The Rest of Ezra's Visit:
Ez had a really great time here, I think. He was learning at a Yeshiva here in Har Nof, and enjoyed that, for the most part. We had a great time together while he was here – had a couple of great dinners, (apparently I'm not cut out for Brazilian steakhouses...uh oh,) went to a couple of cool classes together (one about the kabbalistic meaning of music, and another about science and Torah with Gerald Schroeder, everyone's favorite MIT-educated biology and physics professor,) and just caught up in general with one another. If anyone's interested in his reactions to being here, you can check out his blog – he's a really great writer, and he details some of his thoughts on Yeshiva, and the Gaza war there. Let me know if you want the link. We also had a really nice New Years, which is definitely not the same kind of night in Jerusalem as it is in the rest of the world, especially during a war. We went to the music class, then I had dinner with a friend of mine, and we met up later at the lobby of the King David hotel (where I took my first steps!) and had some drinks with some of his friends who were visiting with their family. At one point, we were all just talking about random things, and someone quietly mentioned, "hey guys, it's 2009." Heh. It was cute. New Years has never really been my thing, so I definitely liked that. The war broke out while he was here, and his Yeshiva actually forbade them from going to public places, even threatening them with expulsion if they were caught there, which is interesting since my Seminary treated us a bit more like adults – they told us that we could make our own decisions, but that they advised against it. I'll get into that more in the Gaza part.
The Gaza Part:
I reallllllllllllllllly don't want to write too much about this, for the following reasons: 1. I don't want to get too political (my mantra lately,) 2. Once I start talking, I will probably get political, as well as worked up and upset and all the rest, and 3. You're probably somewhat sick of hearing about it. Although maybe not – maybe in America, this isn't spoken about every other minute of the day. But it is here. Anyway, I'll give you the parts you might be interested in, which is what it's like here, and what my non-political thoughts are.
Honestly, Jerusalem is exactly the same, except for a couple of extra police cars here and there. I've been staying away from public places mostly, and avoiding busses, but even that feels somewhat excessive to be honest. Last week an air-raid siren went off by mistake, and that freaked me out, but I actually think it was a good thing that happened, it gave us all the tiniest taste of what it's like in Sderot and other Southern cities, who hear those sirens multiple times a day and have 15 seconds to reach shelter. Of course everyone is talking about the war, and we are updated every day on the news, so it's on all our minds. Even now, after both sides have announced cease-fires, it feels no different since both sides are pretty much poised at the trigger still, and probably always will be.
I've been reading the news online everyday, from multiple sources to get a feel for what different media groups have to say. Sometimes it's downright infuriating, (both in terms of what's actually happening as well as the outright bias in certain newspapers....not getting political....) and often just sad. We had a whole class about the importance of feeling others' pain, focused on the current situation. We learned that we are meant to have two reactions to pain in the world: intellectual, and emotional. (Obviously it's not as black and white as that, but just for the purposes of breaking it down to analyze them, bear with me.) The "intellectual" reaction is one where we notice an injustice, and we try to react in ways that could stop it: we fight, we lobby, we send aid, we pray. But the "emotional" reaction is required – yes, required – of us, as well. This is a reaction that should come from someplace deep inside, someplace where it will hurt and affect us, even if we think or know there is nothing we can do to help.
We learn this idea, of feeling others' pain inside ourselves from a non-intellectual place, from Noach and Avraham: The flood was called the "flood of Noach," and the sages asked why it was named after him, if he was the hero of the story. Isn't that kind of a damning legacy? Why not the "flood of evil," or the "salvation of Noach"? The answer is because Noach did not cry out over the suffering of his generation, and try to save them all. But there's a question on this – as we know from Avraham later on, a group of people is only worth saving if there are at least 10 righteous people among them, which there were not in Noach's generation. So why should he cry out, if he knows there's no possible way they can be saved? And that's exactly the point: he should have felt their pain so much that he would have had to cry out, even though he knew there was no possible way he could save them. His cries should have come from that deep place where logic and reason don't matter, where the suffering of others is so real, so unbearable, that it would have been impossible for him not to cry out. The fact that he did not do so means that he did not feel their pain enough. And notice: Noach came before the Jewish people existed. This does not apply to only Jews, or only ones family, or only those one knows. This applies to ALL people – from the children in Sderot sleeping in bomb shelters to the innocent Gazans caught between cross-fires. I may not be able to do much to help, but I can at least do this – I can at least feel their pain, in real ways, every single day. And I do – I see the pictures, I read the testimonies, I receive updates from Neve Chana, the children's home I volunteered at a few summers ago, which remind me that these beautiful children who I knew personally, who I cooked lunch for and taught English to and went on trips with, are afraid for their lives every single day, and I literally feel my stomach turn. I learn from Noach's mistakes, and I realize that even though the situation feels futile, even though my prayers may not be answered, and diplomacy may not work, and war may not help, and in the end the whole world may hate Israel even more than they did before, even though all of that may be true – I still need to feel that pain. I can't run from it, or pretend it's not there, or go on about my day as if the suffering a couple of hours away from me is not happening. Of course, this applies to all of us, every single day, since there are constantly millions of people suffering all over the world. Being human, it's harder for us to connect to those who are different or far away from us. But we are told that Noach should have felt the pain of his entire generation – that means thousands of people he never met. So too should we feel the pain of our entire generation, our entire world.
I just want the suffering to end, whichever way that has to happen. I'm not a military strategist, or a political analyst, so I can't pretend to know whether war or diplomacy can accomplish this. I'm just a young woman who feels the suffering of other human beings in very real ways, and is willing to cry out in pain over that, every single day. So that's all I have to say about that.
(Now that I've waxed poetic, I'll give you a tiny bit of politics. Here's a quick list of things that infuriated me about this war, aside from the suffering: terrorist groups being legitimized as government organizations; any and all comparisons to the Holocaust; the world not noticing or caring too much about the rockets being shot into Israel every single day; the double-standard applied to the Israeli army [any other country would be allowed to defend itself without a constant barrage of criticism]; the clips of children in Gaza being taught to martyr themselves [see pmw.org]; Hamas forcing innocent people to act as their shields and talking-points. There ya go. I'll just quickly add that I know the IDF is not perfect, I'm sure they made mistakes, maybe even big ones. I think even they are willing to admit that. But I do believe they tried the best they could to minimize collateral damage and civilian deaths, and I think the allegations that they specifically targeted innocent people rather than Hamas are absolutely ridiculous. K, I'm done. Don't respond to this part, I don't want to get into debates. It's in parenthesis for a reason. It's parenthetical.)
What else I've been up to:
I've actually had a pretty eventful few weeks. Here are a few of the things I've been up to.
- Trip to the Negev: My school took us on a trip down south (don't worry, no where near Gaza,) to the Dead Sea. We went on a few hikes, and saw some gorgeous views. I spent a lot of time walking by myself among the mountains, and it was really breathtaking. I can try and post some pictures, though it usually doesn't work too well. There are some posted of me on Facebook, though, so you can check that out. I've been there several times, but every time it's incredible. There's something about desert mountains, the desert sky and sun, that just force you to introspect and marvel. Many say that's why the Jews were made to wander in a desert for 40 years – it's where they could feel closest to G-d, and to their true selves. I really felt that there.
- Ushpizin: There's a really great Israeli film called Ushpizin (Aramaic for "guests") which I'm sure many of you have seen, about a very poor religious couple who are given $1,000 dollars through charity, and end up running into a bunch of troubles involving a couple of misbehaved guests over the holiday of Succot. It's a really amazing movie, and gives a unique look into one type of religious lifestyle and thought. Anyway, last week we went to a screening of it, after which we met the actors who played the two main characters, and who also wrote the script. They are married in real life, and their lives are pretty similar to what's portrayed in the movie, they said. They were really cool people, very down to earth, very talkative, and absolutely hilarious. They described the effect the movie has had, how the religious and secular worlds reacted to it, and what their goals were in creating it. It's pretty rare in the Charedi world for someone to become a famous actor/screenwriter, so that aspect was particularly interesting to me. Also, they described some of the ways in which the movie has helped to bridge some of the gaps between secular and religious circles. Neato.
- Yad Vashem: January 6th was the 10th of Tevet in the Jewish calendar, which is a fast day, meant to commemorate the beginning of the siege on Jerusalem way back when the Temple was destroyed. But the Rabbis have instituted that we use that day to commemorate the Holocaust, as well. (Interestingly, Israel also instituted a Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is on April 21st this year, the only problem being that it always falls out in the Hebrew month of Nissan, when we are apparently not allowed to be in mourning, according to Jewish law. So that's why religious circles use the 10th of Tevet.) Anyway, in honor of that, we had a week of programming related to Holocaust remembrance, part of which involved going to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum. I've been there several times now, but each time is different, you go in with a different mindset, different perspective, and you notice different things. Also, this time we had a religious tour guide, who was emphasizing religious issues during the Holocaust as she gave the tour. This was fascinating, since things like that are often skipped on the usual tours there. For instance, I never thought about the fact that there was no Mikvah (ritual bath) in the ghettos, and religious women would not get married without that, nor would religious couples be able to sleep together/have children. Obviously the fact that they were starving and suffering precluded these as well, but just the psychological effect of a detail like that is something I had never considered. Another interesting part was a video I had never stopped to watch before, of a religious survivor talking about how they kept Shabbat in the ghetto – you are supposed to have meat and fish on Shabbat, so he said his mother would take one potato and designate it as the "fish" and the another potato was the "meat." He said that those potatoes were the best food he had all week, and the time he spent learning for a couple of hours each Saturday with his father were the only times he could actually forget about the fact that they were living in a hell on earth. Pretty intense. The next day, a survivor came and spoke to us about her experiences, and she was incredibly eloquent and captivating. Her story was very moving and terrifying, and yet so full of hope. No matter how many times I hear a survivor speak about their experiences, I always learn something new or feel something intense that I never felt before. There are hardly any survivors left now, and soon it will be up to my generation to try and pass on this message to our kids...I guess I just feel like without these first hand accounts, it will be impossible for them to really feel it, just like it's impossible for any of us to feel what our parents and grandparents did. Anyway, all of this happened right around when the Gaza war broke out, which is part of why I have been so bothered by all the Holocaust references and comparisons in Gaza. It just in no way compares, and every time it's mentioned in that kind of context, it is cheapened and forgotten, even if just a bit.
- Yoga: My friend Erika is a professional Yoga instructor, so she's started giving Yoga classes in her apartment every week. I've been going, and it's amazing. Of course my body aches for days afterwards, but it's definitely worth it. Sometimes its easy to get so caught up in learning that I forget to take care of my physical needs, like eating right and exercising. I'm trying to get back into that again, and Yoga is definitely helping. Also I've been cooking a lot. Yay health! Now to work on sleeping more....ha.
- Birthdays: Happy birthdays to my mom and Keri! Yay post-birthday shout-outs!
- Anniversary: January 14th marked 2 official years that I've been going out with Ezra...just wanted to mention it here so I could publicly thank him for my gorgeous new ring, (the stone is the same color as his eyes :)) as well as the chocolates and sushi and poems. I love you! :)
Arightey, I think that's enough of an update for now. The weather has been beautiful, Shabbats have been relaxing and fulfilling as always, and the learning is ever more interesting and satisfying. I miss you all.
Love, Shira
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