More on Derech Eretz...

I am by my computer, on the phone with M.S., while watching a live press conference being held by the leaders of Canada's three (left of centre) opposition political parties: Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party, the Official Opposition; Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party; and Gilles Duceppe, leader of the separatist Bloc Quebecois. These leaders represent parties with very different outlooks and platforms, yet together they are representing a common front to fight the current economic crisis by making Parliament work. As an example of the differences that they have put aside, in the 1990s, when Quebec was threatening to secede from Canada, Stephane Dion was effectively tasked with ensuring national unity, while Gilles Duceppe was a leader in the push for Quebec to secede.

These leaders have lost confidence in the governing Conservative party, who, in their recent economic update, failed to address the many problems facing Canada's (and the world's) economy. Instead of staying in their partisan silos, they have banded together to offer an alternative to the Conservative party. Over the past week leading figures in all of the opposition parties have put aside their differences to offer a viable alternative to the Conservative party. This offer of a coalition government is a bold, and almost unprecedented, move. The last coalition government in Canada briefly existed some 91 years ago.

This morning I spoke at our shacharit service about the need to combine learning of Torah with Derech Eretz- acting properly, acting with decency. Whether or not the Liberals, NDP and Bloc succeed in creating a coalition government, I believe that the efforts of the parties are an example of Derech Eretz, putting aside politics to try to do what they believe is best for Canadians.

Here is the open letter to Canadians written by the leaders of the Liberal, New Democrat, and Bloc Quebecois parties:

Monday, December 1, 2008


To our fellow citizens,

Canada is facing a global economic crisis. Since the recent federal election, it has become clear that the government headed by Stephen Harper has no plan, no competence and, no will to effectively address this crisis. Therefore, the majority of Parliament has lost confidence in Mr. Harper’s government, and believes that the formation of a new Government that will effectively, prudently, promptly and competently address these critical economic times is necessary.

The contrast between the inaction of Mr. Harper’s government and the common action taken by all other Western democracies is striking. We cannot accept this.

A majority of Canadians and Quebecers voted for our parties on October 14, 2008. Our Members of Parliament make up 55 percent of the House of Commons.

In light of the critical situation facing our citizens, and the Harper government’s unwillingness and inability to address the crisis, we are resolved to support a new government that will address the interests of the people.

Today we respectfully inform the Governor General that, as soon as the appropriate opportunity arises, she should call on the Leader of the Official Opposition to form a new government, supported as set out in the accompanying accords by all three of our parties.


Respectfully,


Hon. Stéphane Dion
Leader, the Liberal Party of Canada


Hon. Jack Layton
Leader, the New Democratic Party of Canada

Gilles Duceppe
Leader, the Bloc Québécois

Derekh Eretz and Jacob’s Ladder (my drash on parashat Vayetzei)

Let’s be honest- Jacob, now running away from home to meet his destiny, is a nothing, a spoiled brat even. He has a lot to learn before he becomes Israel- father of our nation.

After Jacob runs away from home he has his first dream, one which, as we will see, provides him with a model of what he must become in order to be Israel:
וַיַּחֲלֹם, וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה, וְרֹאשׁוֹ, מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה; וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים, עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּוֹ. (12)
וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה נִצָּב עָלָיו, וַיֹּאמַר, אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ, וֵאלֹהֵי יִצְחָק; הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ--לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה, וּלְזַרְעֶךָ (13) .

Jacob’s dream begins with a vision of a sulam, a ladder with malachim ascending and descending on it. Only after this vision does God appear to Jacob to say that the land will be for his descendants, and that God will be with Jacob.

Why did Jacob have to dream of the sulam? Why did he need such a brilliant visual aid to understand God’s words, when God was able to speak to Abraham without any props? God could have just started talking to Jacob!

The ladder imagery must contain important messages for Jacob to learn in the course of his relationship with God. As the Talmud observes (Berakhot 55b), "A dream uninterpreted is a letter unread." What does the image of the sulam and the malachim reveal to Jacob?

First, as noted in ancient Midrash[1]: “This [sulam], or “ladder” serves as a bridge between heaven and earth upon which angels ascend and descend- thus indicating the dialogic nature of communication between the two realms.”

Second, “Malach”, translated there as “angel”, also means messenger. Rabbi Lawrence Kushner[2] takes this interpretation one step further, writing, “The angels did not reside in heaven at all. They lived on earth. They were ordinary human beings. And, like ordinary human beings, they shuttled back and forth between heaven and earth. The trick is to remember, after you descend, what you understood when you were high on the ladder.”

Aha! So we are the messengers traveling on the ladder, in a literal sense, between heaven and earth. From another angle, we can put Torah study in the place of heaven, and have Earth representing actions/deeds/mitzvoth/prayers, with the ladder as the bridge between them. Starting from the ground, from where we are right now, we actively reach up to God. This understanding reinforces the relationship between the study of Torah and the expression of what we learn through the way we act and live. We can imagine ourselves continuously climbing and descending, or going back and forth on, the ladder, enriching our lives and our surroundings by reinforcing our actions with prayer/learning and reinforcing our learning with prayer/action.

As noted by Chasidic Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman HaLevi Epstein of Cracow (1751-1823) in his commentary on parsha VaYeitzei:
“ ...Just as (Mishna Avot 2:5) states “An ignorant person cannot become a Hasid”, so too Torah knowledge alone cannot complete a person’s soul as seen in our Sages’ teaching (Eruvin 109b)- “Whoever says ‘There is nothing in life but the story of Torah’, this person has not acquired Torah.”[3]

Action alone, or learning alone, are insufficient.

This concept- that a combination of learning and doing is necessary to bring God into our lives and world- is a fundamental precept in Jewish tradition. It’s called “Torah im derekh eretz”:

In Pirkei Avot (ch. 3, verse 21), Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaryah says,
"Where there is no Torah there are no manners/proper conduct (derekh eretz); Where there are no manners/proper conduct (derekh eretz) there is no Torah. Without wisdom, there is no fear of God; without the fear of God there is no wisdom. Without insight there is no knowledge; without knowledge there is no insight. Without food there is no Torah; without Torah there is no food.”

The malachim on the sulam begin from the ground, going up. It is only by engaging in our world, where we start from, that we can ascend the ladder to God. By living mitzvoth through doing them, living with our derekh eretz, we reach up to God. As we climb this ladder we bring godliness down into the world with us- we share God in the world. By being messengers shuttling back and forth, informing our actions/mitzvot with knowledge and intention, we benefit as well. As noted by Reb Nachman of Bratslav, “Let us learn that the more we give, the more we have. Giving changes a person’s impulse to cruelty into kindness of heart. This is the chief service of giving.”[4]

Jacob, at this point in his life, has had limited life experience and questionable moral judgment. This dream of the sulam shows him the way of living that he will have to adopt, as Jacob and as Israel (representing the people Israel), to live a life of godliness and fulfillment as a messenger of light to the nations. Through the metaphor of the ladder, Jacob can understand that the more we strive to grow and climb, the more God comes down to live among us.

Sometimes it can be easy to get caught up in the theory of living, instead of in the practice of it, and learning how to live, living with derekh eretz, is not something acquired overnight. Jacob is only at the beginning of his quest, en route to becoming a messenger, a malach, of God.

Going back to my lawyer days, I remember somebody asking why it is that we practice law. We practice law because we never perfect it- we are always works in progress, combining experience and learning in order to try to reach the essence and share it. As educators, cantors and rabbis we model the possibility that all Jews serve as malachim between heaven and Earth- all works in progress, yet all capable of bringing TORAH TO DERECH ERETZ , of bringing light into the world.

[1] Torah: A Women’s Commentary, p.159-160
[2] God Was in This Place and I, I Did Not Know, p. 13
[3] Sefer MeOr VaShemesh (Perusho shel harav Kalonymus HaLevi Epstein), Parshat VaYetze (translated by Rabbi Moshe Silberstein).
[4] Quoted in British Reform Siddur, p. 598.

"Marriage is a Jewish Issue" by Rabbi Laura Geller

The entirety of the article below is reproduced from the Jewish Journal:

"November 19, 2008

Marriage is a Jewish issue

Parshat Chayei Sarah (Genesis 23:1-25:18)

By Rabbi Laura Geller

This week's Torah portion, Chayei Sarah, is the biblical equivalent of JDate. After Sarah's death, Abraham gets busy trying to find the right wife for his son, Isaac. He sends his servant, Eliezer, to Abraham's hometown to make the match. Eliezer prays that the right girl will show up at the well and that she will make herself known to him through her generosity, gentleness and beauty. And sure enough, everything unfolds the way it was supposed to, and Eliezer brings Rebecca home to Isaac.

As they approach on their camels, Rebecca sees Isaac off in the distance. The translation says: "And she alighted from her camel." But the Hebrew word can also mean: "She fell off her camel." I've always loved Rebecca for that -- just at the moment when you want to make the best impression, you trip. I can identify with that. Still, Isaac loved Rebecca from the moment he saw her.

A lot has changed since the biblical period about how we find a marriage partner. And our ideas about who might be an appropriate partner have changed, as well. But as we saw from the recent passage of Proposition 8, not everyone agrees.

Why is Proposition 8 a Jewish issue? After all, doesn't the Bible say, "One who lies with a male as one lies with a female is an abomination" (Leviticus 18:22)? If we read the Torah as fundamentalists do, this and other verses would indeed present a problem. (Should we really execute people for working on Shabbat?)

That's not how most Jews read the Torah. We read it through the lens of commentary and with the understanding that certain laws, which might have made sense in biblical society, are no longer relevant now.

As Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson wrote in "Gay and Lesbian Jews: A Teshuvah," "We have reviewed a range of rabbinic reasons given for opposing same-sex acts. We have concluded that homosexuality is not intrinsically unnatural ... destructive of family life, devoid of the possibility of children, or hedonistic. We are dealing, therefore, not with a previously considered and previously outlawed phenomena, but with a situation never before encountered in Jewish law. Modern homosexual love and stable homosexual couples are different in significant respects from anything known in Torah or rabbinic Judaism."

In other words, what the Torah proscribes has nothing to do with contemporary gay or lesbian relationships and therefore is irrelevant to the current discussion. What does matter are core values that emerge out of Jewish tradition, including the fundamental notion that all human beings are created in the image of God and mishpat ehat yihe'eh lachem, that law should be applied equally to all.

Proposition 8 is a Jewish issue because we know what it is to be victimized because we are different. We need to stand up and defend the civil and human rights of other minorities. And it is a Jewish issue because it is also about us.

Gays and lesbians are part of our family. They are our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our cousins and nieces and nephews. Gay and lesbian families are in our synagogues, their children are in our day schools, our religious schools and our early childhood centers. They are part of our community. "They" are "us."

Reform Judaism has taken the lead in the Jewish community in supporting the civil and human rights of gays and lesbians. The Reform movement welcomed the first synagogue for gay and lesbian Jews into what is now the Union for Reform Judaism in 1974. The Reform movement began to ordain openly gay and lesbian rabbis in 1990, and, in 1996, the Reform movement went on record to "support the right of gay and lesbian couples to share fully and equally in the rights of civil marriage."

Thirteen years ago, I stood under a chuppah with my friends Rabbi Lisa Edwards and Tracy Moore. It was a powerful ceremony -- without a marriage license. They were and still are such fitting partners for each other, still in love after all these years. Last month I stood with them again under their chuppah, this time with speaker of the state Assembly, Karen Bass. This time with a marriage license.

When Bass signed the license and declared them married according to the laws of the state of California, the congregation burst into applause. It was a historic moment.

Now the status of that marriage is unclear. This is a Jewish issue. The right to marry is a Jewish issue because we believe that all human beings, male and female, gay and straight, are created in the image of God. The right to marry is a matter of civil rights; each of us has the right to choose a fitting partner for ourself and enjoy the same protection that the law provides to any married couple and their children.

Few of us meet our marriage partners at the well anymore. Our world has changed. But some things never change. God is present when two people commit their lives to each other and become one family. We need to continue the struggle for marriage equality, because it is a Jewish issue.

Rabbi Laura Geller is senior rabbi of Temple Emanuel of Beverly Hills, a Reform congregation."

Now the work begins...

As we recover from staying up for the results of yesterday's historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America, I can't help but note that the election itself revealed key areas where work must be done. As the Huffington Post's Bruce Tenenbaum notes in his article "Civil Rights Victory for African-Americans Leaves Millions of Others Out in the Cold",

"Yesterday I wrote that the election of Obama is a victory over the politics of hate. I was wrong. As the dust cleared this morning, it was apparent that Californians had voted to deny basic rights to millions of citizens who just happen to have been born gay."

Indeed, as California voted for Obama, a slim majority of Californians also voted in favour of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative that will deny rights to millions of Californians (removing the right to marry recognized recently by the courts). Similar bans on same-sex marriage were approved in Florida and Arizona, while Arkansas voters endorsed a measure to block same-sex couples from adopting children.

At this time advocates in support of equal marriage in California (the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and National Center for Lesbian Rights) have filed a petition with the California Supreme Court urging judges to overturn Proposition 8.

The time has come for the rights of gay and lesbian Americans to live in recognized, supportive partnerships to be both recognized and celebrated. Countries such as Canada that recognize gay marriage have not suffered any of the harms bandied about by opponents to equal marriage. To the contrary, recognition of social marriage has only strengthened the social fabric.

President-elect Barack Obama will have a large list of items to address when he gets the keys to the White House. The economy is in dire straits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue, the environment needs rescue, and health care and education require urgent attention.

Barack Obama was elected on a message of hope and a recognition (and even celebration) of the diversity of American society. With the long list of issues that he must immediately deal with upon entering the Oval Office, I only hope that he sends the message that his message of hope applies to America's gays and lesbians as well.

Anticipation

In but a few hours the results will start to come in for the historic U.S. election. The whole world is indeed watching in anticipation. Here in Jerusalem a main nightclub is staying open all night (it is Tuesday, remember!) for an election party. A group of Brits living down the street are having their own fiesta. A large number of my classmates are hosting get togethers or attending more formal events. This all sounds very normal, but we must take into account that it will be 2:30am Israeli time when the results start coming in, and when the polls close in California it will be 5:00am. CNN just announced that in the U.S., Starbucks is giving out free coffee today, Krispy Kreme is giving out donuts, and Ben and Jerry's is giving out free scoops.
I respect CNN's Christiane Amanpour, their Chief International Correspondent. She describes this election as being "The election that will change the world". Big words for someone who has reported on South Africa's election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, overcoming apartheid.
I will not be up the whole night, but I think that I will not be able to help myself from checking in and M. in Ottawa has promised me that she will be sure to rouse me when key results start being reported. Let's all stay tuned.

HaMakom

It is amazing how quickly time can pass... So much has happened! The holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah, visit home to M and Ottawa in time for the Canadian election, which unfortunately did not go as intended (let us just hope that the current minority government will govern in the best interests of the whole populace), a wonderful presentation by Marci S. on "The Emergence of Women in the Scrum: Women Journalists Covering Politics and Public Affairs in Ottawa, 1930-1950" for the Friends of the Ottawa City Archives, food with family, return to Jerusalem, the arrival of fall wind and rain in all of its glory (this past week's Torah portion was Noah, and it is so interesting how what goes on in the elements adds to one's understanding of the narrative), and, of course, the arrival of school work in all of its glory.

Simchat Torah, which comes right after the end of Sukkot, marks the end of the annual Torah reading cycle (finishing Deuteronomy with the death of Moses and his final blessing to the Israelites preceding his death) , and of beginning anew with Bereishit/ Genesis' telling of the creation of the world. Genesis moves quickly- in the past couple of weeks Torah readings have moved from creation of day and night, to Adam and Eve, to Noah and the flood, the Tower of Babel, and the lineage of Abraham's ancestors. This week we are already at Torah portion Lech Lecha, where God tells Abram to leave his native land and his father’s house for a land that God would show him, promising to make of him a great nation, bless him, make his name great, bless those who blessed him, and so on.

In about a month from now we will be reading the coming of age story of Abraham's grandson Jacob (in parasha Vayetzei), when, after leaving his home to set out for his uncle Laban's place he falls asleep and dreams of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. In the dream God stands beside Jacob and promises to give him and his numerous descendants the land on which he lies, says that through his descendants all the earth would be blessed, and promises to stay with him wherever he goes and bring him back to the land. Jacob awakes afraid, remarking that surely the place is the house of God, the gate of heaven, and calls the place Bethel (house of God).

The Hebrew word for place - "makom"- in post-Biblical times also came to be a reference to God, and the interplay between being in a space and recognizing God's presence there is a key theme for Jacob. Biblical scholars and rabbis of old hypothesized that the place where Jacob dreamed was none other than the same place where the binding of Isaac took place, and the same place where the Temple mount, the holy of holies, would be located (i.e. not too far from me here in Jerusalem). In this interpretation the place where Jacob dreamt is a foundation stone of sorts for the world- the spot holding up the world and connecting the human domain to God's domain. I do not believe that any one place on Earth is fundamentally holier than than any other- God exists everywhere. But I do wonder whether certain places, where we have brought intention and focus for example through prayer or meditation or just being present, have the effect of in turn opening our eyes to things that we might not otherwise appreciate. Along these lines there are many people who claim that there is something particular about Jerusalem, that there is a mystical quality to the city that causes people who haven't seen each other in ages to run into each other, that Jerusalem is a city where the number of co-incidences that occur are higher than the rest-of-the-world norm.

I have not tested this hypothesis, but I do want to share a story of something that happened last week. Last Wednesday a friend and I were heading from school to the wonderful neighbourhood of Nachlaot to sit in on a course on the Siddur (prayerbook) at Simchat Shlomo Yeshiva. It was dark and cold and rainy outside (we remarked how interesting it was that the rain came at the same time as we were reading about Noah and the flood), and although we knew the route well we managed to somehow end up somewhere about 15 minutes off course (we say that we got caught in a vortex). Once we realized our error we turned back and proceeded to head in the right direction, cursing our folly at having made such a wet and cold mistake. A few minutes later, though, we heard a call for help. A woman was standing at the top of a stairwell leading down to an apartment entrance with her small child and some bags of groceries. She explained to us that she needed assistance to get to her apartment, as a taxi driver had dropped her off at the wrong entrance, away from her walker. The woman looked to have multiple sclerosis, or some other such neuro-muscular condition, and was unable to walk down the stairs in the wet with her child. My friend P. carried the child while I helped the woman on the steps. Within a couple of minutes the woman, her child, and her belongings were safe inside their apartment. As P. and I left to continue to the yeshiva, we both could not get over how clear the reason was for our earlier misjourney in the vortex! Both of us qualified the experience as a "Jerusalem moment"- enabled by the mystical something special about this place, this makom, that reinforces all that there is to appreciate and learn from where we are.

Tefilla Zakkah- Forgiveness

The streets of Jerusalem are emptied of cars (a beautiful and surreal experience, with people walking and talking and sitting in the streets), as Israel begins the observance of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, 10 days after Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. On Rosh Hashanah it is written, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed- so the line goes with regard to our future. When you think about it, though, Rosh Hashanah is really the day of judgement, whereas Yom Kippur is a day of "rachamim", of mercy or compassion. Indeed, the message of Yom Kippur is that whatever ill we have done we can correct, we can return, we can seek forgiveness and change our actions. Yom Kippur is thus fundamentally hopeful, and by going through the process of forgiving and seeking forgiveness ("selichah") we purify ourselves for the year to come. We start the year with a clean slate. Before we kick off Yom Kippur with Kol Nidre (the renunciation of the vows towards ourselves (not to others) that we could not keep), we engage in a long confessional prayer, the Tefilla Zakkah, that also ensures that we forgive those who might have slighted us in the past. I want to reproduce the key bit here:

"I know that there is no one so righteous that they have not wronged another, financially or physically, through deed or speech. This pains my heart within me, because wrongs between humans and their fellow are not atoned by Yom Kippur, until the wronged one is appeased. Because of this, my heart breaks within me, and my bones tremble; for even the day of death does not atone for such sins. Therefore I prostrate and beg before You, to have mercy on me, and grant me grace, compassion, and mercy in Your eyes and in the eyes of all people. For behold, I forgive with a final and resolved forgiveness anyone who has wronged me, whether in person or property, even if they slandered me, or spread falsehoods against me. So I release anyone who has injured me either in person or in property, or has committed any manner of sin that one may commit against another [except for legally enforceable business obligations, and except for someone who has deliberately harmed my with the thought ‘I can harm him because he will forgive me']. Except for these two, I fully and finally forgive everyone; may no one be punished because of me. And just as I forgive everyone, so may You grant me grace in the eyes of others, that they too forgive me absolutely."

May everyone find blessing and forgiveness this Yom Kippur and enjoy a meaningful fast.

Shana tova u'metukah, and gmar chatimah tova (have a good and sweet new year, and may you be written in the Book of Life),

D ;-)

Rain and Renewal

My past few posts have all touched on the weather, and how the weather serves as a marker of time. I find that particularly intense here in Jerusalem. This past Shabbat the winds that had been blowing for the previous few days brought rain along with them- the first rain that Jerusalem has seen in months, and the first rain that I have seen since my arrival at the end of June. It was amazing seeing and feeling the rain. Speaking to fellow students, it seems that many of us felt inclined to run outside and play in it, and offer up some sort of prayer recognizing its import. The High Holy day season, beginning tonight with Rosh Hashanah and going through Yom Kippur and Sukkot, are actually very much founded on Israel's need for rain. Looking at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot as a unit, one can interpret the period of forgiveness inscription in the "book of life" as being a period of preparation for a shift in the seasons so vital for survival here in Israel. We tend to under-value Sukkot, putting much of our emphasis on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but in many places here Sukkot is still referred to as "He-Chag", "The Holiday". Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are preparation for the harvest, and Sukkot is the time for bringing in the harvest, and praying for a strong rain season so that the coming year's harvest will ensure that all are inscribed in the Book of Life. High Holy Day prayer, as understood in this context, is very grounded in the influence of us on our place and our place on us.

With the start of the High Holy Day/rain season/winter comes the theme of renewal- renewal of the harvest cycle, renewal of ourselves, of our relationships, renewal of our goals for the coming year. This past Friday night I attended (with friends Sara and the Stillman family) my first Jewish Renewal Kabbalat Shabbat service with congregation Nava Tehila, led by Rabbi Ruth Gan Kagan. Jewish Renewal is a type of Judaism that incorporates Hasidic, meditative and musical practices into an egalitarian service/approach. The service was quite beautiful, taking excerpts from various Psalms and putting them to music using guitars, drums, a viola, a digeridoo, and, of course, all of our voices. This singing set a meditative though uplifting tone for the evening, and led up to an energetic Lecha Dodi welcoming the Shabbat bride. Unfortunately, at one point in the service a random fellow from outside (perhaps someone from the neighbourhood), stormed in and denounced the service as being loud/inappropriate/etc, etc. (it didn't make all that much sense, though he was very angry- this would never have happened in a "traditional" synagogue, as he would not have had the chutzpah to storm in). The community and the rabbi dealt with the man in a remarkable way- they let him say his piece, and then a couple of congregants gently escorted him outside and let him calm down. His interference and anger was not met by anger. Rather, Rabbi Ruth addressed the incident by asking the congregation to pray for the best for the man, as it is very difficult and sad to see someone so consumed by anger, especially around the Shabbat and the time of the High Holidays (when we are all supposed to be seeking forgiveness). The service wrapped with a traditional recitation of the ma'ariv, or evening prayers. Following the service I returned to the Stillman's, where we talked and reviewed and drank Jameson's and enjoyed dessert, all parts of weekly renewal.

Shana tova u metukah (have a happy and sweet new year!!),

Dara ;-)

the galilee, the golan, seudat shlishit, slichot and shivers

So much happening!! What follows is a brief summary of the past week, with more in-depth writing on some topics hopefully forthcoming...

We spent a good part of last week up north in the Galilee and Golan Heights region, on a learning trip about the "New Jew". En route I had the opportunity to swim, both at the lovely Gan Sachne, Israel's largest natural swimming pool, as well as in the wonderful Kinneret, or Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake and the lowest freshwater lake on Earth (209M below sea level). We traveled to Zichron Ya'akov, Kiriat Shmona, Metulla, Tel Hai, Tel Dan and more, and learned all about the first waves of immigration to Palestine/Israel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We looked into Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and contemplated the issues regarding what to do with the Golan Heights. We visited the Kinneret Cemetery, where key figures in the Zionist movement and Israeli culture are buried (such as Naomi Shemer, Rachel, Moshe Hess, Nachman Syrkin, Ber Borochov). I hope to reflect and write more on this trip, which I will add in another posting.

Following our return Thursday night from our tiyul (trip), I enjoyed a lovely Kabbalat Shabbat service at Kol Haneshama, one of Jerusalem's Reform congregations, followed by a wonderful dinner hosted by congregants at Kol Haneshama. On Saturday I spent seudah shlishit, the Shabbat meal before the end of Shabbat (Havdallah) at the home and yeshiva (Shlomo Yeshiva) of Rabbi Sholom Brodt and his wife Judy (from previous posts, Rabbi Brodt had been a teacher at Solomon Schecter Academy in Montreal when I was there more than 20 years ago). About 30 people were in attendance and it was a wonderful spiritual and warm experience that I look forward to repeating. Following dinner and Havdallah I made my way to school (with a stop for ice cream- it is amazing how Jerusalem suddenly comes back to life when Shabbat ends, you see stores opening up and people emptying out of homes onto the streets to play) for a special pre-Slichot service rundown. Slichot are special prayers recited before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. They are traditionally recited early in the morning, though numerous synagogues offer late-night versions. After gathering our class together at school, at 10:30pm Saturday night we headed over to Jerusalem's Great Synagogue to hear the renowned hazzan (cantor) and choir lead the services (which lasted until about 12:30am). The atmospheres at Shlomo Yeshiva and the Great Synagogue could not have been more different, but both were beautiful in their own way.

Otherwise another week of classes, though we will have very little course time between now and the Sukkot break, what with Rosh Hashana next week and Yom Kippur the week after. I cannot believe how quickly time is passing. Tonight, though, as I went out for dinner with friend and fellow student "J-Fro", I felt fall's chill and wrapped myself in a sweater. There is comfort in this harbinger of seasonal change, in that it validates my internal sense of time moving on....

Alas, I hope to be able to add more soon!

Best,
d ;-)

Boppin' like Machina

Thursday night a couple of friends and I had the pleasure of heading down to Jerusalem's old train station, now a regular outdoor concert and festival venue, to take in the reunion tour of favourite Israeli band Machina (huge from the mid-1980s until mid-1990s, and who then reunited in 2003) joined by the lead singer's cousin Ehud Banai (the Banai family is apparently Israel's best known family of entertainers). The concert itself contained a snapshot of so much that I will be learning and experiencing this year- the spirit of the crowd, the energy (yes, we exist, we are alive), lyrics that incorporated all sorts of biblical and historical imagery, all sorts of people, different emotions, reference to all sorts of places in Israel and in the heavens.

The first week of classes was full and enriching, characterized by the feeling of my eyes opening and me then being overwhelmed by my surroundings. I am in the process of becoming aware of all that is out there as I am learning the tools to access the wealth of Jewish tradition. Overwhelming, yes, and even tedious at times, but also exhilirating.

For me the key to any successful 'study' experience is finding the right atmosphere in which to actually engage in study/reading. Light jazz/blues music and the availability of caffeine and snacks are vital. This week I have settled on two gems, both in the German Colony : The first is the Coffee Mill on Emek Refa'im, and the second is Lev Smadar, just off of Emek on Lloyd George. I consider studying at these locales to be a form of experiencing Israel whilst nose is to book, and to be surrounded by a peaceful community while I am on the lonely learning island. As my bubbe often says, though "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". In other words, there is such a thing as too much studying. Getting out and about is a necessary way to maintain balance and not get too caught up in books. Action, after all, is a necessary element of prayer- a prayer that is not connected to any action is empty. Prayer is thankfulness for existence/living, so studying prayer must include the latter ;-).

Speaking of prayer, this shabbat was again lovely. I attended a kabbalat shabbat service at Shira Hadasha (a new song), a modern liberal orthodox congregation, with friends from HUC. In Jerusalem sirens sound just before the sun is about to set on Friday to indicate that Shabbat is about to begin. The sirens aren't scary or offputting, as sirens can be, but herald peace. The sirens were matched by a beautiful sunset. Walking to Shira Hadasha I felt myself easing into the Shabbat vibe, breathing more deeply and slowly, enjoying my surroundings. The service at Shira Hadasha was warm and enthusiastic, and after services I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with friends, full of great conversation. On Saturday proper I attended morning services at Moreshet Yisrael, the Conservative shul just a few blocks away from my apartment. I adored the sanctuary there, dignified, though warm and familiar. The woman who acted as usher could well have been the bubbe of the congregation, how she was so careful to take care of us! Two new friends, one a student last year at HUC, had an aliyah in honour of their recent engagement, and in all the service was comfortable and enjoyable. Throughout Shabbat I meditated on the nature of kavanna (intent), on my desire to learn about all streams of Judaism, on my affinity towards services where there is warmth, and on the ability to discern the difference. I am testing out, figuring out, what makes things work for me, and beginning to understand how all that we are learning is connected to all that I will be experiencing in this land.

Shavua tov,
D ;-)

Transitions

Back home I always knew that Labour Day was around the corner when the nights in August would turn crisp and cool, unlike the hot summer nights of July. September would come, and so would back to school, or back to a packed work schedule (what with the courts or the government no longer being on a summer rhythm). September does feel like the time of a new year, and so it always made sense to me that the Jewish new year- Rosh Hashanah, would fall sometime in the autumn, as we all got our work pistons going.

Transitioning back to life here in Jerusalem after a wonderful sojourn back home in Ottawa (as well as in Montreal and Vermont) I am most struck by the fact that it is still so hot that it does not really feel like the new year is around the corner (I shouldn't complain as come January the winter here in Jerusalem will seem like heaven compared to winter back home!!) Nonetheless, today was our first day of real, full-on school (vs. ulpan), and gearing up to today I have been meditating on what this all means. As suggested in my previous post, the fact that I am actually here in Israel, in the first year of a rabbinical program, has finally hit me. While back in Ottawa I was able to appreciate how lovely a life I have there, which led to all sorts of thoughts regarding what has drawn me here. This past Friday night, sharing Shabbat with colleagues and friends Adam, Alicia, Philip and Alicia and Philip's two snazzy kids, I felt why it is so important for me to be spending this year in Jerusalem. After enjoying a delicious Shabbat meal we made our way down Ushishkin street to a little neighbourhood full of people welcoming Shabbat, kids playing outside, great smells and enchanting lights emanating from houses, and so on, to a little second-floor synagogue for services. The synagogue seated about 40 people, and I would describe it as a sort of progressive almost-Hasidic Carlebach style type of place. There was a mechitzah, or division, dividing the women from the men, though it was only a sheet and of course the children attending the service paid it no mind (a little girl spent a good portion of the service climbing on the rabbi). The rabbi himself was positioned at the front in the middle of the mechitzah, so half of him was on the women's side and half of him was on the man's side. Usually mechitzahs bother me (with what the division connotes), but this was fine in the circumstances. The spirit of the service was wonderful. The women and men prayed and danced and sang aloud, and women led bits of the service. I spent my time out on the porch at the entrance to the synagogue's prayer room, and was warmly greeted by the women there, many of whom were quite pregnant and were caring for multiple children whilst praying. The service spilled out into the courtyard, creating a beautiful flow between the inside and outside. The best part, perhaps, was that we only found this service because Philip had been directed to the yeshiva affiliated with the synagogue, and had been quite impressed with what he had seen there. After the service Philip introduced me to one of the rabbis at the yeshiva. It turned out that it was none other than Rabbi Sholom Brodt, who had been a teacher more than twenty years ago at my elementary school (Solomon Schecter Academy) in Montreal!!

I took from Friday night that this year is to be a year of learning, where I will likely discover things or gain insights in unexpected ways. To do so I must keep my eyes open, and I will know as the year goes by where this year will lead me. I suppose, then, that even though the weather is still hot, I am ready to transition into the autumn and all that the new year will bring.

Sending snazziness,

Dara ;-)

p.s.- As you know federal elections will soon be taking place in both Canada and the United States. These elections will be key, as both main parties in both elections present very different visions of what the respective countries should be. Vote.

Family and Politics

I apologize for the two week lag in posting, but I have been back in North America first at the Wexner Foundation Summer Institute in Stowe, Vt, and then home in Montreal and Ottawa. The past two weeks can be summed up in two words- family and politics. First, the theme of the Wexner Institute was "The Family Room". Throughout the week we looked at all aspects of the family as it interacts with our future roles as Jewish professionals, from relationships between parents and children, to interfaith families, to balancing work and family, to breaking down heteronormative assumptions of family, and so on. Family has been very much on my mind during my first two months in Israel. The distance from my love, and my family, has put a sharp accent on things that are of central concern to how I want to live my life true to my understanding of my tradition. I suppose that my views on how I want to grow in Judaism can be summed up by Confucius: "To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right." In other words, I need to work from the inside out, with the inner rings being consistent, and leading to, the other rings.

Politics have also been front and centre. Not wanting to feel left out of all of the excitement down south, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will likely (99.9%) go to the Governor General to dissolve Canada's 39th Parliament and set an election for the day after Canadian Thanksgiving, i.e. October 14th, i.e. the first day of Sukkot. Election fever is running high in Ottawa, and while home I got to see the beginnings of things first hand. Both the US and Canadian elections will, I believe, come down to vision- what sort of vision the respective parties have for their respective countries. The visions are quite different, and all I can hope for is that we, the people, take the time to consider the visions, and to go and vote.

Best,
Dara

Happy Tu B'Av (15th of Av)!

Coming out of the 'down' of Tisha B'Av (9th of Av), we're heading now into a holiday that I had not heard about before I came here to Jerusalem- Tu B'Av (15th of Av). What is it all about? A first clue is in the first sentence. A second clue is that it is designed to always fall on the last full moon before autumn gets underway. As noted by the website "My Jewish Learning",

"Tu B'Av the 15th Day of Av, is both an ancient and modern holiday. Originally a post-biblical day of joy, it served as a matchmaking day for unmarried women in the second Temple period (before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.). Tu B'Av was almost unnoticed in the Jewish calendar for many centuries but it has been rejuvenated in recent decades, especially in the modern state of Israel. In its modern incarnation it is gradually becoming a Hebrew-Jewish Day of Love, slightly resembling Valentine's Day in English-speaking countries.

...It should be noted that Tu B'Av, like several Jewish holidays (Passover, Sukkot, Tu Bishvat) begins on the night between the 14th and 15th day of the Hebrew month, since this is the night of a full moon in our lunar calendar. Linking the night of a full moon with romance, love, and fertility is not uncommon in ancient cultures.

In recent decades Israeli civil culture promotes festivals of singing and dancing on the night of Tu B'Av. The entertainment and beauty industries work overtime on this date. It has no formal legal status as a holiday-- it is a regular workday--nor has the Israeli rabbinate initiated any addition to the liturgy or called for the introduction of any ancient religious practices. The cultural gap between Israeli secular society and the Orthodox rabbinate makes it unlikely that these two will find a common denominator in the celebration of this ancient/modern holiday in the foreseeable future."

Tonight I fly back to North America for my first Wexner Graduate Fellowship Summer Institute in Stowe, Vermont. I look forward to the opportunity to explore the theme of the Jewish family with wonderful Fellows (pursuing programs in Jewish professional leadership, community leadership, education, and Jewish studies) from all walks of Jewish life. Before and after the Institute, though, I look forward to marking Tu B'Av by being reunited with my love and my family.

Wishing all a happy Tu B'Av,
D

It can be easy being green...

Tonight, after a few days of feverish work, Hebrew presentations and more, I decided (despite the fact that I have a Hebrew test tomorrow) that it was necessary to get out of the grind and soak up some events going on here in Jerusalem. First stop of the evening was a "Reuse" art exhibit and fashion show at the wonderful Mercaz, a unique combination of an absorption centre, community centre and activism centre founded by Young Judaea and Hadassah on the principles of Zionism, Jewish Pluralism and Social Activism. The event was fun, in a warm green way, and took me back to student days at Montreal's Casa del Popolo. Following that we headed down Emek Refaim street in the German Colony (a gorgeous old, though not ancient old, Jerusalem neighbourhood) to a lovely crafts, clothing and food fair with live music. After some enjoyable browsing and a mango sorbet (mmm....), I feel much more ready to get back to class. ;-)

What comes next

Tisha B'Av is now over, and over the next bit we will be transitioning out of summer into back to work and back to school mode. As September progresses all thoughts will turn to the big holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

As we leave Tisha B'Av and try to think about what we can learn for next year, I want to share a couple of news articles that I came across today. The first is from the NY Times' Nicholas Kristof, and is titled "Make Diplomacy, Not War". The other is a Canadian Press report published in the Globe and Mail on the celebration of Canada's first-ever National Peacekeepers Day. Given all that is Tisha B'Av, it seems fitting that National Peacekeepers Day fell at the same time- August 9, 2008.

Tisha B'Av - Exile, Power, Prayer and Responsibility

Usually when Shabbat ends we use the Havdalah service as not only an opportunity to distinguish the holy (sabbath) from the mundane (rest of the week), but as a send-off of sensory snazziness to get us to the next Shabbat. We smell sweet spices, we fill and drink from a cup of wine of hope, we let the light of the havdallah candle dance around our hands.

Tonight, though, we transitioned out of Shabbat to a sombre day on the Hebrew calendar- Tisha B'Av (the ninth day of the month of Av). This holiday is a day of mourning to commemorate various tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, in particular the destruction of the two Temples (in 586 B.C.E. and 70 A.D.). On this day people fast, read the Book of Lamentations, and recite mourning prayers.

Tisha B'Av is a marker of exile. There are those that ask, now that Israel exists again as a homeland for the Jewish people, whether we should continue to follow this day (ie Can't we just appreciate what we have and get on with it?). Back at home Tisha B'Av was never big on our calendar, falling as it does in the middle of the summer, and seeming a bit less relevant than some other holidays (i.e. do we really want to return to great big Jerusalem Temple-based Judaism, what with all the animal sacrifices that would ensue, etc., etc.?) Tonight, however, I had the opportunity to reflect on what the history of this day could mean in a contemporary context.

At our Tisha B'Av service tonight our HUC rabbinic interns provided various takes on commemoration for the day. Each resonated with me on a different plane. One way of approaching Tisha B'Av is to consider that while the Jewish people no longer are in exile, there is still much work to be done to ensure a just and compassionate society. A tract from the Babylonian Talmud states that the Second Temple was destroyed due to causeless hatred. One does not have to look far in Jerusalem (and I would say most anywhere, for that matter) to come across some unfounded hatred (there is not enough space here to get into all of the types of hatred, by whom, and against whom). So long as this exists we are still in a state of exile, in a state of still needing to work for a more complete return. This would be true even if we were to eliminate the geopolitical circumstances of Israel. As a Reform Jew I think about how Israel is perhaps the only democracy where not all Jews can practice their religion freely. Here in Israel the various forms of progressive Judaism are relegated to second-class status, as only Orthodox rabbis can perform Jewish weddings, funerals, and conversions, all the while on government payroll (which is almost completely inaccesible to non-Orthodox, let alone female, rabbis).

Quoting from Spiderman, rabbinic intern H.S. noted that "with great power comes great responsibility". Now that Israel exists again as a country, she has the responsibility to live up to her potential. As Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), American Zionist leader of the early 20th century noted: "The future is full fo the gravest responsibilities. We are promised a place in the sun, not to ravage and dominate, but to serve our people, ourselves, the world. Standing in the sun we shall be seen clearly as never before. Our abilities will be on trial before a world full of nations, who will judge us in the light of a glorious past of ideal service to mankind. For Israel, election has never meant anything but obligation. Clearly, rehabilitating a nation is not a pastime. It is a task, a heavy task, a holy task."

After our service this evening a group of us went to the Kotel/ Western Wall, where thousands of people thronged in bittersweet procession to mark the day. The square in front of the Wall was filled with people reading from Lamentations, and others exchanging greetings as they had not seen each other in some time. It was an incredible mix of darkness and light- I managed to make my way up to the Wall itself and was overcome by women communing so strongly with the day that tears fell down their cheeks and heartfelt lamentation cried out from their lips. Other women were hugging each other, some not having seen each other since the previous Tisha B'Av. I was taken back to another observation of a rabbinic intern at tonight's service: Tisha B'Av is an opportunity to let mourning or pain or darkness 'come out into the open' and occupy a safe space for a day. It takes place in summer, when there is light all around, as a sign that wherever there is light we need to recognize that there are also shadows. The partner holiday of this commemoration would then be Chanukah, the festival of lights that takes place in December. At Chanukah we are reminded that although we are surrounded by the darkness of winter, there is always hope and warmth in light.

Land of wine and olives

Last Friday a group of us went on a trip to the Judean Hills to taste some wine, buy some local produce, and just enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. Later that evening we enjoyed kabbalat shabbat services on the Southern Wall inside the Old City. Walking from my apartment to the Old City I was struck by the ubiquitousness of olive trees (hope for peace, perhaps?). I have never been one for olives (though I have always appreciated their valour from afar), but and I find that as time winds its way through the Jerusalem stone, and I am surrounded by varieties of beautiful olives crying out, that my senses are awakening to the olives many virtues...What is it about wine and olives that make them so special, the ideal accompaniments to things holy? (there are too many answers to this question than can be addressed here, so I will leave it to you).

On another note, it has become clear to me how Jerusalem is a city of meetings- of the holy and the profane, of people from all over, of the ancient and the new. On the one hand I have been running into old friends here that I haven't seen for years, and that I would not run into at home. Here at HUC we are all going through the various levels of meeting and getting to know each other- Tuesday night we had our first 'beit cafe' (coffee house), and I was so joyed/impressed/blown away by the spirit and talent and energy of my cohort. Tomorrow we are going to tour around where David and Goliath had their tête-à-tête. That's just the way things roll here....

Cheers,

d

Tiyulim Through History

In our Biblical History class Wednesday night our professor asked the following question: "what is so special about Jerusalem?" Jerusalem itself is not mentioned even once in the Five Books of Moses (though one could argue that there are some indirect references). The first mention of Jerusalem in the Bible (the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings) is found in Joshua 10:1, (and then again in Joshua 12, Joshua 15, and then Judges 1:21, II Samuel 5, Kings, and then later on in Chronicles). To go back in time, Jerusalem was founded almost 4000 years ago in the 19th century B.C.E. as a small town. According to the Bible, Jerusalem was made the jewel of the Israeli crown by the revered King David (whose son Solomon built the first Temple, and so on) around the 10th century B.C.E. It doesn't seem as though there was any inherently religious reason for making Jerusalem the capital. Instead, as posited our professor, David could have chosen Jerusalem as a capital of a united Judah as it qualified as a sort of Washington, D.C., or Ottawa, Canada - it was centrally located though not coveted by any particular tribe/state/province.

In any event, whatever the reason for choosing Jerusalem, 3000+ years later it is still special, to all sorts of peoples for all sorts of reasons. By making it special it has become so.

As an extension, what makes Israel itself so special? Does it make a difference whether or not the stories of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rachel, Leah, Jacob, and Moses ever happened? Do these stories explain meaning or create it? I am reminded of a famous quote from the late great former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir: "Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!" This thought tread, that of the relationship between history, Jewish tradition, and geography, will be something that I will continue to address and develop. As a quick preview, in my gut I do not feel that the biblical tales that make up the basis of the Jewish story, particularly the Exodus accounts, need to have actually happened in order to be important and relevant. These parables, many drawn from other traditions, seek to provide a worldview, a hermeneutic, a way of seeing. For example, whether or not we were once actually slaves in Egypt does not matter as much as the message of Passover: by imagining ourselves as having been slaves we are to work to free those still in bondage.

Living here in Jerusalem now, though, I am struck by the fact that whatever meaning we may give it, we are surrounded by history. On Thursday we spent the day tiyuling (traveling) through the excavations of the City of David, the area adjacent to the Old City dating back almost 4000 years, which was made the 'united capital' some 3000 years ago. We also toured excavations at Ramat Rachel just outside of Jerusalem that date back to the First Temple Period.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, I joined colleagues on a bike ride through Mt. Herzl, around Yad Vashem and through the Jerusalem forest, all sites of interest. Throughout the bike ride we were surrounded by Israel's modern history: Mt. Herzl is a national cemetery (Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin are all buried there, among others) and Yad Vashem is the nation's Holocaust memorial and museum. The Jerusalem forest itself contains, among other things, a special memorial to President Kennedy.

I feel that I have only begun to explore this city and its histories. Whatever Jerusalem's origins (some 4000 years ago), it has become a city complete and infused with meaning....

Promenades and Prayer

Havdalah again already!! Where does the time go? (The answer is many places, in no particular order- kibbitzing, classes, cooking, studying, biking, reading, praying, catching up with friends and family, and so on...)

This has been a week of firsts. We have completed our first week of ulpan (Hebrew classes). On Thursday I led my first shacharit (morning prayers) service, guided by two fellow students (thank you Faryn and Lauren) and rabbinical interns (thank you Lydia and Haim) who helped me understand and take ownership of the prayer. During my 'drash', or teaching moment of the service, I addressed other firsts (noted in an earlier posting of this blog): British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's visit as the first sitting British P.M. to address the Israeli Knesset and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meeting with Israeli President Shimon Peres at Peres' Official Residence. I spoke about the relationship between these two firsts and Tuesday's pigua, about the presence of hope and progress in the face of shadow and attempts at destruction. Shacharit's a great service- it is designed to orient you to your day, help you get into your skin, thank God (or whomever) for where you are, and help you focus on who you want to be and where you want to be going. It's a wonderful way to start your day off on the right foot. The service took place on Thursday at the Haas Promenade, a lovely park overlooking the Old City. Following prayers and breakfast our class engaged in a day of study and discovery of Jerusalem through walking and learning.

Friday night I hosted my first kabbalat shabbat dinner in Jerusalem, blessed with the presence of old friends from Montreal and new friends from HUC. Little did I know that the beau of one of my dear friends from Montreal who attended kabbalat shabbat proposed to my friend not two hours later (mazal tov!! what a shabbat mitzvah!!)!! This morning I attended services at Kehilat Har-El, Israel's first Progressive-Reform congregation currently led by Jerusalem's first and only female rabbi, Ada Zavidov (a beautiful service celebrating the bar mitzvah of Noam O. in the presence of three generations of family members). Tonight closed with our first at-home havdallah, bidding shabbat adieu and welcoming in the new week.

My roommate has initiated a shabbat ritual whereby after dinner we gather a group of us around, and, aided and abetted by whatever spirits we can procure, debate topics fundamental to our new chosen paths. Last week the question asked around the table was "what is the meaning of shabbat?" This week's query was "What is the meaning of prayer?" (my roommate doesn't waste any time on idle chit-chat). I don't yet have answers to these questions, and I cannot guarantee that I ever will. Still, just looking back at this posting, at the past week, I believe that I am starting to have an idea....

Shavua tov!

Jamais Ennuyeuse

Jerusalem, or Israel for that matter, can be described as many things. "Boring" is not one of them.
The past 24 hours have seen a lot of action in this neck of the woods. Yesterday British Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed the Knesset, the first British P.M. to do so since Israel's founding 60 years ago.
Today, on a more sombre note, a "pigua" (attack) occurred at the corner of King David and Keren HaYesod streets, where a tractor driver rammed a construction vehicle into three cars and a city bus before being shot dead by a civilian. At the time of the attack, President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were in the midst of a historic meeting at the President's residence a few miles away. Following their meeting the two offered joint condemnation of the attack.
Tonight Barack Obama will be arriving in Jerusalem and staying at the venerable King David Hotel, located a few blocks from the pigua site. Ha'aretz columnist Bradley Burston's "Ten Mideast Traps for Barack Obama to Avoid" offers a great summary of how life seems to be here- exciting, frustrating, beautiful, even calm at times, but never boring.

Prayer and Oscar Peterson

At Kabbalat Shabbat services Friday night Rabbi Na'amah Kelman read us an excerpt from the introduction to the Kol Haneshama Siddur, by Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman:
"Praying is like playing jazz. The more you pray, the richer your prayer becomes. You can pray alone, but the exciting things happen with fellow pray-ers. It helps to know and trust the others, too (although you learn a lot when you pray with new people). Some services are traditional, others creative. Some synagogues are formal, others less so. The Jewish service is built around a set of spiritual themes. Sometimes we all pray in harmony, other times we each pray at our own rhythm, at our own volume.

The siddur is a framework, like the page of notes in front of the jazz player. If you choose to use these words, know that if you read the prayers, you are not praying. One should try and reach a proper balance between the pray-er and the prayer, and between the pray-er and other pray-ers."

This year we'll be learning the foundations of prayer, its basic notes and structures, so that going forward we'll be able to create, innovate and improvise. I couldn't help but think of Oscar Peterson's wonderful Hymn to Freedom, which will be an aspirational guide as to how to craft snazzy, beautiful, jazzy, soulful prayer...

Shabbat shalom!!

It is Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, and the city is getting ready to welcome the Sabbath bride. Most shops are closed, and in nary a couple of hours the streets will be quiet and peaceful as evening services and Shabbat meals get underway.

Shabbat shalom!!

Dara ;-)