Mentally out to Galut

April 9, 2009: Our last full day in Israel and we haven't yet left the apartment. We've been napping, lazing, playing games, eating, playing around online. I had to study tomorrow night's in-flight movie options (lots of repeats from the Eastbound flight -- can't they plan that better?), Rosa has movie plans with her friends for Saturday night, I'm trying to plan how I can leave without any shekels and how much kosher for Pesach food we will need for our day-long journey home.

Tanya's plans for where she'll be for the remainder of her Pesach chofesh are still a bit tentative - probably stay with her Israeli friend from camp in Nes Tsiona (greater Tel Aviv) and spend some time at the festival nearby.

Tonight we'll all take a cab to the Malcha Mall (One of the largest malls in the Middle East) as Tanya needs a couple of things and I love to see the Pesadik (separated into Meat and Milk sides) food court where everything is kosher for pesach!

I'm so glad we were here this time of year (although I could have used a little more warm weather!) and had an opportunity to check-in with Jerusalem, Eretz Yisrael, and of course with Tanya and her TRY friends. I'm also ready to head home.

Ghosts of Pesachs Past and Present

<------ Tanya and Rosa recuperating from last night's six-hour seder

Jerusalem 1982-83: It is widely known that if you are a young person with nowhere to go for Shabbat or holiday dinner you hang by the Kotel about an hour before sundown and Baruch Levine will place you with an Orthodox family; he and his assistant, Jeff Seidel, are matchmakers of sorts between secular and/or non-observant Jews and observant families. Several times during this, my initial year of rabbinical school, I use their services to meet and dine with Orthodox families. Baruch or Jeff leads a group of us from the Kotel through the surrounding neighborhoods, and, along our stroll, our leader points to one or two of us in the pack and sends us to the door of an awaiting host family.

Jerusalem 2001: Dan, Tanya, Rosa and I are on sabbatical and, in spite of the fact that we have attended several services at the Reform synagogue here and spoken with several local Reform rabbis, no seder invitation is extended (This would NEVER happen in Boise). Leafing through the Jerusalem Post, I happen upon a small classified notice: "Need somewhere for seder? Call Jeff Seidel at . . . " Wow! Nostalgia-city.
I call the number.

"Allo?" (Israelis, to American ears, can sound both rushed and intimidating when greeting an incoming caller)

I tell him what we need.

"Are you Jewish? Where are you? What do you do? (Completely avoiding the "We're Reform rabbis" deal, I reply, "Teachers.") Where are you from?"

Concurrent with our conversation, he deals with an incoming call on his other cell and partially empties a trunk full of Pesach groceries (and this is pre-Bluetooth).

"I'll call you back in half an hour." Click.

Twenty minutes later I answer a call from Sara Averick-Rosenfeld who lives down the street from our temporary Jerusalem apartment. Sounding both friendly and animated, she tells me that they have three daughters ranging from six to ten (same age range as my girls), in addition to an older boy, 11. Their family had made aliyah from Chicago 11 years earlier.

Sara extends an invitation to get together pre-Pesach to get acquainted and I love her immediately. The Rosenfeld family is warm, funny, enthusiastic, open and curious. We have a meal together and our girls sleep over in their well-appointed, spacious apartment attending classes as their guests at the girls' same-sex religious elementary school. Tanya and Rosa also accompany them to a special day of arts and crafts at the local children's museum.

Their seder is lively and involving and their kids are eager to share their knowledge as they are enthusiastic about Jewish learning and the Bazooka Joes they earn for each insight. Their kids initiate a set of short "plays" related to seder in which Tanya and Rosa have roles. I love seeing Jewish children so intellectually and emotionally engaged by their tradition and excited that my girls are able to see this as well.

Jerusalem 2009: I have exchanged emails with Sara every so often over the past eight years and, when our Israel travel plans are set, I email her to let her know we will once again be in town for Pesach. She offers an enthusiastic invitation to join her family again for the seder.

At 7:30 pm we arrive at their door - their apartment is larger than I remembered: the top floor of one of a row of nearly identical stone blocks in the pleasant Rehavya neighborhood. Sara looks amazing - I think she's aged backwards since earlier in the decade. The girls are now beautiful, unrecognizable teenagers who still retain the personalities I remember from their earlier childhood. None of their kids remember us or our earlier visit but my kids wouldn't have recalled it either had I not given them copies of the blogs I very stubbornly insisted (in the face of whining and angry resistence) they dictate during our previous trip.

Nechemya (the oldest - now 21) is currently on Israel's yeshivah track but, unlike a number of other Orthodox men, is also doing army service. I would have liked to find out more about that but I know the issue is very sensitive for his mom. He has an extremely quick wit and is both knowledgeable and very entertaining. The girls are still sharp, curious and sweet. Avital, the middle girl, still retains the role of the family "character" - she is seated across from me and, for nearly every part of the Haggadah she energetically squeals: "Oh! I have to share just one thing. Just really quick . . . " and then proceeds to talk for five minutes about a commentary she has learned or a current book she is reading.  Of course each "really quick" commentary necessitates another Bazooka Joe - yes, eight years later and they are still the motivational seder item of choice.

Sara's brother and his eight children were supposed to have attended but they were unable, so his family is represented by one of the middle sons who is learning at yeshivah in the Old City. I recall from eight years ago Sara referencing her brother who, she said, "Went kind of overboard with the Chasidic thing." I don't know if she would still make that assessment today but her nephew is, although clearly sweet, intellectually curious and well-meaning, annoying in that Yeshiva-y way. As Tanya sums it up: "Endlessly quoting from Rashbam and Maimonides and Rav Whatever instead of having any of your own thoughts is culty and creepy. It's like they don't have any ideas of their own."

I am thinking that, if the chasids/ultra-Orthodox are too much on the "blind follower/spouter" end of the spectrum, Reform is the mirror opposite. It would behoove us to have our Jewish lives and perspectives rooted in discussions and disagreements of brilliant minds from our tradition's past instead of being planted in nothing but our own personal judgments and opinions (As my Spertus professor Byron Sherwin teaches, quoting from the book "The Jew Within," the modern American Jew's ultimate authority is the Sovereign Self.). Many people (at least in the modern, Western world) want to strive for happy mediums but very few of us ever arrive, much less live, there.

Their dominant seder theme is fairly easy to guess: "In every generation an enemy has risen to destroy us and the Holy One, blessed be He, delivered us from their hands." The promise of a safe, secure and peaceful Jewish homeland is both personal and immediate to Jews living outside the comfortable American dream. And although they feel resentment toward the Arabs, both domestic and in the territories, for their chronically angry, violent words and actions against a Jewish state blamed unfairly for their own economic and political plight, Sara is quick to clarify that this is the fault of only part of the Arab population. I found it touching that Avital shared the four questions in Arabic after the youngest two girls, Yehudit and Rosa, sang them in Hebrew.

There were prayers for Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit (and I had read in Ha-aretz that a seder in support of Shalit was planned for the protest tent outside the Prime Minister's house) and Sara tearfully shared a published letter from an army commander who had written a loving tribute to a young member of his rank recently killed in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. How enlightening to participate in a seder from the perspective of those who identify with its prayers and themes so personally and emotionally. For us Americans, seder feels as a nostalgic tie to youth and the Jewish past, while seder for Israeli Jews is a vivid expression of the present and a desperate yearning for a hopeful future. And enthusiastic clamoring for Bazooka Joes.

New Frontiers in Crowd Control

Photo (courtesy of www.vosizneias.com) of yesterday morning's Birkat Ha-chamah at the Wall: aren't you sorry you weren't crunched in with that Kotel crowd?? They packed in 50,000 worshippers before blocking it off (Well, at least it was lacking that one vital ingredient that most any American gathering of this magnitude would include: alcohol.)

The Thrice-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity

First sign of pink light

Here comes the Chamah

New day dawning over Jerusalem

The designated Bi'ur Chametz bin

Renegade Chametz-burners in a parking lot

Okay, I am falling way behind on my blogging but I am competing for computer time and how can I argue when Rosa pleads to do her homework (and maybe catch an episode or two of One Tree Hill)? And since the weather's been so great I'd rather be out and about, anyway.However, I do want to point out that this morning was Birkat Ha-Chamah: an every 28 year event in which the daily Shacharit prayers are davvened outside followed by a blessing for the sun. The tradition is that this is the time when the sun is exactly lined up as it was at the time of creation, but pseudo-science notwithstanding it was extremely cool that everyone in the city was out at 5:30 am finding a beautiful outside place to gather to pray and enjoy the dawn. Apparently the Kotel plaza was completely packed (And wouldn't that be a fun crowd to be crunched into?) and was closed off well before 6:00.

We tried to hail a cab from about 5:50 to 6:10 before one would pick us up -- we were his 3rd customers of the morning taking this route up to the Goldman Promenade in Southeast Jerusalem overlooking the Peace Forest, the Old City and much of the New. I have some photos on my Picasa album of the morning and I inserted a couple above.

It was very cool how different subgroups davvened shacharit after saying the simple blessing for the viewing of the sun (the same blessing one would say for seeing a variety of natural wonders).  There were Orthodox gatherings and egalitarian minyans and one colorful Jewish Renewal-y group was singing and dancing with instruments.


After people started dispersing, the girls were so overly tired, draggy and whiny that we sent them home in a cab (which I would never do at home, but Israelis of all ages frequently get around this way) while Dan and I walked home through the city -- really, it does not take that long to walk anywhere in this town. On the way back we passed the earliest of the day's "Biur Chametz" ("burning of the chametz"). There were some special metal trays set up along Yaffa Road for this purpose (even saying "biur chametz" on them), but most people just like to set their own bonfires which would keep the fire department extremely busy if not for the convenient fact that every building is constructed of stone. We tossed a piece of bread on the little chametz pile ablaze down our block -- Orthodox boys were enjoying squirting lighter fluid directly on the open flames which makes for great boy fun and a fairly good chance of a pre-Pesach trip to the Emergency Department.
I need to spend my allotted computer time today researching and preparing for tonight's seder: each participant has the assignment of giving a 5 minute d'var Torah on some part of the seder. I chose the teaching near the end: "Rabban Gamliel [a prominent figure among the early sages who helped transition us from a Temple/sacrifice-oriented people to a post-Temple religious tradition] used to say: 'Whoever does not speak of three things at seder -- pesach, matzah, maror -- has not fulfilled his obligation.'" This seems pretty basic but when you start parsing it apart it's actually pretty complicated. What does "speak of" entail? Do you only need these three parts? Which obligation is he talking about? What is the purpose of saying "three things" as if we cannot count them ourselves?

Evidence of rapidly-approaching seder night manifests all around: the smell of charred bread, stores and restaurants closing up, bakeries featuring all their fancy-schmancy Pesadik delicacies, chain-smoking chasids filling up with nicotine before the holiday and everyone wishing you, "Chag Samayach!" It's at Jewish holiday time that this noisy, tense, contentious place becomes not only bearable but beloved.

So no more blogging for today -- a very happy and kosher Pesach to all!! And hooray for the arrival of Spring!
Love, Me

Food, glorious food

<------ Our Israeli kitchen staples
OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: My kitchen at home would never be fouled by a jar of Skippy (tm)

This is my kind of culinary culture - everything is wholesome and fresh and not "dolled up" too much. A felafel, which is a huge meal in itself - comes with every kind of salad and topping you could dream of - costs 12 shekels (a little less than $3). Schwarma (lamb in a pita) is the same.

The Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox are now very into health food so you can get any possible thing in whole wheat; soy milk abounds. Even the tea and coffee taste better. I've been buying containers of humus and techina that I've been eating by the bowlful (no relation to why I could barely fit into my jeans this morning).

I notice that their fruit isn't quite as sweet - the oranges here (and I've eaten a bunch) are a little more tart than the American varieties. Dan said that was also true in Spain. Bananas have a starchier texture and are more subdued in color. We Americans are not much for subtlety.

Rosa is really enjoying the chocolate yogurt/pudding cups (dairy products here have twice as much fat as at home - my first year of rabbinical school, I gained 10 pounds from the cottage cheese alone) that come with little chocolate shavings. However, most of the different fruits I've brought home (with the exception of the green melons that she wouldn't eat during our last visit) she's declared, "gross."

Adventures in Jerusalem, continued. . .

After the shopping trip to Machaneh Yehudah, I exited through an unfamiliar alleyway and ended up taking a longer, scenic route home. After a few blocks I noticed that I was the only non-Chasid on the street. A bit nervous as I was wearing Gap khakis and Rosa's short-sleeved American Eagle top, I nonetheless plowed ahead. "It's my city, too!" I mentally pep-talked myself.

No worries, however. Nobody seemed to mind my strange Western garb (If I had been wearing shorts and a tank top I might have received a different response.) and my uncovered, natural head of hair (such as it is). One would not, however, want to attempt a stroll through Mea She'arim (enclosed Chasidic/Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood) in such a getup.

Travel tip: You know you're nearly out of a religious neighborhood when you look in the dry cleaner windows and there's something hanging up that's not black and/or white.

This is, in general, a very child-oriented society. Guess the 12-kids-per-Chasid thing tends to bring a family friendly spirit to a place. But a difference between this and other socially conservative cultures is the full involvement of the men in parenting -- maybe the up side to the non-employed status of many of the Ultra-Orthodox men is that they spend their days pushing strollers and doing playground duty. There are just as many little children clinging to the men as to the women. Even the secular dads sport baby slings and carriers. And people just seem to enjoy children: last time we were here we would be constantly be accosted by Israelis looking at 6-year-old Rosa with a smile, declaring "Eyzeh Chamudah!" ("What a cutie!") And she is a Chamudah still!

The weather changed about every 35 seconds as I wandered through the northern neighborhoods of the city but the wind was pretty persistent. On several occasions I caught young men attempting to recurl their sidelocks with their fingers or at least hold them together with their hands. Yes - a place where only the men have bad hair days!

Next up . . . back to the Old City . . .

Getting the hang of it: Good morning, Jerusalem!

Yesterday was actually a really great day in the City of Gold. The lack of personal space and constant melodic hum of "Sonata in G for Auto Horn, Yelling Israeli, and Car Alarm," notwithstanding, I was able to open myself to this colorful, historical, paradoxical place.

I dropped Rosa off at Dan's as they were off to Tel Aviv for the day. I and my little wheely grocery cart then headed back toward Machaneh Yehudah (the major Jerusalem outdoor marketplace only several blocks from our apartment) with the mission of replacing all the things I have already destroyed in our rental unit: hot water kettle, pair of scissors (victim of flower stem cutting) and glass. (I've not yet killed the two plants!! Stay tuned!!) I also needed some miscellaneous groceries.

Think pre-Thanksgiving Albertsons times 3.

Travel Alert: Machaneh Yehudah, two days before Pesach, should be avoided by those with the following conditions: claustrophobia, sensitivity to loud noise or strong smells, general misanthrophy.

But, you know, if you're in the right spirit (and your blood sugar is stabilized at the right level) it's still a pretty cool place to be. People representing a range of religiosity, cultures and ages cram through the crowded alley of humanity picking up bags of oranges, tomatoes, melons, cheeses and baked goods along the way.

Reasons the Shuk beats the Park Center Albertsons:

• Vendors chant and sing about the cheapness ("zol") and freshness ("t'ree") of their products
• Fish in bins still moving
• Store keeper, having just opened a new kosher for Pesach cake product for himself to eat, tears off a chunk and hands it to me to try
• Offers every kosher for Pesach food item imaginable
• In between food vendors, there's clothing boutiques, art stands, a myriad of delicious-smelling restaurant/cafes, colorful arrays of burlap sacked-spices, Judaica shops
• Incredible baked breads right out of the oven & freshly packed humus, techina and salads
• Gives you a chance to use (and mangle) basic Hebrew vocabulary
• All products handed to you in a pretty assortment of pastel colored bags making your little wheely cart look like a colorful baby's room!

I noticed that the bread bakery stands were mainly pushing rolls and individual pitas instead of whole loaves -- I guess customers want to purchase only small portions of chametz several days before Pesach. What kind of carb loaders are these? Amateurs! I've singlehandedly polished off an entire loaf of whole wheat walnut bread since Sunday.

Still to come . . . my photo-seeking journey through town, my visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (or, "Christians can also be dysfunctional - but not nearly as loudly"), and more . . .