Safe in Jerusalem

You have all seen the news about the Israeli Defense Force's operation in Gaza. I am writing to let you know that I am safe in Jerusalem, that HUC keeps informed of any security warnings and updates about the situation, and that I am not taking any unnecessary risks. The conflict is far enough from Jerusalem that we do not hear anything of it in our daily lives, save for the news and the worry of parents of soldiers in our community and in Jerusalem. I hope you will all pray for the safety and well-being of the soldiers, the citizens of Sderot who have been bombed, and the innocent Palestinians in Gaza.

On Christmas Eve, Here I Am

“We are not interested in converting you,” the abbot announced. “We are happy that we are Christians and you are Jews.”

Here I am, in an unlikely place at an unlikely time (the night before a Hebrew test). It is Christmas Eve in Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion, just outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Two of my rabbinical school classmates (and close friends) joined me on a misty night, waiting outside the gates of the beautiful German Benedictine Church for over an hour to attend a midnight mass. Missing my family, who at that very moment was preparing to attend their own mass (and then, of course, to feast on a traditional Italian-American Christmas Eve meal), I wanted to hear some carols, to see what Christmas Eve in Jerusalem might be like, and to witness the pageantry of Catholicism as both an observer and a future clergy member. Here we are, future Jewish leaders learning about a religious tradition with a complex historical relation to Judaism—from “brother” faith to Judaism’s bitter persecutor.

When the abbot said the religious men of his order were happy that “you are Jews,” he meant it in a statistical sense: well over half the people crowded into the round chapel were secular Israeli Jews. Here we are, in this room together, and we are all about to make a negotiation: the clergy, about to perform a mysterious religious ritual without a community of faithful to perform it for; the gathered crowd, interested but detached. We all laughed at the ease with which the abbot accepted this strange occurrence: a major Catholic feast day, a solemn religious ritual, and an audience of Jews.

We were definitely an audience. Ambivalent about treating the mass as a show and concerned not to disrespect my own family’s devotion to their religion, I cringed at the number of cameras in the room—some even equipped with telephoto lenses—snapping away at the most solemn and, to the priests performing the rites, sacred moments of the mass. But the abbots seemed to take it all in stride. I guess this is what happens in Jerusalem on Christmas Eve.

As my friends made occasional, whispered comments on similarities to Jewish liturgy or historical concepts, or asked clarification questions about the symbols, actions and rituals, I watched the precise movements and actions of the priests from a new angle: the future clergy member. I couldn’t help but think about my own presence on the bima in future congregations where, I hope, I will work, leading Jewish prayer and teaching Torah to the Jewish people. I thought about body language and connection. I found myself—and I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way—questioning the high drama of the mass, the extremely precise motions, the repetition of certain actions, the bowing. I wondered, too, at how the priests viewed their own actions in that particular context: before a room full of secular Israeli Jews and practicing Jews, how could these rehearsed motions seem anything other than a strange play, a performance, a parody, even?

In Jewish prayer, too, there is choreography, though (and this is particularly true in the Reform movement) it is not nearly so elaborate as in the Catholic mass. We Jews rock back and forth as we pray the Amida, the central prayer, we close our eyes when reciting Shema, we take steps toward God, bend our knees. These behaviors are both learned and spontaneous, communal and personal. Sometimes they distract from prayer, and sometimes they contribute to our prayerful mood. So, too, I hope, did the incense and the bowing and the pageantry contribute to a prayerful mood for the far-outnumbered Christians visiting Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem on Christmas Eve.

“All those things they prayed for,” my friend said to me quietly after the petitionary section of the mass, “those are good things.” These were prayers for healing and peace, for security and understanding. And they were prayed for in a room where most of the people did not repeat “Amen” with our voices, though I know that, in my own heart, I echoed their longing for a more just world. Here I am, thinking, “Od yavo shalom aleinu v’al kulam”—Let God yet bring peace upon us and upon all.

The abbey’s Christmas Eve celebration focused, as all Catholic masses do, on the liturgy of the eucharist, the central Catholic ritual. But for me, the central moment of that strange mass, performed nearly in absence of faithful Christians looking to partake in that particular rite, was the abbot’s sermon. Unsurprisingly, the priest discussed the notion of Jesus as divine figure; but, true to the evening’s early announcement that no attempt to convert us would be part of the prayer that night, he also discussed an over-arching theme: God’s longing for humans. In Torah, a text incorporated into Christian scripture, God constantly reaches out to God’s unique, sixth-day creation (human beings)—to us. The priest cited example after example: God searches for Adam in Eden, calls to Noah before the flood, makes a covenant with Abraham, leads Moses and Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Though I disagree with the abbot on the precise nature of God, I do believe that human beings are called into relationship with the Divine, and that we have an opportunity to answer, Hineni, Here I am.

So, here I am, writing to my Jewish community and to my Christian family, with the hope that we can all answer our God with a willing “Here I am.”

Saving Fishes

The father of this little family is a rabbi, head of a yeshiva (Jewish school). He is intense and serious; his day is filled with prayer, study, and teaching. One day, a student alerts him to an opportunity to fulfill a strange and counterintuitive commandment (mitzvah): “If you chance upon a bird's nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs, and the mother is sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go and take only the young” (Devarim 22:6).

Menachem, the rabbi’s young son, a sincere and loving boy but not an eager scholar, is interested in the mother bird and her young. He has watched the nesting process from the window of the yeshiva and smiles at the hatchlings’ daily developments. When he learns that his father has shooed the mother away, he worries. He does not understand why God would require anyone to separate the young from their mother.

His father’s answer is somewhat harsh, and it made me consider my own thoughts on God, commandments, and our responsibility to fulfill them. You must fulfill the commandment, he warns, without asking, “What is the reason?” He warns, too, that performing a seemingly merciful act that is not commanded in the Torah is simply doing an evil disguised as a good. It may seem merciful, in other words, to allow the mother to nurture her young, but God commanded the opposite, and what could possibly be more merciful than God?

Menachem has animals on his mind when he asks about the mother bird. A few days before, he saw a woman being taken from her apartment building in an ambulance, in critical condition. Her dog remains faithfully by her side, whimpering and crouching, obviously in distress. That night, Menachem asks his father whether dogs “have a soul.” They have nothing, his father answers, “no soul, no commandments, nothing.” When he and his father bathe at the Dead Sea later in the summer, Menachem again takes mercy on an animal, his wide eyes revealing the feelings in his heart. He has learned, of course, that there are no fish in the extremely salty Dead Sea, yet he is certain he has seen some. These fish, his father explains, swim in from the fresh springs and streams that feed the sea, but they quickly die. Menachem takes a plastic bag and sets about saving a fish , catching it in a stream before it reaches the harmful salt. But his plan goes awry, the knot in the bag loosens, the water spills, and the fish flounders on the muddy shore. An uncommanded merciful act gone awry, perhaps—just like his father the rabbi warned.

This family is the center of an Israeli film called Chufshat Kaitz (“Summer Vacation”). The film touches on many themes, but the question of commandedness lies at its center. The rabbi is certain of his actions; he performs mitzvot each day and says the proper blessings at the proper times. But his own certainty fails him when, in pursuit of the distressed fish, his son, unattended because his father is busy at prayer, wanders alone into the salty sea and drowns.

The notion that Menachem is punished for performing an act of mercy for an animal, an act not commanded by God, is ludicrous. The notion that it is the rabbi who is punished for his inability to see beyond the letter of the law is ludicrous. If one cannot believe in a God who commands us and then holds us, harshly, to those commandments, can we believe in a God at all? Why do we observe holidays and worry about the “repair of the world,” why do we go to synagogue, if we are not commanded to do so?

Talking about this at all already makes me feel a little uneasy. In many communities I belong to, “God” isn’t a usual topic of conversation. There’s an underlying suspicion about God. Are we talking about reward and punishment? Are we talking about hearing voices? Are we talking about denying evolution and enforcing fundamentalism on everyone?

I know I am in rabbinical school, but I am still ambivalent about answering questions about God, commandments, and my personal relationship to both. But just last week, I remembered the feeling I had when I was a child, and I believed in God though I didn’t think so much about it then. I remembered feeling comforted and relieved, not afraid and pressured. And when I re-watched the film Usshpizin, I found words to express that feeling: joy, gratitude, wonder, intimacy.

The couple in this film came to their religious practice later in life, and their prayers seem to have a more direct relationship to their daily lives than the scheduled prayers of Menachem’s father. Moshe and Mali are childless and poor; nothing seems to be going right for them, and Moshe assumes it is all a “test” from God. I don’t want to discuss the entire film here, but in a key scene, the couple receives a sum of money—well-timed, right before the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. When a man pushes the stuffed envelope under her door, Malki immediately sees this gift as a response to her prayer (“Give us a miracle.”). Dancing in her kitchen, Malki raises her arms and her eyes to God and sings: “For You are holy, and Your name is holy.”

I don’t want to argue that God does not command us, or that performing mitzvot isn’t important. But in my own mind and heart, I feel the mercy young Menachem yearns to demonstrate to the dog and to the young birds and to the fish to be God, to be the fulfillment of a commandment. I find God in moments like the one Malki responded to with such love and gratitude, and I don’t just mean “miracles.” I have never received an envelope full of money under my door, and I have rarely prayed directly for something that subsequently was granted, just the way I asked. But there have been times when I feel alone, in despair, left out, and weary. Suddenly, something happens that reminds me that I am not alone, and I am pulled back into the flow of the community. For example, on one of my first Shabbat evenings in Jerusalem, I went to an Orthodox synagogue for the first time, and I felt lost and conspicuous. And then the congregation sang a song I have always found comforting, in a familiar melody. It is the same song that Menachem’s community sings on the shores of the Dead Sea when a helicopter hovers above, looking for a sign of life that never comes: “Esa einai el he-harim. Me-ayin yavo ezri? Ezri me’im Adonai, oseh shamayim va-aretz,” “I lift my eyes to the mountains. From whence will my help come? My help is from Adonai, the maker of heaven and earth.”

I can remember moments when I felt certain of my relationship with God: crying in my childhood bedroom at the death of my grandmother, standing on a mountainside in Colorado looking at a faraway snow-covered peak, saying the words “I am gay” out loud to another human being for the first time, standing at the Kotel. Trying to decipher what these moments have in common, I think most of them point to a feeling of being called into relationship (with a family member, with a stranger, with the Jewish people) and of being called into that relationship truly and completely as myself—no pretenses, no lies, no adaptations to please others. And for me the notion of God and commandment means that, when a moment like this happens, the tears well up in my eyes, and my heart is full of passion, and I simply feel grateful.

In the song Malki uses to express her gratitude, the lyrics argue, “This culture is not for us, for there is fire in our hearts. […] And I am small, the last of the people, standing here excited, very excited.” Unlike Moshe and Malki, whose Haredi (Orthodox) lifestyle cordons them off from secular Jerusalem society, I don’t believe that this culture, a pluralistic world, is not for me, but sometimes I do feel like there is fire in my heart. And I do not think I am small or I am nothing, but I do acknowledge that the world does not begin and end with me. I want the fire in my heart to lead me to gratitude, like Malki’s joyful dance. And I want it to lead me to mercy, like Menachem’s compassion for the dog and his worry for the hatchlings. I want God and commandment and my own passionate response to lead me to scoop the fish up from danger, and to tie the knot stronger this time.

Against Disappearing

In his short story “Pipes,” Israeli author and screenwriter Etgar Keret offers a representation of his young self floundering through various job assignments in the Israeli army. But Etgar Keret does not simply write himself into his terse tales, penned in vernacular Hebrew, a tight but complex language whose roots link to the Bible. Instead, Keret writes his emotional experiences into different contexts—often everyday, even mundane, situations. In “Pipes,” the protagonist isn’t a soldier; he’s an unenthusiastic metalworker, day in and day out fashioning pipes for his well-credentialed engineer boss. He’s the kind of guy that just can’t seem to find a place to fit in. “I was pretty good at it,” he says of his profession, “but I didn’t really enjoy it. To tell the truth, I didn’t really enjoy anything in particular.”

Claiming complete and utter disinterest, the protagonist describes his habit of remaining at the pipe factory after hours to “make myself odd-shaped pipes” and “roll marbles through them.” But when he makes a “really complicated” pipe, rolls in the marble as usual, and it fails to “come out at the other end,” he discovers that the marble was not, as one might expect with such a twisted pipe, “stuck in the middle.” The marble had disappeared. “That was when I decided to make myself a bigger pipe, in the same shape, and to crawl into it until I disappeared.”

Keret’s sad and sardonic protagonist constructed an elaborate, winding pipe so that he could disappear in its twists and turns like so many marbles tossed into nothingness. Sometimes trying to navigate Israeli culture—and national and religious identity within it—can feel like falling through Keret’s fantastical pipe. The challenge is not to disappear.

Last week, our Israel Seminar explored Israeli secularism, a Jewish Israeli identity independent of movements and even politics, still influenced by the founding myths of Zionism and still grounded in Torah.

Any discussion of secular identity in Israel must begin with the caveat that it bears little resemblance to the American notion of “secular”—so, for that matter, do the words “Jewish” and “religion” mean differently here. In the US, “religious” and “secular” are opposites and one can fairly safely assume that “secular” identified people have little Biblical literacy and few traditions that stem from, for example, Christian theology. They may have Christmas trees, but they don’t quote Scripture. In Israel, the line between “religious” and “secular” is blurred in many ways—not simply because the separation between Church and State here is incomplete, leaving the Orthodox rabbinate in charge of all marriages and conversions, for example. In Israel, even secular-identified people have a deep knowledge of Jewish theology, text, and religious traditions. However, the Orthodox seem to have the monopoly on the word “religious,” and “Judaism” here is defined nearly entirely by the strict views and conservative interpretations of the Orthodox community.

I heard this very sharply when we visiting a secular Jerusalem high school to discuss Israeli Jewish identity and Reform Judaism with a group of 16-year-old Israelis. Frank and direct, the students certainly acted like “typical” Sabras: gruff, playful, independent, honest. They asked piercing questions, getting to the heart of our commonalities and our differences. They were skeptical of Reform Judaism’s relationship to personal choice. “You don’t believe you should do what it says in the Torah?” one young man asked, not with hostility, but with genuine surprise and interest. I responded by suggesting that perhaps it is not always so simple to discover “what it says in the Torah”—even its language, while infinitely more accessible to these Israeli students than it is to me, differs from contemporary Hebrew. While it’s easy for me, an American Reform Jew, to take sacred Jewish texts as open to interpretation, for these young Israelis, being Jewish means one of two things: living in the Land of Israel or observing all halakhah (Jewish law). Even the young woman who lights candles every Friday night reluctantly called herself “Masorati” (perhaps best translated as “traditional” but meaning, in Israel, not “Orthodox” and not “religious”) and in contrast referred to the ultra-Orthodox community surrounding the school as “religious.”

Etgar Keret argued that labels are always “dehumanizing,” but he also acknowledged that they are necessary. Think of the “Pipes” protagonist, seeking a way to fit in, a label to rally beneath. In Jerusalem, I am learning how crucial it is that Israel find a way, despite its founding Zionist myth, not simply to absorb (and to disappear) contradictory voices but to take the risk to allow those different voices to develop, to carry forth from an Israeli position. Keret argues that he writes as an “outsider,” from his own feeling of not fitting in. I am trying to pinpoint what is “Israeli” about his style, just as I tried to parse out the meanings of “Israeli,” “secular,” and “religious” for the young students who pressed me on the issues of Reform, choice, and halakhah. Keret argues that it is his language that is Israeli—the colloquial Hebrew that with ease “moves between registers,” from the street to the heavens, combining the vernacular with the Biblical. The students, too, demonstrated a deep grasp of Biblical concepts and halakhic ideas—striking given that several of them identified as “secular” and most at least called themselves “not religious.”

But I think there is something else in this strange “secular” identity—a secularism that holds Israeliness dear, clings to the Land, and demonstrates knowledge of halakhah and observance of so many Jewish customs and mitzvot that Americans would without hesitation label “religious.” With a high percentage of entrepreneurs, Israel seems to breed inventiveness. In his stories we can see how Keret takes “commonplace” emotions and even quotidian language and transforms them into something beautiful. Keret himself says, “People don’t just start writing because everything’s okay.”

Israel’s ambivalence, its constant need to deal with the influx of competing ideological claims and complicated origin myths for its national identity, is perhaps its greatest strength as well. Like Keret’s protagonist, the tension it lives with daily (if it is not reified and frozen by a monolithic national tale) can lead to invention—it was, after all, the young narrator who constructed the pipes, and it was he who was willing to enter, though he didn’t know what to expect in the end.

He finishes his giant, twisting pipe and looks at his creation: “When I saw it all in one piece, waiting for me, I remembered my social studies teacher who said once that the first human being to use a club wasn’t the strongest person in his tribe or the smartest. It’s just that the others didn’t need a club, while he did. He needed a club more than anyone, to survive and to make up for being weak. I don’t think there was another human being in the whole world who wanted to disappear more than I did, and that’s why it was me that invented the pipe. Me and not that
brilliant engineer with his technical college degree who runs the factory.”

May You Be Comforted

This morning, as the sand and the sea continue their endless dance and the hills surrounding Jerusalem continue to absorb last night's nourishing rain, my best friend is burying her big brother.

He was a young man, the family protector, humorous, a devoted Union member. He and his family have been both cherishing his life and preparing for his death for more than a year, just after his sudden diagnosis with Stage 4 cancer. In his last moments, he was surrounded by friends and family. They gathered to look at old pictures, to laugh, to recall the strong man he was even through most of his battle. My friend had the responsibility and the privilege and the blessing of holding his arm as he died--a great mitzvah, to accompany a dying person who will never have the chance to repay that kindness.

And there is another kindness to be done here, the mitzvah of comforting mourners. I wish with all my heart that I could be with the family at the burial and in the coming days to say, "Hamakom y'nachem etchem," May God, the one who is in all places, comfort you."

"As a mother comforts her son, so I will comfort you." (Isaiah 66:13)

Pouring Out Prayer

In contemporary Judaism, we think of prayer as something that happens in a very particular place at a very particular time. Prayer is a ritual—some might even say a routine—for the synagogue. In this week’s Torah portion, we had an example of a different kind of prayer, the prayer of Isaac.

Isaac had lain on the stone, wood for the fire below him, and he had looked up at his father Abraham, a knife raised in his hand to sacrifice Isaac, his son, whom he loved. Isaac was spared, the ram slaughtered in his place, but it cannot have been an image easily forgotten. His traumatic near-death is followed closely by the death of his mother, Sarah, and Isaac is lost from the story for a number of verses.

“Va’yetzse Yitzchak lashuach basadeh”—Isaac went out to wander in the field (Bereshit 24.63). What does it mean, “to wander”? The Rabbis of our tradition argue that Isaac went into the field to pray.

If Isaac’s walk in the woods contained prayer, we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s got a lot on his mind. His father tried to kill him; his mother is dead. In his youth, he lost his half-brother Yishmael to the fear and jealousy of his mother. His life has been complicated. His stroll immediately precedes the dramatic first meeting between him and his future wife Rebecca (so struck by the image of Isaac in the field that she “fell from her camel” when their eyes met). He walks, as day turns (literally in the Hebrew) to evening, lifting his eyes to see the caravan of camels approaching with the wife who will soon bring him comfort.

The rabbis who interpret Isaac’s walk in the field as prayer clarify that he walks in order “lishpoch sicho,” to pour out his conversation. My classmates and I spend much time thinking about our own current and future practice as leaders of prayer and as pray-ers. How does—or how can—that prayer relate to Isaac’s outpouring of words?

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Quest for God, argues that prayer is a combination of the material and the spiritual, a constant balance and interplay between keva (formula) and kavanah (intention). He says, “The body is the discipline, the pattern, the law; the spirit is the inner devotion, spontaneity, freedom. The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.”

At the Akedah, the binding and near-sacrifice, Isaac was merely a body and almost a corpse; traumatized, he returned to his life only to find himself a mourner, left to his overwhelming grief, a ghost. I’d like to think that in his prayer in the field, in his outpouring of conversation, Isaac became whole again. His prayer brought together body and spirit, flesh and emotion, keva and kavanah, and prepared him to continue living. Prepared him, even, to love (and to love actively, as I learned from the people at Amichai’s this weekend) and to accept comfort.

The rabbis argue that Isaac prayed, and they use his example as part of the reasoning behind the daily afternoon prayer, which takes place in those liminal hours when day turns to evening. I’m not convinced, however, that Isaac prayed only in a way resembling our contemporary prayer service. His was an outpouring of conversation, not a recitation of fixed texts. Did he converse with God, in a reciprocal dialogue? Did he simply expel his thoughts and feelings in utterances, sometimes forming words and sometimes only sounds?

I’m not saying we should throw out our prayerbooks and wander in the fields. But I’d like to learn something from Isaac’s prayer, especially if that outpouring enabled him to find love and comfort, to turn from what could have been utter desperation and disillusionment towards a new family and a new life.

The Hope

The Israeli national anthem is called “HaTikva”—“The Hope.” Back home in the United States, all the talk is about hope, and change, and potential. “Yes, we can,” everyone is chorusing as they cry in joy, hug strangers, pinch themselves to make sure it really happened: we just elected the first Black President of the United States, we ousted a Republican administration that rolled back civil liberties and trampled our Constitution to pursue war.

In our Israel Seminar, a course designed to explore the formation of the Jewish State and to see how conceptions of Israeli national identity have changed over time, we have been discussing the challenge Israel faced, at its founding just 60 years ago, in creating a unified nation out of a collection of disparate ethnic, religious, and political groups. With a commitment to open immigration for all Jews, Israel faces the unique challenge of absorbing newcomers and integrating them into Israeli culture. Israel can be seen as a melting pot or as assimilationist or as multicultural. It’s not simple, and it’s not static.

The United States, of course, is touted as the world’s great melting pot, a unique meritocracy where anyone can “make it.” On November 4, many Americans, for the first time in their lives, felt that this was true for them, that the American dream included them, that the promise of “America” was extended to their lives, their dreams, their hopes. This morning (6 am Israeli time), as I read the results online, I felt a sense of pride and promise in my own country that I think was only sharpened by being so very far away—in so many ways—from the pluralist democracy that just elected Barack Obama to the highest office in the land.

You can practically hear the fife and drum in the background, I know, but I do think the American project—a commitment to pluralism and a Constitution that is both enduring and flexible—is an admirable one. I don’t want to live anywhere else (as beautiful as Israel is). My only disappointment today comes from the cracks in the unity that Obama praised in his speech. In California especially, the American commitment to pluralism, the project of allowing disparate communities with disparate voices to live side by side, was rejected with Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative.

President-Elect Obama addressed the nation on Election Night with a message not only of hope but of unity. A nation of so many ethnicities and identities, America is not, he said “a collection of red states and blue states” but remains the United States of America. He called his election a call to “reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one.” He asked what will happen “if our children should live to see the next century.” “What change,” he pondered, “will they see?” My hope, voiced from Israel, is that the change we will see is the change we have begun to make with this election, a change toward greater pluralism.

Raining Down

When it rained on Noah and his family, it rained for forty days and forty nights. This was no mere case of scattered showers: “All the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky burst open” (Bereshit 7.11).

Last Wednesday, the Jewish calendar turned over to the winter season, the rainy season. In our daily prayers, we stop calling on God as the one who “brings down the dew” and instead address God as the one who “brings down the rain.”

Right on cue, the rains fell in Jerusalem. Friday afternoon, as I rushed home to dress for Shabbat, the Jerusalem sky became dotted with grey rain clouds, low and patchy, leaving swaths of blue sky and rays of yellow sunlight. I thought, if I were a deer, I could jump gracefully between the rainy spots and avoid getting wet. It was the kind of sky and rain and mood a photographer relishes—all shadow and contrast.

I don’t really like the rain. Perhaps I should rephrase. I don’t like going about my daily chores and activities in the rain. If I could sit by my window and look wistfully at the interplay of grey and blue in the sky and imagine stories from the forms of the clouds, I would love the rain. But I don’t like umbrellas or wet cuffs or ugly waterproof shoes or feeling cold and clammy.

It’s raining in Jerusalem, and it will be on and off for the next few days. And, from what I hear, this is what winter in Jerusalem is, or at least, this is how it begins. It is the season of the rains.

And even though I don’t really like the rain, the rain in Jerusalem is different. In Israel, there’s really no fall (I do miss the drama of the leaves’ changing in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, in the Hudson Valley, and in Prospect Park). But the change of seasons here happened, and happened noticeably. During the summer, I almost never saw a single cloud in Jerusalem. Now, clouds and rains are becoming an expected part of the horizon. It’s making me think about rains and seasons differently, in a more agricultural way. These are the rains that will nourish the crops I will purchase at the shuk later in the year. These are the rains that will determine the success or failure of much of the economic life of Israel and her citizens and residents.

Of course I know that rain everywhere is crucial to human sustenance. But I am simply more aware of this fact in Jerusalem, where I cannot readily find every type of fruit or vegetable in the local market, where my dinner table follows more closely the seasons of the year.

Rains can also be floods, of course, but even the flood we read about this coming Shabbat in the story of Noah ends with a promise, a covenant. Part of that promise is God’s reassurance to us that the rhythm of the world will continue: “So long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease” (Bereshit 8.22).

For the first time in my life, I am praying for rain. I don’t mean that I am engaging in some kind of “rain dance”; I don’t believe that I need to ask God for rain else we face a drought. Rather, I am including in my daily prayers an acknowledgement of the importance of the rhythm of the seasons—even the seasons I don’t enjoy. I am grateful for the rain. I am grateful that the year has a rhythm we can at least in part predict, that the seasons repeat and endure. There’s something comforting about the rains in Jerusalem, and something comforting about the fact that they rolled in right on cue.

In Joel, the prophet urges us to be glad: “Rejoice in the Lord your God, for [God] has given you the early rain in kindness, and now makes the rain fall as before—the early rain and the late—and threshing floors shall be piled with grain, and vats shall overflow with new wine and oil” (Joel 2.23).

Perhaps this is the wine I’ll drink at Passover, at my table in Jerusalem, the Holy City, in Israel, an ancient land of deserts and mountains—a thirsty land that needs the rain falling outside my window.

Touring Israel

Several of you have noticed the long lapse in posts, and I hope to be more on top of things as the semester gets rolling again after our long break for Rosh HaShana, Yom Kippur, and Sukkot (the holiday break ends on Tuesday with Simchat Torah). I am cheating on this post by directing you to my pictures site. Rachel came for a visit; we spent the first few days in and around Jerusalem (and went to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea), then traveled with friends to Haifa (making day trips to Caesaria, Rosh HaNikra on the Lebanese border, and Akko), and ended up with a visit to Rachel's family in Tzfat.

Turning and Returning

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, doesn’t come like a bolt out of the blue. The entire preceding month offers opportunities—personal and communal, formal and impromptu—for teshuva, often translated as “repentance” and related to the word “return.” Some Jews pray for forgiveness in the synagogue, pouring out emotion, crying, throwing up their hands. Some ask others for forgiveness, initiating honest conversations about wrongdoings of the past year. Yom Kippur itself, the day of judgement, begins with Kol Nidre, the eve of Yom Kippur, and ends at Neila, the closing of the gates, when Jews ask God to forgive us as an entire community, acknowledging our own small existence relative to God’s power.

In Brooklyn, I would walk to shul on Kol Nidre among the diversity of people in my neighborhood. Some, observing the custom of not wearing leather on Yom Kippur, I could spot straightaway as Jews walking to synagogue—dressed in fancy clothing but donning flip-flops, for example. Most were on their way to the park if it were a warm night, or headed to dinner, or coming home from work, relieved. In Jerusalem, I walked out of my apartment building to find dozens of people in the street, many wearing either the white kittel (a garment worn most by Orthodox men, resembling the garment that will cover them in death and burial) or wearing white clothing more generally—both serving as reminders of the unique and awesome significance of this day, the day on which God decides our ultimate fate. It seemed like everyone was headed to the same place, for the same purpose. This turning felt nearly automatic, not even a conscious choice.

Walking to shul on streets empty of cars, with traffic lights taking a rest for the entire day, in a community and a city where most of the other people on the streets were also headed to pray, I started to ask myself about turns and returns. What happens next year, when the walk to shul on Kol Nidre again becomes a choice I make? If my decision to pray on Kol Nidre, to fast and spend the entire day in shul on Yom Kippur, is challenged, how will I respond? What kind of turns will I take?

In many ways—and these ways are complicated by the fact that I am a Reform convert, a woman, and a lesbian—being a Jew and not living a Jewish life in Israel would be impossible. On Shabbat in Jerusalem, buses stop running and businesses shut down. There is practically a shul on every corner and people walk around the city dressed in their finest, celebrating and gathering with friends. I have a community of people to share Shabbat dinner with every week. The school year and the work year here run according to the Jewish calendar. The entire country, in one way or another, observes Yom Kippur (whether in synagogue or not). On Kol Nidre, after services were over, I walked with my friends to a nearby neighborhood. We must have seen hundreds of others dressed in white, walking, in the middle of the street, past closed shops and restaurants.

Teshuva for me begins this year and carries into the next. I hope that I can turn my own Jewish practice back in Brooklyn a bit towards Jerusalem. Just as we face East, face Jerusalem, face the Temple, face the Holy of Holies when we pray, I want to turn my “home” observance toward this place, where Judaism infuses nearly every aspect of life.

The Hidden Cave

If you’re sick of reading about contradictions and tensions and thought-provoking juxtapositions, you might want to visit another blog. Today, we began our Israel Seminar, a year-long exploration of Jewish and Israeli society, culture, and identity that will include both text and field study. The course will examine the stated and unstated aims of Zionism and the tensions inherent in actualizing those aims in Israel, given its complicated history and vastly diverse population. The course will also give us an opportunity to consider how we will teach about Israel, Israeli identity, and the relationship between Jews and this land when we are serving in congregations (or elsewhere) some day.

“Tale tale is told of an old man,” we read in S.Y. Agnon’s “Fable of the Goat,” “who groaned from his heart.” The only thing that comforted the sickly man was the amazingly sweet milk of a goat that he had bought and raised in his home. Curious as to why she provided “milk that was sweeter than honey and whose taste was the taste of Eden,” the man remarked to his son that he would like to know the daily whereabouts of the goat. The son willingly investigates, devising a complicated scheme to follow the goat and discover the origins of the Edenic milk.

What does he find? The goat leads him through a cave; the journey took “an hour or two, or maybe even a day or two.” And the young man found himself near “lofty mountains, and hills full of the choicest fruit, and a fountain of living waters”—a veritable Eden, a Paradise. And he asked some people there for the name of the beautiful place. They replied, “The Land of Israel.”

The story progresses, with gorgeous references to Biblical texts and other Jewish literature, in perhaps an unexpected direction, with the son remaining in Israel and attempting, in a very indirect way, to bring his parents there, too. He hides a note about his experience in the goat’s ear and sends her on her way. But the father does not find the note, and assumes his beloved son is dead, and mourns and weeps, and eventually, because he can no longer bear the sight of the goat who reminds him of his son, slaughters the goat.

And of course he finds the note. But the goat is dead and she cannot lead him to the cave. The weeping father mourns a triple loss: the goat with her comforting milk, his beloved and irreplaceable son, and a missed opportunity to enter the Land of Israel.

“Since that time,” Agnon writes, “the mouth of the cave has been hidden from the eye, and there is no longer a short way.”

For me, this year is an opportunity to find a way into Israel—not a short way, and along many hidden paths, through caves that will require me to grope in the dark, to squeeze through narrow passages. But these will be caves that will also reveal unknown beauty beneath the surface, great, expansive halls of stone carved by the mere action of water and time. I am willing to take the long way, and I am willing, too, to look for the hidden mouth of the cave.

And when I emerge, what Land of Israel will I discover? Will I be in Eden? Is Israel a Paradise? Should Israel be a Paradise? Can Israel be made a Paradise by human action, through tikkun olam, the repair of the world? Or will be Israel become a Paradise only through the intervention and will of God?

These are questions, I am learning, that have occupied Jews since the days of the Babylonian Exile—questions that lay beneath the rhetoric of early Zionists, questions that continue to spark controversy and argument between secular Israelis and ultra-Orthodox Jews who lament the existence of an Israeli nation-state.

For me, and hopefully for the Jewish people I will serve as a rabbi, the relationship between Jews (and I mean, of course, Jews of all kinds) and the Land of Israel is an ever-unfolding one. It has never been static, and I am grateful for that complexity, that movement, that layering. I am not sure whether this place is essential to my soul as a Jew, but I do know that, once you’ve tasted the sweet milk of Torah, ancient history, and Jewish rhythm that flows uniquely in and from this place, you want to know more about its source.

Hachnasat Orchim

Tzfat sits atop a hill with magnificent views of the Kinneret (the Sea of Galilee). Home to spiritual seekers, artists, and students of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), her narrow, winding streets are dotted with galleries and synagogues, ultra-Orthodox day schools and meditation studios. She is also home to a family who taught me about the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, welcoming guests.

As a Reform Jew and a lesbian, I was a bit nervous about spending a Shabbat unlike any other I had celebrated: Avraham and Talie are baalei tshuva, Jews who turned to a more traditionally observant lifestyle (relatively) later in life. Their home is strictly Kosher and they observe the Jewish laws against touching the opposite sex. Would Shabbat in their home feel foreign to me? Would I, as a woman, feel excluded from the prayer experience?

From the moment of my arrival, I knew I had to remain open to this Shabbat experience, forgetting my anxiety about fitting in or offending anyone or feeling singled out. Avraham and Talie welcomed me with bright smiles and an easy manner, considering me a family member (Avraham is my wife’s cousin). Their children included me in their games (giving me a chance to practice my Hebrew). Their (almost) four-year-old daughter patiently taught me new Hebrew words and switched from English to Hebrew frequently.

After Talie and I lit our Shabbat candles, Avraham led me to a local shul for Kabbalat Shabbat services. Concerned about my expectations for that evening’s prayers, he reminded me on the way that whatever shul we chose would have a mechitza. He made sure I was comfortable and went in the front door; I entered the back door to find myself in a tiny room divided by a thin lace curtain. The Ark of the Torah and the men’s section were clearly visible from the women’s section. Opening the siddur I had brought from home, I easily found my place in the service. As the psalms for welcoming the Sabbath began, I noticed that many of the women sang as loudly as the men. No one scolded them or asked them to be quiet: our voices joined together, men and women, singing joyously, “How great are your works, God, and how profound your thoughts!” Swaying a bit to the lively tune, I suddenly felt an arm around my back; the group of girls dancing next to me included me in their celebration and we danced together, jumping and swaying. I returned to Avraham and Talie’s house for dinner feeling lifted.

Avraham blessed the wine and the bread with sincerity, using the words of tradition but the melody of his own heart. Throughout the dinner, Avraham commented on the week’s Torah portion and the new month about to begin (Elul, a period of intense preparation for the High Holy Days). Denominational differences mattered less than similarities in terms of our thoughtfulness in approaching prayer and Torah. We related to God and tradition by relating to one another, reading texts and discussing them frankly. During Saturday lunch, Avraham and Talie welcomed more guests to the table: other baalei tshuva with slightly hippie leanings and two American women visiting Tzfat on a community service program. My status as a convert did not alienate me from the group; I was viewed as simply another kind of seeker, and our conversation was lively, friendly, and interesting. No one blinked an eye (at least, they didn’t show it) when I referred to Rachel as my “wife,” and I received much sympathy about our living apart for the year.

Praying and singing, studying and napping, playing with the kids and praying the morning blessings with Talie and their five-year-old son in the living room, I enjoyed a Shabbat of rest, meditation, reflection, and family. Together we went for a late afternoon walk through the old city, meeting up with a group of women and their children while the men went to pray the afternoon service. Talie introduced me to her friends and one invited us to Seudat Shlishit, the third meal of the Sabbath. And then my Shabbat was unexpectedly interrupted.

Wanting not to stand out and wishing to be counted as a married woman, I covered my hair when I was in Tzfat. I hadn’t thought about the simple question that would follow: Where is your husband? I tried to answer indirectly without lying or denying my relationship with Rachel, but eventually, sad about missing Rachel and frustrated with my own choice to mark myself clearly as married, I blurted the word “wife.” The woman’s face betrayed her disgust and she told me that, while I was still welcome to share the meal in her home, I could not discuss this in front of her children. I stammered that I needed her, then, not to ask me about my family life so that I would not have to lie. She walked away and I was left feeling foolish and sad. I missed Rachel and I immediately thought about how difficult a year apart will be. And I began to cry but tried to hide my tears.

Talie, of course, noticed my distress. When I explained to her what had happened, she did not hesitate but immediately embraced me and apologized. As a host, she felt responsible for my well-being, and she apologized (unnecessarily) for not discussing this with her friends before I visited. We both learned about assumptions.

I want to emphasize that I am not angry with the woman for saying her piece or at my hosts. I would not have wanted to be a topic of some kind of “warning.” This is not about my being “right” and the woman being “wrong.” The crux of my experience was not feeling left out or insulted but, rather, feeling cared for and included by Rachel’s family. They treated me quite simply as a person. We returned to their home for Seudat Shlishit and my tears were received with understanding, despite the very different relationship they have to Jewish law (which of course includes injunctions against homosexuality).

At the table, Avraham opened a book of stories by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach and asked me to choose and read one. I began to read about hosts and guests, and about the special taste of simple food prepared with love. Overcome with emotion, I had to hand the book to Avraham, who continued to read a story about profound generosity. We heard many tales that night: stories chosen supposedly at random but that spoke to our experience—stories about choosing a Jewish life and about connecting to the divine through human relationships. Talie and I cried, I think in joy and gratitude, and Avraham paused after each story to sigh in amazement at the way the tales fit our own paths.

People seek out Tzfat for inspiration and learning, for an emotional and not only an intellectual connection to Judaism. On that hill I found a new way to relate to a different kind of Judaism. I was opened to the complexity of the Jewish people, and to the meaning of hachnasat orchim.

Separations

It wasn’t my first trip to the Western Wall, but it was my first time there in a huge crowd. I didn’t make it all the way to the actual stones; hundreds of women crowded together, praying silently. They brought their children with them, far past bedtime, to sit in chairs or simply on the ground in the plaza. They read from the book of Lamentations, swaying to the rhythm of their own reflections.

On the fast day of Tisha B’Av, Jews commemorate (and some very much mourn) the destruction of the Temple and other calamaties. In Israel, many travel to Jerusalem, to the Kotel, considered a remnant of the ancient Temple (though in reality a retaining wall, part of the entrance to the Temple area but not originally part of the Temple itself).

A group of HUC students walked down into the valley and up again to Mount Zion to observe and to participate. On our way, as we sang psalms about Jerusalem and the Babylonian Exile, a faculty member pointed out a few interesting aspects of Israeli custom at the Kotel on Tisha B’Av. He called the holiday a combination of mourning and reuniting; people who haven’t seen each other in months run into one another at the Kotel and rejoice at the reunion, only to continue on to recite the heart-wrenching words of Lamentations. We would hear different melodies for chanting these verses, he told us, Jewish melodies from all over the world.

But, of course, I heard no melodies.

Large dividers cut the plaza in two. On one side, men. On the other, women and children.

It’s called a mechitza, and its function is to separate.

The word “mechitza” does not come from the Hebrew word for “division” but from the word “half.” But that night, as on all other nights and all other days since just a few decades ago when extremist notions took hold, the plaza was not split in half, not evenly. The smaller women’s side had been expanded for the holiday, but it was still overflowing with women, girls, strollers, infants, toddlers napping and crying and asking questions. On the men’s side, there was room to walk without tripping, an opportunity to make it to the Kotel without being separated from your friends, to approach this relic of Jewish history in a group.

And there was another important inequality: the melodies.

Certain Jewish traditions claim that women distract men from prayer, that our voices draw men down from thoughts of the spiritual to a baser level. So women do not pray aloud at the Kotel. No haunting melodies for Lamentations, no wailing nigunim (wordless tunes). On the men’s side, individuals chanting aloud and groups singing together—people praying in the Jewish way of praying: collectively.

I pushed my way back through the crowds to the section of the plaza farthest from the Wall itself and searched for my friends. They had forlorn faces, furrowed brows. Our male classmates were still down by the Kotel, perhaps observing, perhaps participating. We slowly made our way toward the mechitza to hear some of the melodies, faintly, and to simply look. Tears came, and words of anger.

I don’t know if I can explain that feeling of separation. For me, the injustice of this separation stems not (or not only) from the division of men from women but from the purported reasons. To argue that women distract men from prayer is to link women always, only, and irrevocably with the erotic and the sexual. Women tempt men, and so they cannot be seen or heard, lest they lead men away from the task of prayer. This way of thinking refuses to acknowledge women as full and complex human beings, reduces us to the instinctual. I cannot pray aloud at the wall because my voice would not be heard as one of prayer but as one of seduction.

I stood next to the mechitza and I thought about walls—to keep people in and to keep people out. And I thought back to just a few weeks before, Erev Shabbat, which we celebrated just around the corner from the Kotel, on the southern side of the Temple Mount. There, a group of men and women joined to pray old and modern words. As we concluded, we read aloud about Israel and its place in the world as “the dawning of hope for all who seek peace.”

Hope and peace, I read, and as I looked out from the spot that once represented an entrance to the Temple, a place to come near to what is holy, I saw a wall.

Curving like a snake from the horizon where the desert begins, cutting along the line of the valley and beneath the shadow of green hills, the Wall of Separation divides East from West, Muslim from Jewish. Does it mark, too, a line across which certain voices must not be heard?

I admit I have much to learn about Jersualem, about Israel, about separations and connections and divisions and communities. But I know, for now, how it felt to declare “the dawning of hope” with that imposing wall in plain sight. I know, too, how it felt to face the dark and silent night isolated from the community of the Jewish people, barred from voicing the words of tradition. Little hope, little peace.

But the small kehillah of my female classmates, huddled together at the back of the plaza, alternately teary-eyed and firey-eyed, reminds me that walls can be furnished with gates and windows and doors; they can be climbed with ladders and ropes; they can be relocated to encompass more territory; they can be torn down.

Holy Land

“Most people in this room don’t believe that Moses—or even God—wrote the entire Torah. So, what gives these five books their holiness?”

I am paraphrasing a question posed at shul this past Friday night. An Israeli rabbinic student invited the members (and guests, myself included) at Tzur Hadassah’s Reform synagogue to share their thoughts. Some argued that the Torah is holy because it contains the story of the Jewish people; it is our history and our strength. Others felt that the Torah is holy because it provides a connection to all the generations that came before; and others, that the Torah’s holiness stems from its role in the origin and development of Jewish ethics.

I have been wondering about holiness, “kedushah” in Hebrew, here in Jerusalem, “Ir HaKodesh,” the holy city. I have been wondering about HUC’s requirement that we spend this first year of school in Jerusalem, in Israel. Do I find this to be a holy land? How? Why?

A few days ago, we traveled with our Biblical History professor, Dr. Joel Duman, to several sites important to the Philistine culture. The Philistines are portrayed in the Torah as a cruel and relentless enemy, though a closer reading, combined with archaeological evidence and our own critical eye, suggests that the story is more complicated. Isn’t it always…

You probably know at least one story about one particular Philistine: Goliath. “Then a champion came out from the armies of the Philistines named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span” (1 Samuel 17:4). Goliath famously challenges the Israelites to put forward one man to fight him in single combat, determining the outcome of the entire confrontation. Of course, Israel puts forward no giant of its own to match this Philistine giant; instead, young David volunteers himself, with religious rhetoric and a bit of bravado. With a slingshot and a pebble from a nearby stream, David miraculously defeats Goliath and proves his fitness for the eventual kingship over all Israel and all Judea.


Last week, I was in Gath (check out the pictures from the “Philistine Tiyyul” album on my pictures site). Nearby to Tel Gath (the hill-site of the major Philistine city from around 1200 BCE), our class went to another hill overlooking the valley of Elah. Located in a geographical transition area at the start of the foothills (the Shphelah), where the Philistines dominated, and the Judean hills, where the Israelites dominated, this valley is a very likely candidate for the landscape described in the battle between the giant Goliath and the boy David.

But we can’t prove it precisely.

And that’s the thing about being here, in Israel. There is historical and archaeological evidence to corroborate much of what appears in Tanakh, but there are some stories that go unconfirmed. Much of what is left to us could well be political propaganda or legend just as easily as it could be objective historical truth.

Is this a holy land? Does it matter that I stood on a hill overlooking the field where perhaps David killed Goliath with a tiny rock to the massive forehead?

No. And yes.

Praying with a group of Reform, and mostly Israeli, Jews last night, and eating with a gracious host family in Tzur Hadassah after the service, I heard many views about the importance of the land of Israel, the state of Israel, Israel’s Defense army. My hosts discussed and debated the origin of the feeling of connection Jews feel to one another: does it come from citizenship in Israel? Is it a dangerous feeling? Will it lead eventually and always to conflict with the Other, the Arab, the non-Jew?

These are questions that cannot be answered in the abstract, but person-to-person. What choices will an individual make when he is faced with a giant? How do I, for example, connect to this land rich in history and marred with war and hatred?

For me, the holiness of Israel has no one source. This is a holy place because of history and legend, God and politics, generations past and future. It is holy because it provides a way to connect to Jewish time, Jewish culture, Jewish thought. It is holy because it enabled me to sit at a table with a young woman about to enter the Israeli army, to look her in the eyes and discuss conversion, Christianity, military service, and New York City.

When I looked at the valley of Elah, I could imagine the perspective of young David, walking to the stream bed you could barely make out among the trees. But I could imagine the perspective of the Philistines, too, trying to make a living—just like the Israelites—in a harsh landscape with limited resources (particularly water, a crisis emerging in the present as well). I saw both sides, Philistinian shphelah and Judean hills. And that,too, is holiness.

Peace and Wholeness in Yerushalayim

The title of this post likely implies more insight than you are about to encounter, but two things have happened this past week that have led me to write this: (1) a friend requested that I talk more about my daily experiences and (2) I saw two shows that made me think differently about living in Jerusalem. (Warning: this post contains information on the new Batman movie, so if you haven’t seen it, wait till later to read!)

Many of you know that on Tuesday, July 22, a man driving a tractor purposely reeled into oncoming traffic. Several people were injured; thankfully no one was killed. All of the students in my HUC class are physically safe, though a few were near the location of the incident. We are all taking care of one another and being cautious.

I’m not telling you this to alarm you (let me stress: I am doing absolutely fine, and the city nearly immediately returned to all its normal functions) but to give a sense of what it is like to live in a place that does face frequent violence and constant tension between extreme factions, each of which believes the other has no right to exist.

So in the midst of “Arab” versus “Jew,” I did what any sane person would do: I went to see some drama.

Last Saturday, after Shabbat ended, several friends and I walked over to Beit Shmuel, a center for Progressive Judaism (Reform movement worldwide) here in Ir HaKodesh, the holy city. Sitting comfortably in our cushy seats in a perfectly air-conditioned theater, we laughed when the curtain rose and five drag queens posed in outlandish outfits. Calling themselves “Peot Kedushot”—“Holy Wigs” or “Holy Curls”—these gay-identified men of various ages lip-synched and sang a range of songs, from Israeli pop to American musical.

It was in many ways a typical drag show: much posing, lots of makeup, gorgeous legs, and catty jokes (at least, I think they were catty jokes: the entire show was in Hebrew). But in other ways this show was nothing but typical: just a few roads away from the walls of the Old City, Peot Kedushot challenged many laws, rules, and expectations in this city driven by a conservative,even ultra-orthodox, interpretation of Jewish law (which includes injunctions against both cross-dressing and homosexuality). Graffiti around the city announces “Homosexuals very dangerous for children” and “Homo=goy” (that is, non-Jew). Enter Peot Kedushot. In a medley of songs from Sister Act, a nun, an Orthodox Jewish woman, and an observant Muslim woman sang praises to their respective gods and viewed the others’ piety with skepticism and sometimes anger. In an aside, one performer informed the audience that there are three religions in Jerusalem: Yahadut, Islam, v’piguya—Judaism, Islam, and terror attack. But it was the finale that left us in awe, amazement, and admiration.

A spotlight shines on one performer. “She” removes her wig; a bald head reminds us that this person with glittery red lips and full breasts is a man. Another performer enters and the spotlight moves to her; she is wearing a leotard and tights, his smooth body hiding his gender. A third performer: fishnet stockings, a half-leotard, bare chest, smeared make-up. He was a glamorous woman, and he is a middle-aged man. A fourth: tight shorts and a bra that is soon removed, little makeup. He no longer looks like a ballerina, though his skills en pointe were certainly impressive. The final performer, perhapsthe most “feminine” of the group, the one who achieved the most “realness”: boxer-briefs, bare legs and feet, no makeup whatsoever. A cute boy—young and fresh-faced. They stand in a row at the edge of the stage, defiant faces, a fire in their eyes. “I am still a man,” they sing.

A few nights later, I joined more than half of my classmates at Jerusalem’s largest shopping mall to see the new Batman movie. For the most part, I found it entertaining in that easy, action-movie way: just sit back and watch the good guys clobber the bad guys. But I was also watching in Jerusalem, and sitting with my classmates, some of whom are having a particularly hard time adjusting to life in a city that is, underneath its resilience, on edge. In one crucial scene, two ferries –assumed safe—carry people out of Gotham City, where the Joker has threatened death and destruction. Then the Joker’s voice announces that each boat is rigged with explosives. One ferry, loaded with criminals from Gotham’s prison, has the detonator for the other ferry, loaded with innocent men, women, and children—and vice versa. At midnight, the Joker says, he will blow up both ferries, no matter what. But if the people on one ferry decide to detonate the other, the Joker will let the passengers on the first ferry live. It’s a classic “prisoner’s dilemma.” The ferries cannot communicate with one another, and they have to ask themselves: What will the others do? Shall we all die together, or do we save ourselves?

Several arguments are put forth, and the civilian ferry puts it to a vote, coming down in favor of blowing up the prisoners. On the prisoners’ boat, a riot is about to erupt. In the end, one of the civilians holds the detonator in his hand but ultimately cannot bring himself to press the button. A tough criminal approaches a police officer on the other ferry and quietly demands the detonator so that he can “do what should have been done” already. The audience expects him, of course, to blow up the civilians. Instead, he throws the detonator out into the water.

It wasn’t the dilemma itself that made me think about Jerusalem and terror attacks and heated conflicts. After the criminal tosses out the detonator, clearly making the moral and ethical choice, a few audience members at the Jerusalem mall clapped. I don’t know who they were or whether they were politically conservative or liberal, but these residents of a city under seige cheered for doing the right thing.

Jerusalem is a confusing place, maddening even. It is beautiful and familiar and strange and ugly. There is homophobia and there is a gay community center. There are ultra-orthodox communities who angrily force outsiders to leave and there are welcoming progressive Jewish synagogues. My prayer for this year is that I will get to know Jerusalem in all its layers and complexities, beneath its wigs and costumes, to come to know the true character of its people: people who long for wholeness and for peace.

That These Things Never End

This Friday evening at sunset, I gathered with a crowd of hundreds of Israelis and tourists at the modern pier of Tel Aviv to pray and “l’kabel et haShabbat”—to welcome the Sabbath. Shabbat binds together the Divine and the human. The sun sets and time turns the sixth day into the seventh without our intervention, but it is our intention to “remember” and “keep” Shabbat that confirms the holiness of this day of rest.

On a soft, wooden pier that sloped up and down like gentle hills, we sang Psalms and folk songs not only to mark the time of transition between mundane and holy but actively to invite Shabbat into our lives. We did so with the time-tested words of the siddur (prayer book) and with twentieth- and twenty-first-century songs and poems, including Hannah Senesch’s “To Caesaria”:

Eli, Eli
Shelo yigamer le'olam:
Hachol vehayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Berak hashamayim
Tefilat ha'adam

My God, My God
May these things never end:
The sand and the sea
The rustle of the water
The lightning in the sky
The prayer of humankind

A haunting melody made by our voices, the rich sound of the cello, and the gentle taps of a drum was replaced, as we finished our singing, with the rush of the waves of the Mediterranean, a sea that somehow feels far more vast and open and daunting and amazing at the long shoreline of Israel. The waves ebbing and flowing paid no attention to the rhythm of our Psalms and petitions, but kept crashing against the pier, spraying us. Inevitably.

This morning, as I was still thinking about the perpetually moving sea, I received an email from a friend I have had since the age of ten. Her brother has cancer, and the prognosis is disheartening. As he nears what is likely the end of his life, both he and his family are struggling with their complex, churning feelings. My friend wrote, “I am taking my life and my brother’s illness one day at a time, because I know that is all I can do.” She is not happy that her brother is ill, but she accepts that he is and seeks out opportunities to be with him in ways that enrich and sustain them both.

On Shabbat, I stopped the flow of my work week, breathed in the salt air, and watched a mundane afternoon turn into a holy evening. But the rhythm of this world also continued: my friend tried to find ways to both worry for her brother and wish for peacefulness for him. These things never end: illness, grief, joy, the care of a friend.

We invite Shabbat for many reasons, among them the desire for rest, in imitation of God’s resting after the work of creation. But the prayers we offer to usher in the Sabbath also indicate that we are cared for, that these prayers are in some way accepted, received, welcomed.

“Kabbalat” is about an active welcoming, but the root “kabal” also means to accept. Perhaps prayer can serve as an interruption to the waves that never end. Perhaps it can serve as a comforting reminder that the waves never end.

Immersion

“Baruch atah, HaShem, Eloheinu, melech ha'olam, asher kideshanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu al ha'tevillah.”

The teacher doesn’t speak English. Ever. Our Ulpan consists of learning Hebrew in Hebrew. I feel like I am drowning, and I know I am standing in a mere puddle.

Learning the Hebrew language, as several HUC professors have promised our incoming class, will be the key to unlocking the beauty and richness of Jewish tradition. I began studying Hebrew just last year, first in a short, relatively informal course on Biblical Hebrew and then in a frantically focused course in Modern Hebrew with one goal in mind: passing the HUC Hebrew proficiency exam. I passed, with flying colors no less, but I did not immerse myself in the sounds and the rhythms of Hebrew. In fact, I did just the opposite of what traditional Jewish learning calls for: I buried my nose in a book, turned only to reading and writing, and ignored the physical and the communal. We spoke little in class and I didn’t seek out opportunities to listen to Hebrew as an everyday language.

Now I am called to immerse myself in Hebrew, both inside the classroom and in the ocean of language that is Jerusalem: the crowded covered lanes of the shuk on a Friday morning, when everyone is preparing for Shabbat dinner; the noisy bar in the German Colony where young people from all over the world drink and play and converse in cadences I have yet to grasp; the Israeli radio station with its eclectic mix of world music and politically sharp lyrics; the home of a Jerusalemite family who invites HUC students to lively Shabbat dinners. And the classroom, where the questions and the answers are in a modern language that reaches back to an ancient past.

I was drowning, and then I thought about immersion.

In Hebrew, there the verb root “taval” means “ to immerse.” In the ritual of tevillah (literally “an immersing” or “immersion”), Jews visit the mikveh (ritual bath) each week in preparation for Shabbat. One practices tevillah before entering marriage and upon converting to Judaism, among other purposes for the mikveh. It is a ritual of purification and a means of marking the transition between one state and another, between one point in time and another, between stages of life.

But there is also “tavah”: “to drown” or “to sink.”

This week, I have feared drowning, and it led me to fear the immersion itself. But “tavah” also means “to seal,” “to imprint,” or “to stamp.”

In the mikveh, the body falls beneath the surface. Floating, we are surrounded by mayim chayim, living waters, flowing from a natural source and gathering into a pool that can embrace us in our entirety. I want my Hebrew study to be an immersion that changes me, brings me from one state to another, from the mundane to the holy. An immersion need not be a drowning, but we cannot be imprinted, affected by Hebrew, without at least getting into the water.

“Blessed are you, HaShem (The Name), our god, sovereign of the universe, who makes us holy with his mitzvot and commands us concerning the immersion.”

Inside Out

July 15, 2008. My mother told me a few days ago that, while I was a bright child—reading at age three and loving school from the very first day—I have always been anxious about academic transitions. On the first day of first grade, my mother reports, I said worriedly, “But I don’t know that grade.”

Orientation begins tonight, and intensive Hebrew class (Ulpan) begins Sunday. I don’t know this grade, either, but my academic style has changed much since the age of six. I love school and I am confident in my academic ability. But this is a different kind of schooling, one that asks not only for intellectual mastery and growth but for spiritual exploration and personal development, for an expansion of head and heart.

In Hebrew, mind and heart are conveyed by one word, “lev.” A perpetual student like me needs to be reminded that the mind cannot guide the body alone; the heart must be deeply involved in any endeavor, and it is particularly necessary on the path to becoming a compassionate, effective,and knowledgeable rabbi. How do we locate the place of “lev,” of heart and mind together?

This past Erev Shabbat (Friday night, the Eve of the Sabbath), the incoming HUC students gathered in the Jerusalem residence of the College President, Rabbi David Ellenson. He shared with us some words of Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig. Rosenzweig called for “[a] learning that no longer starts from the Torah and leads into life, but the other way round: from life, from a world that knows nothing of the Law, or pretends to know nothing, back to the Torah” – a path “[f]rom the periphery back to the center; from the outside, in.”

Who is an outsider? For Rosenzweig, the outsider is the Jew in the modern world, and what is required of that Jew is “a new sort of learning. A learning for which—in these days—he is the most apt who brings with him the maximum of what is alien. That is to say, not the man specializing in Jewish matters; or, if he happens to be such a specialist, he will succeed, not in the capacity of a specialist, but only as one who, too, is alienated, as one who is groping his way home.”

Groping my way through the crowded alleyways and covered markets of the Old City of Jerusalem, I entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, arguably the holiest site in Christianity, the place of the crucifixion and burial of Jesus. In the back of my mind, I had always known about this place, and considered the possibility of coming here one day. I never imagined the manner of my visit, the reason for my presence in Jerusalem.

It was strange, I admit, to look at the oil lamps, the crucifixes, the altars, and the intricate mosaics, as an observer, decidedly not a pilgrim. I respected the sanctity of the Church for Christians, stepping as quietly as possible and taking photographs only where permitted. My inside and my outside turned around on themselves like a Mobius strip: the inside of childhood piety now the outsider status of the convert; the outside appearing like a casual tourist mixed with the “inside” knowledge gained from Catholic school; the feeling inside of wanting to share this experience with my faithfully Catholic family and the feeling inside of contentment at being a Jew in Jerusalem.

Rabbi Ellenson in part offered us Rosenzweig’s words to warn us against measuring ourselves only against an academic set of standards, against worrying that those students with “Jewish degrees” somehow have an advantage over the rest of us, against assuming that an ivy-league degree and strong academic ability will be all HUC requires of us. The learning I am about to engage in is the learning of the “lev,” the heart-mind—the kind of learning that requires us each, whether raised Catholic or Jewish, whether perpetually constant in our faith or spiritual seekers, to approach the study of Judaism, Jewish history, Jewish religious law, and Jewish practice from the outside.

Learning from the outside cannot be the disinterested, dispassionate, cold observation of the scientist, but must be, as Rosenzweig urges, a “groping [our] way home.” Home: Jerusalem, Israel, the Diaspora, North America, Judaism, the synagogue, the Jewish people, Jewish text, tradition-based Jewish knowledge, compassion, open-mindedness (and open ears), and the family, too.

Shehecheyanu

I’m not a mystical person, but I definitely expected my entrance into Jerusalem to be moving. If I cry watching commercials, shouldn’t I cry as I enter one of the world’s most ancient—and yet still vibrant—cities, the holiest place of several major world religions, including the religion of my childhood and the religion not only of my present and future but of my future life’s work and calling?

We got off the plane in Tel Aviv at 5:30 in the morning. No one sang when the plane landed. Waiting in line to pass through customs, pushing our way into a shared-ride taxi to Jerusalem, and chatting with the young Orthodox woman next to me (37 years old, 11 children, and a very narrow idea of how one can, must, be Jewish) didn’t exactly stir my soul.

And then it was several days of climate problems: dehydration, loss of appetite, resulting hunger. I felt uncomfortable and out of place. My physical sensations led me to think I shouldn’t be here, I don’t belong, I am not ready for this.

I drank more bottles of water than I can count. I started to feel better. I put up some familiar objects in my new bedroom. I ate. I explored the shuk (outdoor market) in the safety of a group of students and our very able interns. Things started to look up. Shabbat services at Hebrew Union College and an engaging lecture by Dean Rabbi Michael Marmer and President Rabbi David Ellenson reminded me why I am here, and the amazing privilege I have to be studying here, with these people and at this instution.

But today was the first day I felt moved to really pray in thanksgiving and awe—and I mean that in the literal sense of the word—at being here, at this time, in this place: Jerusalem, 2008, nearly a year from my (adult) bat mitzvah and just four years after taking the Torah scroll in my arms and receiving my Hebrew name.

I stood at the Western Wall, surrounded by women, divided from the men by a barrier (mechitza) I thought would dominate my thoughts and interrupt my experience. The plaza is broad and expansive, with smooth light stones. The sun beat down on us, still hot at 4:30 in the afternoon. A few bookshelves lined with prayerbooks stood at the edges; some women sat in chairs, praying quietly near the wall or waiting for friends and family.

Many women approached the wall with fervor, davening (praying) with the traditional swaying motion or pressing their foreheads to the warm stones. Others backed away from the wall when they were finished, refusing to turn their faces on the Presence, the manifestation of God that some believe exists here.

As I approached the pocked stones, I was not overcome by a wave of mystical emotion. I didn’t have any visions. I’m not sure I even felt what these other women sensed as the Presence.

But I was stirred.

Here, between stones rubbed by countless hands for thousands of years, the sincerest prayers were deposited, written on scraps of paper, folded or rolled and tucked carefully into the cracks between the stones. This place marks an interface between the human and the Divine. Some of the prayers may be mundane, but whatever their content, I saw them today as the hopefullness of humans, the potential for religion to act not as a mechitza but as a way to relate: to one another and to the divine. The wall motivates a literal and a spiritual reaching out, as pilgrims hold out their arms to the stones, contemplate their own lives and histories, or pray in the words of their traditions.

I put my hands to the stones, thinking about all the others who had been here before me, praying in thanksgiving or in anguish, making supplications or simply standing in a crucial site in history. I forgot about the mechitza and instead found myself in tears: not fearful tears or sad tears or homesick tears, but tears of real gratitude, in the words of the traditional blessing, for having been enlivened, sustained, and enabled to reach this very moment.

I stood in front of the holiest earthly site for the Jewish people as one individual among many, not standing out, yet I brought with me my entire history. In this place, all prayers are accepted into the cracks between the stones, including the prayers of a grateful convert/future rabbi.

Go Forth

Before we even know anything about Avram, the man who will become Avraham the Patriarch, we learn about God’s command: “Go forth [or, get yourself going] from your land and from your birthplace and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (Bereshit 12: 1). In this land, Avram will become “a great nation,” blessed, and a blessing to all peoples (12:2-3). Avram did not hesitate but “went forth as God had commanded him” (12:4).

By no means am I Avram. But I’ve been thinking about him often as I pack up my belongings and fly to Israel. What does it mean to go forth, to leave your land, your birthplace, your father’s house?

While I’m hesitant and apprehensive and anxious, I am perfectly willing to go forth to a new land, to live by a Jewish rhythm under a Jewish calendar, to immerse myself in the Hebrew language, to learn new customs and explore the beauty of Jerusalem, an ancient city with a vibrant, modern life. I’m perfectly willing to leave Brooklyn (my land)—for a time—and travel around Israel, walking on the land of the Tanakh (Jewish Bible), climbing the high points, floating in Yam HaMelach (the Dead Sea).

But leaving my birthplace, leaving my father’s house… ?

My Dad jokes that I’ve converted in more ways than one: lesbian, Jew, New Yorker. As long as I don’t become a Yankees fan, though, I haven’t traveled too far.

I left my birthplace a few times, depending on how you count it. The night before I started college, just twenty minutes from my childhood home, I felt like I was leaving my birthplace forever. And when I moved from the Boston area to Washington, DC, I learned to live outside New England, away from the familiar accent, the good pizza dough in the supermarket, the cobblestone streets and Colonial history. Then I moved to New York, to Brooklyn, and found a new land that began, quickly, to feel like home, hopefully the birthplace of some future Kramer-DeBlosi children.

Maybe leaving my father’s house simply means making a house of my own, creating an adult life. I did this years ago, Rachel and I confirmed it in 2004 when we met under the chupah and committed ourselves to establishing our own Jewish home.

But, when you’re a convert to Judaism, the notion of leaving “your birthplace and your father’s house” is more complicated than striking out on your own to live in a different building, in a different city.

For Avram, leaving his father’s house meant moving, sure, but it also meant leaving the religion of his family—a religion he was skeptical of all along, say the Sages. For Avram, that leaving was seemingly simple, as easy as smashing the powerless idols sold in his father’s store, gods of wood and stone who cannot see, cannot hear, cannot smell, cannot eat.

When I left the religion of my family, I did not do it with the simplistic surety that my parents are wrong and I am right, that their Christianity is tantamount to bowing to false idols while my Judaism is Truth. For me, Judaism is true and right; it enriches my life and provides me with a way to connect to others, to challenge myself to live ethically, to experience joy and wonder and gratitude. But I never want to imply that, in becoming Jewish, I have smashed the religion of my parents into so many splinters, so much dust. I left, yes—completely, sincerely. But I left as an individual, and my family continues to practice Christianity, completely, sincerely.

As I leave my land, my birthplace, and my father’s house—places one never leaves completely and leaves over and over again—I want to think about this going forth as a continuing challenge to learn the meaning of and eventually to enact the call God made to Avram: to be a source of blessing for all peoples. It’s not an abandonment but a crossing. Avram is, after all, “Avram Ha-Ivri,” Avram the Hebrew, the one who crosses over to a new land, a new way of life. I hope to do so without cutting off the past, to do so as an act of connection.

Next Year in Jerusalem

This summer, actually...

Many of you know that, in 2004, I celebrated my conversion to Judaism after two years of study and preparation. Since then, I have continued to study and worship at our Reform synagogue, Beth Elohim, where I became a bat mitzvah last summer.

Reform, a liberal movement of Judaism, has greatly enriched my life, and I decided last year to give back to my community and to my religion. For the past year, I studied Hebrew and then applied to Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. After a lengthy written application, two interviews, and a Hebrew proficiency examination, I was accepted into their Rabbinical Studies program. This means that, if all goes as planned, in five years, I will be ordained as a Reform Rabbi.

My life has not led me on anything like a direct path from Catholic girl to future rabbi, but one constant has been my desire to teach. When I began to learn about Judaism, I was drawn immediately to the study of Torah (Bible and commentary on the Bible), which asks the student to engage with tradition, to respect the ancient and rich Jewish past, but also to remain open to novel connections. Those of you who have already heard about my applying to HUC have asked about the politics of Judaism in general and Reform in particular; in broad strokes, this community is one that will welcome me as a Jew-by-choice, as a lesbian, and as a feminist. It has a long tradition of liberal interpretation of Jewish tradition, social justice work, and a welcoming policy to converts, interfaith families, and gay and lesbian Jews. More importantly, as a rabbi, I will be able to use my teaching skills and academic background, but I will also have opportunities to interact with people at the most challenging and rewarding moments in their lives.

Living in Jerusalem without my wife will be a major challenge, but this is a unique opportunity to learn about Israeli culture, to study Hebrew intensively, and of course ultimately to gain a career that will allow me to serve the Jewish people and enrich lives through our beautiful traditions.

I plan to use this blog to post thoughts and, most importantly, photos documenting my experience during the year in Israel.