Hey all,
I knowwww I suck, I haven't written in about a month. I'd say it's just because I've been really busy, which I have been, but that's not really the reason, since I'm not significantly busier than I was before. I think that I've just been feeling a lot more involved with things here, and concentrated on stuff, that I haven't really felt the need to sit down and write things out. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, but so it goes. I actually have been writing a lot more than usual, but not fun writing, more work-writing. My boss is giving me more work to do, so that's cool, and I'm learning a lot about SEO writing, which is good for my resume, but it also means I spend a lot of my off-time at the computer typing, so that's probably also why I'm not as good about blogging. Anyways, here's an update:
Still learning, still growing, still happy. That's basically it, in a nutshell. I know, not too exciting, update-wise, but I guess I kind of like that nothing too crazy has happened. It's nice to have some routine, some regularity. I got through times when I'm not as into things, but then I always encounter some really inspiring class, or a really interesting person, or a really deep experience, right when I need another push to get excited again. For instance, my favorite Rabbi just started teaching again in the Old City, so I've been going ot his classes at night with a few friends, and I learned some really incredible stuff there about Shabbat and Chanukah. Unfortunately, he's switching the class to the middle of the day, which is when I'm in school, so I can't go anymore. But that's ok, I got the reinvigoration that I needed, and that's enough for me.
Chanukah is this week! That's exciting. I really love this holiday. I used to always enjoy my family's Chanukah parties so much when I was little....I remember the smell of the latkes cooking in the kitchen, and playing dreidel with my cousins in the living room, and singing songs and lighting candles, and of course, getting presents. There's a song called Maotzor, and in it there's a line that goes "v'shir mizmor," and my Dad would always change it to "v'Shira mizmor," and for some reason that always made me feel really special. I'll miss that this year. Maybe you can call and sing it to me, Dad. And my mom had this tradition every year of giving me 8 little presents every day of Chanukah, so that every day was another surprise. So I always associated Chanukah with happy family times. Of course, like I outlined in my G-d post a little while ago, in high school Chanukah came to represent something a bit depressing for me, which was my loss of belief in miracles and in G-d himself. So that sucked for a while. But now that I'm here and learning such incredibly deep concepts and philosophies about the holiday, it's back to being one of my favorites, if not my favorite of all. It's definitely a lot deeper than a happy singing time where you get presents, and there's more to it than I ever would have realized. I love things like that, which are great both on the surface as well as much deeper. Even the name "Chanukah" has som really interesting meanings and depth to it (no, it doesn't mean "festival of lights". It actually means "dedication." If you're interested in the deeper stuff let me know, I'll email you about it, it's pretty neat.) Sooo yeah I'm really excited for it now. We made chanukiot in school (that's the technical term for the menorahs we light – "menorah" actually only refers to the one in the temple, which only had 7 branches, not 8. Sorry if this kind of thing is repetitive to all my Ramazy friends ;)) and mine is very simple, but I like it that way. It's 8 clay jugs on a plain wooden board. I figured I'd buy pretty candles and let the light be the exciting part. And since this year I'm living with a bunch of girls who are also very into the holiday, we're gona have a great time every night singing together and playing dreidel. We also are having a Chanukah party Monday night, so that'll be cool. Not the same as being home with all my cousins, but cool nonetheless. ALSO Ezra is coming, so that'll be even more of a reason why Chanukah will be awesome this year. Sooo yay! Happy Chanukah!
What else. I spent this Shabbat in Nachlaot, which is where I was that time when I wrote that whole post about how great a Shabbat I had. Friday night was....interesting. My friend Alisa and I ate by a family who we had never met, and they always invite a ton of people for Friday night. The table was full of random, interesting people, and it made for some slightly odd conversation. One guy came in wearing a tee shirt with Arabic writing on it, so I asked him what it said. He said, in an accent I couldn't recognize: "it says, 'Am I the overpopulation?'" (he wasn't Arab, btw.) So some really outspoken and rude lady responds, "yes, they are. Now you know my opinion on the subject." Soooo there was nervous laughter all around. Then someone asked him where he was from, and he responded, "Palestine." So that same lady pretty much lost it at that point, and started yelling at him, "This is a Jewish Shabbat table! Don't bring that kind of talk in here! There is no such thing as Palestine!" So the rest of us were like....eep. Calm down. Not helping. So the host took the guy and the lady outside to talk to them privately, and then they both came back, him not wearing the tee shirt (he had a long sleeve shirt under it,) and her looking all huffed up like she had just been reprimanded by the Kindergarten teacher. Anyway the rest of the meal went pretty smoothly until we went around doing introductions, and he said: "Holy brothers, I am here finding life. I was born to mother Earth. I intend to study in a Buddhist monastery and then move to Japan." Hm. Interesting. So someone asks, "why Japan?" and he says, "To find my wife there. I find that Japanese women have a grace about them. I would like my wife to be Japanese." Nervous chuckles again, but then we realized he wasn't kidding. (the lady, meanwhile, looks like her head is about to blow up.) So we pressed him a bit, and he was totally serious. He's never been to Japan, but he is learning the language, so he will be able to speak to his future wife. He even came up to me and Alisa to ask us if we had any Japanese converts in our school that were unmarried. Sooooo yeah, I have no idea what his deal was, definitely a screw or two loose, and none of us even knew if he was Jewish (although he had been learning at Chabad in Italy for a little while, apparently, so we thought he was, but then when we asked him if he was looking for a Jewish Japanese woman, he said, "well, the Jewish don't always like this." So, no clue. Interesting, though. The rest of the guests were really cool, and our hosts were amazing, so it was actually a really nice time, aside from that realllly awkward moment at the beginning. I hate when politics comes up here...it always gets ugly. And when it's on Shabbat, it's even worse.
For lunch, we ate by my boss's family, where I was for Simchat Torah. That was great. They had a bunch of birthright people over, and they have a tradition that they go around the table and have everyone say something, either a word of Torah or just something inspirational they thought of or experienced that week. So Alisa and I said some stuff we had learned in classes, but the birthright crowd was just amazing, because they all spoke so much from the heart. They were talking about how beautiful it is to be in Israel, to be experiencing Shabbat for the first time in a real way, to be feeling so connected to their heritage, to be realizing that you can be "observant" and still be totally normal and cool. It was really amazing to hear them speak like that. One of them said he came from an Orthodox family, but that he totally rejected it because it was so rigid and unhappy for him, and for several years he has avoided anything Jewish at all costs, but that being here, he's realizing that he had put up all these blocks because of his childhood, and that really Judaism holds so much beauty that he wants to look into now, and find in his own way. I think it's pretty mature of someone to recognize that they had put blocks up to something, usually that's a pretty subconscious process, and one that most can never admit to. So being at this home, with these incredibly open and sweet and loving and environmentally conscious, and vegetarian (he thought you weren't allowed to be vegetarian for some reason,) hosts, who were not judging him in any way for how he was dressed or what he said or thought, he realized that you can really find you own way in Judaism, and you can be connected to your people in such beautiful ways as long as you find the right community and the right lifestyle for yourself. Sweet.
OH also, in shul this morning, there was a girl here from birthright whose parents never gave her a Hebrew name. So during services, the Rabbi officially gave her the Hebrew name she chose, (Tzipporah Tova,) and gave her a blessing, and then the whole shul sang and danced for her. It was really quite moving...I definitely teared up. Mom, you would've been bawling. J She was crying and everything, and it was just so amazing that this whole shul full of people who she's never met before were rejoicing for her. I love when people come together like that. Happens a lot here, despite what you might think. A name is a really important thing in Judaism, it's supposed to reflect a person's true essence. They said in Shul that the word for name is "Shem," and those letters also spell "Sham," which means "there." "There" means your destination, your goals. So, your name reflects your goals in life, the place you are always trying to get to, your deeper self. Hebrew names are really meaningful, since they are either Biblical, or they are combinations of words with real meaning. No one has a Hebrew name that has no meaning or is just a random combination of sounds; for instance, my name means song, or poem. I definitely feel connected to that, since I love to write. (when I was little I thought it meant I was a singer, but I've since learned that I don't have the most amazing voice in the whole world. Not the worst, either. But....not worthy of being named for it. J I do love to sing, though!) My second Hebrew name is Tamar, which means date (as in the fruit,) and is also a character in the Torah, who I always thought was pretty sketchy, but I've since learned that she was actually a really integral character, who did what she needed to do to get the right thing done, which is pretty cool. (The whole line of kings ended up being her descendents, and Mashiach is supposed to also come from that same line. So, much as her actions seemed sketch, it seems she was rewarded a thousand times over for dong what she had to do, since she wasn't afraid of embarrassing herself or lowering herself to do what she knew was right/what G-d told her to do. I still have my issues, but apparently my teachers here think she rocks.) Also, there's a line in prayers that goes, "tzaddikim c'tamar yifrachu" which means that the righteous people will blossom like date trees. So that's cool that date trees are compared to tzaddikim...I haven't gotten to ask about what the connection is, but maybe I'll find out and get back to you. Sooo that's my name. And I love it.
Hmm what else. I was reading an awesome book over Shabbat about a scientific theory that the whole universe is really a hologram. I didn't get too far into it, but I did learn about holograms and several ways they can be paralleled to the way the human brain works, which was interesting. I'm also reading "The Lonely Man of Faith" by Rav Solovaitchik, which is a philosophical essay that's probably way over my head, but I like to pretend I understand most of it. Also....I bought three new pairs of earrings for 20 shekels in the shuk on Friday....I got an email from Ramaz telling me that they lost 6 million bucks from their endowment to that bad bad Wall Street dude who was stealing everyone's investments (ohhh what a world,)...I bought all my friends here fuzzy socks for Chanukah....I went to Tel Aviv last week and met a bunch of really nice people my age, so that was a lot of fun, and we also stayed with a guy who is the head news correspondent for the Knesset, so he was really interesting to talk to....the charger for my computer broke so I had to order a new one which won't be here for 2 weeks so I have to borrow my friend's which is annoying but she's really nice so it's not such a big problem....anddd persimmons in Israel are REALLY yummy.
I think that about sums it up! I'm gonna go watch The Office with my roommates now.
I love you all, sorry again for being bad about posting. Feel free to email me anytime, I'm good with answering those. J
Love, Shira
