I have been rolling over these words in y head all day with no luck. What is to be said to resume work on such an intimidating project? further, what exactly do I write? Do I begin where I left off? last week? I last wrote about the fourth of july, a post that eventually became so boring I eventually abandoned it at a full page of writing. The fourth of July will not be first post of the new week. So how about the following Shabbat? I thought it would be so important to touch on, and yet, it was a boring event of which the complete recounting would take about half a page. Not to mention that it has faded a week from my memory and will likely be dull in forced recollection. That is out, at least for the time being, as is the events that followed. The kinneret and the Mikve, Tsfat, the trying night at the Hostel (I spelled it right this time), or the return to the kinneret and the second Mikve. No. Instead I must resume posting here and now. With current events.
As many of you must have been wondering, the rockets have been intense. To be absolutely clear, our campus has been in the shelter exactly four times. The first was a siren. The second was a planned campus drill. The third was a neighboring siren, the alarm was technically only for Tel Aviv. The fourth was a siren that interrupted class and sent us to the shelter for the song session that has been circulating facebook.
I feel no danger. Truth be told, the first siren was exhilarating. I was here! I was part of it! Its happening to me! I looked around the room trying to suppress a giddy smile and was surprised to see people shrieking, their faces frozen in anxious masks of fear. I didn't understand. I don't understand. Students are incapable of thinking reasonably when it comes to the shelter. They giggle and scream. They don't calm down even when the campus director is shouting at the top of his lungs for everyone to sit down. There is no order.
To their credit, most kids are not worried. The initial shock of the first alarm wore off for them and they became just as passive as me. And yet, that was when the problems began. Parents have been calling up their kids all week. one at a time, our number is being picked off by ignorant "guardians" stealing the lives of their own kids because of a misplaced, uneducated, blind fear. We've lost three already, five more will be leaving tonight. To those parents out there, I hope you read my blog. Let AMHSI publicize this so you can know exactly how much you are hurting this program and these kids. You appall me.
The first two left last Sunday. The class visited the grave of Rachel that day, so known she needs no surname. That was the last we saw them before they were bussed off to the air port. We said our goodbyes in the graveyard.
Sabrina was a wonderful girl. She accepted everyone and led a band of misfits in the girls dorm, not that she'd ever accept the title. She was the kindest person in the whole dorm, always thrilled to make the tiniest gesture of goodwill to make you feel included and all with upmost genuineity.
Ari was a rightwing conservative git that had thought Bush really knew how to run the country. After hours of arguments in which I was never quite sure if he would pull a knife on me, we had finally found our stride only two nights before. On those last days we'd argued better than ever. We said goodbye with a firm handshake, a hug, and a solid pat on the back.
They started the avalanche. Michelle left just yesterday, never my favorite person after her insistent rock-throwing, but I'd gotten over my petty grudge and with a few more weeks, we may have been friends... We may not have. The twins, Trevor and Elliott, were bound for the airport that same day, due to what we all thought was a miraculous twist of fate, they announced that they would be in fact staying. I remember the wave of relief that washed over me when I heard. I remember my heart sinking when they found out it would not be the case.
Tonight, we are losing five. The twins, Jared, Sophie, and Austin Bierman. Of all the people that could have left, I'll miss Bierman the most. Bierman, who swore that if his mother sent him home he'd run away and live with his sister in Jerusalem. Bierman, who smashed his favorite lacrosse stick to a mangled wreck when he heard he was going home. Bierman, who gave away half his possessions in what I'm sure is some last hurrah to spite his mother without confrontation. Bierman, who never once let himself be seen with anything but a smile on his face despite the pain he was feeling for leaving.
Last night I wandered the hallway of the dorm aimlessly. The passages of the Holocaust museum were a constant chattering echo in my head as I collapsed, motionless on my bed in what could not have been considered a comfortable position by any means. I stayed there, still. The memory of all the death and destruction and hatred was congealing a sharp pain beneath my sternum. I was angry at the kids for leaving. I was angry at their parents for taking them from us. for the first time in months, I let myself fall into sleep before even realizing it, sad and broken.
I haven't eaten today even as the clock pushes past seven. I only noticed when it reached lunchtime and I still hadn't had anything. At that point I decided to go all in. It's technically a fasting holiday today, although even most religious Jews aren't observant. This is my tribute to the kids who are leaving. This is my testament to my own dedication.
The slightest part of me envies them, and I hate me for it. The more I think, the more I miss the wet, green grass of Seattle. I miss the smell of whiskey. I miss showing my artwork to my dad. I making plans of what to do when I get home. I wish I could be here now. What right do I have to wish for home when my brothers and sisters are being forced home. The program feels like its ending. I can't help but think of home. The most I can hope for is to be able to savor my last two weeks to the absolute fullest. As the councilors keep saying, these are memories that will last a lifetime.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
With a Deadline
Dear readers. I apologize profusely for my week of inaction. As activities stack up, posts I plan to write get more and more daunting. This combined with the infrequency of viable wifi coverage have made posting problematic. As it is, I currently have ten minutes before my wifi is shut off for the night. This makes the third consecutive day following my week of procrastination that a lack of update has been due in full to a lack of means, rather than a lack of motivation. We keep arriving from our daily outings later and later, making writing frustratingly challenging. Please know that I am alive, well, and all but unaffected by the rockets, though far from complacent in my thoughts. As soon as I have the means I will continue with updates. Please continue reading, you are my encouragement and reassurance.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Shenite Metzada Lo Tipol
The day on Masada is more or less a blur. As I must confess, with the late night in the hostile, the three am wakeup call, and the all but vertical hike, by midday I was too spent to stay conscious. I would wander along in the midst of the group whenever we moved, try my absolute hardest to concentrate on Akiva as he detailed the siege of Masada and their way of life, then, inevitably, I would feel the wave of sleep wash over my brain and I would not be able to stay awake long.
Masada, as we were taught, was a Roman fortress taken by Jews in the second revolution and renovated by king Herod, the last Jewish king. For years the Jews lived in their mountain palace in a perpetual state of rebellion against the, for the most part, absent Romans. However, by the end of its time, Masada had attracted the Roman eye a bit more than it would have liked and the Roman battalions surrounded the city and began their siege. The walls of the keep were made to be layered in times of danger. At their strongest they were made sixteen feet thick, virtually impenetrable. Yet, the Romans are a fierce enemy. The constructed a ramp up the weaker side of the mountain, aiming for a small area where the wall did not stand. On the night that the ramp was completed, the Romans withdrew to rally their forces and prepare their siege tower that would bring them the last 40 feet to the summit. The Jews despaired. In one last display of rebellion, they gathered at the center of town and made their decision. Suicide. That night, each man would comfort his family, lay them on the floor of his home, and kill them. He would then make his way with the other men to the center of town, and there they would select ten men to kill the rest. Those ten would then write their names on shards of pottery and draw straws to kill the other nine. The last man would kill himself. The shards were found in the excavation of Masada. When the Romans breached the wall, they found no one. Not a soul. They cautiously explored the city, eventually finding the rows and rows of bodies. They were in awe.
The story echoed in my head like a scream of despair. It struck me profoundly and made my stomach weak. I wanted to leave, but I sat, half in dream, and listened to every slow, painful word. The class got up and began to walk. Their were the usual grumbles of complaint, we were near the end of our stay and itching to begin our descent. I put the story out of my mind.
We walked to a part of the mountain we had not yet seen, an outcropping beyond any of the ancient construction of the city. There was a platform stuck into the face of the mountain, oddly modern beside its neighbors, that hung off into a valley. I have used the word valley before. Ignore that. This was a chasm. Hundreds of feet to the ground below, we were surrounded by mountains as tall as Masada or higher. I picked up a small stone and threw it as hard as I could into the gaping maw of the desert. I watched it sail upwards in a graceful arc, form a perfect parabola in the sky and fall, fall, fall until it dwindled in size to a grain of rice and was finally lost from view before even touching the ground. Any mark it made there was equally indistinguishable.
Akiva gathered us once again. We did as he said and copied his words, shenite metzada lo tipol. Masada will not fall again.
"SHENITE" He proclaimed
"SHENITE" We replied
"SHENITE" Came the echo from the mountains, startling us into eager chatter
"METZADA"
"METZADA"
"METZADA"
"LO"
"LO"
"LO"
"TIPOL"
"TIPOL"
"TIPOL"
The mountains chanted in reply to our exuberant declaration. Alone, we could not muster the volume to merit a reply. Together, even the desert gave us its blessing.
"AM"
"AM"
"AM"
"ISRAEL"
"ISRAEL"
"ISRAEL"
"CHAI"
"CHAI"
"CHAI"
The nation of Israel is alive!
Masada will not fall again!
Masada, as we were taught, was a Roman fortress taken by Jews in the second revolution and renovated by king Herod, the last Jewish king. For years the Jews lived in their mountain palace in a perpetual state of rebellion against the, for the most part, absent Romans. However, by the end of its time, Masada had attracted the Roman eye a bit more than it would have liked and the Roman battalions surrounded the city and began their siege. The walls of the keep were made to be layered in times of danger. At their strongest they were made sixteen feet thick, virtually impenetrable. Yet, the Romans are a fierce enemy. The constructed a ramp up the weaker side of the mountain, aiming for a small area where the wall did not stand. On the night that the ramp was completed, the Romans withdrew to rally their forces and prepare their siege tower that would bring them the last 40 feet to the summit. The Jews despaired. In one last display of rebellion, they gathered at the center of town and made their decision. Suicide. That night, each man would comfort his family, lay them on the floor of his home, and kill them. He would then make his way with the other men to the center of town, and there they would select ten men to kill the rest. Those ten would then write their names on shards of pottery and draw straws to kill the other nine. The last man would kill himself. The shards were found in the excavation of Masada. When the Romans breached the wall, they found no one. Not a soul. They cautiously explored the city, eventually finding the rows and rows of bodies. They were in awe.
The story echoed in my head like a scream of despair. It struck me profoundly and made my stomach weak. I wanted to leave, but I sat, half in dream, and listened to every slow, painful word. The class got up and began to walk. Their were the usual grumbles of complaint, we were near the end of our stay and itching to begin our descent. I put the story out of my mind.
We walked to a part of the mountain we had not yet seen, an outcropping beyond any of the ancient construction of the city. There was a platform stuck into the face of the mountain, oddly modern beside its neighbors, that hung off into a valley. I have used the word valley before. Ignore that. This was a chasm. Hundreds of feet to the ground below, we were surrounded by mountains as tall as Masada or higher. I picked up a small stone and threw it as hard as I could into the gaping maw of the desert. I watched it sail upwards in a graceful arc, form a perfect parabola in the sky and fall, fall, fall until it dwindled in size to a grain of rice and was finally lost from view before even touching the ground. Any mark it made there was equally indistinguishable.
Akiva gathered us once again. We did as he said and copied his words, shenite metzada lo tipol. Masada will not fall again.
"SHENITE" He proclaimed
"SHENITE" We replied
"SHENITE" Came the echo from the mountains, startling us into eager chatter
"METZADA"
"METZADA"
"METZADA"
"LO"
"LO"
"LO"
"TIPOL"
"TIPOL"
"TIPOL"
The mountains chanted in reply to our exuberant declaration. Alone, we could not muster the volume to merit a reply. Together, even the desert gave us its blessing.
"AM"
"AM"
"AM"
"ISRAEL"
"ISRAEL"
"ISRAEL"
"CHAI"
"CHAI"
"CHAI"
The nation of Israel is alive!
Masada will not fall again!
The Hole in the Sky
From the desert, we had driven to a youth hostile, where we spent the night preceding our morning hike. For the sake of common decency I will avoid detailing the events of the night in the hostile, but in a word I think "male-bonding" is the best descriptor.
We were woken at three in the morning to the sounds of a very belligerent alarm, at which point we groggily rolled out of bed, gathered our belongings, and assembled in the lobby for a breakfast of shrink wrapped fruits and bread. We slowly filed into the parking lot, on the brink of despair at the heat, hotter then in the dark of morning than we had yet experienced, as we hypothesized that the heat would only climb as the sun raised in the sky.
We began our ascent on the rocky trail, many of my dorm including myself easily surpassing the majority of even the group ahead of us. In the first twenty minutes I had already downed half a liter of water and made considerable progress on my second bottle, trying to lighten the load of the bag strapped to my back. We raised higher and higher, almost never losing sight of the hostile where we had stayed the night before even as it shrunk to nothing but a dollhouse at the distance between us. The dessert had no texture, no green to block the view of any of its vast expanse. We could see all the way to the dead sea and past that on to Jordan.
I made a futile effort to capture the moment on camera, but even though, in absence of the sun, the light was now enough to see well, the camera could not grasp the majesty of the view. Its weak facsimile was dark and without definition, capturing only a pinprick of the detail or expanse of the landscape.
I looked up at the long, drawn out line of people preceding me, a line of Jews working their way up a desert mountain in a long, twisted line. The image evoked memories of old religious stories, the Jews walking through the desert on the way to the parting of the sea, on the way up the mountain to receive the Torah, walking for forty years through a wind blasted craggy terrain that I could barely stand for forty minutes.
To my grateful surprise, as we climbed the wind began to pick up and it became cooler. The heat was more crisp and defined. Its rays were harsh, but nowhere near as suffocating as the heavy, suppressive, dark heat of the morning. Nevertheless, I was sweating profusely from every inch of my body, the liters of water I had guzzled coming back and being released. It felt fantastic, I could practically feel myself becoming lighter, more limber, freer of the toxins pervading my system. I wiped my forehead again and again to prevent it from dripping down my face and holding longingly to my nose or my eyelids but to no great effect. The top of the mountain was nearing.
Higher and higher and higher, we were nearly at the top and the entire stretch of mountain was now laid out beneath us, illuminated by the blue pre-dawn glow. Finally, in one push of victorious effort, we rounded the last corner of the trail and stepped out into the crumpled fortress of Masada.
We explored the ruins to some degree, finding vantage points over the edge of the mountain where we could ogle at the view and take a few obligatory photos. Then we made our way up to Akiva on yet a higher ridge of the mountain. He had wrapped himself in a Tallis and Teffilin. He told us to face to the East, off the side of the cliff, and began to daven quietly, rocking back and forth to his own diatonic chant. We waited for the sun to rise.
I sat on the wall of the fortress, feet dangling out over a twelve foot drop, classmates on either side, looking straight out at the distant mountain range. Then, ever so tentatively, yet oh so determined, the first sliver of white peeked over the cliffs. And then it was out, rising steadily and actually quite quickly, pulling itself hand over hand to escape from the rocky turf. In less than five minutes, its whole circular glory could be made out, removed from the ground. The sun was whiter than I had ever seen. It was a hole in the sky, completely blank, as if someone had punched through the grey-blue material of the sky with a perfectly clean cut and through it we could see some other reality, surpassing the physical world, incomprehensible but for its clear white purity.
My neighbor gasped and said "Just think, four hours ago this was setting on the east coast." Suddenly I could see the turn of the Earth beneath my feet, I could feel us rotating, our face turning towards the light of this fiery burning ball thousands of miles away. I held in my minds eye a picture of the entire planet. I could see where I stood. I could see my Mom, my Dad, and my brother seven thousand miles away. We were united. Time was absolutely relative. In that moment, we both indisputably existed in that moment no matter when that moment was in our lives. Day and night were a fiction.
We were woken at three in the morning to the sounds of a very belligerent alarm, at which point we groggily rolled out of bed, gathered our belongings, and assembled in the lobby for a breakfast of shrink wrapped fruits and bread. We slowly filed into the parking lot, on the brink of despair at the heat, hotter then in the dark of morning than we had yet experienced, as we hypothesized that the heat would only climb as the sun raised in the sky.
We began our ascent on the rocky trail, many of my dorm including myself easily surpassing the majority of even the group ahead of us. In the first twenty minutes I had already downed half a liter of water and made considerable progress on my second bottle, trying to lighten the load of the bag strapped to my back. We raised higher and higher, almost never losing sight of the hostile where we had stayed the night before even as it shrunk to nothing but a dollhouse at the distance between us. The dessert had no texture, no green to block the view of any of its vast expanse. We could see all the way to the dead sea and past that on to Jordan.
I made a futile effort to capture the moment on camera, but even though, in absence of the sun, the light was now enough to see well, the camera could not grasp the majesty of the view. Its weak facsimile was dark and without definition, capturing only a pinprick of the detail or expanse of the landscape.
I looked up at the long, drawn out line of people preceding me, a line of Jews working their way up a desert mountain in a long, twisted line. The image evoked memories of old religious stories, the Jews walking through the desert on the way to the parting of the sea, on the way up the mountain to receive the Torah, walking for forty years through a wind blasted craggy terrain that I could barely stand for forty minutes.
To my grateful surprise, as we climbed the wind began to pick up and it became cooler. The heat was more crisp and defined. Its rays were harsh, but nowhere near as suffocating as the heavy, suppressive, dark heat of the morning. Nevertheless, I was sweating profusely from every inch of my body, the liters of water I had guzzled coming back and being released. It felt fantastic, I could practically feel myself becoming lighter, more limber, freer of the toxins pervading my system. I wiped my forehead again and again to prevent it from dripping down my face and holding longingly to my nose or my eyelids but to no great effect. The top of the mountain was nearing.
Higher and higher and higher, we were nearly at the top and the entire stretch of mountain was now laid out beneath us, illuminated by the blue pre-dawn glow. Finally, in one push of victorious effort, we rounded the last corner of the trail and stepped out into the crumpled fortress of Masada.
We explored the ruins to some degree, finding vantage points over the edge of the mountain where we could ogle at the view and take a few obligatory photos. Then we made our way up to Akiva on yet a higher ridge of the mountain. He had wrapped himself in a Tallis and Teffilin. He told us to face to the East, off the side of the cliff, and began to daven quietly, rocking back and forth to his own diatonic chant. We waited for the sun to rise.
I sat on the wall of the fortress, feet dangling out over a twelve foot drop, classmates on either side, looking straight out at the distant mountain range. Then, ever so tentatively, yet oh so determined, the first sliver of white peeked over the cliffs. And then it was out, rising steadily and actually quite quickly, pulling itself hand over hand to escape from the rocky turf. In less than five minutes, its whole circular glory could be made out, removed from the ground. The sun was whiter than I had ever seen. It was a hole in the sky, completely blank, as if someone had punched through the grey-blue material of the sky with a perfectly clean cut and through it we could see some other reality, surpassing the physical world, incomprehensible but for its clear white purity.
My neighbor gasped and said "Just think, four hours ago this was setting on the east coast." Suddenly I could see the turn of the Earth beneath my feet, I could feel us rotating, our face turning towards the light of this fiery burning ball thousands of miles away. I held in my minds eye a picture of the entire planet. I could see where I stood. I could see my Mom, my Dad, and my brother seven thousand miles away. We were united. Time was absolutely relative. In that moment, we both indisputably existed in that moment no matter when that moment was in our lives. Day and night were a fiction.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
A Soft Silent Sound
I thought I knew what silence was. I had sat before in the forest of Seattle and listened to the quiet there. The only sounds the cracking of twigs and the scurrying of creatures. I had sat before n the park outside my house in the absolute dead of night. The only sounds the humming of the lampposts and the distant whir of engines passing every now and then. The sounds were soft, but not silent.
In Kings 19, there is a passage about the prophet Elijah. As he was fleeing for his life from the cruel king, he was told by an angle to go to Mount Horeb where he would meet God. On the mountain there was a great wind, a great earthquake, and a great fire, but God was not in any of them. Then, following these immense powers, there was a soft, silent, sound, and in that sound Elijah received his council.
I did not know silence until I went to the Negev
The Silence was audible. Tangible. Present.
The dessert stretched endlessly in every direction when we first arrived, burning hotter than any place we had visited before. Shortly after our arrival, we dispersed for silent meditation. I found a spot perched precariously on an outcropping of rock just above the valley that our party surrounded. I was farther out that anyone else. I crossed my legs and placed my forearms palms-up on my knees. I breathed the dessert in and out of my lungs following its progression down into my diaphragm, lower into my belly, up my spine and into my chest, then out in as slow and steady a stream as I could manage.
I could hear my breath in my lungs and hitting the back of my throat. I could hear my heart beating in my chest and temples with its heavy, dense pulse. I could hear the wings of a bird a hundred feet above my head. I could hear the teachers whispering to each other on the other side of the gorge. But mostly, I heard absolutely nothing. The lack of sound rang in my ears, a high pitch buzz of nothingness was being played in my head in insistent testimony from my brain that my ears must, in fact, be hearing something. The silent sound was only interrupted by the occasional whisper of the dessert. The click of a rock of the flutter of a fly.
I worked to clear my mind. I was absolutely still.
I was so still that a persistent fly took interest, curious about the invader in his patch of rock. He landed on my arms and my legs. In a moment I recall with a fair dose of pride and only a pinch of disgust, he even landed on my eyelid. Staying perfectly still even as he probed my face, my eye did not flutter and he stayed in place before venturing off unprovoked to explore elsewhere.
I was not sad to be rid of his insistent buzz. I was just short of pure emptiness of thought.
*clack*
someone had kicked a rock into the gorge, a nuisance, but passing.
*clack*
Again? I wished they would stop shifting. They didn't have to meditate but silence was the whole point.
*clack*
What the hell? Was someone throwing rocks? I turned my head to my left towards the noise. My neighbor of about a hundred feet was lounging uneasily. She swatted at an invisible fly around her head in exasperated irritation and picked up a rock. No, she wouldn't purposefully throw a rock into the canyon would she? That would destroy the whole point! The silence would be-
*clack*
...Really? Why? Why would you purposefully ruin such a beautiful moment?
*clack*
Again and again she threw rock after rock after rock after rock into the god damned valley. My cheek began to twitch uncontrollably every time I heard that god awful noise rattle around the desert and into my skull. How dare she? I just couldn't get past it. No matter how hard I tried to surpass the physical distraction, with each new stone falling to the ground I boiled up a little more inside. After the twentieth rock I was angry. Distracted and fully sucked into her little play for attention. I couldn't help but wish her ill no matter how hard I tried to purge thought from my head.
By the fortieth rock I was freely moving my head from side to side. Pleading to our neighbors to pass along some message to this girl who refused to look at me. When I made rare eye contact I would shake my head, no, no, no. Nothing worked. I had pulled myself out of my concentration and replaced it instead with this horrid obsession with this girl throwing rocks.
By the fiftieth rock I nearly spoke up. Barely holding myself back from descending to her level and breaking the silence even further. I had reached the conclusion long ago that I should pity her that she was so unbelievably insecure that she needed affirmation of peoples attention even during this, a sacred moment. Still, I couldn't find pity, only disgust. I was furious at her. I was furious at myself. I was giving her exactly what she wanted, regardless that she didn't even know. She had my attention one hundred percent.
after a short time, I managed to reach at least some level of peace again. Still, my cheek twitched each time the noise was struck again, but with closed eyes and stillness in my body I was able to achieve at least partial tranquility. Unfortunately, just a few minutes later, Akiva began a quiet song
"return again, return again, return to the land of your soul..."
and when I opened my eyes, people were muttering between themselves and edging back to the meeting place. The meditation was finished. I stood and walked back abruptly. Then sat in the circle with the same perfect posture I had maintained for the past half hour. I couldn't resist from passive aggressively staring, without visible contention, at my adversary who, when making occasional eye contact, would shift uncomfortably and look away. Again I gave her the attention she so desperately craved.
Akiva said a few words and we packed up to go. I had, at least for a while, discovered silence. I had heard the soft, silent sound of God. I would not let go of my spite for the girl for another two days. At least it passed.
The desert left me open. In the desert, I discovered a love for silence. In the caves, I discovered a love for darkness. In the dorms, I discovered an appreciation for solitude. Like I said to Daniel, as both good and evil are crucial to each others existence, so to is company and tranquility.
In Kings 19, there is a passage about the prophet Elijah. As he was fleeing for his life from the cruel king, he was told by an angle to go to Mount Horeb where he would meet God. On the mountain there was a great wind, a great earthquake, and a great fire, but God was not in any of them. Then, following these immense powers, there was a soft, silent, sound, and in that sound Elijah received his council.
I did not know silence until I went to the Negev
The Silence was audible. Tangible. Present.
The dessert stretched endlessly in every direction when we first arrived, burning hotter than any place we had visited before. Shortly after our arrival, we dispersed for silent meditation. I found a spot perched precariously on an outcropping of rock just above the valley that our party surrounded. I was farther out that anyone else. I crossed my legs and placed my forearms palms-up on my knees. I breathed the dessert in and out of my lungs following its progression down into my diaphragm, lower into my belly, up my spine and into my chest, then out in as slow and steady a stream as I could manage.
I could hear my breath in my lungs and hitting the back of my throat. I could hear my heart beating in my chest and temples with its heavy, dense pulse. I could hear the wings of a bird a hundred feet above my head. I could hear the teachers whispering to each other on the other side of the gorge. But mostly, I heard absolutely nothing. The lack of sound rang in my ears, a high pitch buzz of nothingness was being played in my head in insistent testimony from my brain that my ears must, in fact, be hearing something. The silent sound was only interrupted by the occasional whisper of the dessert. The click of a rock of the flutter of a fly.
I worked to clear my mind. I was absolutely still.
I was so still that a persistent fly took interest, curious about the invader in his patch of rock. He landed on my arms and my legs. In a moment I recall with a fair dose of pride and only a pinch of disgust, he even landed on my eyelid. Staying perfectly still even as he probed my face, my eye did not flutter and he stayed in place before venturing off unprovoked to explore elsewhere.
I was not sad to be rid of his insistent buzz. I was just short of pure emptiness of thought.
*clack*
someone had kicked a rock into the gorge, a nuisance, but passing.
*clack*
Again? I wished they would stop shifting. They didn't have to meditate but silence was the whole point.
*clack*
What the hell? Was someone throwing rocks? I turned my head to my left towards the noise. My neighbor of about a hundred feet was lounging uneasily. She swatted at an invisible fly around her head in exasperated irritation and picked up a rock. No, she wouldn't purposefully throw a rock into the canyon would she? That would destroy the whole point! The silence would be-
*clack*
...Really? Why? Why would you purposefully ruin such a beautiful moment?
*clack*
Again and again she threw rock after rock after rock after rock into the god damned valley. My cheek began to twitch uncontrollably every time I heard that god awful noise rattle around the desert and into my skull. How dare she? I just couldn't get past it. No matter how hard I tried to surpass the physical distraction, with each new stone falling to the ground I boiled up a little more inside. After the twentieth rock I was angry. Distracted and fully sucked into her little play for attention. I couldn't help but wish her ill no matter how hard I tried to purge thought from my head.
By the fortieth rock I was freely moving my head from side to side. Pleading to our neighbors to pass along some message to this girl who refused to look at me. When I made rare eye contact I would shake my head, no, no, no. Nothing worked. I had pulled myself out of my concentration and replaced it instead with this horrid obsession with this girl throwing rocks.
By the fiftieth rock I nearly spoke up. Barely holding myself back from descending to her level and breaking the silence even further. I had reached the conclusion long ago that I should pity her that she was so unbelievably insecure that she needed affirmation of peoples attention even during this, a sacred moment. Still, I couldn't find pity, only disgust. I was furious at her. I was furious at myself. I was giving her exactly what she wanted, regardless that she didn't even know. She had my attention one hundred percent.
after a short time, I managed to reach at least some level of peace again. Still, my cheek twitched each time the noise was struck again, but with closed eyes and stillness in my body I was able to achieve at least partial tranquility. Unfortunately, just a few minutes later, Akiva began a quiet song
"return again, return again, return to the land of your soul..."
and when I opened my eyes, people were muttering between themselves and edging back to the meeting place. The meditation was finished. I stood and walked back abruptly. Then sat in the circle with the same perfect posture I had maintained for the past half hour. I couldn't resist from passive aggressively staring, without visible contention, at my adversary who, when making occasional eye contact, would shift uncomfortably and look away. Again I gave her the attention she so desperately craved.
Akiva said a few words and we packed up to go. I had, at least for a while, discovered silence. I had heard the soft, silent sound of God. I would not let go of my spite for the girl for another two days. At least it passed.
The desert left me open. In the desert, I discovered a love for silence. In the caves, I discovered a love for darkness. In the dorms, I discovered an appreciation for solitude. Like I said to Daniel, as both good and evil are crucial to each others existence, so to is company and tranquility.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
The Lazy Day
Final Part of the Shabbat Series
The next morning I woke up at 10:30, the family had all but vacated the house completely for school or morning services (although, unknown to me my cousin Gavriella was still sleeping upstairs) and had thoughtfully let me sleep for Shabbat. Not wanting to make a disturbance the house I did not yet know was empty, I quietly dressed and snuck downstairs, skipping my usual shower because I was unsure if it constituted "work". My phone and laptop were powered down and hidden in my bag, off limits for the day, there was not much to do.
I snuck down the stairs half way and saw Daniel in the kitchen. I didn't want to talk. I really didn't want to go to services again and while I knew he wouldn't make me or even push too hard, there's always the perfectly tailored Jewish guilt. I went back to the bedroom and looked over Eliav's books, eventually settling on a copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass which I made considerable progress through over the day. When I heard the door open and shut again, I wandered downstairs and fixed myself a cup of coffee, careful not to mix the milk and meat dishes or even place my empty milk designated cup on the clear meat designated tablecloth. The coffee, as I have learned, is not, as the campus brew led me to expect, universally terrible, but distinctly different. It is all ground and instant, no beans or filters. I'm actually coming to quite like the stuff.
A few hours later the family returned and I put aside the book. Conversation sprung back up and we prepared for lunch. Once again, the food was incredible. We sat down to a two course meal of salads and chicken and rice-like dishes and sweet potato pie. We said the Birkat again and then settled back in our chairs for some discussion. Then, as so often happens with discussion and Jews, we settled into our argument again. After yet another length of rousing debate, in which Aviva came out of nowhere with points that took me down a peg to say the least, we drifted to various corners of the house content and tired. Daniel had, during our argument, pulled two books off his shelf that he insisted I read even if I had to keep them. The family slept and I read, cover to cover, If You Were God by Aryeh Kaplan. The book was repetitive to the point of redundancy, self contradictory every other page, and written by an obvious narcissist who saw no other way of thinking than his own occasionally baseless claims towards the nature of Angles, Evil, and God. However, to it's credit, much of it was well cited in scripture and it raised some impressive questions that really made me think, first and foremost being,
'If you had the powers of God but could not reveal yourself, how would you form a community into a righteous, peaceful civilization?'
Unfortunately, Kaplan explored only one possible solution, very different (although worryingly similar in all but two key ways) from my own (reached independently prior to reading the large majority of the book).
Once he woke from his nap, I told him (in fewer and less critical words)what I thought. He gave me a sly look like he pitied me that I couldn't understand the pieces depth and just said
"read it again"
I laughed and said
"yeah that's the way to learn, read one source over and over until you believe it" hoping my deeper meaning was clear. He didn't say anything to that.
That night we revisited their shul for a Shabbat potlatch. We began with a service once again in which, again, I was hopelessly lost. Then we ate, we sang a little (more songs that I'd never heard), and went home.
We had been scrambling to find me a bus route home the night before because the computer was not shomer shabbat. It had seemed like it all worked out, but when I got to the station, after half an hour of waiting, we had no such luck. We had done a Havdallah at eight thirty, so we were free to work again. Even so, there was nothing for it. My intended route had me taking the first bus from Effrat to catch the last bus from Jerusalem back to campus. When it didn't come, there was no way I was making that bus. Daniel drove me halfway and we picked up a pair of hitchhikers before realizing it would be to late. We kept on just the same and took them to where they needed to go and then swung back around to their house where I would stay one more night.
I must say, in no part because of the Zahavi-Asa's, I was done. I wanted to get back to campus more than anything. My teacher Akiva was on the line with Aviva, still trying to get me back. Missing class was not an option in his book.
"just get him a ride" He said, meaning hitchhike. He, in a fully Israeli style, seemed to have no qualms with the fact that I would be getting into a strangers car no more than a mile from the scene of the kidnapping. Had not it happened only two weeks earlier, I would've been game. As it was, Aviva pointed out that the contract I had signed prevented me from "taking tramps" and that I was going to have to stay there. That was that.
I slunk into bed and slept for the last few hours before awaking at the ungodly hour of five to catch the first bus back. I arrived at campus at eight thirty, just in time for class to begin, and spent a delightful three hours waiting out the clock to go back to the dorms and take a well needed respite. Shabbat was well past over. I was spent.
The next morning I woke up at 10:30, the family had all but vacated the house completely for school or morning services (although, unknown to me my cousin Gavriella was still sleeping upstairs) and had thoughtfully let me sleep for Shabbat. Not wanting to make a disturbance the house I did not yet know was empty, I quietly dressed and snuck downstairs, skipping my usual shower because I was unsure if it constituted "work". My phone and laptop were powered down and hidden in my bag, off limits for the day, there was not much to do.
I snuck down the stairs half way and saw Daniel in the kitchen. I didn't want to talk. I really didn't want to go to services again and while I knew he wouldn't make me or even push too hard, there's always the perfectly tailored Jewish guilt. I went back to the bedroom and looked over Eliav's books, eventually settling on a copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass which I made considerable progress through over the day. When I heard the door open and shut again, I wandered downstairs and fixed myself a cup of coffee, careful not to mix the milk and meat dishes or even place my empty milk designated cup on the clear meat designated tablecloth. The coffee, as I have learned, is not, as the campus brew led me to expect, universally terrible, but distinctly different. It is all ground and instant, no beans or filters. I'm actually coming to quite like the stuff.
A few hours later the family returned and I put aside the book. Conversation sprung back up and we prepared for lunch. Once again, the food was incredible. We sat down to a two course meal of salads and chicken and rice-like dishes and sweet potato pie. We said the Birkat again and then settled back in our chairs for some discussion. Then, as so often happens with discussion and Jews, we settled into our argument again. After yet another length of rousing debate, in which Aviva came out of nowhere with points that took me down a peg to say the least, we drifted to various corners of the house content and tired. Daniel had, during our argument, pulled two books off his shelf that he insisted I read even if I had to keep them. The family slept and I read, cover to cover, If You Were God by Aryeh Kaplan. The book was repetitive to the point of redundancy, self contradictory every other page, and written by an obvious narcissist who saw no other way of thinking than his own occasionally baseless claims towards the nature of Angles, Evil, and God. However, to it's credit, much of it was well cited in scripture and it raised some impressive questions that really made me think, first and foremost being,
'If you had the powers of God but could not reveal yourself, how would you form a community into a righteous, peaceful civilization?'
Unfortunately, Kaplan explored only one possible solution, very different (although worryingly similar in all but two key ways) from my own (reached independently prior to reading the large majority of the book).
Once he woke from his nap, I told him (in fewer and less critical words)what I thought. He gave me a sly look like he pitied me that I couldn't understand the pieces depth and just said
"read it again"
I laughed and said
"yeah that's the way to learn, read one source over and over until you believe it" hoping my deeper meaning was clear. He didn't say anything to that.
That night we revisited their shul for a Shabbat potlatch. We began with a service once again in which, again, I was hopelessly lost. Then we ate, we sang a little (more songs that I'd never heard), and went home.
We had been scrambling to find me a bus route home the night before because the computer was not shomer shabbat. It had seemed like it all worked out, but when I got to the station, after half an hour of waiting, we had no such luck. We had done a Havdallah at eight thirty, so we were free to work again. Even so, there was nothing for it. My intended route had me taking the first bus from Effrat to catch the last bus from Jerusalem back to campus. When it didn't come, there was no way I was making that bus. Daniel drove me halfway and we picked up a pair of hitchhikers before realizing it would be to late. We kept on just the same and took them to where they needed to go and then swung back around to their house where I would stay one more night.
I must say, in no part because of the Zahavi-Asa's, I was done. I wanted to get back to campus more than anything. My teacher Akiva was on the line with Aviva, still trying to get me back. Missing class was not an option in his book.
"just get him a ride" He said, meaning hitchhike. He, in a fully Israeli style, seemed to have no qualms with the fact that I would be getting into a strangers car no more than a mile from the scene of the kidnapping. Had not it happened only two weeks earlier, I would've been game. As it was, Aviva pointed out that the contract I had signed prevented me from "taking tramps" and that I was going to have to stay there. That was that.
I slunk into bed and slept for the last few hours before awaking at the ungodly hour of five to catch the first bus back. I arrived at campus at eight thirty, just in time for class to begin, and spent a delightful three hours waiting out the clock to go back to the dorms and take a well needed respite. Shabbat was well past over. I was spent.
Shabbat with Family
Part One of The Shabbat Series
My memory of last Friday and the weekend that followed is frustratingly sparse for the small amount of time that has passed since its occurrence. I find that I must write nearly every day to avoid losing precious moments into forgetfulness. Unfortunately, when so much is taking place, internet, not to mention motivation, is a rarity to be savored. As it is, I remember waking up the morning after the shloshim to Daniel quietly saying my name. To my relief, I did not take much coaxing (as far as my own memory goes) and was relatively easy to get up. There was a moment of confusion when I looked around at my all but completely unfamiliar surroundings and tried to puzzle out where I was, then I remembered and quickly climbed out of the bunk above my sleeping third cousin Eliav.
The morning was still grey, the sun not quite illuminating the stretch of road between the home of the Zahavi-Asa's and their shul so early in the day. I put on one of Daniels kippah's, a large style in conservative brown that slid back on my head when I moved began the short walk up the hill to the shul, where Daniel was bringing me to join his morning minion.
I struggled to follow the words in the Hebrew prayer book. Daniel had thoughtfully brought me one with an English translation, but seemed to forget that a translation wouldn't help me chant along any better than full Hebrew script. As the leader mumbled along at top speed through prayers, many of which were completely unfamiliar to me, the congregation of twenty or so men stood and bowed in unison without being prompted. I awkwardly followed their lead, enduring the stares from men around the room, all aware and silently critical of the stranger among them wearing a t-shirt,shorts and neither a tallis nor T'fillen like the rest. At least my Hebrew had been improving enough to say the bare bones of the service along with them.
The service finally came to an end and Daniel led me out to his car to go buy groceries. On the way, Aviva called him and we circled back to give a ride to Eliav and his friends. It was as commonplace to give rides to your own kids as it was to give to friends and even strangers. We stopped for a few hitchhikers after dropping off the boys. It was peculiar at first, especially in light of the recent kidnapping, but mostly they sat quietly in the back and didn't interrupt. We drove past the round about where the boys had been taken several times that weekend.
From there we drove to the "Peace Market", where jews and Arabs could shop side by side. Daniel intended it to be a revelation to me I'm sure, but raised apart from conflict as I was, it would've been far stranger to see a segregated market. That being said, there were very few arabs there. Tensions, it seems, were to high to mingle. Daniel told me that if I saw anything I wated I should grab it. I wasn't hungry, barely thirsty, and honestly just wanted to stay quiet and unobtrusive.
"Humor me" he said, laying on the Jewish guilt. I clumsily grabbed some chips, a flavor we don't have in America, figuring that if he asked it must be the polite thing to do. We went to the bakery, the health food store, bouncing all over the market, each time Daniel encouraging me to get more and more. I eventually got more comfortable but wound up with more food than I could eat all weekend. Later it would become clear that I was expected to eat everything before Shabbat and there was a definite air of disappointment when I couldn't. Daniel kept telling his family to ask me if they could eat "my" food that he had told me to gather and had paid for. How was I supposed to be polite?
We returned to their home and began to cook, that's when the conversation turned to politics. Daniel, a self proclaimed right wing fanatic and humorously attested fascist, seemed to be the incarnation of every old-white-republican caricature that the left wing news sources that I had been raised on had taught me to scoff at. He thinks Obama is weak, that the democratic party is full of naïve optimists who sing kumbaya (actual words), that government supported birth control is nonsense, and that Rachel Maddow is insane. We kept running into the issue of evil and what is to be done about it. He would cite the Talmud that "we must purge evil from our midst with fire" and I would question his definition of evil, why he thought himelf qualified to judge, and why the destruction of humanity, evil or not, should not in itself be considered evil. I was immensely grateful to my course for teaching me biblical history of the nation, because fresh in my mind were my own Talmud based rebutles and counter arguments. Over and over again we would return to the core issue, he could not imagine any reason why the Palestinians would do what they do. He said that they want Jews dead and that was that. He looked at no cause and effect, no exchange of cruelty, he was only a victim.
"They took our sons" he would say "that is all the proof of evil I need"
Our argument went most of the day and into the next to both of our satisfaction. We're Jews, we joked, argument is in our blood. Its fun. WE settled down on Friday a little before it got dark and got ready for Shabbat. When the rest of the family returned home, they got dressed in their nice clothing and got ready for services. Feeling underdressed, I borrowed one of Daniels white shirts that fit me about as well as a large tablecloth. To avoid the shirt falling to my knees, I tucked it into my shorts. Looking like a disproportional schoolkid, We walked back to the shul.
The environment had been rewritten to an unbelievable degree. We arrived to a room full of men bent over their books just the same, but instead of mumbling quiet incantations, they were now working full volume. The chorus filled out the room with out-of-sync harmonic minor gravitas. Each person sang soulfully and with passion. they each broke off into harmonies and supporting lines with absolute ease from years of practice and familiarity that I had never experienced in reform. The words resonated inside every person, their meanings were clear, not abstract as to someone who doesn't speak the language. They all knew exactly what they were saying and agreed with it full heartedly and still there was more.
I had never heard these melodies before. Many of the prayers, if I had ever heard them, I didn't recognize. Yet, in that musical little room, cramped with passionate daveners, I was able to follow along with ease. The words came, assisted by my neighbors and the scrawling text on the page, quickly and fluently. I sang the melodies when I could, improvised harmony when I had to, and fell right into the flow. When the services came to a close, we walked back down the hill to their home and had a truly amazing Shabbat dinner. I ate as much as I could but when I finished Aviva still asked
"do you want any more? No? Not a big eater huh?"
I hope as hard as I can that she didn't notice me openly gape at her. I was stuffed.
We said the Birkat HaMazon to close the meal and went to bed.
My memory of last Friday and the weekend that followed is frustratingly sparse for the small amount of time that has passed since its occurrence. I find that I must write nearly every day to avoid losing precious moments into forgetfulness. Unfortunately, when so much is taking place, internet, not to mention motivation, is a rarity to be savored. As it is, I remember waking up the morning after the shloshim to Daniel quietly saying my name. To my relief, I did not take much coaxing (as far as my own memory goes) and was relatively easy to get up. There was a moment of confusion when I looked around at my all but completely unfamiliar surroundings and tried to puzzle out where I was, then I remembered and quickly climbed out of the bunk above my sleeping third cousin Eliav.
The morning was still grey, the sun not quite illuminating the stretch of road between the home of the Zahavi-Asa's and their shul so early in the day. I put on one of Daniels kippah's, a large style in conservative brown that slid back on my head when I moved began the short walk up the hill to the shul, where Daniel was bringing me to join his morning minion.
I struggled to follow the words in the Hebrew prayer book. Daniel had thoughtfully brought me one with an English translation, but seemed to forget that a translation wouldn't help me chant along any better than full Hebrew script. As the leader mumbled along at top speed through prayers, many of which were completely unfamiliar to me, the congregation of twenty or so men stood and bowed in unison without being prompted. I awkwardly followed their lead, enduring the stares from men around the room, all aware and silently critical of the stranger among them wearing a t-shirt,shorts and neither a tallis nor T'fillen like the rest. At least my Hebrew had been improving enough to say the bare bones of the service along with them.
The service finally came to an end and Daniel led me out to his car to go buy groceries. On the way, Aviva called him and we circled back to give a ride to Eliav and his friends. It was as commonplace to give rides to your own kids as it was to give to friends and even strangers. We stopped for a few hitchhikers after dropping off the boys. It was peculiar at first, especially in light of the recent kidnapping, but mostly they sat quietly in the back and didn't interrupt. We drove past the round about where the boys had been taken several times that weekend.
From there we drove to the "Peace Market", where jews and Arabs could shop side by side. Daniel intended it to be a revelation to me I'm sure, but raised apart from conflict as I was, it would've been far stranger to see a segregated market. That being said, there were very few arabs there. Tensions, it seems, were to high to mingle. Daniel told me that if I saw anything I wated I should grab it. I wasn't hungry, barely thirsty, and honestly just wanted to stay quiet and unobtrusive.
"Humor me" he said, laying on the Jewish guilt. I clumsily grabbed some chips, a flavor we don't have in America, figuring that if he asked it must be the polite thing to do. We went to the bakery, the health food store, bouncing all over the market, each time Daniel encouraging me to get more and more. I eventually got more comfortable but wound up with more food than I could eat all weekend. Later it would become clear that I was expected to eat everything before Shabbat and there was a definite air of disappointment when I couldn't. Daniel kept telling his family to ask me if they could eat "my" food that he had told me to gather and had paid for. How was I supposed to be polite?
We returned to their home and began to cook, that's when the conversation turned to politics. Daniel, a self proclaimed right wing fanatic and humorously attested fascist, seemed to be the incarnation of every old-white-republican caricature that the left wing news sources that I had been raised on had taught me to scoff at. He thinks Obama is weak, that the democratic party is full of naïve optimists who sing kumbaya (actual words), that government supported birth control is nonsense, and that Rachel Maddow is insane. We kept running into the issue of evil and what is to be done about it. He would cite the Talmud that "we must purge evil from our midst with fire" and I would question his definition of evil, why he thought himelf qualified to judge, and why the destruction of humanity, evil or not, should not in itself be considered evil. I was immensely grateful to my course for teaching me biblical history of the nation, because fresh in my mind were my own Talmud based rebutles and counter arguments. Over and over again we would return to the core issue, he could not imagine any reason why the Palestinians would do what they do. He said that they want Jews dead and that was that. He looked at no cause and effect, no exchange of cruelty, he was only a victim.
"They took our sons" he would say "that is all the proof of evil I need"
Our argument went most of the day and into the next to both of our satisfaction. We're Jews, we joked, argument is in our blood. Its fun. WE settled down on Friday a little before it got dark and got ready for Shabbat. When the rest of the family returned home, they got dressed in their nice clothing and got ready for services. Feeling underdressed, I borrowed one of Daniels white shirts that fit me about as well as a large tablecloth. To avoid the shirt falling to my knees, I tucked it into my shorts. Looking like a disproportional schoolkid, We walked back to the shul.
The environment had been rewritten to an unbelievable degree. We arrived to a room full of men bent over their books just the same, but instead of mumbling quiet incantations, they were now working full volume. The chorus filled out the room with out-of-sync harmonic minor gravitas. Each person sang soulfully and with passion. they each broke off into harmonies and supporting lines with absolute ease from years of practice and familiarity that I had never experienced in reform. The words resonated inside every person, their meanings were clear, not abstract as to someone who doesn't speak the language. They all knew exactly what they were saying and agreed with it full heartedly and still there was more.
I had never heard these melodies before. Many of the prayers, if I had ever heard them, I didn't recognize. Yet, in that musical little room, cramped with passionate daveners, I was able to follow along with ease. The words came, assisted by my neighbors and the scrawling text on the page, quickly and fluently. I sang the melodies when I could, improvised harmony when I had to, and fell right into the flow. When the services came to a close, we walked back down the hill to their home and had a truly amazing Shabbat dinner. I ate as much as I could but when I finished Aviva still asked
"do you want any more? No? Not a big eater huh?"
I hope as hard as I can that she didn't notice me openly gape at her. I was stuffed.
We said the Birkat HaMazon to close the meal and went to bed.
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