Tag: meditation

Childhood, Family, Food allergies, Letting Go, Mindfulness, Modern Life, Parenting

The Speed of Summer

Jen

This has been the summer of slow: of washing the morning’s dishes; scraping and sweeping up Cocoa Pebbles off the ceramic kitchen tiles; straightening the throw pillows on the couch again; hanging pool towels on the line. There have been days when I wanted to scream, when I wished for salvation in the form of a plane ticket to Philadelphia paid for by my mother. There have been days I’ve feebly attempted to convince my 12 year old to wake up before 11 so we can spend a morning off the kibbutz doing “something,” but he’s never acquiesced and I’ve never pushed it.

It is August now, and we’ve done nothing, he and I. It is August, and we’re closer now to the end of the summer than the beginning.

Read more of this post at The Times of Israel.

Books, Childhood, Dreams, Family, Letting Go, Memory

Throw my suitcase out there, too

Jen

The best coworker I ever had was the one who every morning sat with me for a half hour while drinking our morning coffee and did dream analysis with me.

She was good.

So was I.

Coffee + dream analysis = best way to start the morning.

I’m pretty decent on my own, but it’s more fun to analyze your dreams with a friend. I also really enjoy showing people the obvious connections they are missing. It’s pretty hilarious as a listener to understand immediately that your friend is simply exploring her fear of intimacy in her dreams of lesbian sex with the boss, when she can hardly sputter out the words, “sex with….”

Anyway, last night I had a version of a recurring dream I’ve had since moving to Israel 3 1/2 years ago. It was a few hours after waking, however, during shavasana (the deep relaxation at the end of yoga class) that I understood it. When I got it, though, I laughed out loud it was so obvious. Had I shared it over coffee with an experienced dream analyzer, she would have understood it in 30 seconds.

In the dream, I am in my childhood bedroom. I am an adult. I am there with two black duffel bags. I am packing for Israel. I realize that I have forgotten to pack my childhood books to send on the cargo shipment by boat. The books will certainly put me over the 50 lb weight limit the airline allows. I also realize a lot of my clothes are still in the drawers. Clothes I could use in Israel. Thick socks and the like.

I start making piles.

Piles to bring. Piles to part with.

Some items are easier to put in the “part with” pile than others.

I resent this process. I want it all to come with me. Not the old, stretched out long sleeve tees, but I want the socks and the books. Why should I have to leave them behind?

I notice, too, the formica furniture set is still in really good condition and I wonder why we didn’t ship it to Israel. We could have used it there.

But the furniture, I am able to let go of pretty easily. Not the books, though. I continue to make piles.

Image courtesy Wikipedia Commons.
Image courtesy Wikipedia Commons.

My 5 year old daughter appears. She has some extra room in her duffel. She lets me put books in there. I am grateful. I rearrange some of her clothes to make more room. I wish I had a bigger bag — a large sturdy suitcase would allow for more weight than this duffel.

Suddenly, I am on the plane. I have a white cardboard box, the kind you use to store files, and it’s filled with paperback books. I am able to lift it up into the overhead compartment despite its weight. I worry the flight attendant will call me out on this, but she does not. Instead, she gives me a resigned look and allows it.

I wake up.

Feel free to leave your dream in the comments and I will be happy to give you my analysis in return.

Thanks to Corvidae in the Fields for inspiring this post with his recent one on the “Cube test.“

 

Childhood, Dreams, Family, Mindfulness, Parenting

In the dark

Jen

I was one of those kids who was afraid of the dark.

Now, when I say “one of those kids” I do pause for a moment and wonder what kid isn’t afraid of the dark.

What adult isn’t still?

I think most of us are afraid of the dark. Even grownups.  We just pretend we’re not or drug ourselves or sex ourselves up to believe otherwise. We do something to smother the very innate fear we have of unknown monsters creeping like fog through the slats of our windows or more corporeal, through a locked door with the help of a plastic credit card.

There’s a reason why dark thoughts float to the surface of our mind at night.

I am still afraid of the dark. My bedtime routine? I read a book in bed with the light on until my eyes are practically closed and then I reach for the light and quickly fall to sleep. On the nights when I can’t fall asleep quickly, I’m troubled.

The dark is simply not a place I enjoy being.

It’s possible that not everyone is afraid of the dark.

If you’re one of these people, I’d be curious to hear from you. I wonder if it’s just us: Those of us with overactive imaginations; those of us with stress-related ulcers or migraines; those of us who jump at the sound of a ceramic plate falling to the ground; those of us who are afraid of the shadow we see at the corner of our eye when we’re drying our hair in the mirror. Is there a human being who welcomes the dark? Are you one?

My discomfort with the dark presents a quandary for me at bedtime with my kids. They all want me — still — to lie with them til they fall asleep. If they had their druthers, they’d sleep up against me all night long like spoons. One against the other in a row like a cartoon Tom & Jerry sandwich.

I can’t really blame them for that.

As much as I need space from them, space from people, space to be alone, I hardly ever want it at my own bedtime. This is not to say I enjoy tiny feet in my face at 3 am, but this is to say that I might, in some alternate Blade Runner reality, pay for someone to tickle my back and comb their fingers through my hair til I fell asleep. I might like that. It might be something I’d consider voting for in an election.

I want to know someone is near in the dark. But more important, I want to know someone is there to protect me.

I just want to know I am safe. Even if it’s a false knowing. Because, come on, do our kids really believe deep down we could protect them from ghouls, intruders, burglars?

No. I don’t think so.

They just want someone to whisper softly in their ears as they drift down into a subconscious that will take over for a time. They want the whispers to be true enough:

“You are safe. The world is safe. You are free to drift away. You are safe.”

I’ve been whispering these words to my middle son these past few nights. He had been having trouble sleeping the few nights before and our bedtime routine had become quite anguished, for both him and me.  I could continue to fight him; try for the 50th time to “sleep train” him successfully; or I could just acknowledge that my son is like me, afraid of the dark, not just the absence of light in his room but of the dark thoughts I know bubble up for him, too, at bedtime. Thoughts about people he loves. Thoughts about the fragility of life.

Who should have to be alone with such thoughts?

So at the end of an evening meditation I take him through, I speak the words I wish someone would speak to me as dreams carry me away.

“You are safe. The world is safe.”

Perhaps the more I speak them, the more the words will be true.

The less the dark will overpower me…and him…and you.

 

 

 

 

Childhood, Dreams, Family, Letting Go, Memory

Meditation on Yard Sales

Jen

I have a tendency to hold on.

This tendency is so strong, I’m confident I will end up a haunting ghost in someone’s house when I go.

I hold on to photographs, to letters, to my child’s sketches. I refuse to part with shoes I want to love but can’t because they give me blisters; nor can I say goodbye to the beat up stuffed animal I’ve had since sixth grade.  The t-shirt I received as a party favor at a forgotten friend’s bat mitzvah sits at the bottom of a box  with fifteen others waiting to be turned into a quilt I’ll never make.

I hold tight to first impressions, grudges, undeserved adulation.

And then sometimes, I let go.

No, not just that.

I purge.

I prepare a huge yard sale and lay all my attachments on the grass for everyone to peruse.  Everyone I know and don’t know descends on my beloved belongings.

“Please take them from me!” my eyes say. And they do. For a penny, for a song.

And my load becomes lighter.

If I were to die then and there, I could float up to Heaven like a feather on the wind.

Letting Go, Love, Mindfulness, Relationships

Practice hard what you preach; then practice some more

Jen

There is what I preach and there is what I practice and there is sometimes overlap.

All of my preaching is prepared and shared with good intentions.

Yet there is intention and there is action and in between there is emotion.

Emotion gets in the way, sometimes.

A lot of times.

Meaning, no matter how good my intentions, and no matter how loud my preachin’, my emotions trump.

My emotions are

Royal

Straight

Flush.

Which brings me back to practice.

Knowing that my emotions trump my intentions, I may be (and must be) mindful in situations in which emotions run high.

The only way I know how to get better at acting with intention is to notice when I’m not…

and turn it around.

traffic

I love my emotions.

Okay, I value them.

But there are times when I wish what I know to be true would run through and through

all the way to my heart

As opposed to the doubt, the anger, the hurt, the fear

That runs through instead.

And all I can do in those moments

when the through and through is

doubt, anger, hurt, fear

is practice.

= = =

P.S.: For those seeking the conclusion to my driving test saga, sigh, I didn’t pass.

Climate Changes, Community, Environment, Family, Middle East Conflict, Survivalism, Terrorism

An imaginable future

Jen

When we first moved to Israel, I felt uncomfortable sitting on buses and in cafes.

I would casually look around, trying to avoid notice, to see if there were any suspicious people or packages about; not sure, exactly, what my reaction would be if I spotted one.

Over time I have found myself less and less suspicious. More at ease in public places, as it so happens, but still not at ease.

“At ease” is not a behavior I was born with — or maybe I was — and was just spooked one too many times by a mischievous friend or traumatized by too many VC Andrews novels.

The world, for me, has almost always been a scary place.

And I have almost always been easily startled.

While here in Israel, I cautiously scan the room for bombs; in the States, I cautiously scanned darkened evening streets for rapists and quiet alleys for thugs. I walked quickly through empty hallways and avoided elevators with lone men. I double and triple locked my doors, and was known to sometimes sleep with the lights on. Especially the night after The Blair Witch Project.

I remember being in a bar watching a band perform in New York City once, in the months just before 9/11 but fresh enough after Columbine to still be jumpy, and leaping off my seat at the sound of a small explosion in the back of the room. Someone’s hair had caught fire accidentally on the tea light candle intended for atmosphere, and instead of atmosphere we were treated to dramatic special effects.

After I caught my breath, I laughed out loud at my reaction, but internally asked myself what I had been so concerned about. What immediate danger did I think the noise indicated?

A gun shot?

An explosion?

A brawl?

It’s the first time I remember my unease extending from mild anxiety to a heightened concern for my immediate well-being and the well-being of others.

From then and there, unfortunately, my unease has only become gradually uneasier.

And not because my anxiety has worsened, and not because I moved to Israel.

In fact, my anxiety has significantly improved in the last decade since I started acknowledging it and paying attention to it and using focused breathing, meditation and mindfulness.

Moving to the slow-paced countryside of Israel, in some ways, has helped, too.

But no matter how significantly my anxiety has improved, the world hasn’t. Since 9/11, the way I see it, we have been witness to more violent crimes like those in Aurora and Newtown and Boston and have experienced the communal aftermath of incomprehensible tragedies like Katrina and Sandy and are becoming more and more awakened to the devastation of our planet and the resources we have taken advantage of all our lives.

And suddenly I am no longer a minor statistic in a clinical journal.

It’s not just me and my world viewed through an anxiety-colored lens.

The world itself has become anxiety-colored. The world itself is on edge.

I watched this video of grown men jumping out of their seats; seemingly reaching to hug each other at the sound of thunder booming loudly over Yankee Stadium during a rain delay.

At first, I giggled. It was cute. Funny.

And then I paused, and realized, it wasn’t funny at all.

Grown men — baseball players, even, symbols of fearlessness and recklessness — jumping out of their seats at the sound of a …

Boom!

We are living in a world in which we are now, clearly, all easily startled.

scaredy cats

I know I’m not the first to make the claim that the world is growing bleaker and blacker.

There are voices much louder than mine that have come before.

And even though my voice is not the first.

There is always a glimmer of hope it can become one of the last.

The year I was born poet and activist Shel Silverstein wrote:

“There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.”

(Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein)

Those children are now grown.

Those children are now us.

And it’s indeed possible we have come to where the sidewalk ends.

And we need to choose in which direction we will continue.

We may continue to jump at loud noises, and then numb ourselves to an unacknowledged shared pain.

Self-medicating with food, technology, entertainment, drink, drugs, sex, consumerism, waste, whatever — silently signing the same consent form to ignore, to waive liability.

Or we may create together a world in which we can imagine its future.

A future not out of a dystopian film, but one lined with the vibrant green grass of my childhood memories and narrated by Shel Silverstein.

I want a future lined with colorful sunsets for my children to fall in love under.

And I want to hear thunder… and scream,

then giggle.

Knowing my fears are only imagined.

Letting Go, Mindfulness, Spirituality

Think lovely thoughts

Jen

Reading the blog yesterday of a childhood friend who grew up to be a rabbi, I came across a phrase I’ve heard before but had forgotten for a long time.

Thought experiment

I love this phrase.

In two words, it implies all that I believe about thinking.

That thoughts are ever-changeable.

That we can manipulate our own thoughts or the way others think about us.

That we have power over our thinking.

That we can be playful with our thoughts.

Make fun of them.

Laugh at them.

Shoo them away when they’re getting in the way.

Caress and nurture the ones that stir our hearts and bellies.

Abandon the ones that have stopped serving us.

Experiment with our thinking. Approach our thinking like we would scientific research — as an experience or an equation that is observable, malleable.

I believe in this method, and yet I often have a hard time employing it.

Like many scientists, I am a firm believer in what I know to be true.

In the facts of my life.

“He is …”

“She does…”

“I will always be…”

“It’s like this…”

“He’ll never…”

Those facts serve me. They allow me to be right about the world I live in. They allow me to make difficult decisions based on previously established and agreed upon evidence. They allow me to feel safe and secure in an existence that is often tenuous and unsure.

Therefore, it’s not so easy to approach those facts (my thoughts) as an experiment.

It means I have to give up being right: About the world, about people who’ve hurt me, or about situations I’ve long ago thought I forgot.

Not to mention — thought experiments are rarely controlled experiments. You’re not alone in a cozy lab coat in a quiet room with no other people, no additional stimulation. During your average thought experiment, it’s NOT just you, just your thoughts,  just listening carefully and watching and taking notes.

Yup. You are right there in the middle of it. All the time.

Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.

And there’s noise. And hunger. And resentment. And perceived requests, demands, insults.

All that thinking and feeling leaves little room to experiment.

And, if you’re like me, you’re not just thinking, thinking, thinking. Feeling, feeling, feeling.

You’re thinking about the thinking. And judging the feeling.

Not very playful. Not very fun.

Not very experimental.

This is why — and I’m having a light bulb experience myself RIGHT NOW as I write this — I meditate. And this is why I sing. And why I pray my version of prayer; keep my version of Shabbat. And why, on occasion, I seek 20 minutes alone in the bathroom pretending to poop.

So I can have my very own thought experiment.

So I can allow myself the opportunity to observe, explore, and possibly, change my thinking.

Do you do this too?

Do you give yourself an opportunity to thought experiment?

And does it work?

Letting Go, Living in Community, Love, Making Friends, Mindfulness, Relationships, Spirituality

Life is hard work and other things that make me feel tired, but alive

Jen

I am struck by the pictures my friend Holly is sending back to us from Hong Kong and Vietnam.

See more http://instagram.com/theculturemom
See more http://instagram.com/theculturemom

She’s feeding her wanderlust with banana pancakes, dim sum, and gorgeous panoramas, while feeding our desire for travel photography “porn.”

I love instagram.

Almost in the same moment that the drool drips down my chin,  while mesmerized by the lush green mountain ranges and Buddha statues, I long for the eyes through which I saw Israel in the first months I lived here.

The virgin immigrant eyes.

The virgin immigrant heart that burst with joy each and every day…at the beauty of this land; in curious awe of her people.

Cochav Hayarden, March 2012
Cochav Hayarden, March 2012

When we first made Aliyah,  every drive was emotionally equivalent to a stroll through an art museum; every hike through a national park was a new adventure in a foreign land.

Every day I would find myself saying out loud: “Do I really live here?”

And I meant it in the same way a mother whispers over her newborn baby, “Are you really mine?”

Two years after making Aliyah, I find that my eyes and my heart are still capable of wonder.

But  it’s an experience that does not come as naturally and as automatic as before.

I need, instead, to make those moments happen.

And that takes a lot of work on my part.

I need to see the trash fire in Kfar Manda

smoke in kfar manda

— and turn my anger into compassion, and then activism.

And that’s really hard.

It’s much easier to be angry.  To rant. To shake my head.

I need to remember, in a moment I feel frustrated by my community, when I am outraged by their seeming indifference to the trash that peppers our fields

how grateful I am for my community.

How my community supports me.

How my community allows me the freedom to be a Jew in Progress. To be curious. To be a novice at living in this country.

Acknowledging my community as a gift, however, is really hard work when I am stuck in a moment of discontent.

It’s much easier for me to assume. To judge. To wish myself away from here.

It’s really hard work — and a huge emotional commitment — to be present in your life all the time.

To notice. To stop. To redirect. To be who you want to be, not your raw-emotion-of-the-moment.

It’s exhausting — living your best life.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are on vacation — separate from the drudgery that often clouds your intentions.

It’s much easier to feel alive when you are first in love; experiencing a newness; your senses overwhelmed by glorious colors and smells.

I recognize this.

And I acknowledge that some days I am too tired to live my best life.

But on the alternate days — the ones in which I work hard for happiness, the ones in which I allow my heart to be open and my mind to be free — I find beauty that surpasses any landscape, any painting, any colorful market scene.

A vacation awaits me.

In my regular boring life.

And yours.

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

Community, Family, Living in Community, Love

A woman on the brink of death

Jen

(This was originally posted on the Times of Israel)

Sometimes I imagine I am a woman on her death bed.

How else to explain the sense of wonder I have the minute I pull out of my driveway each morning to head to work?

Before I even leave the boundaries of my small community in Northern Israel, my head turns from side to side looking out the car window for a sign of nature’s wonder.

Morning light breaking through a stunning cloud formation overhead.

cloud formation

The sun rising over the Eshkol Reservoir.

sun over eshkol

The first kalanit popping up in the fields lining the road into our neighborhood.

kalanit

Who else does this but a woman about to die?

Sometimes I catch myself imagining I am her — a woman on her death bed.

I am paralyzed. Frightened.

Could it be true?

What if it was?

And then I laugh with the realization that it is true.

We all are.

We are born to die.

And as much as we fear it, we spend our lives rushing towards it…towards death.

Rushing through breakfast; pushing the kids out the door; grabbing three different bags – a laptop bag, a lunch bag, a pocketbook – and throwing them into the back seat. We drink a to-go cup of coffee on the way. We turn on the radio and scan the words for news. News that will help us make decisions; make us feel right; make us feel wrong.

Get us there quicker.

We breeze by our coworkers; we tweet through our days. Our fingers sore from scrolling, from typing, from pointing.

Who else but a woman about to die notices the teeny tiny wren perched on the tallest branch of a pine tree across the street from the entrance to Rafael?

Who else catches through her passenger side window the hearty laugh of a teenage girl in a bronze glittery head scarf waiting for the bus to Karmiel?

Who else but a woman on the brink of demise notices the blend of hope and fear on the faces of the black men – the ones standing on the side of the kikar at the entrance to Kfar Manda — as she passes them during rush hour?

Who else but a woman about to die?

We characterize our behavior as “living,” but really we are rushing towards death. Getting there quicker, richer, righter.

Until we stop.

And in the moment we stop – in the slow minutes spent behind a tractor trailer chugging up a hill, for instance – we slow down death.

We drink in life.

Drink it in.

annabel bowling

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.