(Friday night)
This is beyond wild. I am truly riding the waves of the universe. I usually avoid saying "coincidence" and instead say "being available to take advantage of opportunities." Here I'm not even choosing. Thank you, Ohad.
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So I get off the bus in Hebron, the driver tells the last passenger to get off with me and help me figure out how to get to where I was going. Ok. So she doesn't know where she's going, let alone where I'm going, but that doesn't seem to be a problem for reasons incomprehensible.
Someone drives by and gives directions. Turns out he's the guy Natalie's eating shabbos dinner with in a few hours. We find Batsheva Cohen, the schluchos everybody everywhere knows, who has no accent and isn't expecting me. Batya Cohen, with the accent, isn't expecting me (she gave us a cup of water). We call the number I called a few days ago and got a well known artist in kiriat arba, who was neither a Cohen nor expecting me (the busses had stopped anyway).
So... I go to Natalie's shabbos dinner person's house (he also gave us a cup of water). And then we end up at natalie's sleep place, where we get a cup of water and a piece of carrot cake. Turns out, the girl who was supposed to come with Natalie bailed, so I actually did have a place to sleep. Turns out, Natalie works for Ascent of Tsfat and got me on the list for next weekend. Turns out, she knows the Brooklyn Heights schliach and was at the wedding of my soul sista (and has known her for a long time). And we can relate via our spiritual journeys. And she studied butoh. And she loves batsheva. And I'm going to light candles now...
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(Sunday afternoon)
Wow. Just wow. I've said that so many times these past two days my mouth hurts just forming the words. A wise (also new, also obscenely connected to people I know) friend suggested "oh la la," but it's hard to break a habit. As I sit here on the floor of a used bookshop in Jerusalem's famous Ben Yehuda street shopping district reading about soviet Jewish identity (amazing choreographic inspiration in Wiesel's depiction, as well as a quieting conception of what it means to be a Jew), the vindictive sublimation of women along side that of an ancient affinity for goddess worship/feminine anthropomorphism, and chassidus -- oy vey cappuccino.
Rewind: I spent shabbat in Chevron. I was told it would be an experience, that it would be amazing, and it was.
I davened maariv at the Me'arat Hamachpelah, the burial place of the patriarchs and the matriarchs (minus Rachel). It was something else. To get there you have to walk down a narrow street lined with soldiers, bordered a stone's throw away on both sides by Arab occupied land (from which much more than stones has been thrown, horrifyingly many times), pass by the seventh step, the closest point to the actual burial site on the jewish side (the Arab side holds the keys to the actual caves, supposedly to protect anyone from going down there and never returning, as the legends go and there are many), and wind your way through the many partitioned-off minyanim all throughout the cramped stone courtyard of the citadel (built over the Me'arat Hamachpelah by king Herod).
The ruach of the Carlbach minyan sharply contrasted the solemn walk between this holy place and the homes of the 30 families who live there. It was bizarre to tiptoe down the street while on both sides the sounds of fireworks broke the sticky quiet.
I have nothing against Muslims celebrating the coming of Ramadan, just perhaps this isn't exactly the best place to start blowing stuff up in the night. Worse, this is the last shabbat for a month that the Jews will have access to the citadel at all: 10 days out of the year the Arabs control the entire building and four of them are on their way. I like to think the best of people, to think that the whole isn't always the sum of its parts, but this isn't the kind of situation that lends itself to saintly thoughts.
After shul, I had dinner with breslovs for the first time (they were the normal kind, not the nanachs). I have never heard kiddish sung like that in my life. Every word was precious and I really felt the blessings being brought down and given out to the family and friends at the shabbos table. It was so beautiful and so on my wavelength right now (thank you elusive Kaplan -- seriously, for a famous book that everybody has, why is it so hard to find?).
Of course, I was the only person who didn't speak Hebrew, and of course when the husband and wife took some time to get to know me the whole dance thing came up along with the usual exhausting circles that I had made peace with just seven days before. It takes time to change but recognizing the habit as it occurs is a prerequisite to prevention/cessation.
Speaking of listening to that which you already know (awkward segue, bear with me), I spent shabbos day with a group of young women from Machon Alte (thank you, Natalie!), one of the seminaries I wanted to check out while I was in Israel.
After lunch, I joined them in a teeny tiny reconstructed synagogue for a farbrengum (still not exactly sure what that is. This was a lecture, not table thumping group therapy, but I'm sure with a little patience...), where a rabbi talked about the importance of listening, particularly in situations where you've already heard what it is you're listening too, among other things.
As that resonated with me, I also enjoyed watching these young ladies ask challenging and thoughtful questions and shamelessly pointing out when the rabbi make a mistake. I also noted how very much I didn't know. These women were versed in Torah and Talmud. To say the least, I was shamefully impressed.
I finished off the day with a tour of Chevron with a spectacular tour guide. What a treat! That is, if you can call walking through the many spots of murder and massacre that riddle the Jewish quarter a treat.
After a strange havdalah expedition (it's really ok to leave it at that, really) and missing the only bus out of Hebron, I hitched a ride to Jerusalem and found my way to the loft of a friend of a girl I had met just as I was about to leave Suzanne Dellal on Friday afternoon (and with whom I'm having coffee in about 6 hours to discuss her reconciliation of orthodox Judaism with gaga), a religious guy who lives a block from mahane yehuda and doesn't have a problem with female guests.
9 hours later, I bid the ex-lawyer who started Jewlicious (check facebook) adieu and embarked on yet another chapter of this post gaga workshop expedition. Having failed once again to find Chani's chocolate chocolate cake in the fridge with the sprinkles on top, rediscovering the insanely ridiculously mindblowingly best ruguleh in the world (marzipan. 9th wonder of the world. I think they're trying to make something else in Israel the 8th. Good thing sufgnyiot's out of season or my attempt to avoid dance classes for two weeks might have to be reconsidered) and learning how to ask for a cappuccino without sugar, I set out to find a copy of Jewish Meditation (would you believe it if I told you none of the bookshops in Tel Aviv had it?).
And while I'm probably going to have to wait until next week to buy it in Tsfat, I ended up having another life-altering adventure that left me with a few other books (history and philosophy of the Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, a practical guide to halackah, the Wiesel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Tehillim and Special Prayers for Special Occasions that further breached the gap between me and wii) that will welcome the Kaplan with open arms, so to anthropomorphize.
Surf's up.
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Why does the Torah begin with the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet? To show you that you don't even know the first thing about it. -Baal Shem Tov
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