June 7th, Olympia Airlines

Sunday, June 7, 2009

This last week, so many 'lasts'. There are no more holidays for us this year, we've completed the entire Jewish calendar year, starting last August with Tisha B'Av, sitting on the grass overlooking the old city in August, singing from the book of Eicha, and now we've passed Shavuot, eating Palmellos and oranges. I acknowledge that my taste buds have been raised to another level, cucumbers sold at $.33/each will never have any taste for me, and I can't wait for the Pomegranates to come to New York in the fall.

Only Shabbat remains.

This week was a final faux-hike on the treacherous Dargot and a float in the Yam haMelach. As dry as this winter was, still the water level is higher, and the pointed rocks that cut into our feet earlier in the fall, are softened by the sand. We have a great lunch and coffee at Biankini beach, and I fight with the waitress in hebrew about why after paying for lunch we should have to pay extra for 20 minutes of salty water.

Ben has told his teacher that his last day of school is going to be Wednesday and not Friday, to our surprise--ahhhh, it's fine. So his 'misiba pareda' (goodbye party) is on Tuesday and we bring chocolately melting ruggelach from Martzipan for the class, I take pictures and cry as I say goodbye to Hadas, who looks like she could have built the country herself--her dark eyes, long black braid and sprinkling of freckles, standing in front of a classroom of 33 children, so crowded there is hardly enough room for me to stand there and get them excited about the ruggelach, and embarrass Ben by blowing him a huge kiss in front of everyone, then zipping out again so they could continue their day.

Lunch at the shuk, trips to HaSofer in Mea Sharim, baking a huge buttery, sugary cake for Ben's 9th Birthday party with 6 pals he has shared his year with here. Every one of them is so sweet, their moms carefully buying gifts for Ben that will be small enough to put in a suitcase. There is one boy here this year that he has become close to, Natan, and I think he and Natan have become better friends this year than some of his other friends back at home. His father told us that Natan had a lot of trouble sleeping the night after the party, he was up thinking how his good friend was going away for a long time, so sweet!

Then sof sof, my last week I finally met with Ana Elia, my beautiful French Ola who sings and plays the tof--just like Miriam. Finally we sang together and got to talk with no one around disturbing and pulling on us. One of the soulmates here that I hadn't yet had time to uncover, as we talked I realized our circles came so close to colliding so many times. She studies guitar and records separately with the musicians from Nava Tehila, she knows the women kabbalastic drummers from Tzfat that we brought in for a Shalom Baby event last year. Worlds coming so close. We taught each other a niggun and are having lunch together on Shabbat.

Friday, Coby's last day of school, and his 'misiba pareda'.

Last Shabbat, Kol Haneshama. Hard to believe, almost smack in the middle of Lecha Dodi Coby fell asleep on my lap. Isn't this how it all started? Erev Yom Kippur, 2007, I sat down after Kol Nidre and Coby laid himself across me for the entire evening. It felt so prayerful and sweet. Something about a sleeping child so close to your body, it calms everything down. It was a really nice service, tender, relaxed, Josh said goodbye in the middle of it to catch his shirut to Ben Gurion. There were old HUC students visiting, and new ones arriving, several HUC staff members praying there themselves, it felt like home. But needless to say, I couldn't even choke out the last Kol Haneshama prayer that Levi does in a round, from Psalm 150.  The last Hallelujah I had no sound, no words, this was it, the end.

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Ben Gurion Airport:  Now we've got 11 checked suitcases. The carry-on with my High Holiday and Shabbat music in it weighed 22 Kilos and the stewardess said no way, that is no carry-on. It's still before dawn and Ben and Coby are remarkably energetic. I am sleepwalking.  We do all our security checks, our baggage checks, and we approach the final station with our passports and boarding passes, the security girl speaks to me in hebrew and english. Then she asks where do we live in America. We stared at her without answering, mouths open, and we looked at each other and laughed. Um, ugh, well, where do we live? One of us finally stammered that we live in Florida.

I think airports are designed to remove you from time and space. You are no longer in the country that you started, and they try to convince you that the time is now the time of your destination. It's totally disorienting. And that's how we leave Israel.  We won't be going home tonight to push the branches away from the door at 37 Rehov Charlap, or shush Coby as he yells up and down the echoey stairwell, and he and Ben play games by throwing toys out the window to see if the branches can suspend them above the pathway. The 3pm breeze blowing through the apartment. My heart hurts, already I am not hearing Hebrew as much as Greek at the airport. Every Israeli we do meet here makes it their personal mission to impart to us that we need to keep up the kids' hebrew...so Israeli.

On Thursday morning Alyne asked me what gifts I will bring back to America, we both welled up with tears as I recapped the warmth of the people I've met, and Ben and Coby's experiences at school, hiking around the country, fumbling in hebrew with Phillip, all the music from Nachlaot, the beautiful Shabbatot, Yom Kippur all in white,  the hebrew that has unlocked the liturgy for me.

Before I came I said I wanted this year to open me up, shake me around, challenge me and make me see and hear things differently, I didn't want to come here and affirm everything I already knew. I think that is what happened. And it hurt alot. Alot of struggling, learning, new things, uncomfortable things, confrontations with philosophy, with learning styles, with people who don't know from marriage and children sick in the middle of the night, people who do. I suppose I got what I wanted. I am upside down and shaken up, in the most beautiful and terrifying way. 

Soon I will be singing at Temple Judea, and I have already been assigned the date of my first practicum this fall.

The year is over.

The North

Monday, June 1, 2009

We went up to Kibbutz Yagur for Shavuot, where Gadi, one of the Israeli Rabbinic students lives. It was so fantastic, this is one of the oldest, and yet one of the few remaining traditionally run Kibbutzim in israel. But the people feel the change coming, that it is inevitable, and know that eventually it will privatize like the rest, so some are already seeking jobs outside of their kibbutz responsibilities. For many of the members, it is sad, but the whole mission of the country has changed, and they also know that. So Shavuot is the ultimate kibbutz holiday, besides the giving of the torah at Sinai--which is what the rest of the Jewish world is celebrating, on kibbutzim around Israel, they are celebrating the Bikurim--the first fruits (which is what would have been brought to the Temple as a sacrifice), in a big festival on the grounds, there was singing, dancing, and presentations of the first fruits....vegetables, goats, chicks, babies, plants, tractors, go-carts. It was so much fun for the kids, who were truly in their element here, climbing trees, riding bikes with kids they didn't know, everyone wearing white. It was sweet, then we went back to Gadi's house where we ate Humus brought back from Akko's famous Humus Sa-ed, and ate cheesecake. (Akko was fun, old, beautiful, and HOT!)

Gadi has an interesting story, his mother Shula, an amazing spunky woman was born on this kibbutz, as well as he himself, and his children. Gadi, when single went on Shlichoot to the UK, then two stints in the US. He fell in love--with American Jewry, it's warmth, enthusiasm, openness; came back to the kibbutz where he later married and began a family. Like many returning shlichim, he was so changed by his experience that he enrolled in HUC's Israeli Rabbinic Program. Where have we heard this story before? And there's actually quite a few who travel to change a community, then come back quite changed themselves.

Shabbat in Haifa at Gabi's synagogue, gentle and lovely 2nd to last Shabbat overlooking that gorgeous Mediterranean sunset. I told Phillip last weekend that I just wanted to see one more sunset over the Mediterranean, and here was my second. Lucky Lucky Lucky. We sang this amazing new women's arrangement of Eretz Zavat Chalav, and the original composer is a member of this congregation and was there on Friday. We sang this piece right after candle lighting, then reprised it again at the end, when Eliyahu came up again with his drum. He was so ecstatic and joyful. He is one of these participants, in one of these kinds of congregations where people will bring a recorder or a tof, and play along when the spirit moves them. Andrea was Gabi's Shlicha Tziboor--this was a really wonderful community to be praying with on 'almost' the last Shabbat. It reminded me of Beit Chaverim, a real Kahal.

Then back to the kibbutz with sleeping children, yet now it is 3:15am and Phillip and I are both awake because there is a huge party just outside the Kibbutz gates. Crazy, the people are celebrating from 11:30pm to the wee small hours. It's so funny, funny enough that it makes me forget to scratch my new mosquito bites; well, not completely.

The next morning we walked through the grounds of the Kibbutz, just above us was Muchracha--where Elijah the Prophet slew the 450 false prophets and convinced the people that his God was the one true God. Yagoor in hebrew is the future tense of 'to reside', so I got very excited when I realized that the kibbutz was named for its eternal presence here--until Gadi corrected me and said it was actually based on the name of the neighboring Arab village: Yajoor. So much for linguistics.

We returned home by way of winding roads through the Haifa mountains through Druze villages, stopping with the binoculars and letting the kids snack on roadside stands of home made pitas with olive oil and zatar (YUM!). We spent a few hours on the Hof HaBonim-a beach which is just beach--no restaurants or stores. It's a national park, so people can hike around there and even go camping with tents right on the beach, which was amazing to see what they brought with them as they took apart the tents: mattresses, pots, pans, coolers, barbecues...I think we can go camp on the beach at Peanut Island, anyone want to join?

Then typical traffic at the end of a holiday weekend, but when everyone was hungry, we turned to each other and said let's get off at Cesaria and watch the sunset! A third sunset! Ahhhh! And how fantastic that we can decide in a pinch to jump over to Cesaria or the Salty Sea for an hour or two. When others are deciding which restaurant in Jerusalem to go to, we are here, out on the highway in Israel, changing yet another flat tire on the rental car. Really you haven't lived until you've seen Phillip wear one of the little flourescent vests as he crouches at the tire with the jack. (I know what I'm getting him for father's day).

I just finished my last voice lesson with Judi here in Jerusalem. Both of us finished in tears, it's hard to say good-bye, to her especially.

Women of the Wall

Sunday, May 31, 2009

These last Shabbatot are proving to be more and more special, if you can consider the amount that I cry and how easily I well up with emotion to be a barometer for that. I sang with Nava Tehila for the last time last Friday. We were working with the Song of Songs and unity, and Rabbi Ruth was talking about meaning and union (I think--it was in Hebrew), and our always striving to connect and interconnect with love. It was so nice to be able to sit next to a violinist and hear our parts weave in and out of each other. We had dinner with one of Ben's friend's family later that evening, a real family Kiddush. I really missed it, we've been hosting so often, and it was so nice to relax at someone's house with children playing. We laughed and told stories as they grappled with the fact that their 14 year old daughter was going to a late night party for the first time. I told her I was going to change my name to Aliza--all the Israelis ask me if this is how I pronounce my name (it means happy in Hebrew), but Nomi said definitely not to change it--it's an OLD name--like Martha in the US. Well that settled that, a 14 year old's pop-culture stance on things out-weighs my own.

The next morning we went to HUC for a final Shabbat morning service, Eli was leading and Nancy and Sara were singing too. I heard  pieces that day that I had heard for the first time here at HUC and reminisced at how quickly this year went and how much I've learned.  Gingy asked me to read the prayer for the IDF, which almost was the end of me. At least I was able to read this in English, but I was so overcome with where we were and what we were talking about. There were visitors there who I am sure thought that I had some relationship with someone in the IDF. What can I say, it's been a great year.

Sunday was Rosh Chodesh Sivan, I had been putting off joining the Women of the Wall, and here it is my last chance to join this renegade band of women--just some women who feel it is important to pray together as women at the holy site of the Kotel, sing Hallel with each other, and read the Rosh Chodesh parsha. Life should only be so simple. After 11 months, this was the first experience I've had where I have been involved in being criticized for religious observance, or told to stop doing something. Just 10 of us--a minyan--gathered near each other at the back of the women's section at the Kotel, quietly doing morning prayers at 7am. Some women wore tallitot, which made the one of the women who guard the modesty at the Kotel really very upset. So she was very confrontational, shouting at us, disturbing the other worshippers around us. I had packed up my siddur that I always carry last week, so picked up a strange one on the bookshelf at the wall, it was strange to me and I was lost in it... I couldn't find Birkat HaShachar, and the woman was shouting so loudly, all I could do was close my eyes and listen to the leader chant in her soft beautiful voice. The sun shone over the top of the wall and I knew this kind of thing was not the way it was intended. On the men's side I hear the dancing, whooping, and singing of Rosh Chodesh, and here on this side the women crouch and bend, all wrapped within themselves, alone. I see this in the very Orthodox shuls here as well, the men are a community, and the women are isolated from each other. This is not as it should be.

So, we quietly continued. The leader was brave, it was very threatening. And I wonder if all the indignancy of some of the students at HUC was from real anti-Reform experiences against them, or just anger and outrage at the concept of it in a religious country. We didn't say Kaddish. When we got to Hallel it got interesting all over again. Some women came by us and called "Kol HaKavod", and some of the religious girls exited the plaza leaning in to hear us quietly singing, they were curious, not horified, and you realize that they had never heard this before either and maybe were really very drawn to it. Needless to say the woman in charge of modesty, after screaming for the Israeli soldiers to come and 'supervise', finally got rid of us, and we hiked around through the Davidson Center to the side of the Western Wall that is under excavation and not considered holy. Though there are thousands of notes tucked in the cracks of the walls between the stones. There Dina, a JTS 3rd year Rabbinic student read the Torah Portion, and I had an aliyah-the fourth one. A woman was called for an aliyah that had never had one before, and yes she was crying and had no idea what to do. It was special, like a small sisterhood. It was a difficult year, and an amazing one; I wish I had joined the women of the wall earlier in the year, but am so glad I could be a part of this now.

One by one all the students are leaving. We're shipping boxes to our future campuses. I had an appointment with an eye doctor, my first doctor appointment in Israel, just to check that the scratched cornea healed properly--which is where I discovered that I have some allergy and he prescribed some eye drops.

I allowed myself a day to get lost in the old city. And I really did get lost, as I searched out the Via Delorosa and the Stations of the Cross--Jesus' walk to his crucifixion, I myself stumbled on interesting new areas: the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, several Christian sites that USY Pilgrimage to Israel doesn't take it's high-schoolers, and got mocked by 4 Arab teenage girls. Ahhh, it's good to feel like an idiot. I saw trees, tall trees, and couldn't image what it was, so I made a right turn down a long dark corrider, and at the checkpoint with an Arab guard and Israeli soldier, realized I was on the Temple Mount, and there just 100 meters away was the Dome of the Rock. At that very moment Phillip was going up to it on the Kotel side, where non-Moslems were permitted. I was stopped, of course, but there I was standing, right at the Temple Mount, thinking how incredibly on top of each other all these religions are. It really started my imagination cooking on where exactly the Mount stops and the rest of the temple began, and if one area is completely holy with the divine presence of God, if there is no wall of the Holy of Holies remaining, maybe I was standing on it.

I was surprised at what I could see, peering through the giant doorway, trees, children running, mothers walking with bags. It wasn't solemn, it was relaxed and vibrant and peaceful. But then again, I was watching in secret. Phillip on the other hand, was forced to buy a scarf to cover his legs when he entered with the rest of the non-Moslems. I was in a skirt, and alone, and was able to drift freely around the eastern side of the city walls.