New Beginnings

Finally, something exciting to report!! As any of you who are reading this blog probably already know, my brother, David, just got engaged to his girlfriend, (fiancée!) Danielle! VERY exciting news. Danielle has already felt like a sister to me for the past few years, and now we will officially be family! I remember back at my sister Missy’s wedding, when I and my siblings were making guesses as to the order in which we would all get married. David kept saying he’d be last...and I believe my guess was: David, Keri, me, Blake. What can I say, I’m old fashioned, birth order makes the most sense to me. I wonder if we put money on that...if so, you owe my money, bro. I’d also like to point out that he proposed to her in a b&b Vermont, on their “non-romantic” get-away, as he insisted before they left. What a trickster, that one. Anyway, Mazal Tov to both of you, and may you spend the rest of your lives building a beautiful home and family together, growing ever closer and wiser and giving and loving toward one another. Aaaaamen.

Well, now I have even more of an excuse to come home at some point...I wanna help plan the wedding! Still, I’ve been thinking lately that I want to try and stay here through Pesach....maybe even Purim, since I hear that’s the best party here. I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling in a month from now. Also, my closest friend here will be leaving at the end of February, so that’ll probably have an effect on things. I tend to get really close with one or two people when I’m in new settings, and then just spend time nurturing those relationships, so when she leaves, it’ll be pretty tough on me. But that’s alright, I have a bunch of other friends here, and the country itself is enough to keep me wanting more of it (even though right now, the cold rainy weather is kind of bothersome. But not really since it’s much-needed water, which we have to be incredibly thankful for every time it rains, considering Israel has been in a draught for three years. My friend walked into school today, and said, “ugh it’s so gross out there!” and the school’s receptionist immediately responded, “Baruch Hashem!” Ha. Love that mentality. Go Israel.)

Ezra has been here for a few days, now. It’s been really great to see him and spend time with him again. We were both kind of nervous about it, having not seen each other for almost four months, but everything feels really good and natural still, which is wonderful. We had dinner a couple of times together, and caught up on things a bit. I gave him a Chanukiah that I made for him for Chanukah, which he likes a lot. Then he went off to his Yeshivalite program, which is basically 2 weeks of learning, here in Har Nof. So I haven’t seen him since a couple of days ago, though on the phone he sounds like he’s enjoying it mostly. Things feel really great with that right now, and I still can’t get over how incredible it is that he came here at all.

Chanukah has been amazing so far. It really is so beautiful here in Israel. Just walking down the street, seeing lit Chanukiot in every window...I get all emotional just looking at them. I thought maybe this is how Christians feel in America, seeing Christmas decorations everywhere...but I’m not sure it’s quite the same. I guess I wouldn’t really know, but now that I’ve learned all the deeper meanings behind the lights and what they mean and what the whole holiday symbolizes, I feel such a deep and intense connection to it, more than I ever have before. One of my favorite teachers likes to remind us often that there is no such thing as symbolism in Judaism. We don’t do anything as a “ritual” or to “remember” something. The things we do: the candles we light, the songs we sing, the blessings we make, they are not symbols, but rather living realities. Each time we do them we are bringing more of that reality into ourselves, our lives, and our worlds. We are re-inspiring ourselves with that same light that’s been burning in the windows and the hearts of our families for millennia. Our candles don’t “represent” the light from the Beit Hamikdash, the Holy Temple. They are that light, in a very real, tangible way. The energy has lived on, and will continue to until the very end. We learned that in the Temple, they had to re-build the Menorah every single day – the high priest had to actually remove the tops of the branches, clean out the oil, and replace them again each and every morning, effectively building a brand new menorah each time. This is considered strange, since we are told that the loaves of bread stayed fresh for a week miraculously, and that the special aromatic spices only needed to be changed once a year. So why didn’t we just get miraculously clean oil every day? Because this way, the light would always feel new and energetic. It was to teach us that just as the menorah is rebuilt and rejuvenated each day, so too we must do that with ourselves, keep each new day exciting and fresh for ourselves. I just find that so beautiful, and when I look in those windows, and see hundreds of Chanukiot lit each night as I pass by building after building on the bus ride to wherever I am heading, I think of that energy, and how we are all connected, and how we all still have that light, no matter how religious we are, or what we believe in, we still light those candles, and still feel that warm glowing inexplicable energy between us each night of Chanukah. Sorry to get all mushy on you. I guess I’ve been feeling pretty inspired by it all. I haven’t gotten any “presents” over Chanukah this year, (other than a really awesome melodic phone call from my Dad, and Ezra being here, which is a pretty big one, and of course, a whole new sister!! So actually, I have gotten some pretty sweet gifts, and I’ve still got three more nights!) and yet it’s been probably the best Chanukah I’ve ever had. Who needs more stuff when you’ve got this yummy internal warmth invigorating your every moment and relationship? Needless to say, I feel really, really good.

I also wanted to write a little bit about something we did yesterday at school that I think really shows what a great learning environment I am in. One of my good friends here’s grandmother just passed away over last Shabbat back in New York, and her parents already were planning on coming here to visit, so when that happened, her mother decided to come a few days earlier, right after the funeral. Since she is not religious, she chose not to sit shiva for her mother, since she felt it would help her more to be here with her daughter, anyway. This is her first time in Israel, and her first real glimpse into this world that her daughter has found so much happiness in. So the head of my school, Rebbetzin Pavlov, turned her mother’s visit into something neither she, nor any of us, will ever forget. She offered her a chance to sit shiva for her mother, just for a day while she’s here, in the Pavlovs’ living room (they live right above the school), and the whole school took turns going up and sitting with her. Rebbetzin Pavlov also gave a shiur right there in her living room to all of us, as well as to her, about the Jewish view of death and mourning, and the purpose of shiva, and just general comforting and inspiring words. Since most of the girls in the school come from completely secular homes, many of them had never been to a shiva before, nor did they know what it was even all about. Even I, who grew up in modern orthodox surroundings and have been to several shivas, have never actually been taught about it in a straightforward way: why we do what we do, say what we do, act like we do. So really, it was an incredible learning opportunity for all of us, as well as an immense gift to her mother, who kept saying over and over again how much she appreciated it, and felt so grateful to all of us and to the school for doing that for her. She had never met any of us before, had never been in Israel before, and certainly not in a religious setting like this one before, and here we were, treating her like family, and insisting that as a Jewish woman, she truly is part of our family. Rebbetzin Pavlov even said in her lesson, “we are not here to comfort a stranger. We are here to comfort our cousin, our aunt, our sister, our mother. And that is what any shiva is really about.” It was really incredibly moving, and I learned so much today, both philosophically and practically. By the end of the day, every single student and staff member had gone upstairs to be with my friend’s mother, and talk with her, and hear about what her grandmother had been like. I think this is a huge credit to my school, and really shows what kind of an institution it is. We don’t just learn abstract ideas; we learn about life, about relationships, about how to treat those you love as well as those you’ve never met before, and we learn to really put those concepts into action.

So, there you have it. Marriage and mourning, all in one blog post. What will she come up with next?

Shabbat Shalom, everyone! Happy Chanukah!

Love, Shira

PS AHHHHH DAVID AND DANIELLE ARE ENGAGED!!!!!

P.S.

"J" = :)

Apparently when I type my blog in word and then publish it directly from there, it thinks all my smiley faces are Js.

Maybe J is just an inherently happy letter?

Anyways. Keep that in mind. :)

S

Nobody Likes a Blog Slacker

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

 

Is There Light in Every Darkness?

I had a really incredible week with my mom here. She came to my classes with me, met my teachers and friends, and just spent quality time with me all week long. It was really amazing to have her here, being so supportive and loving and mommy-ing. It feels so good to be doing something with the support of the people who matter most. So many girls here have parents who are entirely unsupportive, for various reasons (I know one girl whose father told her he'd rather she became an escort in Vegas than a religious Jew,) and I guess having my mom here for the week and seeing her pride and joy over my happiness here was exactly the kind of boost I and many others needed.

On Tuesday we had Thanksgiving – my mom paid for the whole thing, and we invited a bunch of friends, and my roommate Alisa and I cooked up a whole meal, with all the trimmings. We made a whole turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, green beans, and I even made my Dad's stuffing, which came out really well considering I only had Israeli ingredients to work with. (The trip to the butcher was pretty funny. Here's an approximate transcript: "Do you have any whole turkeys?" "I can order you one." "We need it by tomorrow morning." "I can get you one tomorrow but it will need all day to defrost." "So how early can we get it?" "In the morning." "Will it be enough time to defrost so we can start cooking it for dinner?" "No." "Oh..." "Do you want one right now?" "Um...yes?" And off he goes to the back of the store, and comes out with a great big frozen turkey. No clue why he didn't just say he had one in the first place. Ah, Israelis. And butchers.) The dinner was really moving, since we are all far from our families, and we went around the table saying things we are thankful for and giving blessings to one another. My mom acted as everyone's mom, and it was just really heartwarming and beautiful. We also watched Lilo & Stitch, which is one of those underrated Disney movies that more people should see. On Thursday we went up north to visit a couple of charities that my family gives to. That was a really great experience. We visited Elem and Migdal Or, two really amazing charities, who do so much for underprivileged and abandoned children in Israel. Migdal Or was actually one of the most incredible places I've been to – the rabbi there, Rabbi Grossman, is very famous in Israel and internationally. He takes care of over 6,000 children at a time at his campus, as well as Jewish prisoners, soldiers, and anyone else who is in need. There is no discrimination between secular and religious, and nothing but total acceptance and love. For Shabbat, we went to the Carlebach Moshav, which was an interesting experience for my mom, who spent a few summers there about 30 years ago. There were a few people there who have been there since then, and she reconnected with a few very old friends. Unfortunately, my stomach decided to act up on Friday night, so I was in a lot of pain for several hours, which put a damper on things. But I got through it, and then Saturday was really nice. We hung out, we ate and sang and danced a bit. Havdalah was beautiful, as it always is on the Moshav since everyone gets together for it, and then we got back to the house and immediately checked the news to find out what happened to the hostages in India. That was extremely difficult, as we had been thinking of them and davening for them all of Shabbat, so to find out they had been killed was like a slap in the face to all our hoping and praying. My mom left a couple of hours later, and now here I am, back at school, writing my blog. It's hard to go back to the regular routine now, and I feel pretty homesick, but luckily I have great friends here to keep me company.

 

I want to write a bit about India, since it's on my mind. I don't mean for this to be at all political, or to spark any controversy in the peanut gallery, so just take this as my own inner ramblings rather than anything worth responding to, ok?

I HATE terrorists. I know hatred is bad, but I do. I also feel bad for them, but mostly, it's the hate thing. I can't stand the fact that they exist, that they can believe it is a good thing to hurt and kill innocent people. That they exist everywhere. That nowhere in the world is safe, especially for Jews and Israelis. That any individual person could look another human being in the eye, recognize the fact that they are a living, breathing, thinking, loving person/parent/sibling/friend, and then shoot them dead. I know that part of what makes us human is our capacity and our tendency to look for meaning in the world, even when it doesn't exist. We ask why when there's no answer, when the question isn't even really valid. This is one of those times, I think. I can't help ask why, I can't help trying to attach something cosmic, something grand and purposeful to events that ultimately defy explanation. And I come up totally empty. I know the stock answers, I know the way I'm "supposed" to feel about it, the therapeutic response. But it all just seems ridiculous right now. Sure, there will always be things we can't understand, but my ego is not ok with that. I can't just accept that. I read an article this morning in the Jerusalem Post about the attacks, and it says that when the cook of the Chabad house saved the toddler, his pants were soaked in the blood of the dead bodies lying around him. Maybe his parents. I can't read something like that without feeling genuinely sick, and angry, and hateful towards anyone who has it in them to create this type of suffering. I know people are suffering the world over, I know that even those close to me are often in incredible pain, but I guess when something like this happens, it highlights the craziness in the world, it throws it in your face and forces the tears out of you. I'm learning about hatred in one of my classes, what the Torah view of it is. It's pretty interesting, actually. It's not that you're not allowed to hate – you're just not supposed to do so in your heart. You're supposed to speak it out, try to resolve, try to relieve your heart of the weight of those negative feelings. So that's what I'm doing here. Letting it out or something. As for our enemies, we're told never to rejoice over another's suffering, even if it's an enemy. There's a prayer in the shmoneh esrei that asks G-d to destroy our enemies, (I believe Conservative and Reform synagogues remove this one because it's not PC,) but that was written specifically by a man named Shimon Hatzaddik, who was the Rabbi who constantly taught never to rejoice over the pain of our enemies. He wrote that prayer out of a desire to protect the Jewish people in the face of the constant suffering others were putting them through, not to inflict pain. (Much easier for us to be PC in a time when it feels like we're so safe....then something like the attacks in India happen and all of a sudden, it makes so much more sense to pray for that kind of thing. At least to me.) I know there's a difference...We can be glad for our own freedom and salvation, but not for the pain of others. So why do I still hope that those guys felt pain when the police finally shot them dead? I guess I'm not on that high a level yet. (again, I know this paragraph will probably spark comments, just understand, I know this issue is highly nuanced and there are several ways to think about it and look at it, and my words can easily be twisted into things I didn't mean, so just keep that in mind, maybe just leave it be.)

In other news, it's Kislev now, which means Chanukah is coming soon. I've been learning and reading a lot about it, and it's really such a beautiful and deep holiday, a celebration of light coming out of darkness, of comfort coming out of suffering. I'm pretty excited for it. Especially because a certain person will be here then, and that will be the best Chanukah gift of all.

Anyway. It's Tuesday now, and this week has been pretty tough. The events in India have thrown me for a bit of an existential loop, and on top of that I'm feeling homesick and particularly far away from the people I love. I feel like I'm constantly cycling through that here – missing home, feeling good here, then missing home even more, etc. etc. I've been thinking a lot about whether I will extend my trip here past February, and recently I've felt less and less like I wanna do that. Who knows, maybe my feelings will keep changing, in fact they probably will, so I'm not setting anything in stone yet. But at the moment, I want to come home pretty badly. (I wonder how many of my blog posts have ended this way. Probably quite a few.)

Love, Shira