It has been quite a while since I wrote a good solid post, so I’ll try to give ya’ll an update and to entertain you a bit as well perhaps.
First let me tell ya a few of the quirky things that I have come to notice, if not always appreciate about this place I now can really call home:
Cheap falafel on every corner.
A shadchan is both a stapler and a matchmaker (think about that one…pretty funny, I think).
Finding that all falafel duchanim (stands) are not created equal.
Facing angry responses by many folks when I advertised an upcoming event that supported both Israeli and Lebanese civilians who have been victimized by the latest sad turn of events here.
Seeing old men and children playing backgammon (shesh besh) together while they seem to wait for the next young girl to walk by to chat with – these Israeli men never give up I tell you.
Never knowing how long any given task will take you: recycling, banking, the post office…it really is a crap shoot.
Every other cab honking at you.
A people that both cares enough to make sure that you order food you REALLY WANT (no, not as your server, but as the woman standing in front of you in line) and also will push you out of the way to get onto the bus…even if there is no chance of you both not getting on.
The city flooding in recent weeks with young, recent high school graduates here to study for the year…and taking over areas of town en masse.
Beautiful men…almost all jewish…oy.
Beautiful men…almost all jewish…many who love Judaism as well…oy.
Beautiful men…almost all jewish…many who love Judaism as well…one who has just got to be my next core shaker….oy.
More Torah to learn than I can begin to fathom.
I started Pardes a week ago today. It has already begun to totally amaze me – in a way I think only being here and experiencing it can. I mean, you can look from outside and see that it is a holy place – that people here are dedicated to learning and teaching, teaching and learning. To feel it from the inside is another level altogether. I have not yet left a class feeling that I hadn’t learned something. My classmates are inspiring. They too are searching for a greater understanding of the sages on whose shoulders we now stand. They are a diverse group – a little over 100 between all of the programs. From all over the world…well, none from Asia or Africa I don’t think, but from most other continents I believe. Mostly Americans for sure. But there are many Canadians ☺ and even a handful of Montrealers.
I was placed in the third out of 6 levels and it is just right. I leave class feeling challenged but also that I have learned, that I have accomplished something, that my skills have improved – if just a little bit each class. I have Talmud three times a week and Tanach (the Bible) two days a week. That is morning. Then I have two minor classes: the weekly Torah portion taught entirely in Hebrew (OMG I understand what is going on in a class taught entirely in Hebrew…holy ^%&^!) and a class called “Women and Mitzvot,” “women and Jewish Law”. Then after lunch I have two classes that alter days: Rambam (a medieval Jewish Rabbi/Intellectual/Really Freakin Cool Dude from Spain and Egypt) where we are studying his law code (The Mishna Torah – The second Torah), and a class called Modern Jewish Thought. That is the only class where English is the main language but it is a nice break. So…that is the breakdown of my classes during the day but I also am there a few nights a week for night classes, and chevruta (paired) study with a partner. I am also going to be taking a yoga class once a week in the evenings there…one of the other students teaches. I don’t think it is necessarily a good thing for my health, but I feel fairly certain it is for my neshama, my soul, but whatever the case I am often there for more than 8 hours a day…long days, but I don’t feel entirely tired at the end of them…I love what I am doing here. I am finally studying Torah the way I have been longing to for more years than I can remember. I know it may sound trite, but I am living my dream. Really. In the few days I have been there already, I can already feel my knowledge deepening, my skills with the text improving, my decoding ability jumping by leaps and bounds. I feel like my face is glowing at the end of each class. I know it is, my parents say they can hear it in my voice. I can hear it, too.
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Hui-Tse said to Chuang-tse, “I have a large tree which no carpenter can cut into lumber. Its branches and trunk are crooked and tough, covered with bumps and depressions. No builder would turn his head to look at it. Your teachings are the same – useless, without value. Therefore, no one pays attention to them.”
“As you know,” Chuang-tse replied, “a cat is very skilled at capturing its prey. Crouching low, it can leap in any direction, pursuing whatever it is after. But when its attention is focused on such things, it can be easily caught with a net. On the other hand, a huge yak is not easily caught or overcome. It stands like a stone, or a cloud in the sky. But for all its strength, it cannot catch a mouse.
“You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.”
In other words, everything has its place and function. That applies to people, although many don’t seem to realize it, stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house. When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong. One man’s food is often another man’s poison, and what is glamorous and exciting to some can be a dangerous trap to others.
- from The Tao of Pooh, by Benjain Hoff
So, why have I given you such a lengthy quote? Well, a few weeks ago I was at a sheva brachot (a dinner that is part of a string of celebrations surrounding a Jewish wedding). One of the people I had invited as a “new face”, a friend of mine, expressed a sentiment that a few people have expressed to me lately…and to be frank I find it very difficult to let slide off my shoulder.
I am happy. I smile. I enjoy living my life. I smile at children. I smile at strangers. Children make me smile. Strangers make me smile. It is my way. My Inner Nature. But some of my friends have expressed to me that this is frustrating, why am I always so damned happy? I have spent a few weeks thinking about why this is so hurtful and damned annoying to me and this is what I have concluded: my happiness comes from a struggle that I have faced and openly and honestly face every day of my life – to find my Way. Because I am happy now, and because I feel a general sense of contentment with my life does not mean that I don’t have tragedy in my past, that I don’t have skeletons in my closet, that I am never sad, that I have never been hurt, that I don’t have the guilt of knowing I have hurt others.
I live every day knowing that I found happiness, I had a life that I treasured – and that it is no longer. It died. It was kicked to the side of the road to make room for the next thing…I am in that thing now. I want to be here. That does not mean it wasn’t a struggle to get here. I know that in my recent past I lived with blinders on, that if I had been proposed to I would have married a person with whom I was holding myself in a place where I could not follow my Inner Nature. I would have been happy there too, perhaps, I will never know. But, hell, it is a scary thing to know that a life that was so essential to my happiness, to my being, has since descended/ascended to an unknown location which I will never return to again.
Scarier still is that I know I still have blinders on – I am not fooling myself. I know I am engaged in a constant process of taking layers off of the secret and holy essence that lies underneath my flesh and bones. I can’t always smile, be carefree. Sometimes life knocks the wind out of me. When my friends hurt, I hurt. Seeing my mother cry is like a bullet to the heart. I am not impervious to pain or sadness. I just have a strong faith in my own ability to continue the search of what is my Way, to strive for the “voice within”. I can feel the straps of my blinders loosening in another area now, which I mentioned in my last post. Reform Judaism doesn’t have the same meaning for me anymore. It is not bereft of all meaning, but it is not home anymore. It has not been for a long time now….but blinders are hard to shake and my Way hard to find.
I like a mechitza. (a separation between men and women in prayer)
I don’t feel comfortable when women cannot read Torah. (in general, but here I mean in prayer)
I am shomer Shabbat and shomer kashrut (I follow dietary laws and the laws of the Sabbath).
I feel uncomfortable when men count for a minyan (minimum number of people needed to have “complete” prayer), but women don’t.
I like hearing the whole Torah portion read at shul on Shabbat.
Reform philosophy still speaks to me – in many ways.
I sometimes feel estranged from my Reform friends, although I still consider them my friends and think they are wonderful.
I feel uncomfortable saying anything other than “I am Jewish” (rather than “I am Reform,” I am Conservative,” etc.).
I love wearing tank tops.
I want to go to the mikvah starting when I get married.
I do not want to cover my hair.
I will not be separated from my friends and family.
That’s what I have got so far. I’ll keep you updated.
I am still the same women – dedicated, corny, silly, goofy, nerdy, loving, I still refuse to say that I can’t do something without trying first, I still interrupt people when I don’t mean to, I still get blindsided when I fall in love (or start to for that matter), I still laugh at crude jokes and like playing outside, still feel overwhelmed with the beauty I encounter every day, still have a shoe fetish, still love the Daily Show and Sex and the City, still ridiculous much of the day. Still the Devil Dog.
“The masters of life know the Way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond Cleverness and knows beyond Knowledge. That voice is not just the power and prosperity of a few, but has been given to everyone. Those who pay attention to it are too often treated as exceptions to a rule, rather than as examples of the rule in operation, a rule that can apply to anyone who makes use of it.” – The Tao of Pooh
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