Avatiach, avatiach!

נר תמיד - Eternal Flame

2007-09-19T17:32:00.000-04:00

Often after peak experiences on meditation retreats, and in other environments where deep inner work occurs, one's openness, awareness and sensitivity remain incredibly acute for the same amount of time after one's retreat as the length of the retreat. But it's been almost three weeks since the week of Burning Man, and I'm still "burning".

Someone who saw how at home I was on the playa asked me, "Have you been to Burning Man before?" Though this was technically my first time, something deep paralyzed my intellect, and I said, "Yes". And that's the deeper truth, in many ways.

This experience wasn't, as some people may perceive it, some big party in the desert. But rather, I feel like the real work of my life suddenly thrust itself into my hands out there - many of my stories and identities suddenly begged to be reexamined, many issues that I tried to put on the back-burner (no pun intended) since adolescence suddenly demanded my utmost attention, begged to be articulated and processed.

Burning Man was simply a catalyst, in other words, for many processes that had slowly , subconsciously been unfolding in me. The "burn" that still consumes my body and melts my heart with each sweet interpersonal connection I make, isn't something outside of me. It's my inner light.

And being mine, it's eternal (at least to my eyes). Though there's not a bone in my body that isn't called to return to Burning Man next year, the alchemical reaction that ripped through me three weeks ago has reached its plateau, thrust my electrons into a altogether higher frequency. A pulse at which they've now stabilized.

What is left, my נר תמיד, is reignited by every bit of love and connection I feel each day. What were once intellectual beliefs are now sensuously, juicily alive. Shocked by Burning Man off their lazy perch in my mind, they've scurried down into my body, whirling ecstatically at the center of my heart and dancing through all my fleshly spirit.

While I used to (and undoubtedly will, again, at times) need to separate from people to visualize them as divine vessels, I'm finding that it's now much easier to unfold to and ground in others and experience the Divine Flow (שפע)and Play (Lila) through people, whether on the subway, in the classroom, or in spiritual community.

At this awesome time of year, for the first time in memory, I feel ready for these days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur - able to articulate in my renewed awareness of this eternal light what is important to me: to trust, manifest, root/ground, have a soft belly and a soft heart, love freely and honestly, play and dance (in both the embodied and cosmic/Lila sense) - and lastly, be filled with gratitude and radical amazement.

Liminal Spaces

2007-08-10T18:31:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in Terminal 4 of Phoenix airport, with its desert-toned carpet swirls, waiting for my plane to Honolulu for a week-long family reunion/60th anniversary celebration (my grandparents'!). I had no idea that getting from Brooklyn to Newark Airport on public transit would comprise such a large portion of the time that this cross-country journey has taken.

That first step west after a summer of Clinical Pastoral Education, processing my emotions and becoming more self-aware than I almost ever have been (even in intentional community at Elat Chayyim), has left me slightly frazzled. I've unplugged from that setting, like a patient removed from life-support, and my body is trying to return to "normal" functioning without the vital organs that my CPE peers proved to be.

After saying "goodbye" to Central Park, I descended into the shadows of the subway. Exhausted from a fairly sleepless week of final papers and packing, New York sped alongside me as unsentimentally as electricity. But suddenly I took in every pulse and stutter of this current. All seemed to hover, uncertainly, light as a feather.

While the city seemed so hard and concrete around me this summer, in contrast to the soft rawness of my life, suddenly our consistencies reversed: now the city was soft, tentative in its motions and utterances, rich with a sea of unique lives, unfolding moment by moment. And I was heavy with sadness, waves of nostalgia which Sufjan Stevens packaged in song, and delivered to my wide open ears.

Now I've somehow thrust myself into three weeks of lightness and play of various sorts: a Hawaiian cruise with my dad's side of the family, a week in San Francisco, and, finally, Burning Man!

Sky High

2007-07-22T13:59:00.000-04:00

On Friday, after a joint pastoral visit with Abby Treu to several patients on both of our units, I dashed to Columbus Circle, challah in hand, took a subway to Grand Central, and took the Metro North to Jay's house for a quiet weekend upstate. Jay picked me up at Garrison train station, just having finished a week-long Dzogchen retreat with Lama Surya Das at the Garrison Institute, so was in a pretty loving/lovely state.

That evening, after some meditation, davenning and dinner, we had an extended debate between fully keeping Shabbat and going to Merritt Bookstore in Cold Spring for the release of the new Harry Potter book (preceded by two hours of Hogworts related games, and followed by a midnight reading of the first chapter). As soon as we walked out to my car, we both decided the quiet of Jay's house and of Shabbat was what we really needed, and opted for a night walk along the road to see the few fireflies who dared flicker in the unseasonably cold evening air.

On Saturday, we took our traditional Shabbos walk. Jay took us to a trail I'd never been on before, which lead us on a two and a half hour loop, up Candlewood Hill. This is one of the highest points in Putnam Valley, and gave us a 360 degree view of the hollows and valleys around us. From this place, all the houses we knew existed in this county became invisible, hidden under the impenatrable green forest that girds the Appalachain Trail.

Our hike brought us just meters away from a family of deer and their gangly fawn, unabashadly, but gracefully eating grass in someone's lawn. As we walked all sorts of berries were ripening on the roadside. I had some idea which ones weren't poisonous, and with a bit of an adventurous spirit, at my own "trail mix" of unripe blackberries (or were they raspberries. Or perhaps elderberries?). When we got to the top of Candlewood hill, there were little blueberry bushes, which only grow at a certain altitude, and yielded their sweet fruit to us.

After we descended back into the valley, and stumbled out of the woods back onto the paved road, a middle-aged couple with five dogs walked by, trailed by an arthritic Golden Retriever, which the man slowed down to accompany. We ended up walking near him. After a word of hello, he asked us if we had just climbed Sky High. "What?", Jay asked. "The hill up there. Some people call it Candlewood Hill, but folks from around here call it Sky High".

Coming out of the woodwork

2007-06-27T17:10:00.000-04:00

I've been working in two units in Roosevelt Hospital: the HIV/palliative care unit (where I've spent most of my time), and the Addictions unit (where I lead a weekly Spirituality Group). During my first few weeks of work, I came back to Jay's apartment exhausted, and passed out for at least a few minutes. Over the past few days, I've been slightly more energetic.

But also during this time, the HIV/palliative care unit has suddenly been flooded with several patients who are psychologically unstable (and seem more appropriate for the psychiatry ward). I ran into the Roman Catholic chaplain here when he was doing rounds on my floor, and he said that these people come out of the woodwork when the city gets hot (as it has been since Monday - unbearably so. Fortunately, Jay and I now do have working AC).

During my CPE group's sharing today, I mentioned that I was feeling disoriented - by this program and its daily challenges, existential and otherwise; living in a new place (NYC, no less!); and, most recently, trying to find God in patients with dementia, in rooms where (to the patients) objects appear and disappear, space and time are shattered rather than continuous, like a melting ice sheet.

As the day progressed, I became more acutely aware of some growing feeling, like the slight tingling people claim they feel before lightning strikes, but more persistent. It seems like the disorientation I felt earlier was just God's way of getting my head out of the way so the powerful ways in which this summer's changing me could finally register itself with some permanence in my bones.

New York's hot

2007-05-30T21:26:00.002-04:00

Jay's air conditioning doesn't seem to be working, and summer has struck New York. I can really feel it after climbing four flights of stairs to his apartment. The heat combined with the excitement and anxiety around starting my program to train as a chaplain has left me coated in sweat and waking up frequently at night.

Hopefully, by the middle of next week, in addition to having functional AC (that Jay will bring from his house upstate), I'll also begin visiting patients in the two units I'll be assigned. This week has mostly been spent on clearance (between the Clinical Pastoral Education program and Continuum Care, of which Roosevelt Hospital is a member, there's a good deal of being poked and peeing in cups that has to happen in order for me to be given an ID card, and in turn to begin visiting patients).

Where are you?

2007-05-25T18:07:00.000-04:00

I've had a few people hold me to my promise of providing the intimate details of my day to day life in this uncomfortably public forum. So here I am. With (finally) a more than a moment to breath, and perhaps enough time - while I marinade tempeh in BBQ sauce for Shabbat dinner - to give you all a little download.

My most recent activity, after I sailed out of Boston with my belongings packed in the back of my car, and my apartment meticulously arranged for summer subletters, has been retreat-hopping. I drove directly from Boston to the Nehirim retreat, which Jay has run for four years. This year, thanks to a generous grant, it was completely booked and more diverse than past years, with a larger representation of trans folks and students than ever before.

And, Steve Greenberg came.

After a fabulous weekend of learning, hiking, dancing and singing with this amazing group of Jewish spiritual GLBT warriors, I went with Jay to the annual Hadar Shavuat retreat. Another amazing weekend with another dynamic group of Jewish folks, many of whom were either rabbinical students, or pursuing higher degrees in Jewish studies. Some of the teachers included Rabbi Gordon Tucker (author of one of the more lenient teshuvot on gays in the Conservative movement), Rabbi Melissa Weintraub (founder of the Palistinian-Israeli Encounter Tour for rabbinical students) and Rabbi Shai Held.

And would you believe it? I'm worn out from all that retreating, and in dire need of some non-communal space, and silence. So Jay and I are up at his house for the weekend. And next week, God willing, I'll give you another update as I begin my summer CPE program at Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan.

The Great Purge

2007-02-19T15:17:00.000-05:00

I'm recovering from a 24 hour stomach bug, and feeling totally drained. It wasn't so nice that this happened while I was out in Phoenix, visiting my grandparents for the first time in a long while, especially given that we only had slightly over three days together. But my grandparents and I were lucky to have a nice Friday, and particularly Saturday night together (when we went to a wonderful sea-food restaurant, and saw the play, "Souvenier", about Ms. Florence Jenkins, with the original Broadway actress in the lead).

I treated the illness as a deep purge, and despite the gross feeling of being sick, found something really cleansing (in my good moments) about it, and finally decided (after many unsuccessful attempts at eating) to give my body a break, and fast. As happens when I fast at other times during the year (particularly Yom Kippur), a lot of deep insights came up for me. In my bad moments, I felt terribly lost, confused, and fearful - calling into question my path toward the rabbinate, and just about everything else.

Returning to school tomorrow will be interesting. As you may know, there were only two people (including me) in my mekhina or preparatory year of rabbinical school at Hebrew College. Since this program is strongly influenced by traditional forms of Jewish study (particularly chevruta, or partner study), my learning was greatly impacted by learning with my classmate. Unfortunately, our learning styles were very different - and to my great surprise - after really enjoying studying in chevruta with 8 or so people for an entire year last year in Israel, I found chevruta study this year almost unbearable.

For better or worse, my classmate just decided to withdraw from the program the other day. The upside, of course, is that I can really look forward to learning. Now that I'm the only person in my class, the administration is really focusing on how to make this semester as worthwhile and effective for my particular needs as possible. Being treated as our own class often meant that we were isolated from the rest of the rabbinical program; quite claustrophobic for a class of two. So hopefully I'll be able to take advantage of what is otherwise a downside to my current situation - not having anyone to learn with, by default - and learn with several different people within and outside of the rabbinical program.

A trip to the Bahamas?

2007-01-13T20:54:00.000-05:00

I could hardly believe the words as they emerged from my mouth: I was going on a trip to the Bahamas! Jay and I have an annual tradition of going somewhere sunny once a year, usually in January or February, and found a cheap flight to the Bahamas. But that was about all that was cheap.

We arrived in Nassua, ate lunch at the beach, and then headed back to the airport to catch our second flight to Eleuthera (a quieter, less touristy island than Providence Island, where Nassua, the main city in the Bahamas is). We arrived on the island, and stayed about a 10 minute walk away from the beach.

There's really not too much to say about the vacation. It's what you'd expect: we went there for the sun, so every day was spent at the beach, every evening spent at a new point on the island from which to watch the sun set.

One of the highlights, though, was the third day, when Jay and I rented a boat (neither of us having had much boating experience in our lives), and took ourselves snorkling for the day. It was my first time snorkling, and I was stunned by the hidden world that wrapped around the coast of a deserted island: two foot long king crabs, a rainbow of bizzare looking fish, black sea urchins, translucent blue schools of fish rushing by me, immediately below the surface.

We decided to explore Providence Island on our last day in the Bahamas, and check out the city of Nassua for a few hours, before we headed to the airport, and back to the (finally) wintery East Coast (it was 70 some-odd degrees in Boston when I left for the Bahamas, and I saw the president of my university cross the street with short-sleeves and a picnic basket, throwing into momentary question the purpose of our trip).

This city of Nassua was huge, and its architecture looked Spanish. It was full of tax-free shops, cars and tourists. Though its noise reminded us why we didn't stay there for the previous four days, and the parrot in a small cage in the corner of our motel courtyard made us sympathetically sad, we had fun visiting a fort and a few other historical sights in the city.

New Year's Reflections

2007-01-01T14:57:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting at Jay's desk in his upstate house (which he calls, "Off the Go"). As I type these words, I try to polish the dull, rusting hulk of this blog. I haven't thought about writing in it for a while, and hoped to allow it to simply fade into cyber-oblivion. But I have demanding readers, and they want to know what's going on.

So, in a few words: I just went on a week-long silent meditation retreat with David and Shoshana Cooper at Elat Chayyim's new home in the Berkshires, Isabella Freedman. Over the past 7 years, I've practiced various forms of meditation (Zen, Vajrayana, Dzogchen, Vipassana), and had a few affairs with regular practice. I've sat various shorter retreats, and a total of 6 week-long retreats (all Vipassana). But this last week was something special. I felt, in David and Shoshana, like I may have finally found teachers - a role that my life has apparently yearned to fill with somebody. We'll see.

Near midnight, I sat in the meditation hall. Sensations of excitement: increased heartrate, spurts of thought, some wordless expectation. Relaxing again into the rushing surf of sounds as they unfold in this eternal present. Heaters turning on and off, someone moving their legs on their cushion, a latecomer to the 11:30 PM sit opening and closing the door quietly and shuffling to their seat. Jay, who led that sit, rang a single bell. It was midnight for a moment, and then it passed. But awareness remained, resting on the crest of a wave as it rushed through the shoreless ocean - and God was the realization that the wave is merely part of the ocean.

Help Protect GLBTQ Rights!

2006-11-03T10:38:00.000-05:00

The Jerusalem Pride Parade is being threatened, almost out of existence, yet again. Please help make it happen! If it provides any extra impetus, here's my account of participating last year.

Dear Friends,

We are writing to you about an urgent situation. As many of you may know, the Gay Pride March in Jerusalem in June 2005 was marred by violence when a member of the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community broke into the march and stabbed three participants. This individual been put behind bars but the larger Orthodox community is now threatening more widespread violence as this year's march approaches on November 10th. Our partner agency, the Jerusalem Open House (JOH) is the guiding force behind this event of pride and tolerance. The police in Jerusalem have said that this will be the most heavily secured event in the history of the state of Israel. Over 7000 policemen are being called upon to protect members of the LGBT community.

Noa Sattath, Executive Director of the Jerusalem Open House, has told us:
“An organized campaign led by (mainly Jewish, but not only) fundamentalist religious leaders is well under way. The riots against the march have already begun as thousands of Ultra-Orthodox extremists are blocking roads, torching tires, and throwing stones. The riots continue daily and are expected to get worse as the March approaches. The current situation, in which a violent group is pulling all of its weight in order to silence and deny the basic rights of another group may set an extremely dangerous precedent for freedom of speech and the rule of law in Israel.”

In light of the extremely volatile situation, the police requirements for private security measures (security measures that must be funded by the Jerusalem Open House) have increased dramatically. These security measures include fencing of the route of the march, establishment of a field hospital to treat participants who might be injured by extremists, a large private security force, and many other aspects. The huge security costs have completely exhausted the budget of the Open House. We, as Jews, cannot stand by while our sisters and brothers at the Jerusalem Open House are forced to the edge of bankruptcy for trying to fulfill the basic right to safety, dignity and freedom of speech in their homeland.

In the next week, CBST is launching an urgent fundraising drive to raise money for the Jerusalem Open House. The only way to raise such a significant amount of money in such a short period of time is bit by bit. Whether you can contribute $100 dollars individually, or join with others to raise $100 collectively, every donation is crucial in our drive to ensure the survival of the Jerusalem Open House in these dire times. Donations to our "Jerusalem Open House Emergency Fund" can be made via this link or by sending a check made out to CBST with the designation "JOH Emergency Fund". 100% of the funds raised will be used for costs generated by the anti-gay rioters November 10th.

Thank you for your support of the Jerusalem Open House, freedom of speech and the rights of all people to peacefully assemble. Your support can make a difference in the world right now.

B’virkat shalom,

Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum
www.cbst.org Eric Rosenbaum, CBST President

For more information on the events unfolding in Israel, please see the links on the following page.

Links to articles about the Jerusalem Gay Pride March:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3321178,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3321454,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3321676,00.html
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3322116,00.html
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=114225
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=114335
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3319767,00.html
http://www.planetout.com/news/article.html?2006/11/01/2

Happy Halloween!

2006-10-31T20:46:00.000-05:00

Jay and Julia (thank God I wasn't in this picture) wish you a very happy, and endlessly humiliating Halloween. Remember: don't eat any unwrapped candy. Unless it looks really, really yummy.

Where has the time gone?

2006-10-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I'm having a hard time continuing to update this blog. Most of my time is spent in my rabbinical program now, and though I originally entered it as the ultimate way to combine spiritual, communal and career-related goals, I've come to see that, just like any relationship, it's not good for either "partner" when I expect my rabbinical program to be all of these things for me.

I've been struggling, I think, with being in the program I'm in for so many different reasons (besides the aforementioned ones). One of which is that Jay and I are now in a long-distance relationship (though I think we're learning how to negotiate that quite well). Also, it's also been a challenge for me to be in a class of two people (and be one half of the class), especially because I value community so much, yet don't have so many opportunities for quality interactions with other rabbinical students (besides my apartment mate, who's in the program, a year ahead of me).

As I wrote to one of my friends, "I'm not sure if I want to be a rabbi. I mostly want to help people in meaningful ways, and learn cool things, and happen to hold (transcendent and sometimes ethical) spirituality as a big value". Unfortunately, as my friend David Ingber said when he came over for Shabbat lunch, "Lawyers go to school in pursuit of justice, but don't have a moment during their training to talk about justice. So too, doctors train to be doctors, but don't talk about healing people, though that's why they're there. This is how every rabbinical program is - people want to learn how to find inner peace, but aren't trained in ways to achieve it."

In order to balance out my life, with what little time I have left over, I'm creating a queer Jewish youth group at Keshet, beginning a regular jogging practice (as well as working out more formally, twice a week), fitting in contemplative practice where I can, trying to write articles for a few publications, and meeting other Bostonites (or is it Bostonians?). Two weekends ago, I went on a Boston-area gay men's spiritual retreat, and I've already planned my next retreat - a seven-day silent meditation retreat with Rabbi David Cooper and his partner, Shoshana, at Elat Chayyim. I can't imagine the power of revisiting that place - the place where much of my spiritual journey began - for the first time since I've started my rabbinical program.

Happy anniversary!

2006-10-24T20:02:00.000-04:00

Today is Jay and my two year anniversary. It's been two years since we met at Elat Chayyim, a Jewish retreat center in the Catskill mountains (which has since moved). Two years since his car died, and I drove him to Isabella Friedman (with which Elat Chayyim has merged) so he could teach a class there.

Happy Coming Out Day

2006-10-11T06:57:00.000-04:00

Here are some Jewish resources that a fellow rabbinical student was kind enough to compile:

1. The Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith News, particularly their most recent edition. They even include rituals for the day (the Jewish one is written by Jay Michaelson).

2. HUC's incredible LGBTQ resource, the Institute for Judaism and Sexual Orientation. Texts, liturgy, rituals, (very thorough) case studies, more.

3. The weekly Torah Queeries newsletter.

4. www.RitualWell.org -- which has a wealth of creative liturgy, rituals, reflections, etc. It's not specifically LGBTQ, but has includes lots of relevant material.

My Neck is Famous!

2006-10-10T22:38:00.000-04:00

Jay's book, "God in Your Body: Kabbalah, Mindfulness and Embodied Spiritual Practice" is coming out really soon! The first review of his book just came out, too. So that's exciting. What's more, I searched for, and found it on Amazon.com. Almost as good as having it in my hands.

And, yes, that's my neck on the cover. Jay wanted to create his own cover, as he wasn't satisfied with the ones that his publisher initially offered. And, though they didn't print it with the (beautiful) cover that he designed, they did use the picture of my neck that he had been working with!

Though at first "reptilian", the editor photoshopped it to her satisfaction. Not sure if she knew she was talking about my neck! I do use moisturizer, you know!

What should I do?

2006-10-03T13:31:00.000-04:00

I can either organize a Time Bank in Boston or start a queer Jewish youth group toward my organizing requirement for Hebrew College's rabbinic program. Such a hard decision!

Both are important and in line with my interest in building (and becoming grounded, myself, in) community. A Time Bank is revolutionary, and creates neighborhoods by establishing a local/communal bartering system. A queer Jewish youth group isn't necessarily revolutionary, but is crucial for the well-being and support of those who need it, and enriching for those who want it.

Any thoughts?

Overheard in Boston

2006-10-01T16:32:00.000-04:00

Girl on cell phone: Sorry, I can't go to the movies tonight because it's Yom Kippur. My mom's such a bitch!

C Green Line, Beacon Street, Brookline

Jewish Queer Bostonites

2006-09-26T17:43:00.000-04:00

One of the requirements for rabbinical ordination at Hebrew College is the Areivut program, which trains rabbis to do organizing and social activism for community-building and social change. As part of this program, I need to do 60 hours of organizing over the course of this year, and 50 additional hours before I graduate.

In order to get a sense of what I might be able to offer the Boston community while fulfilling the expectations of this program, I just met with the director of Keshet, and it looks like I may start a Jewish GLBTQQ youth group there, and meet once a month or maybe more (there was one there, but it hasn't met in well over a year, and has no leadership, though there's apparently lots of interest bubbling up from young Jewish queer Bostonites).

Anyone have any inspiration or ideas on how to do this?

Shanah tova!

2006-09-21T23:12:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday I created a shamanic hair cutting ceremony to celebrate the beginning of the Jewish year. It mostly felt like the right thing to do, and a physical way of committing to this "returning again", this beginning anew, but also had echoes of the Dionysian sheep-shearing ceremonies of biblical times. It represented returning to my "roots" and also revealing and integrating my new self into my present reality. I played Terry Riley's "Descending Moonshine Dervishes" and lit candles and sage as I shaved my head, and after the ecstatic fire of letting go, did a water ceremony to integrate an indwelling trust, presence and peace I want to bring into the New Year.

And just a few hours ago I went to a civic (slash pagan) celebration of the Fall Equinox on the Weeks Footbridge, which joins Cambridge and Boston, arcing over the Charleston between. Huge puppets - Poseidon and Oshun (an African river-goddess) were stationed regally on the bridge, over the crowds of people filling both banks. As we sang a whole litany of river songs from around the world, the puppets danced with the wind and the music. At the end of the concert, a lit "dragonboat" cut the waters, as musicians struck its gong. Most people (including me and Julia) brought their own bells, so joined the MC as he rang a larger bell on the bridge to "ring in" the Fall Equinox. A moment that otherwise is simply an unacknowledged, often painful transition to shrinking days and falling leaves, through this ceremony, became a time to witness one another and actively embrace the upcoming dark and cold when nature turns inward.

On my way back home from parking my car in Newton, Janis Joplin's husky voice screamed tears into my eyes, insisting, "That one day, man, better be your life. I mean, you can cry for the other 364, man, but your gonna lose that one day, man. You got to call that love, man.... You gotta...when you wanna hold somebody...you gotta hold that person like it's the last minute of your life! Ho-o-o-o-o-o-ld..."

I believe that somewhere, buried in that final arch of sound, reaching up, landing, reaching again, was my kavannah for the new year, as the New Moon starts the progress of a much larger cycle - one that I hope is deepening, peace-bringing and purpose-filled for all of you, in whatever way you connect (or, perhaps, don't connect) to it.

Over 5000 Served!

2006-09-17T22:40:00.000-04:00

This blog had its 5000th visitor at 7:52 PM! Thanks for all your visits, comments, ideas - and for sharing the journey with me.

My new digs

2006-09-13T22:15:00.000-04:00

Several people have wanted to see my new apartment, so here are some pictures.

Torah Walk Photos

2006-09-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

Here are some photos from the Torah walk from Elat Chayyim to its new home at Isabella Friedman.

Some Questions for the Days of Awe

2006-09-06T18:58:00.000-04:00

Merle Feld, an award-winning playwright and poet who started The Rabbinic Writing Institute, came to school today during our weekly cheshbon hanefesh ("accounting of the soul" or spiritual introspection that prepares us for Yom Kippur) to lead a writing workshop.

One of the prompts she offered was, What are your questions in this season?

These are a few that arose today:

What practices allow me to open to the Divine and myself?

What is the relationship between my spiritual practices and religious worldview?

How can I be a better brother, role-model, roommate, peer, son, friend, spiritual resource, grandson, employee, student, fellow being?

How can I engage and model my religious tradition as a force for positive change in myself and the world?

Am I aware of the implications of my speech and actions on others, the environment, and past and future generations of life? If not, why might I be choosing to be unaware of this?

Can I be fully conscious of - and simultaneously happy with - what I am eating, how I am acting, what institutions I am supporting, what I am saying, and where I am going?

Elat Chayyim on the Move

2006-09-04T21:39:00.000-04:00

Jill Hammer and her partner Shoshana Jedwab drove me up to Isabella Friedman for the dedication ceremony that formally transitions Elat Chayyim from its 13 years as an independent facility in the Catskills to its future home in the Berkshires.

In all the people I encountered there, several who I lived with two years ago in intentional community at Elat Chayyim for the year (including our community rabbi then, David Ingber), so many important stories were woven together into one time and one place - a particularly salient moment since I've completed my first week of rabbinical school and Elat Chayyim was the place that really got me here in so many ways.

After lunch, a crowd of about 100 or so of us walked down the street from Isabella Friedman to meet the people who were walking Elat Chayyim's Torah the final stretch of the 60 miles it traveled to its new home. When we saw them, a cheer erupted from both groups. We enveloped them, turned around, and began passing the Torah from person to person amongst ourselves as we escorted it to its new home.

When we finally arrived at the entrance to Isabella Friedman, Jeff suggested we take on the custom of kissing mezzuzot every time we go through a doorway, that we be mindful of the transition that we're going through and the intention we bring into the space we pass into when we do this. As we sang a beautiful chant about loving both what we pass from and go to, the new administrators of Elat Chayyim held the old wooden frame to EC's main doorway (which bears the same inscriptions as those on a mezzuzah scroll) as we (many of us moved to tears) walked slowly through the doorway and then under a chuppah symbolizing the marriage of EC and Isabella.

Despite the wedding symbols, when we sat down in rows for the dedication ceremony - and people shared memories of their first mikvah at EC in its hot-tub, or their first heart-circle, or the divine silence that descended onto EC at night - tears stung my eyes at the realization this was also a funeral. All of us (including EC's founders) were saying goodbye not only to the old campus, but its executive and assistant directors who had poured their hearts and lives into this vision.

After the ceremony, as we walked the Torah to its new ark, we formed two rows and clasped our upraised hands with the person opposite us to form a tunnel that the new director of EC passed through, bearing the Torah. As the end of the tunnel began to break up and pass through it, people began to see each other as mezzuzot and kissed each other. I got a nice big bearded kiss from Arthur Waskow as I ducked under people's arms and arrived at a room already humming with joyful song and dance.

A Shout Out

2006-09-03T01:23:00.000-04:00

To my brother/sister avatiach website, which, as far as I can tell, is also completely unrelated to watermelon.

There you go. Now you know what "avatiach" means, in case you've been wondering.

East vs. West (coasts, that is)

2006-08-31T20:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I got together with Minna, a meditation teacher who I had heard people rave about, and my "buddy" at Hebrew College's rabbinical school.

We met for coffee after class, and had a fascinating discussion about the relationship between spiritual practice and world-view - specifically within the realms of Jewish and Buddhist contemplative practices.

She argued that, in the world of Jewish meditation, there are two main schools of thought (that happen to split geographically):

One one hand, there are those who teach Jewish meditation on the West coast and believe that the lineage that carried these practices has not been irreparably broken, and therefore feel comfortable teaching contemplative exercises like hitbodedut, Abulafia's notarikon, temurah and ziruf, or meditation on the letters of God's name, for example. (The big exception to the "West coast school" is Alan Lew).

On the other hand, as it is taught on the East coast, traditional Jewish meditation can't be passed on because most holders of Jewish mystical lineages were killed during the Holocaust, and the chain has been completely broken. However, there is a basic need to fill the space it once filled in Jewish practice. Therefore, those who teach meditation on the East coast have chosen to adapt the healthy, living, Buddhist meditation tradition and couch it in Jewish terminology. With this description, Minna pretty accurately described my experiences at Elat Chayyim where, for the most part, those who lead Jewish meditation retreats learned how to meditate at IMS, a meditation center that mostly brings its teachings from Thai, Vietnamese and Korean strands of Therevada Buddhism.

The danger of this school of thought is exemplified in Jonathan Slater's book Mindful Jewish Living. Though I absolutely respect his desire to bring mindfulness into Jewish practice, this particular exploration on this theme is disingenuous. It doesn't seem to explicitly acknowledge the fact that it's a book about Buddhism at all, so fails to acknowledge or engage the essential etiology of Jewish practices (as much as I sometimes wish they did, they didn't, in fact, come into place even marginally in order to make practitioners aware of the present moment).

Minna comes from the Western school of thought, and trained as a meditation teacher at Chochmat HaLev. She pointed out that there might be a similarity between the mystical Jewish aspiration of devekut - cleaving to something sometimes described as empty (Ein Sof) - and the Buddhist notion of not attaching to anything as a means to come to a realization of emptiness.

With her belief that "traditional" Jewish meditation is a path worth taking for herself and teaching to others, it was interesting to hear her analysis of American Buddhism. According to her, the kind of Buddhist meditation that is taught in the West, though it caters to laypeople of all sorts, comes from a monastic tradition and is designed primarily for those within that structure. On the other hand, Jewish meditation (and Judaism, in general) comes from and is designed for householders, so living in the world is ultimately the goal of this practice rather than opposed to it.

Based on the design of these practices, it logically follows that in Judaism, hitorerut ("enlightenment" or "waking up") is described as a momentary awareness that one achieves and then loses, and can reach again. On the other hand, popular ideas of Buddhist enlightenment hold that it is a constant state.

Quite reasonably, then, Minna held that because she is a householder (who happens to be Jewish), Jewish meditation as it is inherited, is the practice that aligns with and enhances her world-view.

Prayer

2006-08-29T21:52:00.000-04:00

Please send positive energy, metta, prayers to your deity of choice, etc. for my aunt's healing, well-being, and ease of living: she is receiving a bone marrow transplant tonight.

I visited her a few hours ago and she said "my spirit is willing, but we'll see if my body cooperates". She's had quite a journey, and Spirit willing, has more ahead.

First Boston Shabbos

2006-08-26T23:52:00.000-04:00

Shabbat started with a visit to Moshe Waldoks' shul. It was challenging for me, despite revisiting Jewish renewal-style davenning there, to daven with many people who didn't necessarily have deep exposure to prayer - and who, though they could daven creatively, couldn't do creative davenning.

I really wanted to be back in Jerusalem. It seems like that urge comes up again and again when I enter a new situation I'm unsure of. I missed the sense of being in deep, transformative community. As soon as davenning was over, people left the shul, and took off their kippot.

The air was cool as I walked home, through the chemical green grass seed spread along the side of the T tracks that are being renovated on my street. I ate dinner alone: salmon, a nectarine, corn-bread, blueberry beer, and a salad.

Heavy with solitude, I walked to a fellow rabbinical student's apartment for some singing and drumming. A few people were there, singing Dylan songs. It was sweet to be with a Shabbat community, doing something familiar.

On Saturday, I continued trying to relive Jerusalem, walking to the park two blocks from my building to see if anyone was picnicking there, as everyone did on Shabbat in Jerusalem. There was a woman singing to an old man, and a girl laying on the lawn with a Nalgene and a book.

I decided to check out the other parks that Olmsted designed in the "Emerald Necklace" a chain of parks throughout Boston. They looked deceptively nearby on a guidebook map I took with me, and ended up being a 45 minute walk each way. As I walked through Coolidge Corner, a crowd of Orthodox Jewish families, fathers wrapped in tallit, kids in formal clothes, pushed babies in strollers, returning home from shul.

I only had the time and energy to check out Fenway park. After sitting outside the rose garden, a goose wandered over to me and ate the crabapples that had fallen off the tree above me, and warned me to the presence of goose poop (which I almost layed on).

So I moved to a bench along Park Drive, where, while I ate the lunch I had brought, I continued to hear a high-pitched noise, and some clattering. Eventually, I related it to an old man sitting two benches from me, who was swinging and tapping his cane to the rhythm of his incessant atonal drone, as if directing an orchestra hidden in the apartment buildings across the street.

I walked back home, eventually limping as my sandal straps began to peel away the skin at the top of my foot, then strapping a piece of Kleenex above the blister. Crowds of people moved through Coolidge Corner as I returned home, and then went to a seuda shlishit (third meal on Shabbos), where a sweet group of us told stories and sang zmirot.

After spending a few days in Jewish community, and with the prospect of beginning rabbinical school on Monday, I wanted to go to a gay club and dance, to be in my body. It was Saturday night after all. But after picking my destination and figuring out how to get there on the T, I realized Boston public transportation comes to a halt between 11 pm and midnight. There would have been no way for me to return home at the end of the night.

I'm going to have to work on that!

Completing the Circle

2006-08-22T21:21:00.000-04:00

My grandpa never let me forget that his grandfather, and for generations before him, all the men in the family were rabbis. That I come from a lineage of religious and spiritual leaders before me, people in a very different paradigm than modern American rabbis. People from Eastern Europe whose followers would come to their house and ask how to deal with daily issues of life, and then donate money to support their rebbe.

After my own long journey, when I decided to become a rabbi myself, my grandpa was a little surprised, but ultimately supportive.

Tonight was the very beginning of this week of rabbinical school orientation, and we had a small dinner at Arthur Green's house. The evening started with the circle of about 10 of us new students (a few of whom I knew from Israel), sitting in his living room, each spending 5 minutes sharing how he or she got here.

Having sat in many circles in which journeys are shared over my many years in spiritual community, I noticed the usual critical internal voices pipe up again: "She's taking way longer than 5 minutes!", "We're never going to get dinner", or "I really have to go pee, but am sitting right next to the dean, and two seats away from the rector, and smack dab in the middle of the living room. I'm going to explode."

Despite all the internal babble, I was able to discern the depth and breadth of the folks who were joining me on this adventure, this journey of becoming a "rabbi". And though the sharing didn't feel transformative as it happened (though I resonated with the stories people shared), when the person to my right spoke - completing the formal sharing segment of the evening - I felt like I had been initiated into the heart of my new community.

When I first arrived, I was so curious: "What does a mystic's house look like?" It was a house. There were maps on the walls. The air conditioner switched on and off, dimming and brightening the lamp nearby. We ate corn chips and drank punch as this group of fellow travelers sat together for this first time of many.

My Anchor

2006-08-21T09:52:00.000-04:00

The reason I haven't written in a while is that I have been on a silent meditation retreat at IMS for a week, returning, again and again, to my anchor - the neutral point of focus that allowed me to feel mental balance and concentration.

Jay says that meditation retreats are only half-way over when you leave. So I have another week in which samadhi (Sanskrit for a deeply concentrated state) will come easily to me, and in which I'll generally be delicate and extra-sensitive.

As water dripped off my nose and hair last night, on a walk back from Blockbuster, my mind kept dislodging from my anchor, which I had set as the sensations on my feet. It wandered through the last couple of days: the depth of connection I felt as I silently swept and mopped the kitchen (my yogi job) with my ex-boyfriend, the pain in people's stories of feeling excluded from the Jewish community as I sat in a Jewish-Buddhist break out group on the last day of retreat, the friends I connected with again at Easton Mountain when I went to visit Jay after retreat, the strange alteration that my world feels it has undergone after finding out my 19.5 year old siamese cat, Elmo, finally died on Thursday night after my dad saw him looking unhappy, and told him, "You've been a wonderful cat. You can let go now."

My New Home: Boston

2006-08-09T00:09:00.000-04:00

Saying goodbye to Easton on Saturday was hard. I left after havdala, the ritual of separating times, and of transition. And what a hevdel (difference) it brought! I left Jay, and any prospect of living with each other any time soon; I left my friends in the Easton Mountain community; I left the green mountains north of Albany, quiet bike rides, fire rituals, mosquitoes...

And ever since arriving in Boston, I've been working on my apartment, steel-wooling the floor, tightening locks, shopping at IKEA. Putting in one screw after another, picking out shower curtains, furniture, wiping down, fixing up...

Which has totally prevented me from realizing, I live in Boston, in a vibrant new community, in a city in America, near an ocean. Fortunately, I'll be going on a week-long silent retreat on Friday, and get some more space around this sudden transition - and hopefully integrate the ecstatic, beautiful time I had in sacred community with my new life in Boston.

Shamanic Fire Ritual

2006-08-03T13:26:00.000-04:00

Sorry if this is incoherent, but I'm posting some reflections I wrote down immediately after the ritual. These are the raw notes that will be processed and probably refined into articles I'll be writing for a few publications over the next several weeks:

shamanic fire ritual - guy who trained with shamans in the jungle for 13 years. set intention of what to let go of or welcome in. letting go of relationship to get more space around it. fire ritual "kicked my ass", he said, "must be reverent". walked in silence, arrived as he invoked four directions and beings in various realms, including grandmother moon, mother earth, father sky" started fire. drumming - began to lose myself in rhythm until there was just the rhythm. nausea, as if something fought inside of me. supposed to blow on stick to infuse it with intention, throw into fire. watched shaman do energy work with various people as I did heartbeat drum. some people seemed to suddenly become possessed by the unpredictable fire spirit, several collapsing, or sobbing or shaking uncontrollably as the shaman spoke to whatever was in them in Spanish, trying to coax it out as he smudged or rubbed their bodies. I dropped my stick, not wanting to participate. jewish part of me avodah zarah. before one person approached the fire, the shaman gestured to all those playing instruments and said, "From here! From here!", as he grabbed his crotch, firmly. the man went up and began dancing, then shaking his body ecstatically, unbelievably collapsing with his feet in the fire. shaman pulled him away from it, carefully, though man's body didn't shift position, but remained in the position he landed, totally taut, still. shaman rubbed his genitals, grabbed handful of earth and smeared mud down legs, then took stick out of fire, put between legs, then said, alright sweetie, time to get up in sort of a sassy voice. as man trembled to get up, shaman sucked whatever it was from his cranium. it worked. shaman walked out of circle and asked if I was okay, jay danced, almost throwing his fabric in while waving it wildly over the fire and scattering sparks everywhere. after a few more people, shaman gestured towards me. didn't have stick, went to get one even though I still didn't think I wanted to participate. what do I want to let go of? grabbed stick, returned, someone else in center. shaman gestured to me again, handed drum to someone else. spun around in circles around fire. blew on stick swaying back and forth thinking. want space around relationships, all of them. put those in the stick into fire. wasn't moment of transformation, but came later when people gave gifts of spices wrapped in paper to the fire. I though of what I let go ofgod. I let go of god. my god. and at that moment the crickets, crackling of the fire became louder, my skin more sensitive to the wind. ceremony ended, and I left in a daze, laid on picnic bench silently crying out for help out of my confusion as shooting stars broke though the atmosphere in a fiery glow and fell to earth. who cares if there's no god. god isn't in the stick or combustible by fire, so I was simply following the via negativa to the true god, casting off false gods. but I felt a significant loss. chanted sh'ma affirming unity of god, insight that there can't be a self if god is one. and no god other than self. atman and brahman are one. talked to jay later, both confused about relationship, but shared fears about god, participating in ritual, ecstasy and what is lost in casting off "rock" of god, stable place, slippery slope of via negativa, fear of uncertain future - all brought us closer.

Response to Mandala

2006-07-30T10:19:00.000-04:00

My aunt, who has been going through an amazing journey of deepening through her relationship with leukemia (which you can follow on her blog) wrote a response to the picture I posted of the "nature mandala" (below), that I wanted to share with you:

Last week I began to think of myself as a mandala when asking why I am pursuing all this education. (Why am I absorbed with reading Karen Armstrong when I might be reading a mystery novel since it is so unlikely that I will ever "use" this transformation? ) A friend had shown us her mandala screen saver. I had never really understood mandalas until recently. Why spend all that time making something so beautiful with the intention of scattering it?

I realized that mandals help us understand who we are. I guess everyone Buddhist knows this and frankly I feel a little silly having just realized it. It has emerged as a powerful metaphor of how I'm living.

As I was engaged in contemplating this metaphor, I realized I hadn't seen your blog in a while. Going onto your blog, (using that surprise hospital connection), I found the amazing mandala in your recent post. Tibetan mandalas, though beautiful and inspiring, are abstract. Your picture is so alive and sensuous, everything that conveys what a mandala might be. Thank you for sharing it.

Gay Spirit

2006-07-26T18:30:00.000-04:00

The maypole near a fire circle
As I approached Easton Mountain, a gay men's spiritual retreat center that will be my home for the next two weeks, my vision of the mountains that surrounded me, and experience of physically bumping along the gravel road worked together to shake loose the hardness around my heart that my outward, exhausting life as a counselor had deposited there.

A grass labyrinth
The woods and mountains surrounding my destination reminded me how crucial liminal spaces like this are to creating in the retreatant a transitional experience, the sense of being on a pilgrimage. This state of being "betwixt and between" demanded of me that I spend the first night alone. I set up a tent in the woods and, after adjusting to the eerie orchestra of lagoon life - throaty frogs, shrill crickets, and the melodious calls of the blue heron that lives there - fell deep asleep.

The lagoon
Walking around today, three days after having arriving here, the shrine-studded surroundings, temples and daily traditions of this place suggest one version what gay spirituality could look like: earth-centered, neo-pagan - but inclusive of all faiths (insofar as it doesn't favor any). On my stroll around the expansive campus, in addition to the portraits of Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Krishnamurti and others, that I saw in the lodge, I saw a maypole, lingams in various settings (as well as feminine fertility symbols), and a sweat lodge.

The artists, and director of Easton Mountain (on the right), around a "nature mandala".
Over the past few days, along with two members of the Unitarian Universalist church and an interfaith minister, I've helped create (and will help lead) an "interfaith" service (which, perhaps due to the constituency of the planning board, mostly means a Unitarian Universalist one). Rather than cobbling together different faiths, it is a laying bare of what they share: the values of awakening people to love, compassion, and moments of connection (both with oneself and with others).

A resident's garden
So far, though the residential community is nominally an interfaith one, I haven't yet felt comfortable wearing a kippah. But in light of the beautiful service we've created for tonight (especially because I haven't found a comfortable way of integrating something Jewish into the service, but rather am leading Thich Nhat Hanh's "hugging meditation", and having a retreatant read a stunning poem from Saint Teresa of Avila) I realize that I felt weakened by my lack of Jewish practice - almost as if someone dear to me is missing from my life. I plan to begin davenning again now that I've transitioned to this place, and know what ingredients it offers to my spiritual life, and which ingredients I need to supply myself.

A huge hand sculpture that will be going to Burning Man

Goodbye Camp JRF!

2006-07-23T21:58:00.000-04:00

My cabin
The kids in the age group I worked with
Notes from my campers:

"Chillaxed and an all around great counselor."

"Real fun to be with."

"Awesome spirit. Your a queer cool guy and a very good leader."

"You're a very funny and sarcastic guy and I loved being in your cabin."

"You are really cool counselor."

"Way to be relaxed. You're awesome."

"You have a cool peace to you."

The mural the kids in the age group I worked with made

The Things we'll Carry

2006-07-19T12:39:00.001-04:00

Today, since sunset on Friday will mark the beginning of most kids' last Shabbat at camp this summer, I led a class for the oldest kids (several of whom I'm serving as counselor to) in which they made spice boxes out of small corkable bottles, and put a "scroll" inside them on which they inscribed the Shabbat experiences - and camp experiences (since camp is one long Shabbat, in a way) - that they will take with them after camp ends.

Despite the challenges I've come up against here as someone of my age and ability working in a role that is often micromanaged and hyper-regulated, and doesn't allow for significant leadership opportunities as often as I'd like, I've been thinking about what I'll carry away from these past four weeks.

Some of the most important experiences of the summer will likely be those moments in which I was able to drop the 24 year old role model/regulator character and live, briefly, as a 16 year old. This generation (at least the way my 7 campers represent it) is bewildered by homophobia, by the idea that I never had any "out" role models in my school when I was their age. They are creative, eager to take on leadership roles, and take spirituality and religious experience seriously.

I'll carry with me the hikes I've taken off the farthest camp field to a sacred passageway in the woods that leads to the beautiful, isolated waterfall within, and the moment I'm never prepared for when, after I swim in the crisp, clear waters, I return and emerge onto that field with its pavilion and soccer nets, and realize I'm somehow still at camp after having felt so far away.

When I leave this Sunday, I'll take with me the teva tefillot, or nature-based morning davenning I led once a week, when I was able to transmit some of the most important prayer and meditation practices I've learned to a group of 15-50 kids, who ranged in age from 11 to 16. I'll carry with me the beauty each of them reflected back to me when I asked them what they experienced: "I saw a cricket", "I chanted one phrase over and over again and got into a trance-like state", "I heard the rain".

This is a Low

2006-07-10T23:47:00.000-04:00

I'm exhausted. The campers are exhausted.

Because so many of the rules here go beyond safety into some territory only charted by nervous parents, kids are getting clever and finding a thousand ways to break them.

In the past few days, one of my kids has snuck out of the bunk and into a girl's bunk at 2:30 AM to visit his girlfriend, the obnoxious kid in my cabin has continued to completely disregard and rudely rebuke my (and my co-counselor's) polite and reasonable requests - his way, perhaps, of communicating his complete and utter hatred of camp. And two of my campers slept through their leadership training program.

The main sustaining forces lately have been davenning and meditation, the raspberries and blackberries that grow wild along the edges of fields here, and the occasional dip into the lake - when I leave 24-year-old Adam at the shore and pull myself up the floating climbing wall, and jump on the inflatable trampoline.

Rural Graveyards

2006-07-03T18:01:00.000-04:00

When I wander into the Pine Hill Cemetery to meditate, I wonder what the groundskeeper thinks about seeing me sitting on the rocky ledge that runs along the graveyard's roads - paths built to transport bodies and their mourners.

I've been there late at night, when little electric lanterns light up enough to illuminate the headstones of those whose families have chosen to install them. Its lawn is cocooned by a deep, river-laced forest, and hoards of fireflies glow within it, like a floating city.

This is a place associate with strong emotions - people create their own rituals around them, perhaps going to the grave of a loved one to "speak" to them on a frequent at first, but eventually decreasing basis.

What behaviors do groundskeepers become suspicious of in their graveyards? What won't people do who are shattered by grief?

Near my college campus (in Gambier, Ohio, a town of 500 in the summer, and of 2000 when college was in session), as spring peaked and was overcome by heat and humidity, a graveyard off north campus became my "no worry" zone.

As I went on my thrice weekly jog, and passed by the underclass girls who frequently sunbathed on the cemetery's grassy hill, this became part of my path back to campus, and to the dorm of my boyfriend at the time.

All those whose stories ended deep under ground made irrelevant (or at least helped me see beyond) my upcoming finals, job search, relationship, vision of where I would be 5 years down the road.

The cemetery here is the only walkable off-camp space (especially in the hour or so I have off each day), and has become my refuge from the highs and lows that make a day at camp feel like a week. The gravity of the silence after the personalities who have merged with the All and the Nothing pulls me, though living, into this quiescence.

Happy Pride Day!

2006-06-26T00:12:00.000-04:00

...and greetings from the Reconstructionist summer camp in the Pocanos Mountains of Pennsylvania, where I'll have what looks most like my home for the summer, in contrast to my nomadic life-style before and after camp.

It's been an exhausting week of meetings with hardly any personal time to refresh and re-center - something I'll have to get used to quickly, occasionally reminding myself that I'll have some regular time off during each week, and will return to a quieter kind of personal journeying in a month, when I'll join the Easton Mountain community for several weeks, enter a week of silent meditation, and then begin my rabbinical training.

Despite the challenges of staff week, everyone I've had the blessing of speaking to on an individual basis has shown with such a unique light, and carries such diverse experiences of what it is to be Jewish and a teacher, community builder, leader and friend. Plus Jay, and other previous connections, many from my year in Jerusalem, have joined me here (there are also 11 Israeli staff members, who are reconnecting me to the wonderful land and experience I just left).

I'm amongst the oldest counselors here, and found out my cabin assignment today. The kids I'll be working with are in high school, and aspire to be counselors next summer, so will be shadowing current counselors (and finding holiness in much of the challenging, often menial work that accompanies the role of the spiritual leader and educator). I'll do my best to stay in touch over these next weeks as my adventures unfold and (hopefully) wisdom deepens in this messy container in the woods that is seeking to produce holy, creative, intergenerational community, while being a fun and safe place for the campers who will arrive on Wednesday.

Country Bumpkin Blues

2006-06-19T13:46:00.000-04:00

I guess removing one's first tick is a rite of passage... Just not one I really looked forward to. What does it initiate me in to, anyway? I guess the status of a woodsman. Hopefully one without lyme disease. Oh, well. I drove an hour and a half round trip to the Putnam County Health Clinic to drop my tick in a vial for someone to identify its happily engorged body, just in case it's not a disease-carrying species. [Update: I got a call from Mary at the Clinic, and I may be out of luck - it's definitely a deer tick].

Jay's in the city for a full day, so I have his country place, fondly referred to as "Off the Go" (as opposed to city life, on the go), all to myself. All that means is that I could go to the clinic without feeling embarrassed or petty for panicking a bit (Jay's a full-fledged woodsman, and experienced outdoor guide). It also means I can spread out all five or six bags that my nomadic life style between Israel and Boston requires I live out of, and organize them for the next phase of my summer, when I'll be serving as a senior camp counselor.

Admittedly, this will be my first time at a Jewish summer camp. I feel like I should censor out how much I hated camp when I used to go, just in case some camper feels like checking out my credentials, and ends up here, quivering with fear. But I really did hate it. I went to a two-week overnight camp, "dated" (i.e., held hands with) a girl named Caroline (no, I hadn't come out of the closet in 7th grade), and feared the communal showers so much, I didn't shower for two whole weeks. No need to mention how I smelled after that.

Well, I'm sure being a counselor will be a completely different experience. And Reconstructionists, generally, rock. Plus they're having me teach a course that I would love to take, regardless of whether or not anyone else enjoys it (though I'll enjoy it more if they are, too).

I guess I should get packing.

Come Visit My Apartment!

2006-06-12T23:25:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I parked my car and prayed to be found by my future apartment mate and her mom, after driving around for over an hour and perpetually getting lost in Boston. Nothing could prepare me for the surprise splits in the roads, their wild curves, and all the tunnels and bridges around the Charles River.

That will be a day I look back at, perhaps nostalgically, from a time not too far from now when my life in Boston will be shaped by habit, and I'll know how to get from point A to B without a second thought.

Today, Julia (my future apartment mate) and I finished our apartment search (after filling the past two days with apartment viewings - and an exhaustive week-long search by Julia and her mom for a place, prior to my arrival here).

The place we found is managed by a silver-haired man with a missing tooth and an extremely heavy accent (Portuguese?), who grew in character (though not clarity of speech) after we visited a second time to finalize our decision.

He reflects the character of the apartment, itelf, with its rickety old-fashioned (sliding gate included) elevator, antique coke machine in the laundry-room, avocado-tile bathroom, and worn wooden floors.

I was most able to picture this as my "home" after all the viewings we subjected ourselves to (there was a certain point at which they all turned into one blurry vision of a nightmarish hallway with lots of bathrooms and kitchens), and now finally feel oriented from one unmoving spot of calm, to this new and incessantly active city of Boston.

6/6/6 and the Queen of the JUBUs

2006-06-07T17:57:00.000-04:00

Last night Jay threw a great 6/6/6 party. No, the world didn't end, but we did dress in red, and eat red foods until the wee hours of the morning. I also met Lee, a 3rd or 4th year student in Hebrew College's rabbinical program (which I'll be attending this fall).

Tonight, Jay and I are going to see Sylvia Boorstein speak in New York City. She's taught many of my teachers, and is an inspiring Buddhist teacher and observant Jew. I'm so excited!

On the Road

2006-06-06T17:32:00.000-04:00

With the goal of having my car available to escort me from place to place this summer, and eventually park it somewhere in Boston when school starts, I drove alone from Chicago to upstate New York, stopping overnight in Cleveland to visit some friends there, and break the drive up a little.

Northern Ohio's and Indiana's flat, semi-forested lands have nothing to boast, and had me questioning my original motivation to get in touch with the rhythms of the land and the excitement of the open road.

But, the next day, as I started to approach Pennsylvania, the land started to breath, lifting my car up and letting it coast into its out-breaths. The scenery grew lush, thick and wild as I passed into large foothills and worn, green mountains.

Around mid-day, I was looking for something to eat, and the usual roadside selection of burgers and pizza simply didn't appeal to me. I vowed to stop at the next Subway I saw.

There it was, around 1:30 on the afternoon of the 5th. An exit with a Subway sign on it...an exit to Punxsutawney. The town in which that that great classic, "Groundhog Day", takes place. This was the same stop I had made on my way both to and from Elat Chayyim a year prior to this, on a similar drive.

In the movie, the main character is stuck in Punxsutawney, reporting on whether or not Phil, the town groundhog, sees his shadow. He reawakens each day, and (don't read any more if you haven't seen it) realizes every day is the same day - Groundhog Day - and only slowly begins to realize how many people he can help, and how much compassion he can spread if he lives that day fully and sensitively. This is the only way that he is able to awaken to a new day.

So it was quite a place to come to. I certainly do feel like my journey is taking me to a more awake and compassionate place, so was able to take the symbolism of driving out of Punxsutawney after a nice 6 inch sub, and stroll through the garden shop with its old ladies, water lilies and herbs, in stride.

America! America!

2006-05-28T20:18:00.000-04:00

Generally, being back home hasn't been so hard - and, in fact, I had a wonderful visit with my aunt, an amazing time with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Jews at the Nehirim retreat Jay coordinated at Elat Chayyim - not to mention the nice connection I made with the director of Keshet and the star of Hineni on what turned into a 9 hour trek from Boston to upstate New York (thanks to a flipped tanker, which spilled its contents on the Massachusetts Turnpike). I'm also enjoying spending some time with my dad's parents, who are visiting from Arizona - and comparing notes with my yeshiva-educated grandfather.

But my second Shabbat in America, after my first was spent at Elat Chayyim, really got me. On my way home from meeting gifted fellow-blogger Robbie, a Cubs game ended and thousands of people exploded out of Wrigley Field, stunning traffic into paralysis, and killing whatever time I would have had to prepare for Shabbat. I didn't know how much I've come to depend on the a deep sense of community created by dropping into the silence and holiness of Shabbat with everyone and everything around me, as I did in Jerusalem.

In suburban Chicago, of course, people continued to garden, and shop; the sounds of traffic never lulled. After this past year of attending modern orthodox services in various forms, I kept silent as we sang "America the Beautiful" in my family's Reform shul. Jay and I, rather than walking to our favorite meadow together and reading, remain separated by thousands of miles.

Will the Drums Beat Hard Enough?

2006-05-17T10:48:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, Jay, our friend Joe, and I went to Mount Meron, where Shimeon bar Yochai (traditionally, the author of the Zohar) is supposed to be buried. After ascending the mountain by bus, we went in the main entrance and were greated by the ecstatic chants of "Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach!" as the Lubavitchers waved their flags and showed videos of their dead (but somehow, still alive) Rebbe.

Rebbes were escorted by a dozen of their followers, who parted crowds and unintentionally kicked at my sprained ankle to get through to bar Yochai's tomb. Out of control bonfires raged on the mountain top, and leapt from the walls and rooftop of his tomb, where tealights had collectively created lakes of wax. They were occassionally put out.

Animals were slaughtered in a huge cage, and hung up to allow the blood to drain from them. A still warm cow head sat on a table in the middle of the room, and yeshiva bochers went up to it, petting it tenderly, or slapping its soft flesh.

As I was swept along in the increasingly agitated crowd flowing towards bar Yochai's tomb, I heard a band playing on a balcony inside. And once I had passed into the entry hall, I tried to tuck myself into a corner where the hundreds of people dancing ecstatically wouldn't pull me into their joyful chaos.

After I got the courage to move again, I headed toward the room that was the tomb itself. But my body was crushed my such a surge of people, my ribs protesting from so tight a squeeze, and my ankle having such trouble supporting me, that I finally chose to veer off to the exit, rather than enter the tomb itself.

As if I had passed through a birth canal, my lungs shocked themselves with a first breath of fresh air once I was outside.

Then the drumming started. We joined a group of Breslover hasidim (specifically, a sub-sect of Breslov), and danced and drummed as, amidst the crowd, I noticed an old man with a beautiful countenance jump up and down to the beat.

Jay and Joe and I, after six hours on Meron were ready to descend to "normal" life again, from the fires, slaughters and ecstasy that recalled the ancient and foreign times of the first Temple, and generally threw a lot of what I had learned about Judaism in the classroom, out the window!

My Blog Will Go On

2006-05-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

That's right - based on your feedback, I've decided to keep this web address - and, perhaps even the name.

Even though no one knows what avatiach is.

In other news, I fly to America tomorrow morning. This will be my first time in the U.S. after over 11 months living in Israel!

What Should I do with This Blog?

2006-05-16T04:40:00.000-04:00

So, this is where you, my friendly reader, have a chance to alter the course of history. What do you think I should do with this blog now that my year in Israel is over? Please post your opinion in the comments section of this entry, or send me an e-mail.

The initial purpose of this blog has been fulfilled: I created it to convey my travels and experiences in Israel with friends and family. But I feel like it's grown into a bit of a different animal (as my poetry professor used to say about poetry - "Oh, that's a completely different animal").

Although it was created to capture my year in Israel - meaning I should create a new blog if I wanted to continue blogging after I leave - as I realize how inextricably bound this "year abroad" has been to every other part of my life, how many writings I've posted here that transcend the temporal nature of a mere travelogue, and how many great connections I've made with other bloggers (and other non-blogging readers of mine) I'm hesitant to abandon this web address.

Besides, I would be sad to watch the hits on this site slowly decrease as no more entries flood the blogosphere's various up-dating services and this blog floats into oblivion, finally coming to rest in a small, quiet corner of cyberspace.

If it turns out that I decide I want to start a new blog, this one will have solidified around certain highlights and lowlights: the apartment robbery, my picture on the Israeli nightlife site, my admission to rabbinical school, days of skipping classes to hang out in my favorite field, Buddhist meditation retreats in the Jewish Holy Land. Not to mention (based on the searches that people have evidently done to find this site) my audience's never-ending search for a picture of pregnant men.

What do you think the future holds for this blog? Should I alter it a bit (change the title, since I'll be leaving Israel and no one in America knows what "avatiach" is) and keep on, keep on, keep on posting?

I'll post my decision, based on your input, over the next few days...

The Abuyudaya Jews of Uganda

2006-05-11T08:51:00.000-04:00

Today, the current leader of the 742 Abuyudaya Jews of Uganda came to speak at Pardes. He's currently enrolled in an American rabbinical school, but his community has been on a long journey to its current five shuls, Jewish high school and Jewish elementary school. He spoke about their history (as the community founder's grandson, he had an excellent view of its evolution!): having voluntarily followed Judaism since the late nineteenth century, they only recently "converted" to satisfy the halachic (Jewish legal) standards of the Orthodox rabbinate in Israel.

The most radical shift in Jewish history - from Biblical to rabbinic 1036 years ago (after the destruction of the Temple, when Jews had to decentralize the structure of their practice to facilitate its perpetuity in diaspora) - only occurred in the Abuyudaya community over the past one hundred years, because their only source for the practice of Judaism until then was the Torah.

The main paradigm of a sacred space they found in the Torah was the Temple, so they abided by all its rules in their synagogue (from offering a Passover sacrifice, to purifying themselves in a ritual pool and taking off their shoes before entering the synagogue). Only in the past half-century did they gain knowledge of rabbinic texts and realize that the ancient rabbis had solved most of the problems they encountered in trying to live life according to a Torah devoid of interpretation!

My Feet

2006-05-09T00:59:00.000-04:00

All these last strolls through the streets
I've lived on bring my feet back to
the first time they stepped into Jerusalem.

Once strange and unknown, my feet have
grown wise on these streets, and familiar.
Theyve gained preferences, and lost their

innocent and ever-present awe. Above holy
sites and museums, they choose quiet, well
gardened neighborhoods with riotous

flowers that careen down the sides of buildings
though they still itch, on occasion, for the Wall.
During these last strolls through the streets,

my feet are soothed by wild grass, though
wary of thistles and stones. They yearn
again, for unfamiliar ground, since thats

where the sacred is most easily found.
My feet remember the first days, and, again
feel the strangeness of this land under them.

Lag B'Omer

2006-05-08T10:25:00.000-04:00

Fire illuminates my essence,
and burns away all the rest:
college graduation, my descent
from a year of contemplation in the mountains of
Elat Chayyim. I ask, again, for a gathering

that will lift my body, soft and red
as my namesake, from the hummingbird of flame -
one that will shape two legs for journeying, chisel
two knobby hands, strike out two gray eyes
with the pounding of drums, as it cools.

This year, in the land of Israel,
with its feral cats, prophetic deserts,
and exploding shwarma stands,
those fires will blaze forth

from Meron, near Shimeon bar Yochai's tomb,
two days before my first return to America
after an entire cycle of holy days encircled me
in Israel's nightmares, and its dreams.

Will Meron's fires get hot enough,
the drums will beat hard enough
for my next reshaping?

My Tefillin, or: Talking Leather with Rabbis

2006-05-07T09:23:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, on Jay's suggestion, I brought the tefillin I've been using for the past year to a reputed scribe in Mea Sharim, the Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, to make sure they were kosher. I figured, "Heck, why not? I'm in Jerusalem, and this is the best place to do it. This special heirloom deserves the best care it can get."

But the scribe had me singing a different tune after he severed the gut string that was holding the backs of the tefillin on, and declared that the scrolls inside weren't kosher. Upon further interrogation, he didn't think my phylacteries were of high enough quality to be worth fixing. "Besides, since tefillin this small aren't made any more, you'll have to order special parchment, and it'll cost almost as much as buying a new set."

I couldn't believe it. I mean, my grandfather gave them to me. They were once my great-grandfather's. And now, because they weren't kosher, the scribe wouldn't sew them back up, because he couldn't condone their use.

At this point, I had nothing to lose, so decided that I would seek out another opinion. Based on the recommendations of several teachers at Pardes, I visited Machon Ot. The rabbi there was a kind man, but gave a similar diagnosis.

At this point, I saw that my tradition was witnessing my modern values with the unblinking eyes of halakha. Although my experience of taking on this practice had added a powerful embodied dimension to prayer, drawing my awareness to the divine gates of my body - regardless of the status of the physical scrolls that were inside these amulets (the idea of binding words of Torah to my body was powerful enough) - they would not function without being determined ritually fit by Jewish law.

Similarly, when I called the rabbi at Machon Ot after our initial meeting, I discovered that sentimental value also didn't have a role in halakhic determinations: "It's wonderful that these were once your great-grandfather's - you should put them in a case somewhere. But, you'll need a new set if you want to use tefillin".

It's fascinating to trace the different ways meaning has been constructed around this symbol (the tefillin) during this episode. For the (traditional) rabbis I spoke to, halakha was the main determinant of the tefillin's status. For my great-grandfather (z"l), wearing tefillin was a practice that he automatically took on as a more traditional Jew who came from a long line of rabbis. He was also a new immigrant to America, employed as a taxi driver in Chicago, and this specific set of tefillin was what he could afford. For my grandfather, giving his father's tefillin to his "Number One [grandson]" was a symbolic act of passing on his heritage to a new generation. And for me, it was a powerful exchange, and implied a subtle acceptance of my sexuality by the Jewish tradition, and by my grandfather, who has been struggling with my coming out for some time.

The unblinking eyes of halakha continued to watch as worlds clashed when I explained the circumstances to my parents (who generously offered me the means to purchase a new set of tefillin). Dad: "Well, if they don't let you communicate with God as they are, then it makes sense to fix them". Mom: "I talked to [our Reform rabbi] and she said, 'I don't know, but if I received a set of tefillin from my great-grandfather, I'd use them'". Me: "You asked a Reform rabbi! And a woman no less?".

I was shocked at my response, but saw that this drama of values was simply playing out in our conversation. I wasn't sure how to explain to my mom that, in the first place, Reform Judaism completely rejects the system of values within which every certified tefillin scribe works - and, in the second place, that women aren't obligated in the mitzvah of wearing tefillin (so she wouldn't be as likely to find a woman as she would be to find a man who was necessarily bound up in the halakha surrounding the making of tefillin).

A few days ago, the scribe I was in touch with told me to come to his shop to choose a new set of tefillin. Despite the whirlwind of symbolic meaning and my continuing debate between traditional versus humanistic values, I was excited to be choosing a new set of tefillin. Then the question arose: on what basis do I make my choice?

My energetic connection to it, of course! How does it feel to wear them? Do I feel like the gates of my body and mind are being opened?

But - even better - it turned out that these ritual items were specifically being designed for me, and he simply wanted me to come there to choose between two types of tefillin.

I won't even go into the momentary fear I had, at this point, as an ethical vegetarian, that new leather was being used for my benefit (but click on the link if your interested in the information I found).

The bottom line: I picked them up a new set of tefillin last Thursday - and they're beautiful.

Hello! JuBus are Old News

2006-05-04T07:37:00.000-04:00

Come on now! Couldn't you have written this "news", like, 40 years ago? And why didn't you interview me?

American Buddhist centers long bound by a tradition of remaining politically neutral are adding priorities that reflect those of their large numbers of often liberal, educated and politically active Jewish members: family life, civil rights and programs to feed, house and educate the poor.

Zen Judaism has spawned a genre of JuBu jokes, such as: "If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?"

A majority of the board of directors of a leading Buddhist magazine, Tricycle: A Buddhist Review, are ethnic Jews. Half of the 10 Buddhist abbots to take charge of the Zen Center of San Francisco over the last 40 years were of Jewish ancestry.

Conversely, more and more synagogues are adopting Buddhist-inspired meditation programs, like the one Rabbi Lew recently co-founded in a blue wood-framed house a few doors down from the conservative Congregation Beth Shalom in San Francisco (Read more).

I've seen three news outlets, including ABC News feature this story (but this article is the lengthiest one I've found so far).

Mourning and Celebration

2006-05-03T03:25:00.000-04:00

Two nights ago, I sat in the Meadow of the Moon, after taking a leisurely bike ride around town, and spinning through some beautiful parks as the sun set. I had decided to meditate, so sat entirely still, feet dangling from the large rock I'd chosen to sit on, as I heard adolescent voices behind me.

After a few moments, a soft clicking sound emanated from where the boys were, and was repeated a few times, followed by a pretty serious fit of coughing. I continued to sit still, and later realized, as this phenomenon kept recurring, that they were smoking pot, and one of them probably hadn't had much experience.

My mind returned to my breath, its texture and length, the sensations in my belly as it rose and fell. And then the sirens started. They resonated with so many other contexts in which they have been or could be used. Air raids. Natural disasters. This time, as they sang like sad gales of wind, they were only memorializing sudden death, rather than announcing it.

I continued to sit. The whirring descent of one siren announced its end, followed by half a dozen staggered moans of other sirens falling to silence in more distant places in and around the city. This was the beginning of Yom HaZikaron (the day of remembrance for all those who have been killed in Israel's wars, military and civilian, alike).

Toward the end of the day yesterday, as the music on the radios suddenly shifted from minor to major, and every television station stopped broadcasting stories of the deceased's lives, Jay and I went out to celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut (Israel's Independence Day).

We went downtown, and ran into Ezra.

The streets were unbelievably crowded in every direction. A stage was set up in the main square downtown, and several bands were playing, while DJs and traditional Israeli folk music (and dancing) were scattered block-by-block around the city. In the crowded masses, indiscernible within the photograph, people were spraying each other with whipped cream and silly string, and vendors were selling buttons and necklaces with flashing multi-colored lights (which we saw on a dog collar, and baby pacifier as the night went on).

People were dancing and rejoicing throughout the city.

There were some amazing costumes, too. Many people were wearing Israeli flags, but this guy really did it up. (Sorry for the quality of the picture - it was a little dark, but I absolutely had to get a picture of him).

Like all good celebrations, this one was full of vendors selling cotton candy and hot dogs. Here's our friend Julia with a good old stick of the stuff.

There were two different fire work shows. We saw the first one over Zion Square (where the main stage was set up), and the second one over the Meadow of the Moon on our way home.

Jerusalem Shortcuts

2006-05-01T00:41:00.000-04:00

1) On Saturday, Jay and I walked back from the Promenade overlooking the old city, with its endless, exquisitely gardened paths, that eventually wind, quietly, alongside a monastery. As we were about to turn off onto our street, we saw someone walking ahead of us, with just a guitar slung over his shoulder.

"Is that Omri?", Jay asked me (Omri is a sweet Israeli, not at all native to Jerusalem, who we befriended at our Dzogchen retreat).

"It sure looks like him."

"Omri?". He slowed down, stopped, and turned around. There was our friend, wandering from some part of Israel and passing right by our apartment, looking for a park to meditate in. We hung out for the rest of the afternoon.

2) Last night, Jay and I went out for a nice dinner at a place called Lugar. Although reputed for its nice ambience, the restaurant had set up a large screen in the lounge, onto which they projected the Maccabbee game (essentially, Israel's national basketball team) in Moscow. Apparently an outstanding team (though they were defeated last night, they had won three games in a row during the European Championships), the lounge was filled with a table full of 20 Israeli soldiers who cheered more loudly, both for Maccabbee's defensive and offensive moves, than the rest of the rapt room, combined. Jay and I hardly got out the door, and rushed home to watch the rest of the game - I guess their enthusiasm was contagious.

Jerusalem Enters Wherever you Let it in

2006-04-28T04:33:00.000-04:00

Jerusalem enters wherever you let it
in: last night, at a small downtown bar
decorated with abstract paintings
and yellow low glow lighting, a band raved -

its disk-jockeys spinning their records on
the dance floor. The language of the Torah
dribbled off their lips on beats and sub-beats -
syllables of prophetic verse rhymed themselves

to each second's crisis. The girls rocked
their heads back and forth, their hair
like moss on rocks in the surf,
and the boys pivoted their shoulders

and tossed their heads around
until one of their kippot fell off.
Jerusalem
enters wherever you let it in.

After This First Time in Israel

2006-04-27T00:58:00.000-04:00

After this first time in Israel,
all the lasts become more poignant:
the last time I’ll cut my toe nails,
the last time I’ll take a weekend vacation,
the last time I’ll watch slender yeshiva boys
walk swiftly across my window view and down Klein Street,
the last time Jay and I will sit in the Meadow
of the Moon*, the last time I’ll push through
my crowd of peers at Pardes to get to my corner
locker, and arrive late, yet again, for class;
the last time I’ll unclip our laundry from the line,
trying to avoid eye contact with the construction
workers who have virtually lived with us for 10 months,
the last time I’ll celebrate a holiday in Israel:
Lag B’Omer on Mount Meron, with its bonfires and drums.

*The name (in translation) of Jay and my favorite field

Strike One for the Republicans

2006-04-26T06:08:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."

The room erupted into applause.

Yom HaShoah

2006-04-25T03:06:00.000-04:00

Death stalked yesterday. She bounded
in a limb-filled cloak, and expanded
with the breath gathered from each victim,
starting with a small gray feral cat --

one that leaned against my palm months ago,
and shone with two green lanterns: now a dust pile
on the pavement. His only memorial, a crimson dash
above his head, like a halo. Death stalked

into my Zohar class, and Rabbi Yitzchak, dreamless
for a month, shadowless and sobbing, trembled
before its eager victory dance. (He chose to root his soul
to his beloved Rabbi Shimeon, and turn from

his cosmic bedchamber -- blown by the four
winds, and connected to thousands of divine
crowns in the Garden of Eden -- until Shimeon
and Yitzchak could expel their last breaths in unison.)

Death stalked yesterday. She exploded onto Dahab's dingy sidewalks,
and spit nails through his flutter of Easter pilgrims. At the end
of a busy day, Death thirsted for the afternoon's unseasonable
rains and drank condensed vapor from a billion divested dreams.

Take Me to See Pagan Things

2006-04-23T14:09:00.000-04:00

Those are the words Jay traced on the dusty back of the car we rented before we returned today from a four-day trip to the Golan Heights. The Golan is by far the most beautiful part of Israel I've seen, and we and our two traveling companions (a couple from New York, one of whom is a rabbinical student at JTS) definitely took advantage of much of what it had to offer.

On the first day of our trip, we off-roaded in a two-wheel-drive Hyundai rental car in search of a 10,000 year old pagan stone circle that Jay was certain he could find. Unfortunately, we didn't take our left at the cattle-grate, and ended up driving through a small pond and over a few huge rocks (yes, despite our best efforts at cleaning up the car and re-attaching the bumper, the rental car agency did notice: "Um, our mechanic inspected the car, and it looks as if it drove over a rock..."), and spent all the time we had allocated to finding the site trying to get the car back to the highway without damaging it more (we lost a license plate, and didn't notice. That's impressive).

Fortunately, the trip took a turn for the better. We ventured on a hike that took us through a hilltop Druze village that was abandoned a long time ago, but had reused many stones from an ancient Talmudic village, that were decorated, and inscribed in Aramaic -- and then went swimming at a nearby waterfall. We visited Banias, an ancient shrine to the Greek god Pan. Once full of statues of deities, and temples, it is now a Christian and Druze pilgrimage site. Its most beautiful parts weren't its sacred forest, or ancient ruins, but the woods behind the shrine, their flowers and waterfalls.

On another hike, we swam at the base of Israel's second tallest waterfall (yes, there were a lot of waterfalls -- which was quite refreshing to all of us, who have been basically living in the desert all year long. This was probably the most beautiful, and almost a caricature of itself: green ferns and large pink flowers trailed along the sides of the rock face that the waters rushed down, butterflies frolicking amidst the lush foliage, while birds flitted about, and the occasional crab hoisted itself onto an algae-covered rock to feast).

Saturday was probably our most exciting day, and, unfortunately, our least documented (since it was Shabbat, none of us were using our digital cameras since they involve using electricity, which we're not supposed to do on the Sabbath). We hiked for three hours through a forested wadi (dried river bed) which was streaming with a spring's waters, and then up a mountain to Nimrod's Fortress. Even after my travels through England and Wales this is the most amazing castle I've visited -- partly because we were allowed access to its dark spiral stairways, huge cistern and crumbling secret passageways -- and partly because of the unbelievable views it afforded us over Golan and the Galilee. The hike back took us through fields of what was easily the most riotous and varied array of wildflowers I've seen in years.

Finally, on Sunday, we visited the "Hexagon Pool", so named because the water is walled in by stones that take the form of 20 or so foot long hexagonal columns that crystallized after cooling for thousands of years after a volcanic eruption. On our way back to Jerusalem, we stopped to watch a flock of cranes swooping through the sky, landing, and taking flight again and stopped in Akko, where we visited a synagogue established by an ancient Kabbalist and mystic, and had arguably the best hummus in Israel. You can see all of my pictures here.

Another Sad Day for Tibet

2006-04-17T10:00:00.000-04:00

Giant Mao statue erected in Tibet

The Boombamela Festival

2006-04-15T17:03:00.000-04:00

Jay and I are exhausted from travelling on a hasa'ah, or hired bus, with a bunch of obnoxious teenagers from Boombamela, who were busy enjoying personal liberties (smoking, stopping the vehicle to puke after drinking too mcuh, talking loudly on their cell-phones, and forcing the bus-driver to play someone's mix CD at ear-plug-worthy volume) on the bus - to the chagrine of the only two people there (besides the driver) over 19 years of age.

The festival itself was fun, but lived up to some of the criticisms at the other end of this link - lots of arsim (think "Eurotrash", but Middle-Eastern), and, in general a really young crowd.

Though we weren't looking to schedule-up our Shabbos, this did made it hard to feel a part of certain activities Jay and I would have otherwise loved: mainly dancing in a huge trance tent, doing yoga in the yoga tent, or meditating in the meditation tent.

Though the workshops themselves were interesting, they often took on a superficial, silly tone when a hoard of teenagers were participating - and the ones in the trance tent seemed more intent on pushing their way through the crowd than losing their bodies in the great music that the DJ occasionally managed to pump out.

Despite these negative criticisms, I'm really glad I went: my main goal this weekend was to spend some time on the beach - and I was able to do that, and much more! It's hard to believe we only left about 36 hours ago.

Here's the Essay that Got me in:

2006-04-13T17:37:00.000-04:00

My first rabbinical school application essay was an attempt to tell my story: how, from a rationalistic, Reform congregation in suburban Chicago, I ended up as a "BuJu" living in a Jewish intentional community, and, eventually, coming to Israel to study Talmud. But then my home in Jerusalem was robbed, and my laptop stolen – and with it, all my un-backed-up application essays.

I wonder which matters more: the life story, with the philosophy and mysticism and the rest, or how I react to this bump in the road? When the robbery happened, I had just spent the weekend at two poles of Israeli society. First, as part of an "Encounter Tour" for future rabbis, I visited the sites of demolished Palestinian homes, and, often through intense sympathetic pain, struggled to listen to the people I met with. And then immediately afterwards, I went with friends to the Israeli Rainbow gathering, where I sang Shalom Aleichem after a heart-rending "Angel Walk" filled with love and spirituality. In a way, though, these two extremes of the miracle and tragedy of Israel were very much alike – both were about the specialness of Israel. But now, here I am, an ordinary victim of an ordinary crime, just like I would be in Boston or Philadelphia. I wonder which is the "real Israel" – the unique, difficult, spiritual, wonderful place – or the ordinary country of malls and break-ins and traffic jams, fulfilling the original Zionist dream to be a nation like any other, with petty crime and nothing to do about it?

And which is the real God – the one of spirituality, fundamentalism, and Jewish uniqueness – or the one of ordinary ethics, who says "Don't Steal"? Right now, I couldn't care less about theology; I just want to remember my old essay. Does that mean I don't take religion seriously? That spirituality is only a decoration, like the nice niggunim that a member of the West Bank "hilltop youth" might sing to himself, while ignoring the ethical teachings of our tradition? Or maybe the fact that I can keep writing is, itself, a form of spiritual practice – netzach, the Kabbalists call it. The ordinary keeping-on keeping-on, in contrast to the fireworks of hod.

These confrontations with the ordinary and seemingly meaningless, and the soul-searching I've found necessary to be a sensitive, informed Jewish individual these days (while having a relationship with Israel), brings me to the moment in which I write these words to apply to the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College.

Living in Jerusalem, one can't help struggling between the sacred and the profane – and wondering which is actually more important, and also more dangerous. For me, the struggle started when I first arrived in Jerusalem, jetlagged and disoriented. My friend Adi, a Palestinian participant in Hands of Peace (a coexistence program which places Palestinian and Israeli teenagers in American homes; I have been an active member since 2003), offered to give me a tour of the Old City. We paused at a large Judaica store by the Western Wall, and, to my puzzlement, Adi started searching around in the store for about fifteen minutes. Finally he found what he was looking for: “Look at this.” I peered over his shoulder and saw a poster of today's Old City. Where the Dome of the Rock usually stood, an image like the Second Temple was superimposed, with the words “the Third Temple” above it. The effort he went through to show me the poster revealed the power it held for him, and the way it functioned as a symbol of the ways in which narrow worship of the sacred frequently overlooks its human costs.

At the same time, the Holy Land is certainly a sacred Jewish striving, and my first encounter with the Western Wall moved me to tears. I can’t go to Tsfat without hiking to the tombs of the Ari and Moshe Cordovero – not seeing them simply as grave-markers, but as powerful pilgrimage sites. It is important to me to hold both the everyday world with its vital human strivings, and the possibility that angels are in these places, revealing themselves in little synchronicities that one might easily dismiss for coincidence: friends from New York happening to enter a café in which I was sitting, or finding myself right in front of the apartment of my Shabbat dinner host, having gotten lost already and possessing no knowledge of his address. If Israel were only its wonderful secular enclaves – the Cinematheque, the mall, the Israel museum – there’d be no conflict between the sacred and the secular. But then why would I come here?

As one of my teachers once said, aligning the arcadian (a vision of an idealized past) with the utopian (a vision of an idealized future) is extremely dangerous. However, spiritual movements within Judaism can have the potential for averting such perils. For example, Gershom Scholem describes the goal of mystical practice in early Hasidism not as feeding the fires of messianism (as we see today), but as the opposite: “The goal […] is the mystical redemption of the individual here and now, i.e., redemption not from exile, but in exile” (“On the Messianic Idea in Judaism” 195). Like many of my generation, I am inspired by much of Hasidism, including its notion that the messianic era, rather than disengaging from and overriding today’s world with a past ideal, must grow out of the work we do towards it in the present moment. I believe people who worship and aspire towards a past ideal are not only mistaken on an ethical level, but are also completely missing the depth of the God I relate to, one both dynamic and omnipresent, rather than manifest in one place or time to the exclusion of others.

I entered Judaism from an almost exclusively modern, liberal background, and grew up in a Reform congregation that gave me many opportunities to focus and engage my passion for tikkun olam and inspired my work as a bridge-builder at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. But I found that social justice efforts, without more, drained me of the internal wellsprings of compassion, equanimity and hope crucial to such work. Holiness, I came to believe, shouldn't be just about raising sparks in the material world, but also about constructing a primordial vessel of light from the brokenness in my own soul. I didn’t have a community to inspire me, contemplative practices to strengthen me, or rituals to remind me of the eternal scope of the struggle towards justice – to say “God, eternal and omnipresent, is in this with you.”

In the same way that worshipping Israel to the exclusion of a Jewish ethical approach towards the people it is occupying is a perversion of worship and even, according to the controversial Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, a kind of idolatry, so my liberal upbringing trapped me in a rationalist perspective toward faith and invalidated any sense I had of being part of the larger Jewish community that has existed throughout the world and for thousands of years. I couldn't engage in discussions about the Talmud, and had no sense of the wealth of wisdom contained in various works of the Kabbalah, in the Torah commentaries of various sages, nor the vivid landscapes of the aggadah. Leibowitz’s critique also applies to narrow denominational politics: When a friend of mine returned from Israel donning a tallit katan, our Reform community, which often defined itself against other denominations, especially Orthodoxy (and anything that resembled it) began whispering. By treating much of ancient Jewish tradition as taboo, my Jewish education left me not only ignorant of halakha, even as a guidepost, but also unaware of the wealth of traditional Jewish study. It failed to convey the significance of a bar mitzvah as anything more than a rite of passage into my community’s competition for the ritziest and best-attended after-party. I needed a Judaism that defined itself positively, rather than against other religions, denominations and peoples, but found myself trapped in an untenable Jewish existence that didn’t support the real everyday struggles I would face, nor a means of gaining wisdom or insight along the way. My Jewish identity was shallow and bittersweet, infused with my grandfather's Holocaust stories. It was, in Abraham Joshua Heschel’s words, a mere heirloom to cling to, rather than a living fountain.

So I turned to Buddhism in college. Buddhism dealt so forthrightly with suffering, an issue foremost in my mind as the descendant of a Holocaust survivor. Through its core practice of meditation, I was finally able to directly experience some of the awe and peace I believed religious practice should cultivate. The Torah commanded me to act ethically, but this practice actually led me to interact more compassionately with others. I appreciated the concrete work of sitting with quiet awareness of my body and breath, a pursuit that didn’t depend on knowledge of a text, or an abstract theological framework.

But when I wanted religion to hold me deeply, Jewish festivals, songs and community were all that could fulfill this need. I had long been contemplating, rejecting and returning to the idea of becoming a rabbi, and something beyond me – perhaps faith, or even God – kept drawing me back to the Jewish community, and the Jewish mode of spirituality, rather than other ones. So I became active in community-building, networking, and creating programs in the famously overactive Kenyon College Hillel. For example, in a week’s time and for only 150 Jewish students on campus, we had Sandi Dubowski present “Trembling Before G-d”, hosted a lunch discussion about Israel, met for our weekly Torah study group, and put together a student-led Shabbat.

Yet for all that activity, I still hadn’t found a way of being Jewish that held both the spiritual heights of the Sabbath and the gritty reality of day-to-day living. That’s why I decided, after graduation, to join nine other people in founding an intentional community – a community based on a common vision and shared responsibility and resources – at Elat Chayyim, the Jewish retreat center in upstate New York. It was a formative year. I’ve carried to Israel and will bring to Hebrew College and the rabbinate the values I distilled in my work at Elat Chayyim: the importance of being an “amphibious” Jew, able to navigate through the depths of spirituality, but also geared to tread through the secular culture of New York City on my weekend escapes – and an appreciation, despite the tedium of constant personal and communal processing, for a more grassroots religious expression through consensus-building around our various visions for our community. Elat Chayyim also offered me the synthesis of intense spirituality and progressive pluralism that I had been seeking for years. I finally had an opportunity not only to wear tefillin on a meditation cushion without getting any sidelong glances, but also without getting judged for my sexuality, secularism, or experimentation with traditional observance either. Creating a platform that could elevate the souls of every member of our community, as opposed to trying to fit into the prefabricated structure an outside religious authority envisioned for us, is some of the holiest work I’ve done in my life, and my experience doing so is one of the main reasons I believe such work to be my calling in life.

The question was what to do next. At first, in addition to the rabbinate, I was also looking into Judaic studies programs, and spoke with someone at JTS, who asked me, “What do you like about the rabbinate?” I replied: “I guess I’m interested primarily in working to bring people to meaning, and doing so within a Jewish framework.” After she told me about a dual degree in social work and Jewish studies, I spent months thinking that that would be a good option for me. But as application deadlines approached, I began to see that what I want is more than the sum of those two parts. I want to work perhaps as a chaplain, or as a mentor and community resource – but in any event, not as a Jewish social worker. I’d rather have a broad enough education to not only be a therapist, but also an educator and scholar, able to lead ceremonies and rituals and serve as a community and spiritual leader. I find solace in Torah, Jewish community and the way God manifests through human relationship, and want to be able to endorse these values and this way of life in my work with others.

The strength I will bring to Hebrew College lies not in any specific talents, but in my openness to others. Being the only “out” religious figure on my college campus, and a discrimination advisor, I worked with many students who placed their trust in me. I was awed, and more than a little terrified: Would I respond from a place of nervousness? Judgment? Compassion? Ironically, what I needed to learn most from the people who spoke with me was not how to answer skillfully – but trust itself. From this, I have grown to learn the truth of eizehu chacham-ha lomed mikol adam: “who is wise? s/he who learns from all people” in my own life. Despite my strengths, I’m still uncertain what I will encounter on the path from my relatively secular background to the role of speaking for Jewish tradition, and look to Hebrew College and my future peers and teachers there for guidance based on their own unique journeys, and look forward to including my own. Ultimately, though, I’ve come to believe that by knowing my weaknesses, I can become aware of my boundaries. These are the places where I must let others and God in, to support me in the ways I know I need them to support me. This, in turn, brings me to another one of my greatest strengths: empowering people to support and care for each other, and to build community. At Elat Chayyim, for instance, a week or so after each of us had arrived there (some for the first time), and hours before the Rosh Hashana program was about to start, the director told the community that the person normally leading the children’s program couldn’t make it. I volunteered to plan a program for each of the six days of the retreat, but made it clear to my fellow community members that I couldn’t do this alone – that I would take notes, and lead much of the programming, but wanted to enlist their creativity. This was one of our early successes at creating a program as a community, which eventually led to us planning entire retreats on our own, later in the year.

Why the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College in particular? Because this is a community that builds an inclusive platform for holiness. In looking at rabbinical schools, I’ve come to realize that while I admire the Reform Jewish focus on the prophetic call to justice, the Reconstructionist approach to liturgy, the Conservative engagement with halacha, and Renewal’s neo-Hasidic soulfulness, I don't want to give up on the rich variety of American Jewish expression for one denomination’s particular strengths. My work in the transdenominational contexts of Elat Chayyim, where I focused mainly on community-building, and Pardes, where I’ve been learning, have challenged my assumptions about religious practice, “Jewish” politics, and the relative diversity of currently practicing Jews’ religious backgrounds. I believe Judaism has endured, and will continue to survive, only through the multiplicity of its voices. Fortunately, I’ve had teachers who engage this aspect of our religion, and look forward to a similar experience at Hebrew College. I want to continue to learn in a pluralistic bet midrash in order to search for ways of both making my studies personal, but also inclusive of the full spectrum of Jewish experience. Perhaps most importantly, I can’t wait to participate in building Hebrew College’s relatively new community – just as I loved building the new community at Elat Chayyim.

Will it be difficult, in a transdenominational rabbinical program, to behold the expanse of Jewish tradition without the unifying yoke of denomination, or to study and pray without assuming my peers share my particular practices, or beliefs about the Torah? I believe it will. But these same challenges will help me examine my studies, practices and beliefs, and find a genuine, more comprehensive vocabulary to describe my identity outside of such summary titles as provided by movements and ideologies – and allow my peers and to I unite behind the broader vision of a Judaism that can transcend the internal divides of ideology, politics and observance. At Hebrew College, I look forward to being in a community that is committed to Torah and Jewish values but also to core principles like inclusion, egalitarianism and social justice. I want both to receive an academically rigorous education in the evolution of Jewish identity and the boundaries it has crossed or created, and to learn in an environment that is able to look at the full body of the Jewish tradition, and grapple with how to make it relevant to us today. These are obviously two different modalities of learning – one academic, the other practical; one intellectual, the other spiritual. Yet the more we can appreciate the historical context of creed and ritual, the better able we are to make a conscious decision about our practices, theology, and place within the Jewish people today. Practical instruction in ritual, davenning, text study, and pastoral care is a pivotal step for me in becoming the vessel for holiness that I am seeking to create.

Ha’omanin korin b’rosh ha’eilan o b’rosh ha’nidbach: “workers can recite the Shema on top of a tree or on top of a stone wall”. This is part of the first mishna I ever committed to memory, and I chose it because of its slight quirkiness. As I mulled it over away from the beit midrash, this mishna soon revealed to me that rabbinic thinking about prayer doesn’t take you away from the world into a Temple or a monastery, but gives you permission to continue your work in the ordinary world, and in your community, while seeking internal freedom and connectedness to the sublime through meditation and prayer. Through this very model, we both contemplate and embody the integration of these two extremes. I believe this is the essence of my work in the world.

Liberation Starts at Home

2006-04-13T13:57:00.000-04:00

I had my first "real" seder last night: Jay and I hosted and coordinated a full traditional seder with friends in which we reclined on couches, and finished eating by 1 or so in the morning, finally getting to bed around 3 (with the gracious help of a few guests who stayed behind to help clean up!).

Between Jay and I and each of our guests, we had a feast fit for royalty, and 7 different types of haggadot (ranging from queer and Renewal to the deluxe edition of the Maxwell House Haggadah), including the meta-haggadah we spun together with our own tellings of stories of liberation (most often, from awful seders of the past) and the family traditions we brought to the space.

It's still unbelievable to me how much preparation it took to make the apartment kosher for Passover, and I'm not sure how machmir (strictly observant) I want to be about that practice in the future. Insofar as I believe one's dwelling and one's internal life are interlinked (for instance, organizing my bedroom when I was younger often helped me feel less mentally "cluttered"), I think this holiday of purifying and transforming certain items that contain the ego-swell of chometz can be powerful. But only up to a point...

Hebrew College it is!

2006-04-09T10:15:00.000-04:00

This is a correction to my April 4th post. It was incorrectly titled, "My First Acceptance Letter!", and should read, "My Only Acceptance Letter".

That's right. I had actually already mostly ruled out RRC as the right place for me next year, but the deal was sealed today when RRC notified me that they'd love to have me, but my Hebrew proficiency isn't high enough for them.

I wanted to seal the deal!

Oh, well.

It looks like all signs point to the place my heart has dwelt for as long as I knew about Hebrew College - which sure makes the decision easier!

"It's a good luck sign"

2006-04-05T12:12:00.000-04:00

That's what my dad said, sitting at his parent's computer in Arizona, when I described the rainbow I was seeing from the window by my desk.

My First Acceptance Letter!

2006-04-04T09:56:00.001-04:00

This just in: I've been accepted into Hebrew College's Rabbinical program (under the direction of Arthur Green, who I had a great time interviewing with) as a mechina student, which means I'll have to do a preparatory year before entering the regular 5 year program.

I'm still waiting to hear from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, but at the moment I'm leaning toward Hebrew College. My final decision will be based on my immediate preference as well as several other factors I can't totally determine right now (financial aid, how many years I'll need to spend at RRC, etc.).

Riddle Me This:

2006-04-02T15:29:00.000-04:00

What rhymes with "ale"?

I've been creating clouds of dust and bowls of pasta as I clean the apartment of all its chometz (this process also has a spiritual parallel of emptying oneself, that I'm trying to keep in mind as I "empty out" the apartment).

Since ale is chometz (as it's made from a fermented grain), I figured I would polish off the one bottle we own (I'm holding off on our scotch and other un-kosher-for-Passover beverages - I can't do it all).

As I reached for it, though, I noticed it had a bizarre top: besides having a pull tab, which nice ales tend to have, it had some sort of smooth, intricate, beige protrusion.

I credited it with being an even fancier ale than I had yet seen, and figured it was a wax seal, until it came off in my hand. This is what I found:

Yes, a playful, and, perhaps, seriously alcoholic snail (who probably came in on my weekly CSA delivery). I hope he's able to lay off the drink for a little while, because I didn't see any in my building's garden, where I placed him.

Nehirim: A Spiritual Retreat for GLBT Jews

2006-03-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

May 19-21, 2006
Elat Chayyim: The Jewish Retreat Center
Accord, NY

The Nehirim spiritual retreat is a fun, soulful, heartful gathering where you can connect with your community, relax and refresh, and explore your spiritual path - forming connections that last a lifetime. Our retreats feature:

· A wide range of spiritual options, from traditional shabbat davening to meditation, yoga, and dance.
· Connections with GLBT Jews of all ages, religious affiliations, and walks of life -- students and seniors, singles and couples, secular and religious, "gay veterans" and those newly exploring their identities.
· Workshops and seminars featuring a wide range of teachers, including Rabbi Jill Hammer, Jay Michaelson, Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ken Page, Craig Hanauer, Judith Miller, Susan Bash, Ellen Weaver, and more.
· Opportunities to open your heart, participate and lead ritual, or just be yourself, be in nature, and be with a diverse, welcoming community.
· Dancing, singing, kosher (mostly vegetarian) food, an eruv, tennis courts, hot tub, country roads.

Cost: Rates begin at $210 (including room & board), financial aid available including full scholarships for students
To register: www.jewishretreatcenter.org
More info: www.nehirim.org

“For me it was a weekend of personal growth, great fun, warmth, renewed spiritual connection, and deep relaxation... I met people this weekend that I know I'll continue seeing.”
G.S., participant in the 2005 retreat

The Pantheon Strikes Back

2006-03-29T06:33:00.000-05:00

Since the beginning of time, one of an entire pantheon of Native American, Inuit, African, Mayan, and Hindu gods and monsters has been plotting to devour the sun, as that eternal cosmic drama - the fight between the dark and the light - continues.

My view of the solar eclipse
Considering the power of the sun as a symbol of primordial light, and its scientific and religious associations with the creation of life on Earth, it's no surprise that a huge shadow encroaching on it - chilling the air and interrupting even the brightest of days with sudden twilight - has been the source of these, and many other legends.

Just now, the full solar eclipse was visible from Africa, and parts of Europe, and showed up as a partial (84%) eclipse over Jerusalem. Fortunately, the full disk of fire seems to have returned. Yes, we've been spared, once more, and can calmy return to our other neuroses.

You Heard it Here Last

2006-03-29T05:20:00.000-05:00

According to Ynetnews:

Kadima makes history: With 99.67 percent of votes counted, Kadima wins 2006 elections with 28 Knesset seats, Acting PM Olmert to be tasked with forming new government. Labor second with 20; Likud suffers major setback, wins only 11 seats (full story)

Cosmic Events

2006-03-28T06:03:00.000-05:00

1) Today, Election Day (click on the link for some background about elections here), is a yom shabbaton (or national holiday) for Israel, giving everyone the time to vote before the polls close at 10 pm, and the news media begins to post the exit polls. In the meantime, here are Wikapedia's up-to-date opinion polls.

2) At 12:57 tomorrow, the solar eclipse (visible when the moon covers 84% of the sun, as it lines up with Israel) will reach its peak (here's an animated graphic of what it will look like from Jerusalem). If you're here, be sure to wear some sort of eye protection - and don't miss it!

Comets, Alpacas and Prophecy

2006-03-25T16:45:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, Jay and I, and about 40 other fruity Jews set up our tents at the gorgeous, lamp-lit camp site, חץ בשקט, located in the Negev, near the edge of Makdesh Ramon (which I recently visited) for the first ever gathering of Yehudim B'midbar (or "Jews in the Desert"), an offshoot of the popular gathering, Jews in the Woods.

We arrived at our destination as the small portion of earth on which we stood rotated away from the sun, and welcomed the silence and emptiness of the desert into our minds and hearts. Someone recalled the desert's historical function as a liminal place in which Abraham, Elijah and Jesus each are reported to have met and spoken with God. (Today, when I went over a ridge to meditate, it was easy to imagine how this place facilited these meetings: the silent, bone-dry air had the effect of quieting me down. From that ledge, peering through hooded eyes at the rolling, dusty hills filled with thousands of white snail shells preserved for centuries in the wind-worn, and recently-exposed sandstone, my life became an invisible lens through which to behold all the simple grandeur surrounding me.)

Yesterday, Amelie and a few new acquaintances went on a four-hour hike with Jay and I, and stopped in the town of Mitzpe Ramon to refresh and rehydrate ourselves with a variety box of ice-cream and a few cartons of juice in the small town's mall before Shabbat entered.

The rest of the weekend was filled with drumming, guitar-playing, various teaching sessions ranging from radical feminist interpretations of Jewish marriage to kabbalistic niggunim and story-telling workshops. At night, the stars were unbelievably clear, and (after many others had reported seeing them) my sense of awe was renewed as a meteor glowed white, and trailed a spiral of dust across the horizon.

Today, on the last day of Yehudim B'midbar, a small group of people accompanied Jay and I to the Mitzpe Ramon Alpaca farm, filled with mixed cages of rabbits, geese and goats, and pens of naturally dreadlocked sheep, grazing pigs, pacing horses, nervous ponies, and, yes - hungry alpacas - which were allowed out of their corral to lope after each other in heat, wander contemplatively about, or eat from our hands the feed we were given at the entrance. (If you've never seen one before, here's a picture. Yeah, they look a lot like they've escaped from the set of Star Wars.)

All in all, an amazing weekend, and wonderful to have been back in the holy desert (if only to find myself with a funny koala-like sunburn on my face upon returning).

"Return again, return again"...

2006-03-23T07:22:00.000-05:00

Contrary to Schlomo Carlebach's popular (in Jewish Renewal, anyway) song, I will not be returning "to the home of [my] soul".

I will, however, be returning to the United States, on May 17th (I finally got my ticket), landing in New York, hanging out upstate for a few days, and then, on the May 22nd, making my way back to Chicago to visit my family.

I look forward to connecting with any old (or new) friends along the way!

Pardes Just Got Cooler

2006-03-22T15:36:00.000-05:00

The Jewish News Weekly reports,

Luke “Noach” Dzmura dreamed of furthering his studies in Israel but couldn’t go without financial assistance. So the graduate student at Berkeley’s Graduate Theological Union applied for the Haas Koshland Memorial Award — despite thinking, “There’s no way in hell I’ll get it.”

The 43-year-old Dzmura is different than the more than 20 previous winners — usually recent college graduates — not only for being almost twice their age.

He is a transgender man, formerly a woman, who converted to Judaism.

But he had nothing to lose, he thought, so he applied. In his essay, he described his field of interest: rabbinics, gender and sexuality, as well as his master’s thesis on what the rabbis thought about gender variance. He said the rabbis recognized more than two genders, which “has at least one message for us today who are so stuck in our binaries.”

The award he won, given annually from the Jewish Community Endowment Fund in honor of Walter Haas and Daniel Koshland, will provide him with $15,000 to study in Israel next year. He hopes to do so at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies.

(Thanks to Jay).

In the News

2006-03-21T11:33:00.000-05:00

Yeah, a few days ago birds in the south of Israel, next to Gaza, were discovered to be carrying the bird flu.

But at least we know why.

Yep, you guessed it...the wrath of God, specifically against - right, again - the Jews and the homosexuals.

As Britney Spears has been heard to say, "Oops, I did it again."

Rest for the Weary?

2006-03-20T07:04:00.000-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, there may be rest for the weary.

I guess I can only speak for myself, but in the last two days, I've completed and turned in both sets of placement exams (for Hebrew College and RRC), met with a representative from each college to complete my oral exam,and only have my Hebrew College interview (at some as-of-yet unscheduled date) ahead of me!

Though I may find out there are ways that I can enter a stronger candidate (and maybe place out of a potential mechina, or preparatory year), for the moment, to drop another cliché, ignorance is bliss.

No One Going No Where

2006-03-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

"It should be as if you're standing in a field, about to be struck by lightning." Keith Dowman, a Katmandu resident who spoke in high English with heavy British accent, gave this instruction over this past weekend's meditation retreat in the Dzogchen tradition.

Dzogchen is a non-dual practice (and relative of Vajrayana, or Tibetan, Buddhism) which famously advocates non-meditation, and doesn't give you any techniques. You get it, or you don't.

The sits consisted of "doing nothing" interspersed with three loud and abrupt shouts (of a Tibetan syllable) from the teacher, designed to shatter our minds. During the rest of the retreat, he gave talks, and offered Q & A sessions, evidently giving many answers that worked to loosen the listener's intellectual and dualistic grip on the non-dual, expansive mind inherent in each of us.

Though it was a little frustrating, with little primer, to be given a non-practice, I did have some moments of selfless clarity, simply abiding in the nature of mind, noticing my thoughts, sensations and emotions as they arose and fell away.

On my return, I carpooled to Tel Aviv with four middle-aged Israeli women, and they asked me about my background (already the odd-one out, gender and age-wise):

Varna (you'll simply have to imagine each of the women's Israeli accents): What are you doing in Israel?

Me: Well, I'm doing preparatory studies to enter rabbinical school next year.

Varna: But you're studying Buddhism here? Oh, that's so good.

Me: Yeah, I think meditation practice really enriches my Jewish path.

Channah: That's wonderful. I belong to a Reform congregation in Tel Aviv. You're invited.

Rakefet: What! Channah, you're a Reform Jew?

Channah: Yeah.

Varna: They can co-exist.

Rakefet: So you're studying to be a rabbi, Adam?

Me: Yeah, that's the plan.

Rakefet: You're going to be a Tantric rabbi?

Me: I guess so.

Rakefet: I think it's important to choose a path, in order to be totally devoted to something.

Me: Yeah, that's something I've struggled with. (In retrospect, I realize that my path is Jewish, and my practice, though mainly Jewish, is enhanced by the Buddhist practice of meditation, and some of Buddhism's ways of analyzing reality.)

Though I couldn't get a ride to Jerusalem, Varna was meeting some friends in Tel Aviv, and going with them to a friend's 60th birthday party in Jerusalem, so invited me to join her for the ride.

We took a cab to their apartment, where I waited outside with the luggage, only to be greeted by John, and invited up "to say 'hi'". He and his wife were executive T.V. and documentary film producers who met Varna when they were studying together in the Netherlands, and were excited to show me John's paintings and photos from one of their recent trips up North.

Since they couldn't feed me bean soup (and didn't hear, "No, thanks" as "Let's get the show on the road! I've been traveling for almost 4 hours and want to get home!"), they finally convinced me to eat a hummus sandwich. On the ride, John, a recent convert, sat in the back with me and shared his journey, with many questions about mine.

I enjoyed everyone's hospitality, but am glad my little "Israeli adventure" (as Varna termed it) is over, and I'm back home!

I am Israeli Nightlife

2006-03-14T15:32:00.000-05:00

A promoter apparently took a picture of me last night for an Israeli nightlife website, while I was at the queer party dancing on an elevated area next to the stage. This might be the height of my fame, so check it out before it becomes a faded memory.

See the really cute couple in the middle of the second row? I'm next to them, wearing a green wig.

Chag Purim Sameach!

2006-03-14T09:07:00.000-05:00

Purim's like a week long Halloween here, with kids dressed in costume all week, and adults transforming into all sorts of creatures the night before Purim, and reflects some deeply rooted transcultural urge (think Carnival, Halloween, Mardi Gras) for a liminal time when we can all be tricksters, and barriers become permeable (like those between the living and the dead on Halloween) and dichotomies blurred ("You should be so drunk you don't know the difference between blessed be Mordachai [the good, the hero] and cursed be Haman [the bad, the villain]").

Cities without walls celebrate Purim (on the 14th of Adar) rather than Shushan Purim (on the 15th of Adar), so between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, there are two days of Purim. Jay, a few friends and I, took advantage of this to double up on our festivities, and between swinging by Bayit Chadash for Avraham Leader's megillah reading, Ohad Ezrahi's party, a queer dance party (organized by the same people as hosted the last one), and a rooftop rave, we got a pretty decent sampling of Tel Aviv's celebration. Alright, bring it on Jerusalem (if I have the energy)!

Indecision, Always by my Side

2006-03-10T04:19:00.000-05:00

Jay's mom has just arrived to stay with us for Shabbat, so I'll make this quick. Between the RRC interview (which I think went pretty swimmingly) and now, I've spoken with several people who are applying to both programs I'm applying to. One person from each program is planning on deferring for a year.

As much as "jumping in" to the rabbinical program will help shape me in many of the ways I want to be shaped, and allow me to be sure about whether or not I've made the right decision, I'm having an at least momentary attraction to the idea of deferring for a year, as well. I have to think about it, but there's always a general antsy-ness that accompanies as huge a rite of passage as training for one's life career.

One concern that I may be able to waive after I've taken my placement exams in Judaic knowledge, and oral and written Hebrew language, is that, based on my conversations with others, as much as I thought I was training to place out of a mechina or preparatory year, I might not have enough knowledge to do that (despite this entire "preparatory" year in Jerusalem!).

For some reason the difference between 5 and 6 years of rabbinical school is huge to me, especially considering Jay has a house in upstate New York, leading us to some serious decisions about how to do "the long distance thing" after a year of living together (which seems to make the prospect of being apart that much more unimaginable).

So I think a good idea is to search for a satisfying job next year in New York City, and consider that along side whatever offers I might get from the rabbinical programs I've applied to. Hopefully that'll relieve whatever pressure I feel to make such a big life decision in a month or so, and let me make a more objective choice about next year.

My First Interview!

2006-03-08T00:51:00.000-05:00

I have my RRC interview via video-conference this afternoon. Wish me luck!

Body Treat

2006-03-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

That was the name of the lotion Jay and I got as a free gift from the Ahava factory store (which looked way too small to be the factory store for such a prolific, well known line) after buying some delicious mineral-rich creams there.

In the company of Jay's mom and one of her friends, we were on the way to Le Meridian, a resort and spa at the Dead Sea, to which Jay's mom (who's visiting for two weeks) generously took us on a little vacation.

Finally, a chance to receive my first "real" massage! However, I hardly knew where to start, when I examined the hotel's exhaustive menu of body treatments while we were checking in. Though I could have arranged for a good-old-fashioned-Swedish massage, in the end I couldn't resist the idea of hot stones being placed all over my body.

Besides the massage, we spent most of our time bobbing around in the piped-in Dead Sea water, relaxing in the jacuzzis, sitting by the outdoor fresh and saltwater pools, and eating at the very un-spa-like buffet, full of meat, meat, meat, and lots of delicious sides and desserts (not to mention the typical over-the-top Israeli breakfast spread).

But I guess it is possible to get a bit restless, even in the lap of luxury. Because our environment was so regulated (for our pleasure), we sought out a few anarchic body-treats of our own. The first night we went to a beach after it had closed, tugged some unchained chairs to the water's edge and watched the stars. And on the second night, I discovered the "Solarium", advertised in all the hotel materials, only to find it was the roof.

I returned there with Jay the following evening. We pulled up some Chaise Longue chairs, and watched birds, lit up by the hotel's lights, coast by like comets. But some specter on top of the roof of a mysterious building stacked onto the main hotel roof, kept gazing at us and disappearing. I only saw his head, and when, really weirded out by this, we finally got up to leave, I didn't see anything at all. I think it was a person, Jay, a ghost (though I'm not sure how serious he is about that claim).

Despite that incident, it was an amazing vacation, and being oiled up and rubbed with hot stones for an hour made me feel wonderfully light, and expansive. Nice calm before the storm of placement tests and interviews that will fill this month!

To Cut or Not to Cut?

2006-03-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

Me thinking about cutting my hair
That my hair is the longest it's been in recent memory is striking fear in me. Fear, perhaps, of the unknown. What happens once it gets beyond a certain length? I've been thinking, lately, about trimming it back to it's former predictable form.

How it used to be. See?
I know it doesn't look like a big deal to many of you. But it used to be so manageable, content to simply snuggle up against my scalp. But I stopped cutting it in August, and now it's started to wander, like some crazed grapevine whose tendrils grasp at the nearest object for support on their endless search for light.

Now. Hmm. Not so bad. But, I dunno...
What do you think? Should I tame it? Or continue to let it develop beyond the point of no return, when it becomes a wholly other animal, worthy, perhaps of dread-locks or a pony-tale, or some other never before dreamt of experimentation? I'd love some advice!

Jay's Mom is Here

2006-02-28T11:20:00.000-05:00

She'll be visiting for about two weeks, and taking us to a resort on the Dead Sea this weekend. Should be nice!

From Baptismal Pools to Radical Queer Dance Parties

2006-02-24T09:38:00.000-05:00

Today's warm, clear weather seduced Jay and I into abandoning our desk-fulls of work and scooting to the outskirts of Jerusalem, past Hadassah Hospital (where Ariel Sharon is sadly vegetating) to a JNF forest.

A nice queer scene in St. Elizabeth's tomb to tie together my eventful day
Before we left, Rabbi Ohad Ezrahi and his fiancee, Dawn, stopped by, and recommended a mikvah (or ritual bath) at a Franciscan monastery near moshav Even Sapir, which we finally found, perched atop the forested hills.

This olive tree is only a miniscule sample of the lush greenery that surrounds the monastery
The monastery of St. John in the Wilderness contained a surprisingly concentrated cluster of holy sites: the cave that St. John dwelt in; the tomb of his mother, St. Elizabeth; and a baptismal pool that John may have used.

Jay glimpsed through the Psalms while we enjoyed the sacred space that houses the tomb of St. Elizabeth (St. John's mother).
After traveling along the dirt roads around the monastery, and exploring the stunning complex, Jay and I waited for a bearded Russian lady and her husband to finish immersing themselves in the holy waters.

The ritual of baptism originally comes from the Jewish mikvah, and Jay and I were happy to reclaim it in the chilly, but fully kosher (spring fed, etc.) mikvah, beneath St. John's grotto.

That evening, we took a sherut (group taxi) into Tel Aviv after Elat-Chayyim-style davenning at the Gan-Kagan's, and, afterwards, Shabbat dinner with several of this year's Dorot Fellows.

Arriving at the Tel Aviv bus-station, we met some of Jay's friends who had recommended we join them for the "weird" gay party that happens once a year in Tel Aviv (a city which, generally, seems to be vying for gay capitol of the world).

The club was in the Florentine - once a slum, now a Bohemian district that is beginning to be gentrified. Outside we sampled the entire rainbow of genders - and, after waiting in line with people dressed in drag, giraffe costumes, or just intrinsically gender-indeterminate folks dressed for a Friday night out - were admitted to one of the most amazing parties I've attended in the past few years.

Besides the video-screens, performances, music, decor and costume, the focus on creative self-expression - often mixed with "gender-fucking", supported one of the healthiest queer scenes I've ever known.

The silent competition to show off the best body, and the occasional "cruising" energy that happens at mainstream gay clubs was completely replaced by friendly, unselfconscious playfulness, which I drank in eagerly, only returning with Jay to Jerusalem's quiet bird-song filled Shabbat as the sun rose.

Continuing my comparative religions major...

2006-02-21T13:06:00.000-05:00

In April (after the placement exams and interviews that will take place over the next few weeks), I'll find out the verdict on my rabbinical school candidacy. I've applied to Hebrew College's rabbinical program and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and a lot of factors will go into my final decision. But here's one good reason I'm excited about Hebrew College.

Shabbat Shalom!

2006-02-19T00:36:00.000-05:00

Friday night, a friend who owns a plant nursery in Jerusalem introduced us to one of his winter traditions: his boyfriend drove him, Jay and I to the Dead Sea, after all the beaches had closed, and we snuck into a nice sea-side hot-spring-fed pool. We spent the hours until sunset floating in the hot, mineral-rich pool, walking around the beach, basking in the silver of the moon and stars, and sticking our feet through the salt-encrusted shore of the sea into the thick warm mud below. What a Shabbos!

Hiking around Eilat

2006-02-17T08:50:00.000-05:00

At the summit
I've returned from three glorious days hiking around the Negev and through the mountains of Eilat. Pardes organized this trip, so many of the students and several staff traveled with us - a sweet way to build the sense of community I haven't quite found, as a part-time student, until this semester.

Drama in the landscape
This has probably been the first institutional group trip I've done as an "adult" entrusted with my own safety, and free to come and go as I felt I should. For instance, I left when my Hasidut teacher lead a "drama sports" activity the first night, opting to meditate on the beach, across from Jordan's enormous flag (possibly the world's largest), before returning to the main strip of kitschy shops along the beach-front, and observing a few kids, probably rolling on ecstasy as they momentarily stopped to dance in front of the stores blaring with the loudest trance music (a pretty typical category of music to hear in the most unlikely places because of Israel's big trance scene).

Ibex at Makhtesh Ramon
The hikes we set out on each day ranged from 3-5 hours in length, and often involved cables, ladders and rungs built through steep inclines or declines so we didn't slip. I can hardly find words to describe the landscape that unfolded before me, so hopefully these pictures will begin to give you an idea.

The Red Sea
Our guide was hard to type. He looked like an American cowboy (and, as a matter of fact, works with horses) and made pretty politically rightist statements - but also led us on a silent visual meditation involving a blue crystal ball, our heart and a shaft of light, is into alternative medicine, and read Walt Whitman to us.

Tu B'Shevat

2006-02-12T08:02:00.000-05:00

Tonight's sunset will reveal the ivory splendor of the full moon here, and signal the beginning of Tu B'Shevat or the "New Year of the Trees". Mentioned in the Talmud and Pri Etz Hadar, it is a Kabbalistic holiday. In America, many rabbis, at a total loss for what to say in the dead of deep winter, offer their befuddled congregations eloquent sermons about sap rising invisibly in the trees as they prepare for spring. But like the rest of the seasonal holidays in Judaism, Tu B'Shevat is carefully calibrated to the ebb and flow of Israel's seasons. While American rabbis are fishing for metaphors, harvest-time struts by with its bounty, the rainy season quenches the ground's semester-long thirst, and spring blossoms shoot rainbows across the fields. Right now, the almond trees are all in full bloom.

The Wisdom of the Pomegranate

2006-02-09T08:56:00.000-05:00

The pomegranate is rich in mythical meaning in many parts of the world, and in Jewish mysticism, associated with the Kabbalistic sephirot (or various emanations of the Divine).

So it, of course, comes as no surprise that the pomegranate juice Jay bought at the behest of his chiropractor, who wants him to increase his antioxidant intake, has a deep teaching to offer us in the form of a Zen koan:

We define ourselves by our possessions - our ideas, prejudices, notions and opinions. Is that who we really are? Are we so limited? What did Dogen mean when he said, "In birth, nothing is added; in death, not a particle is lost"? That being the case, what is this heap of flesh? [...] How does it relate to the rest of the universe? How do you understand that? This just cannot be discussed and because it can't be reached by words, Yunmen doesn't even try. He just strips away everything that we could possibly hold on to. Cutting away the myriad streams he reveals the treasure that encompasses heaven and earth. What remains? Only the wonder of the mystery remains. We should enter here. But we are accustomed to shying away from the mystery. It frightens us. We are a civilization that relies on definitions; we nail everything down. Or so we think. All we actually do is frame reality with words. Doing that, we have not yet even entered reality. To enter the mystery is to enter the realm of not knowing and trusting that. Trusting yourself. Only then is this wonder revealed (from "Mountain Record: The Zen Practitioner's Journal").

I Found God!

2006-02-06T14:58:00.000-05:00

So much for mystical Mondays - today, I found God.

All mystical traditions I'm aware of point to what is beyond words, and advocate direct religious experience rather than abstract theological speculation. So, today, following the way of the mystics as much as the restlessness that comes with a beautiful day in the middle of Jerusalem's winter, I ditched my Zohar and Hasidut classes and wandered into the world that God has tended to in these ceaseless winter rains.

I walked to the nearby field that Jay and I frequently picnicked at, meditated in, and cut through when it wasn't muddy. It's one of the few places that you go in Jerusalem where you lose the relatively clean, gridded city as a reference point and are cast into the chaos of scattered boulders, ungroomed grass and pine-needles.

Though it's cold here, winter is a life-giving season (unlike it's counterpart in the Midwest and Northeast). The rain (and more recently, thunder and hail) has blown the whole field, which was full of dry grass and thistles only weeks ago, into brilliant colors, and scattered wildflowers in its midst.

When I went to the field today, I took some pictures of one of my favorite flowers, whose name I don't know, but whose brilliant hue contrasts dazzlingly with the rich green of the grass that surrounds it (here are all my pictures of the field). Well, hopefully my discipline will increase even as the weather gets nicer.

Do I Want Kids?

2006-02-04T15:14:00.000-05:00

I've thought intermittently about having kids for the past few years, but only discussed the issue in depth with my ex-boyfriend. We had names picked out, and even discussed the religious issues we might confront in bringing them up (he was Buddhist). Recently, I haven't considered raising children so much, especially with the prospect of 5 to 6 years of rabbinical school ahead of me.

In Jerusalem it seems like everyone's raising toddlers, and it's pretty rare to see a stroller that seats less than two.

On Friday night, Jay and I went to David Levin-Kruss's house for Shabbat dinner. He had two adorable and extremely articulate children. After one of them wow-ed us by reciting some passages of Mishna by heart and talking about the Torah portion of the week, David reviewed all the different issues he and his wife had debated about when they chose a school for their boys.

Then, earlier tonight, we went to Jay's cousin's house for dinner. It was the first time I had met her and her lovely family, and nice to meet some secular Israelis living in Jerusalem - an increasingly rare phenomenon. Jay's cousin is studying the 18th century gothic novel and, Jay remarked, "since pursuing her Master's in 'Horror', is now getting her PhD in 'Disgust'". Unfortunately, though she and her husband speak perfect English, her children only know Hebrew, so I wasn't as able to communicate with them.

At the end of the meal and after a kid-intensive weekend in which I observed the ups and downs of both sets of children (representative, I think, of all children, me included) - their sibling rivalry, their innocence, and their unabashed joy in learning - I told Jay's cousin that some days I really liked the idea of having kids, and some days I didn't think I could handle them, to which she responded, "me, too!".

"Turn, turn, turn, turn"...

2006-02-03T05:03:00.000-05:00

So, I've made some (hopefully aesthetically pleasing, interesting) changes to my blog, including widening the margins, putting a randomly changing selection of my photos in the sidebar, and putting in a randomly changing blog description (from a collection of wise quotes I like - feel free to e-mail me some of your favorites, and I might use them!) and fixing the header up a bit. The only problem is that the image I'm using for the header background takes a moment to load (because it's so large), and when I use a smaller image, it tiles, rather than one copy of the image stretching to fill the entire header. Any ideas?

The Cohel Gadol of Klein Street

2006-02-01T06:40:00.000-05:00

This will definitely come back to haunt me.

In the News

2006-01-31T07:36:00.000-05:00

The Jerusalem Pride Parade stabber was just convicted of three accounts of attempted murder.

I saw Julia Kristeva!

2006-01-29T14:01:00.000-05:00

Jay, Joe and I just went to the Van Leer Institute where we waited for 20 minutes with about 30 other people to get into Julia Kristeva's already over-crowded lecture, "Thinking about Liberty in a Dark Time". Admittedly, I didn't even understand this short Wikipedia biography that I've linked to, so stood a slim chance in hell at grasping anything she was going to say herself.

Hebrew University professors were out the door and being turned away by the doorman, even a short lady with a fuzzy hat - also a professor - who pushed me against the wall only to scold, "Be careful, be careful!" when a few people moved away from the entryway.

After Julia Kristeva herself barely made it through the crowd of people two minutes before the lecture started, and the door closed (which didn't seem to deter any of the people who continued, perhaps ironically, to try to push their way into a feminist lecture), the poor fuzzy-hatted lady kept shouting through the door, until it opened, and recited her resume to the doorman.

When the door closed again, leaving her teetering in disbelief on the stairs, we decided it was time to go. Ah, well.

Jewish Cultural Conspiracy

2006-01-28T15:05:00.000-05:00

Jay and I decided to invite a bunch of Jewish cultural creatives over for Shabbat dinner: Sarah, Dan, Dena, Andy and Julia, and were later joined by John . It was pretty amazing how many spiritually directed, innovative people were around our table, and, perhaps even more astonishing how hysterical, raunchy and sarcastic the conversation was, ranging from the awful leftover sushi Andy brought from a Pardes fundraiser, to the way Israelis pronounce "focus" (fuk-us) and "peace" (piss), to the little marshmallow man John made by breaking his plastic fork prongs off and sticking them into a pink marshmallow. Well, I guess you need a good sense of humor to do Jewish and/or Israel in a cutting-edge way.

Does Hamas eat Moroccan?

2006-01-27T04:21:00.000-05:00

Last night, Jay, my friend Joe, Jay's friend Sarah and I went out to a cheap Moroccan restaurant, and had delicious food in an incredibly cheesy setting. After that, we stopped, on our way to Hamarak, a soup restaurant with one of the hippest atmospheres and clientele of almost any cafe I've been to, at Pardes to see one of Sarah's friends.

My mom called my cell phone as we flagged a cab down to take us to a party Sarah's friend convinced us to attend before we went downtown: "What do you think about this?" my mom asked with a hint of panic in her voice. I figured out, almost as quickly as Jay, who began saying things like, "Is that green flag for surrender or Hamas?" and "That Palestinian police officer wants to see your passport" really loudly in the background, that she was asking about the Palestinian election results.

I'm a bit shaken, and honestly don't know what I think. Part of me believes that Hamas is going to be forced to be more moderate if it doesn't want to be totally abandoned by the world, and bring the Palestinian people into an even more tragic state of poverty and anarchy (in part due to the fact that most of Palestine's previous supporters will not be offering a country lead by a terrorist organization any international aid).

And part of me hopes that, given its unchanging position that Israel has no right to exist, and belief that "even prior to [Senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar] party's apparent election success, there had been no movement toward peace and therefore, there is no point to hold dialogue at this time", it will need to focus so much of its energy on internal infrastructure, and quelling political warfare within Palestine that it will drop its external pursuit of Israel's destruction.

My Trip Around the World

2006-01-24T15:39:00.000-05:00

I hope I'm not the only one out there whose gotten mildly addicted to traveling. Even to the extent that they take several trips around the world each day. Today, for instance, I flew through restricted air space to the White House, and Area 51, but also managed to fit in some pilgrimages to Bodhgaya, Taj Mahal and Kyoto. I even visited home, and a friend's house in Chicago, after stopping in Manhattan and showing up at Elat Chayyim for a moment.

Okay, I admit it. Google just released the somewhat controversial Google Earth for Mac, and I've been blown away by the graphics that they somehow managed to use in cobbling together various satellite images from around the world, including 3D graphics of buildings, and geographical features. Although it made me a little nervous that I could, when hovering over the shadow cast by the Statue of Liberty, simply type my street address in, and, after coasting through the hazy blue of the atmosphere, watching roads snake beneath me, suddenly be viewing my patio in relative detail.

Home (when it isn't exclusively where the heart is, i.e., where I grew up)

Hebrew Tutors and Guns

2006-01-22T14:34:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, my friend Joe arrived in Jerusalem. He lived with me as part of Elat Chayyim's community last year, and besides enduring hours of the most awful group-processing meetings with me, has celebrated some of the happiest times of my recent life with me, and seen me sob for an hour and half after we sat a two-week silent meditation retreat.

He's checking out Pardes, the program I'm currently studying at, so I'm honored at the prospect of continuing to share a community with him.

Okay, you're probably wondering, at this point, how this blog entry is going to live up to its title.

Well, today, I went to my Hebrew tutor's house, only to be plagued, as usual by her cute little boy who I think is having trouble separating from his mom, and brings all sorts of toys to her while she's critically listening to my recitation of some long passage in my Hebrew textbook describing the correlation between Israeli sociability and the national economy.

Anyway, I was sitting there, fearing an assault by one of his toys, when, of all things, I saw on the kitchen table at which my tutor and I sat a horribly real replica of a gun gleaming from under its nest of apples, unripe peaches and a banana.

A wide range of news sources here feature pictures of Palestinian celebrations in which kids are carrying toy missiles, instead of processing on glitzy floats. Maybe it all boils down to some Freudian thing about oral stages and child development, but I hate whoever keeps making toy weapons for kids. And you wonder why the conflict isn't ending? In a fruit bowl!