Come In, She Said, I'll Give You Shelter From The Storm

I have left so many unfulfilled promises to write more, to write regularly on this page. My absence, to be sure, comes not as a result of a lack of things to say, a lack of contemplation, a lack of ideas, but, rather, because of a lack of words to wrap around the thoughts. I have spent nearly 9 months in this strange land – a land my Holy Text refers to as home, but a land that still feels so foreign to me. I have closed my eyes tightly so many times to make a memory. And, equally as many times, after a memory has been made unwillingly, I have closed my eyes just as tightly and breathed out slowly, letting the experience leave me with my breath. I am engaged in a magnificent dance, hopping from one foot to the next. At once I attempt not to internalize, not to build up resentment, not to have the negativity I feel emblazoned on my heart, not to let my heart harden to others. At the same time, I try desperately to hold on to the moments, not to let them pass me by, not to dismiss the year in its entirety, even when the difficulties appear to outweigh the joyousness.

I have searched for words so many times over the last 9 months. But they seem to be caught in the back of my throat. So I have turned to the words of Others. Thinking about Toby and Tikvah, I pressed my forehead, my lips, my chest up to the Western Wall and let the words of Tehillim, of the Psalms, pour from my lips as the tears poured from my eyes. I have read the gently beautiful and carefully chosen words of Mookie, of David, of Tracy on their blogs. I have looked to Holy Books, laboriously translating the original texts into my vernacular, searching for meaning, for answers. I stopped being so concerned about talking to you here. I trusted that you would wait for me, trusted the process. I often thought about how I wanted to use this space. I have so often reminded myself that, if I do not have anything nice to say, it is better not to say anything at all. But what happens when you press down the not-nice-things for so long that they bubble up to the surface, get said in places less appropriate than a blog? So I return. I want to let you into these last days I have in this mysterious, magical, haunting, daunting place. I want to try to find the words, to let the words find me. I recognize that my soul can hold only so many memories until they need to spill onto paper to be held onto.

I walked home from Emek Refaim with a wide smile spread across my face yesterday. As I placed my $15 bottle of overpriced soap – soap made in this land but that I discovered for the first time on the Upper West Side, soap that lets me wash a little piece of home over my tired body every morning – I explained to the checkout woman that my discount card had not yet come in the mail and asked if she could look me up in the book. She offered to have a new one sent immediately.

“It’s OK,” I replied softly, “I’m leaving in two months.”

She stopped clicking around in the computer and turned to face me, “But you’ll come back? You have to come back.”

I smiled. Said nothing. “Have a wonderful Shabbat,” she offered.

That does not happen in the overpriced boutiques of the Upper West Side. I will miss that – deeply, and purely.

As I walked along the winding path, up the hill, to my apartment, I watched the sun beginning to do her own sunset dance on the walls of the Old City. Sparkling and glowing, I could not help but stare, peer deep into her crevices, a bit aghast at the mind-blowing beauty of a 4 pm sun in Jerusalem. The sky, so piercingly blue that I thought, just maybe, I could see the Earth's edge, her corner carefully rounding around Jerusalem's clouds, cupping me, reminding me of the Limits of the seemingly Limitless. Jerusalem is like a 2-year-old, I have explained so many times in the last months. During the day, we battle – she talks back, she kicks, she punches, I grow weary, unable to cope. But, then, she begins the gentle dance toward sleep. I watch her, cannot help but stare as she begins to sleep, so perfect and breathtakingly beautiful in those few moments of quiet. So beautiful I could fall in love. I could.

I am left with more questions than answers. How much can the eyes of a 4-year old in Sderot, of a 16-year-old in Bethlehem see? How much violence can those eyes witness before the violence seeps into the heart, closing the heart to coexistence, to peace? What does it mean to be an activist, and how far am I willing to go, how much of my own security and peace of mind am I willing to sacrifice before I hit a wall? And, these walls we build, how much do they help? How do they help when we find ourselves burying 8 teenage boys? How does the world just continue to turn? How have we gotten ourselves to this point where we numb the bone-chilling fear of not knowing with tequila and beer? Are any of my dreams attainable, or, as the great Rav Bachman writes, is this just all “my own vain, messianic dream”? When will we remember how to use our words? What happens when we lose the ability to find our words completely?

And, yet, I remain hopeful. Peace, peace will come. And let it begin with me.

Will You Look For Me As I Look For You?

On a hot July night, I sat in HUC's beautiful gardens surrounded by hundreds of young adults seeing Israel for the first time. As the sun set, the white Jerusalem stone of the Old City, just a stone;s throw over our shoulders, turned from white to gold and back to white again. Standing in a circle, we connected with each other - both physically and otherwise. I closed my eyes and sang the blessings to separate Shabbat from the rest of the week, the sacred from the profane. In my hands, a colleague placed this week's bissamim (spices) - rosemary picked from a bush in the very gardens in which I stood. I inhaled deeply, causing a flood of memories to rush forward - the smell of the salmon I made freshman year for my first Pesach away from my family, the smell of the sweet potatoes I often roasted on Shabbat in my apartment in New York, the smell of my mother's garden. We sang. We separated. I looked around at the participants: some with eyes closed, some holding on tightly to a life-long friend they had just made that week, some giggling with discomfort over the ritual. I closed my eyes again. I smiled. I inhaled deeply - I wanted to hold on to that moment. What else is Havdalah about, if not separation? I wanted to remember that moment because it was the first one I had in Jerusalem that reminded me why I am here, why I am studying to be a rabbi.

Moments earlier I had guided students through a text study about Havdalah that was, for the majority of them, the first Jewish text study in which they had ever participated. We talked about the various symbols of Havdalah: the braided candle - the light of Shabbat; the overflowing glass of wine - the joy of the Sabbath, filled to overflow in hopes that the coming week will be one in which they joy of Shabbat overflows and fills us with happiness; the spices - sweet-smelling, representing the sweetness of Shabbat, a remembrance in the week to come. We read Mishnah, we read Torah. They talked to each other. They learned about the concept of chevruta - studying in a pair, each member of the chevruta learning and teaching. Then we gathered to wrap up. I asked them to think about the tradition from which they come as they continued to tour Jerusalem. I asked them to listen to the Hebrew spoken in the streets, remembering that this was the same language (give or take) of the Torah, of the Mishnah, of the Talmud - of our ancestors. I asked them to look down at the stones on which they would walk - stones some of which are 3,000 years old. I asked them to think about the legacy they inherit and to think about how that legacy has evolved, how it has become more modern, how they can incorporate it into their lives, how they can make it relevant while using it as a guiding principle - a light in the darkness, a light in the lightness. They listened, attentively. And I looked into their eyes, into the awe of learning for the first time, into the excitement of thinking about things in a new way, and I felt at home.

Last week, as I walked over the stones, as I listened to the Hebrew, spoke the Hebrew, I thought about the last year of my life. Last year at this time I had just received my application to rabbinical school. I took the first step in making the life-long commitment that I have known was my destiny since I was about 10 years old. I thought about two years ago, about the High Holy Days I spent in an apartment in Michigan with my exiled parents after Katrina. I thought about the majesty of Touro Synagogue's sanctuary on the High Holy Days. I thought of my rabbi, David Goldstein - of his traditional Yom Kippur letter. I reflected, and, though far from home, I let all the memories flow together, bringing a little reminder of home to this foreign land, to this homeland.

Now, with six holiday meals cooked, with 15 American college students at home with their generous hosts from my seminary class, I am looking out at the Jerusalem stone waiting for the sun to set and the New Year to begin. My location feels less physical and more spiritual - and I know I am in the right place.

May this year be filled with blessing, with health and happiness, with success, with peace and calm, with healing and growth. May each of your hopes and dreams for the coming year come true. May we all continue to learn from and teach each other.

Shana tova. Happy New year.

Sometimes This City Pushes You And You Have To Push Back

Sweating hot, covered in a thin layer of "Jerusalem paste" - desert dust and sunscreen - I walk into a somewhat barren store in the Arab shuk in the Old City. Having walked my people's history all day, through the water tunnels under the Old City, over the ruins of the Second Temple, I search for a Kiddush cup. With what will I sanctify the Sabbath tomorrow? I think. Will this perfect cup jump out at me? The store owner talks to another man. I start to walk towards other stores.

"Excuse me," a voice calls after me. "You'll come back?"

He offers me orange juice. He offers me coffee. I accept a glass of water. I can feel the cool liquid moving down my throat.

His name is Mike, he tells me in English - Hebrew is not our common language. He lived in Chicago for a year. He shows me beautiful crystal Kiddush cups; they look like water colors.

I check out. He tells me he will pray for me. He tells me he believes we will have peace - that I look like I want peace. My eyes fill with tears. He grabs my hands.

"We will pray," he says, "for each other. You are nice. I can see it in your eyes."

I whisper, "OK." He asks if I am leaving. I tell him yes. He tells me he will bring me to the gate to the Old City. We walk, side by side, out of his store and he personally escorts me to security, to the guards that separate Muslim from Jewish, Jewish from Muslim.

As I walk through the metal detector, I make my way quickly to the Western Wall before the afternoon sun becomes absolutely unbearable. With my lips and my hands pressed up against history, I mouth the words of Mincha, the afternoon service. I pray for peace, as I promised.

* * * * *

Invisible, I repeat myself for the eighth time, "Slicha - excuse me." The two men, side curls slightly wet with sweat, wearing black pants, white dress shirts, and black coats during an August heat wave ignore me. I do not want to touch them. I want to respect what I guess is their preference not to touch me. I believe in pluralism. "Slicha - excuse me," I repeat. No movement.

I begin walking through them, making a path for myself. I get through. My shuk cart is less fortunate. My arm remains stretched behind me, awkwardly trying to allow my cart to catch up to my current position inside the vegetable store. "Slicha," I repeat. No movement.

I begin to wheel my cart over two sets of feet. This cannot be pleasant for the feet being mashed.

I mutter something about not remembering the part of the Torah that talks about disrespecting women and ignoring fellow human beings. This goes unheard, or, at least, unacknowledged.

I buy sweet potatoes, mushrooms, scallions, so that I can go home to make Shabbat dinner.

* * * * *

I have always struggled with Otherness. Who is the Other? Am I outside? Am I inside? Am I invisible? Am I too loud? Not loud enough? Does anyone care? Does any of it matter?

What happens when the Other feels more familiar? What happens when the Family seems distant, unrecognizable, broken? Ultimately, do we not all come from the same place? One Holy City; three Holy Peoples - or, maybe, it is - it can be, it will be - One Holy City and One Holy People.

I Am Fine

You might have heard about this: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/892131.html.

I am safe and sound. I was nowhere near the Old City today. In fact, I was nowhere near Jerusalem today. I spent the day soaking in the Dead Sea at the Ein Gedi Spa.

Off to hear Idan Raichel in Herzliyah in an hour.

Life goes on in Jerusalem. Life goes on in Israel. We say an extra prayer for healing this evening for those wounded in this morning's incident.

I have a more interesting blog entry in the works. It shall be posted tomorrow morning.

Love to you all and a hearty Shabbat shalom to those observing.

And I Wonder If There Was Some Better Way To Say Goodbye

Sitting in Gan Ha'Paamon (Liberty Bell Park) - one of two gorgeous parks literally steps outside of my front door - last Shabbat, I started thinking about space and time.

Less than twenty four hours earlier, I said an almost tearless goodbye to the city I called home for six years, and then I boarded a plane to a place an ocean away, to a place I had been told would be my home for a year. Sitting in my cramped seat on my packed flight - summer is the high season; every single seat on the 600-ish seat plane was full - I started a bit of conversation with the man next to me.

"Are you going for a visit or do you live in Israel?" I asked.

He told me he was going for a visit, asked me where I was from, and then turned back to his cup of tea. As the hours wore on, and as I showed him how to use the movie screen above his seat, helping him adjust the volume and change the channel, our conversation expanded. I made the decision to tell him what I would actually be doing in Israel (deciding whether to have a conversation about becoming a Reform rabbi - especially as a woman - is often a delicate one, as you never know how receptive your audience will be or how tiresome the conversation - and the explanations - will become). He seemed interested, hopeful. I dispelled a handful of misconceptions about Reform Judaism - "That’s the not religious one, right?" He wished me luck repeatedly. He asked where I would be living.

"Jabotinsky. Near Keren Ha'yesod," I said.

"My wife lived on Jabotinsky."

That sense of a universal Jewish family, a seamless connection to those who share our faith - a birthright I struggle to believe in - lingered in the back of my brain.

I arrived and retrieved my luggage. When my cart rolled away from me as I tried to heave an 85 pound suitcase on top of it, a woman wearing a wig, covered from head to toe in modest dress, came over to hold the cart stable for me.

My aunt drove me the 45 minutes from Tel-Aviv, where the airport is, to Jerusalem. We unloaded, went to the grocery store for Shabbat food and to the Home Center for fans, as the sharav (heat wave) was just coming to an end.

And, now, I sat in a park, looking out at the buildings around me - the Jerusalem stone beige in the intense light of midday. I watched Arab children running around, playing, sing-song yelling to each other. I watched as they came to eye my iPod and book with curious interest. I watched as they tried, in Arabic, to ask Molly, an English and Hebrew speaker, to share her basketball with them. Coexistence, I thought. Somehow this scene felt like home. The buildings, the children, the trees, the activities, the serenity did not feel so far away from Central Park on Shabbat afternoon. Could this foreign place, this place where I only half speak the language (and that is a generous estimate) already feel like home?

Later I joked that Jerusalem looked like to New York to me - just with windier streets, less traffic, and a few more trees. Then I went to Tel Aviv, where home dripped from every building, where the city really did look like New York. I arrived back in suburban Jerusalem reminding myself of how important this year would be - how I needed to relearn how to interact with people. to shed some of my New York-bred tendencies, to move a little more slowly, more calculated, more thoughtfully - to really interact with the people around me, talk to them, make a little more eye-contact, listen to them.

11 hours. An ocean. And somehow it all still felt like home. And then it didn't. And then it did. And then it didn't. And then it did.

I did not know what to say to you. My thoughts these days hover mostly around what it means to make a home and what it means to live in the world.

Over fresh grapefruit juice, one of the summer interns asked me what I was most excited about and most scared about this year.

"At the risk of sounding naïve, or perhaps brattish, I have to be honest: I have no expectations for this year. High standards? Sure. But I am really trying to have few to no expectations. After I got into Columbia, which was, perhaps, one of the most thrilling moments in my life up to that point, as I gushed about how excited I was to leave, to start my new life, to learn, a friend told me that high expectations lead to disappointment. While probably the most earth-shattering, crushing thing anybody has ever said to me, it proved to be the most useful. I guess, now, the challenge for me is to figure out how to live with passion, with excitement, without ambivalence, but with no expectations," I responded.

The intern nodded.

I went on, "I do not talk about this often, but I really struggle with living here. I have never felt the rah-rah-we're-all-one-family passion that my peers expressed about Eretz Yisrael. I am an American; I want to be a rabbi in America. Sometimes I struggle to understand how living here for a year - how being away from everything I know and love - will inform my rabbinate."

"I struggle with being told I have some G-d-given right to this land - a right that can be defended at the expense of the human rights of others. I cannot take a side in this conflict. We have all been aggressors. We have all been victims. There is anger, heartbreak, loss, mourning, fear, and insecurity from every perspective. But, still, I ask myself how I can be here? I struggle to reconcile a deep-seated commitment to social justice, to equality with my desire to connect to this place I am told is my home."

"I have come to realize that I can love this place without loving everything that she does. I have come to realize I can believe in my right to be here, just as fervently as I believe in the rights of Palestinians, of Muslims, of Christians, of Druze to live on this land.:

"But I still struggle with being here. What does my presence say? Some assume my living here correlates to unquestioning support of the Israeli government and their decisions, to an unending hatred of The Other. I do not feel those things. I do not see The Other - I see the similarities, the commitment to family, the same olive skin, the dark hair, the laughter and the chatter, the guttural language. Somewhere in my mind I believe we can all put down our weapons, can use our words, can find our similarities, can respect our differences, can coexist. That does not seem so impossible to me."

The tears came - from both of us. I do not think either of us expected them. But, then, neither of us expected to hear the other express the innermost thoughts we all have but do not say - to commit verbal treason, to commit the crime of questioning, to break the silence and the tacit agreement.

"I guess I just hope I will make my corner of the earth a little better while I am here. I do not think I will solve world peace - though it would be totally great if I did. I just want to get to know this place. I want my neighborhood to feel like home. I want to pursue my passions here - educational equity, meditation. I want to buy vegetables from my neighborhood vegetable guy and from the shuk. I want to be uncomfortable, to be forced to make a new home away from everything familiar. I want to be lonely sometimes. Maybe, in the end, others will see my corner of earth and want to make theirs similar, maybe they will embrace similar values, joining me in my efforts. Or maybe they won't, and that will be fine too," I ended.

The questions continued to pour from my jetlagged brain. I hushed myself for a long enough moment to continue with a conversation about radical Jewish community, about empowering people to take ownership of their Judaism and the ways they express their commitment to it, about being the anti-Rabbi rabbi.

We paid the check, and I walked home, hoping to write to you, to give you insight into my ever-developing new (is it really new?) life here, to give you insight into the 83,000 questions that flood my brain at every turn. But the words were slow to come. I am still making sense out of the questions - I am far from having the answers.

So I remind myself that being here is not a commitment to the rest of my life - it is a commitment to the next hour, possibly to tomorrow. As I get lost on the winding streets, trip on the slick Jerusalem stone, look at pictures of weddings I have missed, the lump rises in my throat. As quickly as it rises, though, it falls, as I read the Hebrew street signs; as I find my way around; as I make friends with cab drivers, with store owners, with the woman at the coffee shop on the corner. Over three hundred days in this foreign place - it feels as foreign as it does homey - overwhelm me, though. And, so, I think only about today and, vaguely, tomorrow. I think about singing with Kol Zimrah in the park; I think about which of the vegetables in my fridge I will cook for lunch tomorrow; I think about mopping my floors, cleaning away the layer of desert dust that has settled in the three weeks I have called this place home.

Tears well. Tears well because I am so happy here; I feel like I am truly in the right place. Tears well because I feel like I am taking more steps towards being the person I hope to be. Tears well because I miss American washing machines. Tears well because I miss gentle hands rubbing my head and listening to how my day went. Tears well because everyday I try to write to you I read about Toby's struggle with neuroblastoma and my words, my fears, my challenges seem insignificant. Tears go away, though - they never stay for long, and they rarely even fall.

Please do not confuse these words as expressing unhappiness - they just express reality. I feel something different at every moment of every day because every moment is new. I do something I have not done before more times a day than I can count, and that is as emotionally taxing as it is wonder-inducing, intoxicating, and exhilarating. So I sit with my feelings. I try to give them words. I try to paint them. I try to talk to you. Please be patient with me, be gentle. The words will come in their own time. I just hope you will be here to listen.




***NOTE: I hope to update my blog on Tuesdays and Fridays, so check back often. The initial lull was not (hopefully!?) indicative of things to come, more of a need to get settled in a new place and focus on being in the moment.

Touch Down!

I have arrived safe and sound in Jerusalem, and I am settling in quite nicely.

My journey began yesterday, when I flew from New Orleans to New York. I got a haircut, went the Apple store, spent a little bit of time with friends, and woke up the next morning to be at the airport three hours before my 11:50 am flight.

Despite all of my concerns about my baggage being ridiculously overweight, checking in was fairly easy. The woman at the desk was really nice and charged me way less than she should have. 11 hours later, and a relatively easy flight later, I arrive in Jerusalem.

My aunt met me at the airport (thanks, Aunt Yael!), we shoved my baggage into her car, and took off for my apartment in Jerusalem, where a very sleepy Molly met us and let us in. Once we dropped my luggage and had a little recovery time, we took off for the mega grocery store to get some fruit/cereal/yogurt and stuff for Shabbat dinner/lunch. Then, we went to the home store to buy fans for the apartment (it's insanely hot here right now). We came back to the apartment, unloaded everything, put together three fans, and I said goodbye to my aunt, who was off to spend Shabbat with some friends.

I spent the afternoon unpacking and napping. I have definitely made good progress - all three bags are unpacked - including the monster suitcases. All of my clothes are in drawers, and, now, I just have to figure out how to organize the odds and ends.

Tonight we are going to go to Kol Haneshama, the Reform synagogue in Jerusalem, for davening. Tomorrow a bunch of HUC students (and probably about 9 million other people) are going to Masada for a sunrise David Broza concert. I will probably be ridiculously exhausted by Sunday, but it seems like this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things you don't miss. So, we'll head out to the concert, and, when we get back, I will head over to HUC to register, pick up my cell phone, get a campus tour, and take care of administrative stuff. My roommate, Aimee, arrives Monday, so we will probably spend Monday around the apartment, and then I will have a week and a half to play in Jerusalem (and the rest of Israel) and get settled in before orientation starts.

That's what's going on here. I have to go jump in the shower and get ready for Shabbat, but I just wanted to let everyone know I got here safely.

I promise future blog entries will be a little more interesting, but I figured this would suffice for now. As soon as the jetlag wears off, I will have something witty/substantive to say!

Shabbat shalom and love to all!

If You Save A Single Life, Then You Have Saved A World

Toby is 3 years-old. He is smart, he is funny, he loves the NYC subway. He has cancer - big, bad, scary, awful cancer. Toby is brave, he is a fighter, and he needs you.

If you are in NYC, please consider going to MMSK Cancer Center to donate blood or platelets for Toby. Donating blood takes an hour; donating platelets takes 2.5 hours. Both processes are incredibly easy and relatively painless.

Toby needs 2-3 units of blood and platelets every week; right now his donor bank has 1 unit of blood and no platelets in it. He has a major surgery coming up on June 27th, and will likely need a lot of blood and platelets around that time. Please, please, please do what you can - and spread the word to as many others as you know to help.

This is something that's really easy to do (bring along your bills to pay or relax and watch the little televisions set up at each station). PLEASE help! We can literally help save Toby's life.

You can find out more information about how to make an appointment and have your donation directed towards Toby at http://tobypannone.blogspot.com/. Please help!

(If your donation can't be used for Toby, it will go into the general registry and your name will be added to Toby's donor list. Also, even if your donation doesn't match Toby, by donating into the regular pool, you allow blood from the regular pool to go towards Toby - basically, it's a win-win situation however you look at it).

Thanks!