Is it (almost) March already??

Its been a while since my last post, I try not to let that happen but there are times here that I don't have that much to say, whenever I sit down to write nothing comes out. It’s strange and I suppose I could always just post up some links or random thoughts about whatever. But at least for now that's not what I want this blog to be about. I knew when I decided to come to Israel that it wouldn't always be an easy experience and lately its been very up and down day in and day out I don't know what to expect. Some mornings I wake up ready to go to class to learn, and within ten minutes I'm hating class, wondering what the hell I'm doing in Israel and just wishing I was home. Other days I wake up angry and ready to go home, only to become deeply engaged in a topic, and in those moments I remember why I'm here and what I'm doing. And that’s just how it is. Life no matter where you are is just up and down at times. But I feel like being in a foreign land, far removed from the comfort and safety of home can exaggerate it. Anyway I've really been trying to sort out where I stand on a lot of core issues and what in turn that means for how I live my life. Questions like am I going to keep Shabbat and kosher when I go home. And I realize I won't really know until I get home. This is a scary proposition. But I'm getting there slowly but surely I'm figuring out what my place is in the world is. I can't say that I'm always 100% happy or even that I wouldn't have been happier just staying home and not going on this crazy adventure but I do know that if I hadn’t decided to do this I could have woken up ten or twenty years from now without any of these questions resolved and with none of the time I have now to resolve them. So I try to count my blessings each and everyday and appreciate the beauty to gods grand design even if I can’t always understand it. Shalom and Eretz Israel.

The People of the Conversation

I have my ups and down’s here but it’s the conversation’s that I live for. – Joey

I came up with the idea for this post (and cited that quote) in the first few weeks I got here and since then every time I’ve sat down to write it nothing has come to me. But now is not just every time. Over the last two weeks or so I’ve been struggling greatly, I’ve felt lost and confused, unsure of why I’m here or what I’m really doing. I suppose its natural but knowing that what you’re going through is healthy and good for you in no comfort at a time when you’re so frustrated you just want to pack up your bags and head for India, or Nepal or Amsterdam, or home.

Luckily for me that frustration is beginning to lift. And that is due in no small part to the power of conversations. Jews it is said are the People of the conversation, we thought out the ages have always been questioning and pondering and looking for true meaning in the universe. Rabbi Yom Tov Glazer told my class a story a while back about when he was in college, he had a huge exam and he put off studying for it until the last minute. Finally in desperation he went to the library the night before the test and started studying. Somewhere along the line he started talking with some other kids and they talked all night about the meaning of life and existence. And afterwards he was so excited by it they talked all night and into the morning and when he looked up and realized what time it was he realized “oh my gosh, I’m going to fail this test.” So he called his mother and told her all about this amazing conversation he had, had and he was so excited and then of course he mentioned “but I’m going to fail this test I have, I don’t know any of the material.” And she said to him “don’t worry about it, because life is about conversations like that.” And its true that’s what life is about: searching and wondering and dreaming and exploring the deepest darkest depths of the universe. It’s what we live for.

So as I mentioned I’ve been struggling and in the course of that struggle I’ve come to some important conclusions. One is that before I decided to come to Israel and Yeshiva I put aside a lot of big questions that I still had no resolution on, questions like the god given nature of the Torah and the implications that answer has on how one lives their life. After a few months of being here and being immersed in a Torah community and coming to understand a Torah community in an intimate manner, those questions came flaring back. And so the conversations started, class became less important. A now close friend of mine Ari and I who I only really knew casually before embarked on a conversation with no real end about the true nature of existence at every moment we had it went on and on and on. And it has no real end, because at the end of the day you’ll never have one hundred percent resolution, if you knew anything for certain you’d lose your freewill, you would cease to have the ability to make decisions and then you’d me nothing more then a servant to whatever the truth was. In biblical terms if we knew with absolute certainly we would be like the angels who have no choice but to serve the will of god.

And so I’ve begun to move forward, it certainly hasn’t been an easy time for and I don’t expect it will be easy in the future me and Ari my companion throughout all this are still no closer to answering the question of the divine nature of the Torah then we were two weeks ago. But positive things have come out of this I talked with many people about my class schedule and made a few alterations and worked something out that I believe will help me accomplish my many goals here. I also defined my goals at yeshiva more clearly, and there are I’m sure numerous other benefits I can’t even see. I still have many doubts and questions and yet this frustration, this as Rabbi Zalman my Rabbi in New York put it frustration = inspiration + pain. Both frustration and inspiration get you moving, get something accomplished and you’d like to do it without the pain but as long as you’re moving you’re getting somewhere. And hopefully at some point you’ll gather enough information so that you can use your logic to make rational leaps of faith. You’ll never be able to make the cliffs so close together that they’ll touch but if you work hard and honestly search god willing you’ll be able to see the other side.

Tsfat and why I decided not to cut my hair

I’ve been having a really hard time here at Aish HaTorah as of late, its not easy being so far from home. Last week I got to watch the New York Giants beat the previously undefeated New England Patriots at a bar in Jerusalem at 5:30 in the morning. It was crazy being in that environment and I’ll always have a great story to tell about watching my team win a championship for the first time in my memory. On the other hand I wanted nothing more then to be sitting with my two best friends back at home Jay and Brad, in my old apartment relaxing, watching the game. And I suppose that’s why I came to Israel in the first place so I could have some great stories to tell, but its easy to say and think and another thing to experience, yes absolutely it was cool to be half way around the world watching the Giants win in dramatic fashion, but interesting stories only count for so much. In any event I’ve been struggling lately, I’m not satisfied with what I’m learning or what I’m doing.

So with that on my mind I went to Tsfat for last Shabbat, Chabad runs a program approximately once a month called Ascent, where you can come for the weekend, learn a little Kabbalah, Tanya, mysticism, etc. It’s a wonderful program, each retreat has a theme, and last weekends was Joy a perfect theme for me especially since I haven’t been feeling a lot of that lately. Me and a random group of guys headed up on Thursday night, when we arrived we got settled in went to a class and met with many of the other people who had come. This place attracts people from all over, but inevitably we met up with some other girls and guys from other Yeshivas / Seminaries around Israel. It was a interesting experience to get to talk with other people all going though the same struggles as we are, dealing with many of the same issues that come up when a person is reevaluating how to live their life. It’s also a crazy experience to be around people who are just traveling around Israel, and have come for the experience they’re just in Tsfat to check it out. And when you start talking with all of these different people its really only then that you begin to realize where you stand. When you talk with someone about why you personally think its important to keep Shabbat or what the differences are between male and female roles in Judaism or why you go to the mikvah. And it’s a real crazy journey or as The Grateful Dead might say “what a long strange trip it’s been.”

So I had an amazing weekend, went on a hike on Friday morning in the mountains, the Golan Heights and the surrounding areas is without a doubt the most awe inspiring place in Israel, it’s a bold statement, but I’m a country boy at heart and I love the fresh air, being surrounded by the big trees and rolling landscapes. Then a quick trip to the Ari’s Mikvah and back to Ascent to change into my Shabbat clothes and welcome in the Sabbath. We went to a Chabad shul for Kabbalah Shabbat and it was incredible, singing and dancing your way though the many prayers and psalms is quite the experience it definitely adds gravity and importance to the moment. Not to mention after two hours of praying like that you’re definitely ready to enjoy a wonderful dinner, its better then any concert I’ve ever been to without a doubt.

The rest of the weekend was filled with much of the same joy and good feelings, I had a great meal with an amazing Rabbi later that night, I begin to get clarity on what I’m still doing in Israel and I was convinced by my friend Mattisyahu not to cut my hair. Lately its been really annoying me, its long and starting to develop into quite a mess. And I’d been saying that I’m going to leave Israel when I cut my hair, so its just a really weird way of saying I’m not ready to leave Israel yet. Being a part of such an amazing weekend hanging out with great friends made me realize I still have a desire to learn and grow in my Judaism and I had been starting to forget why I came and what I was after so it was great to realize I still have a passion for learning. But I also realized that what I’m learning now isn’t working for me. So I’m talking steps to change the things that are making me unhappy and I’m going to work my way though my issues. And find a place either here at Aish HaTorah or somewhere else if I have to where I can be comfortable in my learning and growing and be happy. So I’ve been talking with some of the Rabbis here and with some friends at home, and I’m going to work it out and when people ask me when I’m coming home they’ll now know the answer is…(when my hair goes, so do I)

Fear and Loathing in Eretz Israel

I'm not sure what I'm doing at Aish HaTorah right now, I feel like I've lost sight of why I wanted to come in the first place and I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do about it. I've come to realize in my time here that Aish has a very specific mold that they want from the people here and if you have different ideas or don't fit into it eventually they will drive you out. Either through their actions or through your own free will. It’s difficult to feel so directionless to feel like you don't fit in where you are, even if you’re happy and well adjusted. Even if you have great friends and are enjoying what your learning. There’s just no room to breathe so trying to regain your perspective and think about the things that brought you here in the first place becomes increasingly difficult. Because I have to say all things being equal, I'm in; I'm in the process of becoming and living a relatively religious Jewish life. Being in Israel, learning at the yeshiva speaks to me in a way that I've never been spoken to. It cuts though the layers of nonsense normally found in life and gets right to the heart of the matter. To what’s important in life. Friends sometimes ask me what I'm doing here, what I'm learning and what I'm getting out of it. And its not an easy answer, I'm not getting anything tangible for being here, I'm not helping my career or doing anything I can put on a resume. In fact I put a promising start to a life on hold just so that I could be here, another reason it’s not so easy to be here. So I'm reevaluating my options, looking at other places to study, other programs for people in Israel who just want to do something, and I'm figuring it out. I just thought I'd share, apologies for those who read this and don't know what I'm talking about. Last night I went to a wedding, got drunk and danced my face-off, only then to go to a local bar with a few good friends and watch the New York Giants, pull off one of the most improbable wins in sports history and deny the Patriots their spot in history. As I kept telling my friend last night 18 - 1 means nothing, Eretz Israel, Shalom.

Meet the Mets, Meet the Mets...

This post is totally unrelated to anything I'm doing in Israel but its just so crazy I need to post this, the New York Mets just traded for and signed the best pitcher in the known Universe Johan Santana this is the best news I've heard in I can't remember how long, WOW, just WOW.

The Jelly Donut Theory

“…I have most of the things I need in my life, if the worst thing I deal with is I can’t find a Jelly Donut when I want one then I think I’m doing alright…” – A very wise old fool aka Dad

Now let me explain, my dad is one of the great lovers of delicious food out there in the universe, every place we’ve ever been no matter what my dad has directed the family to amazing food experiences. He loves everything about food, cooking, eating, etc. During the Chanukah season I mentioned to him the amazing jelly donuts that were circulating around Israel . I think I mentioned it to him every time we talked for a month. So it was in his head when he and the rest of my family came for a visit “I have to get one of those jelly donuts.” Then disaster struck there were no donuts in Israel everywhere we went we looked with to success. As It turns out they are a seasonal thing around for a month and gone for the rest of the year. And so when my family returned to the States, unfortunately for my father he was sans his fix. We were talking on the phone last night and he was recounting to me his odyssey to find a delicious jelly donut. In the end he got his fix from a local bakeries, my family got a good laugh and I got what a great blog post.