Category: Religion

Family, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Parenting, Religion

Purim lots

Jen

My husband and I fell in love and got married quicker than you can say “Who moved my cheese?”

Almost as quickly, if not quicker, we got pregnant with our first kid.

We didn’t take the time to have the important parenting conversations like,

“Do you mind if our kids eat candy for breakfast?”

“Is it important that our kids go to college? Or is GED good enough?”

“Is it okay if our son marries his cousin?”

Somehow, we’ve made it this far without divorcing or selling one of our children on the black market.

Eventually, we had a lot of those crucial conversations, and luckily see eye-to-eye on most parenting issues.

Our values line up.

When we disagree, I can usually persuade him.  Sometimes it takes a few years…Like the time he refused to switch from Heinz ketchup to the organic Whole Foods brand.

Three years later the organic brand was in our fridge door.

(Now, in Israel, we’re back to Heinz. It’s a specialty item, which in Hebrew means “practically organic.”)

There was this one time, however, when my husband was right in the first place.

We were talking about our kids as teenagers and how comfortable we would feel if one of them decided to dress “Goth.”

My husband was insistent that we would be flexible about piercings and black lipstick and long leather jackets. He said we needed to foster their sense of creativity and self expression.

I could see his point, though I was hesitant and reluctant.

Truth is: I don’t want my kid to be the kid teachers and other kids are afraid of.

Also, I’ve never been good at not being scared of people who dress scary.

I don’t want to be scared of my own kid.

Our kids are still too young to be expressing themselves with their outerwear just yet, but one day a year, my oldest son wants to show off his dark side.

Purim.

The other kids come to the bus stop in homemade Mordechai costumes, or walking clever references to pop culture.

But my kid?

Year after year, he wants to scare the bejeezus out of you.

scary purim costume

My husband usually goes along with it.

But this year, concerning the above nail-impaled zombie mask, my husband was himself reluctant.

At first, he considering forbidding my son to wear the mask. (It was a gift from Saba and Savta.)

It’s not appropriate, my husband told me. Purim is not Halloween.

He’s right.

Or at least maybe he’s right.

Who am I to know what’s Purim appropriate? I’m still a Jew in progress. Still an immigrant mom. Still figuring out how not to embarrass myself on a daily basis.

But what I do know —  what I’m sure of — is that my husband was right when we first had that conversation 8 or 9 years ago.

We absolutely, positively want our children to feel free to express themselves.

As long as they aren’t hurting themselves, or others, we want them to be comfortable showing the world who they are.

To dance.

To sing.

To frolic.

To feast.

To be free.

This is Purim spirit, I’m sure of it.

This much I know.

Community, Mindfulness, Religion, Spirituality

Finding religion in a Saturday morning buffet

Jen

Today is Saturday.

Shabbat.

What did you do?

I went to Shacharit for the first time ever on Hannaton.

I sang.

After the 50 minute special chanting service, I snuck out before the Torah was taken out.

I walked home.

I drank coffee.

I meditated in the morning sun.

I grabbed my phone, put it on “silent” and walked back up the hill to meet my neighbors for Kiddush.

I got there only after the prayers were spoken.

I chatted with a friend. About Facebook.

I continued my walk with my phone in my pocket, took it off “silent.”

I meditated in the afternoon sun.

I waved to my neighbors walking their dog.

I found God … in a patch of flowers.

kalaniyot with containers

In a moth resting along a forgotten wall.

moth

I thought about my yesterday and my tomorrow.

I said out loud quiet prayers of gratitude that my children are healthy.

I breathed in deep.

I said “thank you” to the sun.

I ate a quiet lunch alone.

I moved closer to the computer.

I opened up a window.

I moved my fingers across rows of raised letters.

I reached out to you.

* * * *

Is this Judaism?

Is this religion?

Is this observance?

Is this prayer?

Is this devotion?

What do you call this religion of mine?

I call it

A Saturday-morning buffet

Religion, Spirituality

One Shabbat

Jen

Sometimes…

All it takes is one Shabbat…

annie shabbat jan 2013

One morning to clean

One afternoon to cook

One evening to shower and dress  in your handsome clothes…

Just one Shabbat.

One morning to sleep in … until 7.

One weekly meditation group.

One quiet admission.

One hour to sit

with your coffee.

One hour to zooooooooommmm down the slide

with your son

oliver january 2013

Just one Shabbat.

One new idea.

One minute to hold your husband’s hand.

One glimpse of your children with your weekend pair of eyes.

kids forest jan 2013

Just one Shabbat.

Just one

to remember how it feels to laugh

late at night

in bed…

without looking at the clock.

Just one

to remember what breakfast tastes like.

Just one

to rediscover your purpose.

Your passion.

You.

Just one

Just one Shabbat.

Religion, Spirituality

Ed-jew-cation

Jen

Last night, as I was trudging through the final half hour of John Carter with my husband, I noticed a word in the Hebrew subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

תשתחווה

This is something I like to do when watching an English program on TV. Especially, when I’ve lost patience for the show I’m watching.

Subtitles make for good learning opportunities.

But, the reason this word caught my eye is complicated in the way that only religion can be.

My mind didn’t just notice this word. My mind remembered this word.

In a sing songy sorta way. In a dressed up in my Shabbat clothes sorta way.

השתחוו לאדוני

I could hear a familiar tune in my head. Feel joy in my heart.

I knew this word. From Kabbalat Shabbat. From Friday nights on Hannaton.

I recognized the word, but had no idea what it meant.

I turned to my husband, and asked.

תשתחווה

What does it mean?

Bow, he told me. That woman just told John Carter to bow to him.

Ah, now I understand.

It’s a funny thing, this journey of mine.

As I become more Israeli, I become more Jewish. And as I become more Jewish I become more Israeli.

I’ve known the Shema prayer by heart for more than three decades, for instance, but only now do I understand many of the words.

I can’t say that they resonate with me. But at least now I understand most of what I’m saying when I sing it.

Is this what they call prayer?

Is this what they call “observance?”

Is it prayer when you sing a Hebrew song praising God, but don’t know exactly what you’re saying when you sing it?

It it prayer when you finally do understand the words but they still don’t resonate with you?

It is prayer if you don’t believe?

Is it prayer if singing it opens your heart?

Is it prayer if your heart closes once you know the meaning of the words?

Many Jews in America learned Hebrew; learned Jewish prayer; the way I did.

We were taught the letters, the sounds, how to string them together so we could read them, speak them, sing them.

But through all my “learning,” I was never inspired enough to feel those words — old, antiquated translations of old antiquated words.

Not until I made Aliyah — until the language became a language I needed to use to express myself — did the words touch me.

The words haven’t changed.

But I have changed.

And my understanding of the words has become deeper. On many levels.

Is it my connection to Israel that connects me to the prayer? Or my connection to the prayer that connects me to the language of this country?

Or neither? Or both?

And does it matter to anyone else but me?

Culture, Religion

Religious puzzle

Jen

Is it possible to move to the Jewish State and feel less Jewish?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Even when you’re acting a lot more Jewish than you did when you lived in the Non-Jewish Jewish state. (Not, no the Vatican. New Jersey.)

Even though I moved to Israel and live in a community that is considered (by secular and pluralistic Jews here, at least) to be religious, I still often feel as goyish as a ham sandwich on white.

Take my Halloween post on the Times of Israel yesterday, for instance.

Of course, I knew I might ruffle a feather or two. Religious Jews don’t celebrate Halloween, not even in America. And I knew the Times of Israel attracts readers that tend to be a little on the, let’s just say, fervent side.

But I didn’t expect the commenters to go all Esmerelda on me.

(c) Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Edward Scissorhands

On the one hand, I’m curious about it. In the same way I might be curious about a colorful school of clownfish swimming in a tank at the pet store.

I knew that observant Jews in America didn’t let their kids participate in Halloween festivities, though I never really understood why. Not the historical reason why; but the “why is it still relevant today” kinda why.

Halloween in America today is far, far away from idol worshipping. Unless, of course, you consider Smarties to be idolic. Why be so vigilant about keeping your kids off the streets and out of costume on October 31?

But of course, I fall into the camp that thinks kashrut as a means of humane slaughter is also outdated…especially when you take into consideration inhumane mass slaughterhouses like agriprocessor. Tells you what kind of Jew I am, and also shows you very clearly my stand on taking a more modern approach to tradition.

So, naturally, I wasn’t really prepared for the harsh admonishment on the first run of commenting on my post.

Yikes! I just wanted my kids to enjoy some cake and candy. I just wanted them to be amused and impressed by my polished witch cackle.

Heck, I just wanted a reason to be able to work my polished witch cackle into a sentence.

Is that so wrong?

Look: Halloween has nothing to do with my “traditions or values or way of life.”

Kids get dressed up and go beg for candy. When they get older, they throw eggs at my house.

Who would claim that this “holiday” has anything to do with their “traditions or values or way of life?”

Not even satan worshippers or pagans, I imagine.

And yet, somehow in her tone, this commenter implies that by recognizing a secularized American tradition I am somehow passing on bad values to my Jewish children. My Jewish children who go to Beit Knesset every Friday night for kabbalat Shabbat; my children who go to a Tali school and learn Tanakh; my children who — during play amongst themselves — will sometimes sit on the couch and daven with their dolls.

I’m not kidding.

I have video to prove it.

Maybe, the commenter is right. Maybe someday my kids will grow up to be idol worshipping pagans who dance naked in the moonlight at Stonehenge.

Personally, I think Halloween is more likely to turn kids into toothless fat old people than pagans.

And dancing naked in the moonlight at Stonehenge? Sounds fun.

But then again, I’m that kinda Jew.

Culture, Religion, Spirituality

Tradition

Jen

Do you celebrate Rosh Hashana like your parents did? What do you borrow from the High Holiday celebrations of your youth?

This is what I am thinking today on Rosh Hashana 5773, Day Two.

It occurred to me this morning, the second day of the new Jewish Year that we didn’t go to services the day before.

Even writing that statement feels funny. It occurred to me. I’m a little embarrassed; a little ashamed, even.

I accidentally forgot to go to services.

This is particularly ironic since, when I was a kid, Rosh Hashana was one of two days during the year when you could be sure to find me inside a synagogue (or at the very least, on the playground of a synagogue, or in a crowded hallway of a synagogue among other hormonal teenage girls spying on well-groomed oblivious teenaged boys.)

It’s ironic because now I am an adult living on a fairly traditional kibbutz in Northern Israel; now, I go to Friday night services at least twice a month; now, I speak Hebrew and think about God:

Now, is when I forgot to go to services.

Instead of going to synagogue on the morning of Rosh Hashana — and I write “instead” very loosely since there really was no active choice involved; I simply forgot — I hung around my in-laws’ house, enjoyed a nice breakfast with my family, and played with the baby kitten my son befriended in the yard.

It’s not that I forgot it was Rosh Hashana. Certainly not. It’s a state holiday. I dipped apples in honey. I thought about the people I had hurt the year before and made a silent intention to right wrongs. I sent New Year’s greetings to loved ones and blessed my children. I kissed my husband with gratitude. I ate brisket.

But I didn’t go to services.

It only occurred to me once we returned to Hannaton later that evening that we really should go to synagogue. It was Rosh Hashana after all.

I thought back to the High Holidays of my youth. I thought about my young parents; and my childhood home. I thought about sweet kugel at my Bubbi’s house. I thought about the new dress from Botwinick’s my mom and I would shop for and the fresh pair of itchy tights we’d break out of the package on the morning of Rosh Hashana. I thought about my brother struggling into a suit from Fleet’s and my dad in a black nylon kippah. I thought about my mom in high heels. My mom hardly ever wore high heels.

I thought about posed family photographs in the front driveway. Plastic smiles, but pretty pictures.

I thought about making it to synagogue early enough to hear the Torah, but not so early that we were the first ones there (10:15 am). I thought about the challenge to find parking in the neighborhood behind Beth El. And worse yet, on the years it would rain.

I thought about parting with my parents as they made their way to their assigned seats in the auditorium…and in later years to the Main Sanctuary. I thought about the classrooms turned into babysitting rooms; and the small chapel I dutifully spent ten minutes inside.

As I recall the Rosh Hashanas of my youth, I don’t recall prayer. This is certain.

But I recall tradition.

Intentional or accidental, our family had a Rosh Hashana tradition. A custom practiced year upon year and, in some little way, passed down to generations. Customs out of the ordinary that I only associate with the High Holidays.

Last night, when it occurred to me that we didn’t go to services, I suggested to my husband that we take the kids the next morning and he agreed.

Not because I felt compelled to pray. Not for fear of the wrath of God. Not even because I thought it was “the right thing to do.”

I took my kids to synagogue because remembering the boring, overdressed, agitated, sometimes hormonal, often drama-filled High Holidays of my youth opens up my heart.

It’s like playing an 80s video on YouTube.

It’s like reading an old journal entry.

It’s like running into an ex-boyfriend on the street.

It’s like smelling your grandmother’s perfume.

It’s like looking at the pictures of your baby’s birth on his 6th birthday.

This is the nature — and the merits — of tradition.

And I want my children to experience the overwhelm of their hearts opening.

They can’t possibly know it today as they argue over who got a bigger glass of grape juice; as they complain about having to pin the kippah to their heads; as they moan and groan as we walk up the hill to the Beit Knesset underneath the hot sun.

But someday they will remember.

And their hearts will burst with feeling.

And they will welcome in the New Year.

Education, Middle East Conflict, Politics, Religion

Perspectives you don’t get from a degree…or a subscription

Jen

There is so much I didn’t know or understand about Israel until I lived here.

That may sound obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me.

After all, I had visited this country six times before I lived here.

I majored in International Politics with a concentration in Middle Eastern studies.

I studied the Hebrew language for three years at a University level.

I interned at the Embassy of Israel. And worked at three other Israel-related organizations all before I was 24.

I was an assistant editor of a Jewish newspaper in the United States.

And then a freelance journalist covering Jewish news.

I shepherded 20 teenagers on a teen tour through the country.

I married an Israeli.

I thought this qualified me as an expert.

And perhaps I am more expert than some…at reading and writing about Israel.

But not at living here.

Which is okay. Because, now I know so.

A lot of people outside of Israel don’t. And they write about this country, and they flaunt an expert bio and CV they’ve earned through study and degrees and guest spots on political commentary shows.

I don’t begrudge them their bios and CVs. I respect them for their dedication and commitment to the topic of Israel.

However, I do think what’s missing from the bios and CVs of experts on Israel is detailed information about how long they’ve lived here. About what it was like for them to live as a community member among Israelis. To share the roads and the air and the land with Arabs. To walk among us.

Today, on the drive to work, the same I drive five days a week, I found myself passing through Kfar Manda again. It’s the Arab village right next to Hannaton. I pass it every morning on my way to work.

Some mornings I’m listening to the news, and concentrating so hard, I hardly notice the details around me. Some mornings I’m singing Michelle Shocked at the top of my lungs (or the soundtrack from Miss Saigon) and I just give Kfar Manda a nod as I pass through. Some mornings there’s a mix playing, and Kfar Manda is a backdrop for the wistful melodies.

Some mornings, like today, the village comes alive and poetry is born. And in that moment I am far from an expert. Just a student of life. Exploring the world around me. Understanding what I think after writing it all down and seeing what turns up.

I’ve gone back to school. And it’s opening up a world of discovery unlike any I’ve known.

I wish it was a prerequisite to being an expert.

Culture, Love, Middle East Conflict, Politics, Religion, Terrorism

Tears in the desert

Jen

When I really want to feel life, I put on Billy Joel’s “Songs in the Attic” and drive to work.

It doesn’t have to be Billy Joel. Jackson Browne also works. Depending on the season, so does Randy Newman or the Beach Boys or Elvis Costello’s and Burt Bacharach’s Painted from Memory. In fact, I created a “Songs that Move Me” mix for the very purpose of crying in the car.

If I was more disciplined, I would commit to a regular heart-opening practice, such as meditation or journaling.  But as a full-time immigrant executive mom of three, my ride to work is about the only reliable stretch of quiet time I’ve got these days.

I realized this one day, as I was driving the 20 minutes from my house to my office, amongst the green hills of the Western Galilee. “Hmm,” I thought. “Rather than listen to the news or gripe about the traffic, this would be quite the picturesque opportunity to feel.”

Not move. Not do. Not think.

Feel.

I can’t speak for the rest of humanity, but I’m not well-trained for feeling and being.  Very well-trained for moving and doing, but not feeling and being.

One of my intentions when I moved to Israel was to get better at “being.” Being present. Experiencing life fully.

If there’s a place in the world to live that brings you ever closer to the realization that there’s “no day but today,” it’s the Middle East. But since I got a full-time job here, and moreso since I was promoted to a senior level management position at the company for which I work, my doing is trumping my being. I realized how severe the problem was when I started dreaming about people from work.  I started to understand just how not present I was when rockets started falling again in Southern Israel a few weeks ago.

Like everyone else, I thought a lot about it. I read about it. I posted articles on Facebook.

But, in all honesty, I didn’t feel it much.

And that worries me.

I don’t miss the booming or the shaking — For that, I am grateful. I am grateful that we live three hours North of where the kassams are falling. I am grateful our kids are still going to school.  I am grateful I can leave for work in the morning and feel fairly confident that all will be well when I return in the evening.

As much as any of us in the world can, at least.

But I worry that I don’t physically feel that ache in my heart for the children who are missing school because the sirens won’t stop or physically feel in my throat the lump that represents compassion for the parents who have to drop down to the ground and shield their children each time there is “tzeva adom” (red alert).

Of course, I am not an animal. I think compassion and I think worry and I even think fear. I think about it a lot. But I don’t know that I feel it. At least, not deeply enough to do me good.

Martha Beck writes,

“Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined.

Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive… The pain leaves you healthier than it found you.”

In her bestseller, Expecting Adam, Beck also writes, “You’ll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been hurt by remaining closed.”

I know this to be true. And yet sometimes I forget.

And while I can’t speak for all humanity, I would guess that a lot of us do. Forget, that is. Feel numb, that is. Turn our faces away from the scenes that disturb us. Turn up the loud music to drown out the voices that worry us, or the memories that cause us pain. Breathe a sigh of relief that someone else’s worry is not our worry today.

I won’t drive down South with my children to experience the fear and pain of rockets for myself. But I can and will drive to work with my “Songs that Move Me” mix or my Billy Joel so that I feel the rhythm of emotional pain.

It’s an emotional pain I can tolerate. It’s, as Beck says, constructive and expansive.

I often compare my “heart-opening drive” to Holly Hunter’s cry in “Broadcast News.” For some reason, since I first fell in love with this film at age 13, I always related to the Holly Hunter character. In particular, to the scene when she unplugs the phone in her motel room and allows herself five minutes just to cry.

What is she doing? I always thought, when I watched this movie as a young adult. I don’t get it.

But now I do.

That motel room. Those five minutes of silence. It’s a safe space for her to flirt with deep emotion.

And my mountainous, twisting and turning commute up towards the Western Galilee offers me the same.

The solitude provides me with the opportunity; and the right choice of music weakens my chest just enough to let a little feeling in.

Today on my car radio, Billy Joel sings Summer, Highland Falls. And I cry.

Perhaps Joel was writing about his messy divorce, or his childhood, but this morning when I listen to the emotionally heavy poetry woven into his words, I only hear Israel:

“And so we’ll argue and we’ll compromise, and realize that nothing’s ever changed.

For all our mutual experience, our separate conclusions are the same…

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity…A reason coexists with our insanity…

And so we choose between reality and madness

It’s either sadness or euphoria.”

Culture, Middle East Conflict, Politics, Religion, Terrorism

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

Jen

(This originally appeared as “Israeli in Progress” on The Jerusalem Post)

Before I lived in Israel, I was a tourist to Israel.

I visited Israel three times as a program participant between the years 1992 and 2000, and twice independently with family.

Each time, there were outright rules and admonitions from tour guides, concerned locals, or experienced travelers to Israel (“Don’t drive to Jerusalem via Jericho.”); and unspoken or whispered advice (“You’re young. You’re blonde. Stay out of Arab villages and east Jerusalem.”)

The message received? “Sure, Israel is a lot safer than she often looks on t.v., but there is a real danger here nonetheless, and that danger is Arab.”

Twice during my earlier travels to Israel, I found myself alone with Arabs and frightened. Once deservedly – an Arab cab driver picked me up near the Kotel in Jerusalem and made me ride in the front seat with him and more than once on the way to my destination caressed my knee. Funny enough, I was less worried about being raped than I was of the idea of being dragged to east Jerusalem.

The second time was when I ended up lost on my way driving alone from Tel Aviv to Tiberias, and found myself in Nazareth. All it took for hysteria to set in was the sight of a billboard in Arabic promoting a fruit drink endorsed by Yasser Arafat. I quickly pulled into a parking lot and hid in my car trembling while I consulted the map. Thankfully, no one tried to make me drink the Arafat fruit punch.

When we made Aliyah, I arrived to Israel carrying the “Arabs are scary” baggage still.

In fact, it was only after we decided to live on Hannaton that I realized that Kfar Manda, the next big town over, was an Arab town, and that essentially, we were surrounded by Arab villages (some Muslim, some Druze — all Israeli). Once I found out, outwardly I felt proud, in the same way a white girl living in Harlem might. But inwardly, especially when I heard a rumor that Manda houses an active terrorist cell, I felt that same sense of discomfort. “Arabs are scary.” Whether or not the terrorist cell rumor has any truth to it, I still don’t know. But so far my comfort level extends only to getting gas at the station just outside of town (because it’s on my way home from work), but not heading into the town center alone for a shwarma or some vegetables.

I’m fully aware that my fear of Arabs is directly related to my ignorance and to lack of personal experience. That it has nothing to do with personal human interaction, and everything to do with stories spread by fearful people. Some of these stories are true, of course; but some are exaggerated. And, none of the stories belong to me.

In fact, all of my interactions with Arabs since I’ve moved to Israel have not only been benign, but a few have even been memorable examples of human kindness.

For instance, there’s a Middle Eastern restaurant my in-laws frequent: of all the restaurants we’ve been to Israel, it’s the one where the kitchen staff is the most sensitive to my kids’ food allergies. And just yesterday, I was driving home from a business meeting in Tel Aviv when I realized something was terribly wrong with my car. I ignored the noise for a good ten minutes, long enough to get off the beach highway and pull over to the shoulder. It didn’t take long to understand that the piece hanging off the front side of my car was not necessarily going to stop the car from running, but certainly was not going to allow me to get home safely if it kept dragging. I made it to the nearest gas station, one near an Arab Village, where two Arab attendants fixed my car temporarily. They didn’t hesitate when I asked them to help me and they didn’t ask for payment.

If I had followed the “Rules for American Jewish Girls Travelling in Israel,” I would have never made it home. The Arab-run gas station was the only one around for miles.

I can’t hold myself up as the picture of co-existence or tolerance just because I live in the lower Galilee and ask for help from handy, young Arab guys. But I have realized in the short time that I have lived here that my understanding of the situation between Jews and Arabs in Israel is transforming from one informed by stories to one informed by experience — and we all know that it’s real, live interaction between people that is the miraculous cure to both real and imagined conflict.

And my real, live Jewish interaction with real, live Arabs makes us all one teeny tiny step closer to peace

Family, Kibbutz, Learning Hebrew, Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Parenting, Religion

A year in reflection

Jen

In retrospect, I’m glad we made Aliyah at the end of a calendar year. At the time, moving during the first of New Jersey’s many blizzards and dealing with holiday travel didn’t seem like such a good idea. But now, as I reflect on the year that we’ve been living in Israel, I find comfort in the awareness that I will never have to struggle to remember when we moved here. It was at the end of December, in the winter of the end of a decade. 

And, as if leaving our friends and family to move to a new country wasn’t turbulent or memorable enough, there was plenty else to mark this year in my memory. I lost a cousin. I lost my grandmother. And through these and other extraordinarily difficult times for my family this year, I was here and they were there.

In the chapters that mark my life, 2011 will be one I remember without a bookmark, without a folded over corner.

My kind friends and loving husband might argue with this, but the marks of this year also show on my face, which seems to be finally showing signs of age. This year, as exciting as its been, has also been the year that I started feeling aches in my joints and noticing that my body is not as resilient as it used to be.

This was the year I closed my business and started a new job. It was the year I gave up my Blackberry and then found it again, at least the Israeli Nokia version. It was the year I moved to the house down the street of one of my oldest childhood friends and the year I found that sometimes, moving away from your closest friends, actually draws you nearer to them.

This was the year I stopped obsessively focusing on healing others; and truly starting looking inward in an effort to heal myself.  It was the year I rediscovered the healing power of song and prayer; love and community.

This was the year I decided that a heaping helping of humble pie was good for me. That learning something new every day can be painful, but active listening often works better than talking, even when you want so badly to communicate who you are and what you want.

This was the year my husband really learned to appreciated me as a mother. And I him as a hard-working professional. It was the year I resigned myself to the growing up of my children, and the year I decided that they would be okay — in spite of my fears and worries.

It was the year I let go.

This morning, after I dropped off my five-year-old at gan, I shook my head in amazement. He had woken up this morning with a bellyache and asked not to go to school. After hesitating only a minute, we decided it was okay if he stayed behind and rested in his room this morning. After all, it’s a long week, and Fridays are half-day, looser schedules for kids in preschool here.

At around 9 am, he decided he felt better and asked if he could go to gan. I asked him, “Are you sure? You can stay home if you want. It’s fine.” He insisted he felt well and asked that I take him up.

When we got to the door of his classroom, he gave me a quick kiss, and with one last look back, left my side to play with his friends.

This was the same kid who one year ago, walked off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport, pale as a ghost, after vomiting for 12 hours straight. This was the kid who cried every morning for months when we dropped him off at gan; who wouldn’t let us leave; who begged us to stay home.  This same kid was now opting for gan over a day off at home. This same kid, didn’t know a word of Hebrew when we arrived a year ago, but now speaks completely in Hebrew with his friends…and with confidence.

This morning, my five-year-old’s brother is off playing with his own friends; and his sister, I’m sure, is chatting away in Hebrew with hers at her own school. My husband is preparing food for our Shabbat meal tonight with friends, and I’m here, taking a break from cleaning the house.

This was the year we turned our life upside down.

And our life righted itself.

Family, Religion, Spirituality

The emerging Jew in me

Jen

(This was originally posted on the blog section of The Jerusalem Post.)

Despite years of being a Jew in a Jewish family, Jewish tradition and, more specifically, Jewish practice often feel very alien to me. Shabbat meals, Shabbat services, Jewish prayers and rituals.  And despite being a bat mitzvah and many years a student in Hebrew school, there is little that I feel confident practicing, and there’s lots that I don’t.

In the past, this ignorance would sometimes surface as fear and loathing when, for instance, I was a teenager at USY events and I didn’t know how to do the Birkat HaMazon (“Grace after Meals”), let alone joyfully pound on the tables at just the right moments, like my friends did (the ones who had been doing it for years at Camp Ramah or Hebrew day school). Or when my college boyfriend took me to a Shabbat lunch at his friend’s apartment at the Jewish Theological Seminary and I was wearing jeans and a tank top, and all the other women covered their shoulders and knees. Or even in recent years, when I found myself in synagogue, standing next to my mother who was saying Kaddish for her father or when we chose a reform Mohel for my son’s Brit Milah, and accidentally offended my in-laws.

What surfaced as fear and loathing back then was likely fear and shame, as I understand it now. Feeling all the time that I was an impostor…stupid…uninformed. That there was something I should have learned along the way, but didn’t. As someone who thrives on information and knowledge (and who shrinks at feeling ignorant), I rejected Judaism. Flat out. I wasn’t interested.

It wasn’t until I got married in a Jewish ceremony that I started considering, even for a second, that there was beauty in Jewish practice and that certain elements of the practice might be accessible and available to me.  It wasn’t until I sent my kids to Jewish preschool that I once again found delight in singing Jewish songs and chanting Jewish prayers, a joy that was familiar to me from childhood, but so distant.  It wasn’t until I moved to Israel a year ago that I started understanding and accepted that it was safe for me to open my heart to Judaism, even though I still had lots of questions and found few answers.

Last week, I traveled back to my home town in New Jersey for my grandmother’s funeral. And for the first time ever, that I can remember, felt comforted by Jewish practice.

In the past, when I found myself in uncomfortable or anxious situations, whether it was a painful experience like childbirth or an emotionally challenging experience like public speaking, I would soothe myself by humming a chant or a mantra I learned in yoga class 12 years ago.

Shri ram, jai ram, jai jai ram

I learned this chant in 1999 at a yoga studio in Manhattan. It stuck and I’ve been humming it for over a decade — I’ve even taught it to my kids and encourage us all to use it when things get a little…hairy…around the house.

But in New Jersey recently, on the way to my Bubbi’s funeral, I found myself humming something different. A nigun we often sing as we enter into prayer on Hannaton for Kabbalat Shabbat.

Laiiiii lai lai lai lai lai

And humming the nigun soothed my nerves and eased me into the Jewish practices yet to come. Mourning and remembrance.

Over the next few days, as I participated in the rituals that followed — Shiva, prayer, Mourner’s Kaddish — I hummed the tune. I taught it to my brother who figured the melody out on his guitar. I’d even say we bonded over this nigun, something we haven’t done for years.

Over five days, I realized that I actually knew so much more “Judaism” than I thought I had. And even more impactful, I understood that it was okay that there were practices and rituals I didn’t know. That I could take from the ones that served and supported me; and refrain from those that didn’t. That there is a time for learning and a time for engaging. That, in fact, I could know absolutely nothing about Jewish practice and ritual…and still benefit from participating in it.

That practicing a ritual you do not fully understand is not hypocritical or stupid or insincere.  It’s okay.

I also realized that once your heart is open, even a little, it may be easily filled by the power of those rituals — the ones you’ve chosen; the ones that fit your needs at that moment.

It’s easy for me to say that living here in Israel is opening my heart to Judaism. That living on a Masorti kibbutz in Israel and participating in its activities have acclimated me more to Judaism. I imagine that’s what it looks like to my friends and family observing the process. That, suddenly, I have “found” religion.
 
But, it could also be that I’ve entered that time of life when we need the comfort of prayer and ritual more often. Or that my heart has softened after years of marriage and raising children, of losing friends to illness, of losing grandparents to age, of watching my parents age and lose their parents. That my awareness is growing day by day that life is fragile and community is comforting and ritual is soothing.

It may be that my path of spiritual seeking has become more refined or less judgmental.

It may be a mix of all the above.

But, for certain, the key is my opening heart.  And my willingess to let strangers –or strangeness–in.

Letting Go, Religion, Spirituality

ID

Jen

When my husband and I were deep into the process of coordinating our Aliyah back in the States, we received a lot of email communication from Nefesh B’Nefesh, some of which was extraordinarily helpful. (In addition to weekly webinars, NBN also has a robust website with lots of information for potential new olim — I would have been a lot better off if I had read any of it before I landed in Israel.)

Occasionally, though, I would get an email from NBN in my inbox and I would be really confused; in the same way I sometimes feel confused when I go to Shabbat services these days and in the middle of the service everyone starts bowing or shuffling their feet and I have no idea why or what I am supposed to do.

There I was 12 months ago: Confident enough in my intention and desire to make Aliyah — married to an American Israeli; 10 years of Hebrew school and USY under my belt; synagogue membership; two kids in Jewish preschool — but still, in many ways, feeling like an impostor.  This was not a new feeling for me — uncertain of my Jewishness among Jews– but a feeling that was becoming much more pronounced with my decision to make Aliyah.

While preparing for Aliyah, there were some things I didn’t understand, but felt awkard asking for an explanation. Shouldn’t I already know the answer? If was “Jewish enough” to be making Aliyah, shouldn’t I have been Jewish enough to understand all the steps involved in transforming from an American Jew into an Israeli?

This was all very subliminal, mind you. I wasn’t consicously aware that I was questioning my own qualifications for making Aliyah. Consciously I was preparing all the documents with ease. I am a Jew after all. I have the figurative C.V. to prove it.

But just as I had never felt Jewish enough among Jews, I didn’t feel “oleh enough” among the olim.

Let me offer you an example. Apparently, when Jews from other countries make Aliyah, they will sometimes change their names.  You could be a 45-year-old woman, whom her whole life has been called Randi, and one day she lands in Israel and her name is Rivka. In December, you’re Susan or Bill or  Mandelovitch and, in January, you’re suddenly Shoshana or Ruven or Manof.

And it’s not just make believe. It’s legal. I don’t know exactly what happens, particularly when you go back to the States to visit, but it’s legal in Israel.  I imagine your American passport still lists you as Susan, but for all official and unofficial intents and purposes here in Israel, you are Shoshanna.

So, Nefesh B’Nefesh sent us this email a month before we made Aliyah asking us if we would be changing our names, and instructing us what to do if so. Huh? I thought. Change my name? Isn’t that something only zealots and freaks do? (Yes, judging, judging, judging.)

I could see the practicality of changing our names — all of which save for my husband’s are very Anglo — but I could not imagine calling my son Oliver by his Hebrew name, Itamar. Or by any name other than Oliver.  Certainly, as an idea, it seemed fun to come up with a new beautiful name for myself–one of my own choosing, one that was easy to say– or to have a second chance in naming our children (particularly our daughter whose name I think we chose in haste). But I couldn’t imagine it. For better or for worse, I am a Jennifer who likes to be called Jen.

Then, soon after receiving that email, we went to an NBN job fair a month before making Aliyah. If we didn’t feel out of place enough already at the event — fairly secular Jews in a sea of Orthodox –we were introduced to a seemingly secular couple our age who was also making Aliyah to the North around the same time we were. They introduced themselves to us by their “new names,” with a shy footnote that they were trying those new names on for the first time. My husband Avi and I smiled and nodded politely, but after they parted, we exchanged looks as if to say, “Say WHAT?” (This was one of those delightful moments where I once again thanked the Divine for gifting me a husband who I could have “say what” moments with.)

Who were these people we were making Aliyah with? Who were we to be making Aliyah?

Who am I to be making Aliyah?

And really…Who am I to call myself a Jew?

My husband was already an Israeli citizen. He was born in the States to two Israeli parents who moved to the U.S. as young adults. His parents returned to Israel with their children when my husband was in preschool and they lived here for many years while he was growing up. He’s Israeli. He may not “look Israeli” or “act Israeli” (this is something I heard over the years from my family and friends when they first met my husband.) But he’s Israeli. This (along with the eight years he spent at Solomon Schecter)  lends legitimacy to his both his Judaism and his Israeli-ness, in my eyes.

But who am I? Am I Jewish enough to live here? Am I Jewish at all?

The irony, I have learned in the 11 months that I have lived in Israel is: I am not the only Israeli asking myself this question.

In fact, a lot of Israelis are asking themselves this question. And, in some ways, I might be considered “more” Jewish than the ones who aren’t  because I am asking the question.

As deficient as a Jew as I often felt in the States, I am feeling here…awakened spiritually. Indeed, more awakened possibly than Israelis who have lived in this country since birth…Israelis who have never stepped foot in a synagogue their entire lives. Perhaps, even more awakened than religious Israelis who have been praying daily in the synagogue for years.

I bring this up not to judge or to compare, but to transform my judgment into compassion. My judgment of myself. My judgment of others.  My judgment of religion, of spirituality. My judgment of the words “God,” or “Universe,” or “Divine.” My judgment of prayer practices, of devotion.

I share this with you as a way to publicly offer myself compassion retroactively and to ask forgiveness for the judging.

My wish is that as my spiritual journey continues, however it continues, may I continue to explore Judaism (my version and yours) with curiousity and compassion…and an open heart and mind.

And, as always, your feedback and contribution to the discussion (via Comments) are welcomed.