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.