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.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, August 6, 2007
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.
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.
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