Why This Post is Overdue

The מצב (matzav), not to be confused with matzah, is the hebrew word for 'situation'. Here in Israel it is the common way of referencing the battle against Hamas currently being waged in the south.

Example heard on Jerusalem street:
"I won't be travelling to Eilat this weekend because of the matzav".

I realize with chagrin that I have not written a blog post for far too long...also because of the matzav. Not because I was unable or too busy with studies or too often in a shelter. Rather it has been because there is so much to say each day that I am overwhelmed with choosing what to focus on and I cannot possibly capture all that occurs in the course of a day in Israel at this time. I have felt that anything I write will seem small and out of context. I want to share the many interesting class trips and learning I have encountered so far, however it has felt strange to write about the learning when the entire world is focused on the matzav! None-the-less and however disjointed this post will turn out...I am longing to stay in communication about my time in Israel this summer. So, here goes...

Hebrew Studies:
I cannot say enough about the quality of language teachers in Israel. Through decades of acculturating new immigrants to Israel the system of teaching immersion modern hebrew, called Ulpan, is remarkable. Every Sunday through Wednesday for four hours we progress in our hebrew language skills. Along the way, all those little missed understandings and grammar points that create big aha moments punctuate a typical day at Ulpan class. If you get an opportunity to study Ulpan in Israel, don't miss the chance. You will gain not only the ability to negotiate shopping and living in Israel, but also an appreciation for the word meanings that often hearken back to the biblical text. This past week culminated on Wednesday with a concert where each class presented an Israeli song. What fun and a great way to end the week!

Biblical History and Archeology:
Naturally, living in the land where the narratives of bible are said to have occurred is awesome in and of itself. Still, without an expert guide it is very difficult to understand and appreciate the significance of the evidence of past cultures found and preserved in Israel. We are very fortunate to have Dr. David Ilan, our own Indiana Jones, to show us around Israel. Visiting the various 'tells' where strata upon strata reveal culture on top of culture leading back to Neolithic time in some cases. We are learning to recognize the indications of Phoenician, Philistine, Canaanite and Israelite settlements across the expanse of time. What I really value is learning about the significance of the various geographical areas of Israel and how the various traditional trade routes affected how the Israelite kingdoms survived or didn't. All fascinating learning which I will definitely continue over the coming years.

Experiential Learning:
Just living here is an education. This week on Thursday after biblical history I packed my small suitcase and walked a short distance to Jaffa Street in Jerusalem where the new light rail system runs. A friendly woman helped me use the machine at the stop to purchase a ticket (6.9 shekels), the train came and I jumped aboard. I nervously studied my whereabouts on google maps and managed to get off three stops west at the Jerusalem central bus station. Sensory overload abounded as dozens of soldiers were rushing to catch buses home for a Shabbat off with their families, plus the usual bustle of many commuters. There was no choice but to follow the flow into the mall like building and up an escalator to the first floor...hmm, no sign of buses...just little shops and felafel stands etc. Finally I spy another escalator and go up...more chaos...but....ah...buses. I find the bus to Tel Aviv. I slowly figure out how to purchase a ticket...25 shekels to Tel Aviv and a 1/2 hour to wait. I search for a washroom. There is one but it has a barricaded one way door with a funny machine beside it...no writing on the machine! I stand back and watch others put coins into the machine and gain entry to the washroom. Finally I ask someone how much....he says...1 shekel. I can handle that:) After that I know I can manage the 50 minute trip comfortably. I spend 15 minutes in a book store there and then cue up for the bus. It is one of the green Egged buses. We are going to Tel Aviv so everyone getting on is mostly secular. The driver is lovely and I sit in the front seat behind him.

As we leave city of Jerusalem the high hill country is gorgeous, mysterious and foreboding. How did our ancestors live there? What a hard life...how difficult to defend yourself or grow food on that terrain. Passing by Modiin the high hills give way to the Shephelah...the low hills. Here life looks easier with big flat fields of corn and orchards and vegetables growing, river beds and springs providing water to grow to subsistence and extra to trade. This was the plum land from ancient times until today. The Shephelah gives way to the coastal plain. Greenhouses and palms abound here and of course the buildings begin on the kurkar ridges leading up to the Mediterranean Sea. The bus ride from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv is worth taking if only to appreciate the contours and elevations of the land. 

Here in Tel Aviv I have some old and beloved friends from my younger days living here. It has been lovely catching up! Tonight I am very much looking forward to attending the Bet Tefilah Kabbalat Shabbat service. It begins at 6 pm. Usually it is held outdoors right at the TelAviv marina overlooking the sea. For security reasons however, it is currently being held in Gordon Cultural Centre, just around the corner from my hotel. This service is a wonderful musical service using familiar secular tunes and universal messages. It has drawn out hundreds of secular Israelis to the experience of prayer they had never encountered in Judaism before. Check them out online at Bet Tefilah Israel.

If you read all that, you deserve a bit of multimedia!

Below a YouTube I made this morning while having breakfast at a Dizengoff street cafe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SVTvgO8rYE&sns=em

Here the traces of Iron Dome intercepting rockets over Tel Aviv this morning.

May this Shabbat bring peace to the world.

Shabbat Shalom, Paula

The Learning Begins

On Sunday, July 6th, 2014 orientation sessions began for my class. My class in its largest sense is made up of 32 people. Here is how it breaks down:

• five of those 32 are in my exact cohort of first year Cantorial Certification students (hereinafter known as CCerts) 
• six of those 32 are in the previous cohort of the CCert program and therefore are halfway through their studies already
• the remaining 21 students (by far skewed much younger than us) are in the first year of either the Rabbinic program or the Cantorial program 

Left to Right: Adam Davis, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, Sarene Apelbaum, Lori Shapio, Rabbi Aaron Panken, Alisa Fineman Rachel Kalmovitz, Neil Michaels, Sheera Ben-David Rachel Reef-Simpson, Adam Kahan, Laurie Weinstein, ME:), ?, ?, Harriet D., ?

I feel badly about those question marks in the caption above, however they are not in our program and I have not had the opportunity to learn everyone's name yet!

Monday, July 7th

Today began with T'filah and a Torah service led by the summer interns. The summer interns at HUC in Jerusalem are fifth year Rabbinic and Cantorial students who apply and are selected to work on campus in Jerusalem. This summer we have two Amandas...almost Rabbi Amanda and almost Cantor Amanda. We also have Udi, who is an Israeli Rabbinic student at HUC. I am not used to weekday davening and the nusach or melody of prayers is very different, something I need to learn. I also learned that when we chant Nissim B'chol Yom on Shabbat morning at Temple Anshe Sholom we have been using the weekday nusach *gasp* instead of the Shabbat nusach. Well...that was the only nusach of the weekday service I DID know:) Clearly there is LOTS to learn!

After the service we all walked across the campus to the president's apartment. The president of HUC-JIR is new to the position. The previous president Rabbi Dave Ellison was a beloved teacher of my husband, Rabbi Jordan. The apartment on campus is made available to the president whenever he is in Jerusalem. Of course, he visits all the campuses and happens to be in Israel this summer with us. We gather in the apartment and file along a long table to collect a plate of yummy bagels, smears and veggies, coffee, cakes and fruit. We gather in the very large living room and Rabbi Aaron Panken, the new president of HUC, begins to speak. It is a lovely talk framing the year in Israel directed mostly at the 21 students who will remain here all year long. We appreciate the advice as well though. We are told; get out and experience different forms of Jewish worship, talk with Israelis, meet with Israeli Arabs and talk about their lives, soak in the country as much as you can.

By Tuesday evening though everything changed to a great degree. For the first time sirens rang out in Jerusalem and we all hurried to the bomb shelters. In hotels, there is always a Miklat (bomb shelter) in the basement (ours doubled as a workout room). In apartment building there may be a Milat, and if you do not have one you are to rush to a room in your apartment or house that has no windows. If you are in the street in transit you go into a building in the stairwell. If you are in a car you get out and lay on the ground belly down with hands over your head. After ten minutes the threat is over (if the siren is not sounding) and you can resume your activity. 

Our experience was in our hotel (the Prima Royale) and as the siren began there was also an announcement that came through speakers throughout the hotel that we should proceed on the stairs to the basement. We did and, along with the other residents, gathered for about 20 minutes in the Miklat. I can truly say that friendships are made in Bomb Shelters. We try to stay calm and be positive for each other. We chat and get to know each other. We never forget with whom we spent those 10 to 20 minutes!

Wednesday, July 9th

Our program director, Cantor Ellen Dreskin, leads morning T'filah. It is a beautiful service of melodies and contemplative tunes. After the service our security team briefs us on last night's bombings and what is happening in the escalation of military activity.

A special happening...we have a Biblical History field trip today with Dr. David Ilan. We board a tour bus and travel to Haas Promenade. The view is the classic postcard view of Israel (sometimes in winter with snow).

View of Jerusalem from Haas Promenade

Dr. David Ilan helped us orient ourselves to the view we have and what directions we are looking. Our goal today is to view Jerusalem from the four directions. Here at Haas Promenade the view we have shows us the Temple Mount, the Kidron Valley, the City of David, the Mount of Olives (to name a few). A short walk from this view brings us to a tunnel vent to the Roman aqueducts. Dr. Ilan explains the technology of the Roman aqueducts (lower and upper) to bring water to Jerusalem. I am fascinated by this information!

We travel next to Ramat Rachel. This area is just south west of Jerusalem. Ramat Rachel is a kibbutz. We stop first beside the kibbutz at a park area with a landscape art installation. It is fascinating. Three tall pillars and on top of each is a live olive tree. The roots of the three trees atop the pillars intertwine with the other trees. The symbolism of the art is of the three Abramhic faiths.

Three faiths from Abraham

Beyond this moving and living sculpture is an edge of a cliff with a view of the land South West Israeli. It is beside Kibbutz Ramat Rachel. At Kibbutz Ramat Rachel there is a hotel with sports facilities and lovely gardens. They are surrounding by groves of olive trees and cherry trees. Just beyond the Kibbutz hotel through the parking lot, Dr. Ilan leads us to an archeological site.

Kibbutz Hotel at Ramat Rachel

Here just north of Jerusalem, high on a hill, a palace was built. Later in Byzantine times the site was used as an olive oil processing plant.  We learned what identified the site as originally being a palace were the distinctive pre-ionic capital stones. There are 4 of these found on the site. They are the pre-cursor form of the ionic capitals later found in Roman and Greek architecture. We learned that the stylized pattern on the capital at the palace at Ramat Rachel is of a date palm, the classic symbol of the area. One theory is that this palace was of the Kings of Judah. Another more recent theory is that Assyrian usurpers built the palace to rule over Jerusalem (there are great views from this hill of the area all around and of the Patriarchs highway which was the established travelling route up to Jerusalem in ancient times).

Pre-ionic Capitals

Later in the week we receive our results from the Hebrew and Biblical History Placement tests. I am thrilled to be put in Kitah Bet for Hebrew and in the higher level class for Biblical History. Bring on the learning!

Words of Peace

This morning in the Jerusalem Post president Shimon Peres speaks the words of peace that I resonate with.

"Peres asked Sakhnin Mayor Mazen Ghnaim to convey a message of reassurance to all Arab mayors in Israel, urging them to help ease tensions.

“Your heart and my heart are in pain, it’s our duty to call for restraint from all residents,” the president told Ghnaim.

“All the responsible leaders, Jews and Arabs alike, must come together as one in order to prevent a disaster and a loss of life. My heart aches for every death. Together, we can lower the flames and defend innocents.”

Ghnaim, who also serve as the head of a council of Arab mayors, said he would try to calm the situation."

~ The Jerusalem Post, Sunday July 6th, 2014

Kotel Bli Mechitza

 It is always imperative to visit the Kotel when in Jerusalem. To be as close as possible to the Temple that once stood on Mount Moriah. Even if it is just the retaining wall that Herod built to hold up the expanded Temple of his day, there is something powerful about being in the presence of these Jerusalem stones.

I have prayed in the women's section of the Kotel quite a few times. I have been in the women's section for a service with 'Women of the Wall', a group of progressive religious women who pray with Tallit and Kippot and have experienced harassment from the religious leaders who run the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. But for the first time on this trip to the Kotel with my husband, who is a Reform Rabbi, we were able to walk to the platform created for mixed gender prayer at the Kotel (see picture left), and continue right down to the stones of the wall together! I have to say that for both he and I, it was a powerful moment. There are the prayer notes of the people who came before us. The stones are lower down than the ones visible in the Western Wall plaza and have the older form of framing border around the stone face (see picture right). We were asked as we entered this new area for Jewish prayer if we were indeed going down to pray, to which we answered yes. My prayer was that we as Jews can learn to appreciate all the diverse paths to our God and decrease the judgements and separations that keep us from being fully in community together.

Side note: There are restrictions to how one can pray in this new egalitarian section of the Kotel. No musical instruments are allowed and no candle lighting. I must say personally that I look forward to the day when all of Israel can celebrate with voice and instruments together.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem.

A Very Sad Canada Day

Here, on July 1st, 2014, there is no celebration of my home country. Instead the day is marked by mourning and by a state televised funeral for the three boys, Gil-ad, Eyal and Naftali, murdered on their way home for Shabbat.

I am riveted to the television in our hotel room watching from 3pm on to 6:30pm as three separate funerals begin in three different locations. The eulogies are heartbreaking and the pain of the family members, and indeed all of Israel, is choking in its magnitude. These three families are so dignified and so unified in their belief that love must come from this and not revenge. It is very moving and fills my heart completely. The three bodies are clothed in Israeli flags. There are no coffins in the burial practice of Israel. You must connect with the earth from which you were created. After the three separate local funerals the bodies and families are driven to Modi'in for burial side by side. These boys will forever be remembered together, as victims of violence in a place where peace is sought after but rarely achieved. Modi'in...the home to the Maccabees, who fought against hatred towards Jewish practice. As the funeral is broadcast the police tape of the emergency call the boys made in the midst of the kidnapping is shared with the country. It is the voice of Gil-ad, only 16, who whispers 'they have kidnapped me'. The phone falls to the floor of the ambush vehicle and after a minute cuts out. How brave was that call? How stoic was that voice? Gil-ad's father speaks about that in his eulogy of his only son. Four police officers have been fired for not responding to the call quickly enough...for not taking it seriously enough. Because of that call, it is likely, the boys were shot immediately and disposed of in the field by Huldah.

When the bodies and the families come together in Modi'in, thousands have gathered. There have been free buses to Modi'in from nearly everywhere in Israel to be with the families and Israelis have responded in great numbers. This is important, this is galvanizing, this is something that needs to be witnessed. Netanyahu and Shimon Peres speak beside the three flag draped bodies. The entire country is together in tears.

Later that evening, Rabbi and I are at a lecture at the Hartman Institute. The lecture turns out to be an interview with Ari Shavit, author of My Promised Land. We are outdoors in an amphitheatre. In the background we hear many sirens and some shots. If we were at home, we would think 'fireworks'...but here we know there are riots happening.

By morning time the news in Jerusalem is that there was anti-Arab protesting by some Jews and the body of a 15 year old Palestinian was found in the Jerusalem Forest. It is reported that some of the protesters were shouting 'death to arabs'. Somewhere in the west bank, it is reported that grafitti appeared that read in hebrew...'price tag: Jewish revenge'. How quickly are my emotions being challenged. But that has always been my experience in Israel. Things move quickly here...and you are affected deeply and you have to question where is it that you will stand.

By late afternoon I get notice of a gathering in Jerusalem. The title of the gathering is 'We Mourn: not Avenge'. The group organizing the event is Tag Meir. This inter-religious organization promotes peace through education and action. There are many groups and factions in Israel and I am nervous about supporting any one of them. So often there are hidden agendas I would not be comfortable with. I investigate and I find out that IRAC, Israel Religious Action Center, is supporting the event. That helps me. I am an admirer of Anat Hoffman, well known for heading Women of the Wall, who oversees IRAC in Jerusalem. Reading more I find that the goal of the gathering is to mourn not only the three Israeli boys murdered, but also three Palestine youth killed in the search for the murderers of the Israeli youth.

I walk to the area and the location has been changed so there is no gathering at Kikar Hachatulot. My friends and I stop to eat dinner at a small pub...Hummus, Israeli Salad and Breads. While we are eating a parade of youth with Israeli flags draped around their necks and police following them go by. As demonstrations go it seems there are two camps...those who would mourn both Israeli and Palestinian deaths and not avenge and those who would seek revenge for the deaths of the three Israeli youth murdered. Later I learn that the Tag Meir gathering moved to Kikar Tzion.

Read more about the gathering by clicking here.

This is the complexity of Israel. This is the place of discernment and the asking of where you stand. It is not a simple question. I am not entirely sure where I stand.

Jerusalem of Gold

By Saturday evening in Jerusalem, when this picture was taken at Havdallah by the Kotel, Rabbi and I had already:

~ unpacked Friday afternoon at the Prima Royale Hotel

~ walked over to Kehillat Har El (Israel's first Reform congregation) to enjoy lovely Kabbalat Shabbat services

~ partook of Shabbat dinner at our hotel

~ walked to Hebrew Union College after breakfast for 10AM services, where we were greeted by a few friends and colleagues

~ enjoyed a long Shabbes shluf

~ walked into the old city for Havdallah 

Which brings us to the above picture! The light at the Kotel at Havdallah time is so unique and lovely. Naomi Shemer certainly captured this feeling beautifully in her iconic song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav. Many groups rushed to the Kotel plaza to make Havdallah and as the sun was setting the chanting to evening prayers could be heard from the minnerets near and far. We noted the green lights on all the minnerets (in photo behind my head left) to indicate prayer was "on". Never saw that before!

We still had some energy at Motzei Shabbat so we walked into the Ben Yehuda area where restaurants and bars were opened up again. Everything was buzzing with the Brazil -Chile World Cup match. We found a comfy couch at one such establishment and enjoyed dinner watching the game outside projected onto screens, which were everywhere. A note to beer lovers...I tried a Negev, a light summer beer with passionfruit overtones...very lovely and recommended!

Tomorrow, Sunday, we have no obligations and will enjoy a sleep in and some exploring.