We are two weeks in, though because it is really structured as two three week sessions, there is a sense that the end is approaching. And people I've met will be departing and new people will be arriving. It's very tumultuous. Ulpan is getting more challenging and yet also very enjoyable.

My typical complaint is still very present and prominent. Last night the mosquitoes were out in force and my face is terribly swollen. I will not miss that at all; at all.
Miss you all and think about you often. Hope all is well and would love to hear what's going on.