Majestic moments in the midbar mountains

Majestic mountains complete with calming breeze and warmth

We’ve just returned from a four-day trip to recharge our batteries from the stresses and frustrations of school. Midterms were over and it was time for a well-deserved break. And break it was: we hiked, snorkeled, sang, prayed and talked. What an adventure.

            Just getting out in nature, not on my bike, and feeling the majesty of nature around me reminded me of why I love life. Standing at the top of Har Shlomo, gazing out at Egypt, Israel, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia at almost the same time was an incomparable experience. I recognized my insignificance in the place while at the same time seeing that I gain incredible power from being in that place. I will not bring about world peace, nor will I solve the problem of world hunger. I will however be able to harness the beauty I found in this place and bring it back to Jerusalem to help those around me.

Extra vertical

Taish's adventure's with my camera, on the way up

            I felt so calm, being up there, in shorts and a t-shirt, sweaty and gross, stinking as if I hadn’t showered in days. And that was just the first hour. We all sat there and marveled as the sun beat down on us and our own abilities dawned. We truly experienced the power of a strong united force, helping each other to conquer a rather steep climb. (I even got to do a little side – well, vertical – climb!)

            The way down was much longer. We slowly made our way across the Eilat mountains, grasping the hand rails for dear life and carefully placing our feet below us. As the entire thing was downhill, my knee ached, but I ignored the pain for the most part. Besides, what good did it do me to dwell on it when I needed to concentrate on NOT FALLING OFF THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN!

The way seems tough, but with patience, is feasible

            Throughout the hike, I was right behind Taish, our guide. By the way, he was incredible, humorous and all in all pleasant to be with. He even told us bad jokes (What is brown and sticky? Etc). But he was wonderful for Hebrew practice and aid. And a great source of amusement when it came to his English (we taught him the difference between be cautious and use caution) and the fact that our Hebrew was way worse than his English!

            However, the most important thing I realized was a need to exercise patience. No matter where we were on the mountain, I was in the front. In order to not lag behind, I often stay in front on hikes and found that this was no exception. At one point, Taish inquired as to where my off switch was. He simply was wondering if I knew how to slow down, and I of course told him no. Although that is not quite true (I do need to sleep every once in a while), I recognized the importance of sometimes slowing down and watching the world around, or taking the time to actually take in the sights.

            Fortunately, the Mincha service that Ben and Benj planned was much along that same vein. They didn’t use prayer books. Instead, we sang the words that have been imprinted upon our minds and hearts in the past few months and years. We joined as one voice, hearing our voices echoing throughout the canyon. The best part by far was the Amidah, where we found our own personal spaces to communicate with God, personally deceiphering the message we wanted to transmit. I found a space on top of a rock, looking out into the valley, and simply thanked God for the ability to be there, to appreciate my body and my abilities.

            The next day dawned early, bringing with it sore bones and a nasty head cold. However, physical sickness has never truly hindered me. So, I went out again, this time to Kibbutz Lotan. That is a place where I definitely want to spend more time, learning about Eco-living and farming/gardening in a place that is both in and not in Israel, depending on the person being asked and the time (shmita year or not-the year when the fields of Israel need to be left bare).

            From there we drove down to Eilat, through the city and past many plants and piers. We ended up at a Coral reserve, where we had two hours to enjoy the beach, sand, warmth, water, coral, and fish. Enjoy, I did! I immediately changed into my bathing suit and took my snorkel over the bridge to get into the water past the reef. The pier was placed there to protect the reefs, so people enter the water past the reef and will not accidentally trod on the delicate animals. I was awe-struck by how beautiful the reef was. Although not St John (in terms of warmth, beauty of the water, and sand), it out-shown it by a long shot. This was a straight reef, following the shoreline and full to bursting of fish! I saw eel, clown fish, giant Rainbow fish and more. I’m pretty sure a puffer fish showed itself at one point!

            I was in heaven. I swam around in the water, away from the protected reef site, and hung out above a reef for a while, relishing the feeling of being in the water and experiencing another eco-system at work. What an incredible experience. When I eventually tired of swimming and feeling my joints locking up from cold, I swam in and simply enjoyed the sand and warmth for a while.

            Back at Kibbutz Yahel, we prepared for Shabbat and together walked over to the Beit K’nesset. Danny and Sam led me in one of the best Kabbalat Shabbat services I have EVER had, full of music, joy and warmth. The feeling of calm and peace that engulfed me was enough to last even to the moment, as I type these words back in Jerusalem. The two of them were enjoying themselves, and their excitement was strong in the air. Sara and Chase followed them with an equally lovely Ma’ariv, which led nicely into our walk back for dinner.

            Once the dishes from dinner were cleared (replete with Danny’s chastisement of another table “If you aren’t clearing, you’re doing the wrong thing” as a throwback to camp table-clearing), we pushed all the tables together and joined in a rousing rendition of Birkat Hamazon. Never in my life have I heard it sung with more gusto! Following that, we all continued to sing, doing all those songs we love most from camp and with passion! The sense of community I felt overwhelmed me and I was glad to be with such an amazing group of people.

            A few people weren’t completely satisfied with the amount of singing, so we took our sidduring outside the Moadon (“club”, but really hangout space) and continued to sing for another two hours or so. We were all smiling and laughing by the end. Shabbat with a group of people is such a joyful experience and I wouldn’t trade that opportunity for the world!

            The next morning continued the beauty, as we ventured into the desert for Shachrit. Shana and Max led an incredible service and truly amazed me with the pop-culture they used to tie the service together. At one point, when we weren’t sure if we were going to have a Haftorah reader, we took turns saying a bracha of something we were greatful for, to which we all replied with a shouted AMEN! The reverberation of our voices in the mountain was incredible.

            My d’var Torah was tweeked slightly by our location. Instead of starting in front of everyone as I initially intended, I went up on a rock behind them. Simon was lying down and I simply used him as a prop, having God (me) tell Jacob (Simon) that he and his ancestors would be as numerous as the dust on the earth. It was a beautiful way to start a d’var and allowed me to get into the moment and truly enjoy.

           This tiyul brought many surprise, including a new friend. Michael and I started talking on the road back in the machtesh, discussing the army and his service in it, and just kept talking through the weekend. I realized that I enjoyed talking to him. It was so odd, to realize I had spent almost five months with someone, yet knew very little about him or her. Although we interacted on a basically daily basis, we never got past the basics. Finally, we broke through that and got to know one another. Not only that, but I gained a friend. I'm most amazed by the small details of a change of scenery that can significantly change  perspective. I gained the older brother I’ve always wanted and just had a blast. He said he had to give in to me like a younger sister, but that I was pretty okay as they went. Seeing as I’ve always wanted an older brother (besides Noah, who is my OTHER honorary older brother), I’ll take it.

The Har Shlomo group, connected and happy after the hike!

            Lucy said it best. It was wonderful to truly reconnect with our classmates and realize how well we all get along. We are all incredible people and at this point in the year, we were finally willing and ready to open up to each other. We all met and interacted with new people on this trip and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity to make new friends and enhance my relationships with these people who will be my future colleagues.

            Although I sit at my kitchen table with a congested head and little energy, I am filled with joy, strength and passion, and cannot wait to see what that renewed sense of purpose will bring to the future. Thank you to everyone who made this experience happen. It was well worth it. And, we even got to return to Jerusalem with a cease-fire in place!!!

Vayeitzei (And you will go)

--> I gave the drash in the desert, during our tiyul this past weekend. I began standing on a rock, as God, proclaiming Jacob's future as the father of the Jewish people. The following are the words which I penned:

Jacob lay down his head to sleep. Now, most of the time when we go to sleep, we don't expect to have a memorable dream, we simply go through the motions of falling asleep, to then awaken the next morning. Here too, we assume that Jacob was no exception. Yet, as we know, Jacob will become the father of the Jewish people. As active readers, we see that this particular dream, found at the beginning of this week’s Parsha, vayeitzei, begets that legacy that created who we are today.

God is in...

God appears before Jacob in Gen 28:13-14, at the top of the ladder, telling him [hebrew]; "...the land on which you are lying I will give to you and to your descendants. And your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth." God continues speaking, telling Jacob that his descendants will spread out through all directions of the earth, that God will help Jacob and his descendants find blessings. Oddly enough, the Torah does not speak of Jacob's descendants as simply being blessings, but that they will FIND blessing. God continues to say that God will watch over Jacob, in fact, ושמרתיך, God will protect him and guard him. When Jacob awakens, he says in Genesis 28:16, אכן יש ה׳ במקום הזה ואנוכי לא ידעתי.  "God was in this place and I did not know."

We see in Jacob a promise of the future, of both what the future will bring and what it entails. This promise comes before Jacob falls in love with Rachel, working for Laban for fourteen years and first marrying Leah. This promise comes before Jacob has his 13 children, from four women. This comes before Jacob takes more than half of Laban's sheep and does magic in order to increase his own stock. This comes before Jacob has yet another dream where it is requested that he return to his native land.

In spite of all this, Jacob is called to be a blessing for all of us. He is the past, the present and the future. He is the great one whose descendants eventually became the Jewish people. However, he is also the individual who did not notice God's presence. Rashi commentates that Jacob would not have slept in the place he chose, because God was present in that place. Jacob is unaware that the place where he is about to sleep is holy, that indeed every place is holy. If he knew this tidbit, at least before he lay down to sleep, he likely would have refrained from sleeping there. Regardless, he slept on holy ground. However, the p’shat, or simple, way of discovering the parsha is seeing that God is in everyplace, as Julie Silver’s popular camp song refrains, I am all around, in every day dream. I am all you are, and all you know. It then flows into the Hebrew that we heard above: achein yeish adonai, b’makom ha zeh, vanochi lo yadati. The I in the song is God, and God is referred to as being constantly around us, surrounding us. Jacob feels God’s presence, just as strongly the next morning as he did in the midst of his dream.

The blessing in all of this is that we CAN find God and the presence of God everywhere we go and within everything we do. God is truly all around us, supporting us, helping us. Even here, in the middle of this desert, God surrounds us. Some of our people’s most profound experiences took place in the desert. Every time we are in search of God, sanctity, connection we as Jews end up in the desert. We may not feel God, but we know God exists, that God is here. God told Jacob he would spread out, yama, tzafona, vkedma, vnegba; West, North, East, and South. We are in negba, the Negev, named after that Biblical direction, the Southern part of the land of Israel.

The sun, bursting through the seams of cloud

Here, in the middle of the desert, we find serenity from the attacks and hatred that usually greet us on the news or in the streets. We are surrounded by majesty instead of hatred, by magnificence instead of despair. This place, hanegev, is the escape of our people, from Biblical time to now. A few weeks from now we will read the 40 year wandering saga, most of which took place in and around this desert, away from other peoples. Only there did we unanimously answer na’aseh and join in a covenant with God, and did the people begin to converse with God. Our ancestors often ventured into the desert to converse with God, for connection or sanctity.

So the question then becomes, why are we here now? The connection we create to this place through the story is stronger than time. By being here, we see ourselves relative to the larger world. We are re-connecting and re-committing to both who we are and what we want to become. We are like Jacob, laying down wherever we find a place and then commenting on it in the next moment. However, we must rise above Jacob’s example and ask what we want to take out of this experience. We go through our lives, doing the necessary work to receive what we desire. Again, instead of simply doing the work, we must ask who we will represent in this world, what we will stand for. We are even more like Jacob when sit today as the continuation and part of the fulfillment of the legacy he was promised.

Here, in the desert, we are part of the reality of the covenant, but it is still just us, together, now. We must decide to accept the yoke of the covenant that God made with Jacob, to recognize that if God is all around, the way we act in business or relationships or daily life matters. We cannot simply dismiss negative behavior or actions. Rather, we must continue to engage in a conversation. We must actively decide to be better, to pursue honest and just work practices and relationships. Today, I take Jacob’s promise to heart and, here in the majesty of the desert, recognizing my insignificance, I pledge to continue to work for the realization of that covenant. To work for the compassion and honesty and Godliness that should be in the world. Do you?

We remember

A reading before Kaddish Yatom (Mourners Kaddish)

They are gone, but their memories live on.
We remember, we cannot blink them away.
Today we see your souls, your light a blaze.
Encouraged, we move forward.
Whether 8 months or 80 years, we remember.
We acknowledge your life and bless your presence.

Monday, 19 November 2012; 14:06

Why I am a Reform Jew

It's been a while since I've written. A regular update to come soon, as so much has occured (I just attended the Israeli rabbinical ordination, last week I spent 2 hours talking with people in the West Bank....). But for now, just a simple essay we had to write for one of our classes entitled, Why I am a Reform Jew

            Choice. Freedom. Growth. Passion. Adventure. Discovery. Reform Judaism, in its many facets, has afforded me the opportunity to explore both who I am as a professional and as an individual.

            As a Reform Jew, I have the ability to choose what practices work best for me. I can daven with an Independent, Egalitarian Minyan or with an ultra-Orthodox congregation. The doors of any synagogue, especially in Jerusalem, are open to me and offer a unique prayer service. However, my knowledge base was not strong enough to allow me the opportunity to attend my choice of service. Yet, as I explored the customs and traditions that grew from generations past, I became aware of an immense beauty in the amorphous liturgy. Reform Judaism gives me the opportunity to learn from this plethora of institutions, and then truly decide which place works for me. Although I appreciate the traditional Ashkenazi shul, with a high mechitza separating the men from the women of the congregation, that is not the place for me. I like an Egalitarian service, but one that goes through the entire service, reads the entire Torah Portion. I like knowing what the full service looks like, with all the different pieces and parts. The experience of knowledge enables me. Without it, I cannot choose what I want because I am not in possession of all the individual pieces. Reform Judaism allows me to then piece together the aspects of tefillah that most resonate with me and find the passion within myself. I get a feeling of kesher, connection, to the generations.

            Reform Judaism has a huge base in aggadic tradition, looking more to moral and ethical guidelines than to the ones prescribed in the Torah, as supposedly given by Moses on Sinai. The options are endless for how a Jew may choose his or her practice, and my life is no exception. I can dress modestly (which I explored for a short time), I can choose to keep strict Biblical Kosher and wait a certain amount of time before I eat. I can decide that I do not want to touch men until I am married, and then only my husband. And those are just a few examples of outward signs of what Judaism might look like. However, I do not personally choose all of those things. I want to explore them, to potentially understand how those practices might enhance my life, but as a Reform Jew in the twenty-first century, I am able to make a choice. I choose to keep Kosher, but only to the point where I do not mix milk and meat. Keeping two sets of dishes does not necessarily resonate with me. I will wait until the table is cleared to eat dairy after meat, but not an hour or 6. I choose to touch men now, for two reasons. One, that I want to know what I’m getting into before I marry and because it can enhance a relationship or be a significant part in discovering if a connection between me and another person is sound.

The symbolism of how a person interacts with their environment is often a telling way of ascertaining what their beliefs are (especially here in Israel, where a kippah or skirt deems someone as religious). However, as a Reform Jew, my Judaism is fed from within. I am proud to be a Reform Jew when I lead a worship service that utilizes guitar, piano, and pure voices. I am proud to be a Reform Jew when I see the power the Union has to assert help for the victims of Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast. I am proud to be a Reform Jew when I go to Ethiopia, to Haiti, and see the immense continuing relief work that the JDC engages in on behalf of the Jewish people.

            Education and synagogue attendance may not be the highest they have ever been, but those who are engaged in Jewish education and who attend t’fillot regularly are ones I am proud to be associated with. They are passionate about what they are learning and even choose to pass on the knowledge to others, ensuring that Judaism will live on! I get to be a part of that. Not only that, but the passion and spiritual depth of the youth of this Movement will carry Reform Judaism (and every strand of Judaism) into the next generation. I look forward to the fact that I will one day teach these young people, bestowing upon them the same sense of adventure and love of learning that NFTY and Jewish camping instilled within me. I am a Reform Jew because NFTY and the URJ Camps, specifically GUCI, inspired me and continue to offer so many the opportunity to see Judaism in action, to live Jewishly, even for one month and a few weekends out of the year. The discovery that occurs at camp, helping children understand how special Reform Judaism is, demonstrating to them that Judaism is a living breathing entity that they are indeed apart of; that is my inspiration. Just walk into a chadar ohel after any meal at most URJ camps and the amount of ruach, spirit, is overwhelming. That inspires me and keeps me going, pursuing Reform Judaism and the Rabbinate in particular.

            Not only that, but Reform Judaism doesn’t go away. It isn’t pushy about what people should and shouldn’t believe and allows people to create their own personal path. My congregation at home instituted a program called IJP: Individualized Jewish Path. This project helps individuals or families figure out what their most profound Jewish journey is and what steps they individually need to take in order to see it to fruition. Although the number of individuals who took advantage of this opportunity was not public knowledge, the direct impact was that many more lay leaders emerged within the congregation. People started planning their own personal Mitzvah projects, creating a Mitzvah garden on the synagogue grounds or developing a Mitzvah tree, with different Mitzvah opportunities available for congregants to do. Passion evolved and demonstrated the power of individual choice on a congregational basis. Each time I came home from school, I saw more people at services, more people eager to take control of their own Jewish journey. I am proud to be a Reform Jew because I am both part of that movement and that people. I have seen the inspiration of many a person and been personally instilled with a sense of responsibility for not only my fellow Jew, but my fellow man. I am a Reform Jew because we, as Jews, care about all people and take pride in being both willing and able to help anyone in need. We help those individuals explore their personal connections and aspire to assist them in as sincere and singular a way as possible, in order to allow them to pursue their dreams and desires.

            The path of conversion used to be something that was kept a secret. Not only that, but if you were homosexual, there wasn’t an option to be a part of many congregations. Now, due to the hard work of the then UAHC and the CCAR, both converts and people of any sexual persuasion are accepted into the Reform Jewish world. I welcome everyone to daven, to learn, to engage in Tikkun Olam with me, and cannot be more appreciative and respectful of the stand Reform Judaism takes.

While dating someone who was not Jewish, I began feeling a stronger desire to go to services. I wanted to learn more and be able to engage in deeper discussions about the meanings behind traditions. Even more than that, he constantly asked me questions about a particular practice and what it meant. I would get frustrated, feeling that he should know the answers. Yet, now that he has developed a deeper understanding of the ritual and the tradition, he pushes back and engages in a dialogue all his own.  He encourages me to understand my practice and why I do it, not because he doesn’t understand, but because his practice is so different from my own. Reform Judaism allows us to engage in a dialogue about the future, about him becoming Jewish and what that looks like, of him having a woman help him through the process of conversion. Reform Judaism is the reason he is choosing to be Jewish and therefore I am incredibly proud be find my home here! Although we are no longer dating, he has continued to explore Judaism on his own and hopes one day to convert. I saw first hand the power that Judaism can have in someone’s life as well as how much I personally enjoy teaching it. As a Reform Jew, I have the opportunity to do that!