Kvetch

In coming to Jerusalem I thought I would be suddenly overwhelmed with theological clarity. In reality, the opposite has happened. I’ve never been so consumed with doubt regarding religion.

I can understand that uncertainty is a trait which very typical for someone of my generation, but I never felt a part of my generation in aspects of organised religion because I think in some way, I was content with where I was.

My new understanding is that to be Jewish, is to Kvetch.

To sit uncomfortably because of the uncertainties welling up inside of you; To struggle with doubt in your innermost being to the point where it feels as though there is a noose around your guts pulling you awake at night, making you lose sleep, lose your hair, loose colour in your face. You have to feel as though you’re swimming upstream against the ebb and flow of atheism and commitment to your ‘Jewish day school deity’, who weights his children’s deeds, rules over all in existence justly but with an iron fist.

It’s exhausting but I believe engaging in the struggle is key to being an observant Jew.

I believe we’re the chosen people – Chosen to kvetch!

We left a life of slaver only to burn our feet on hot sand and accept a covenant which chains us to another ruler who at the drop a hat will sentence us to death. (see: Vayikra/Leviticus and Devarim/Deuteronomy)

And what a cleaver deity we committed ourselves to under that burning mountain! She (gender non-specific) gives a law-book which enables Her (again, not gendered) to be completely absent from this world, but have Her people self-bound to her eternally in committed service because of their curse to kvetch at the thought of not doing something right which is so embeded into our genes...

Oddly I am glad to be a part of this, couldn't picture it any other way...

The Desert Speaks!

“The desert speaks,

It calls for you to be happy,

Reminding you that everything blooms,

Within you, in your heart.”

I spent this past weekend in the desert on a small Kibbutz called Kramim (Vineyards). The recent rain in the area has allowed for the potential life to sprout from the tough arid earth and cover the amber soil in greenery. The landscape was not a dry as I was expecting but the nourishing silence of the desert was there in all its wonder!

I heart the Negev because of its ability change overnight. It expresses its willingness to grow if only it had the resources. 

Sitting on a bus for two hours on the way there I find I always have these two options; either think about how everything around me is somehow connected to my life’s journey, or sleep and wake up on the shoulder of the person sitting next to me in a puddle of my own drool.

This time I chose the former.

I really feel that here there is so much opportunity to grown and bloom. The kibbutz I was on hosts a year long program which gives ‘post-high school, pre-army’ teenagers the chance to explore themselves and learn about their cultural, national and religious identity. So of course there was a lot of ideological discussions on everything from ‘education methods’, to ‘the need to settle the Negev’, to ‘how much alcohol teenagers should be drinking on their gap year’ (in hebrew, ulpan must be working, who knew!?).

It was really fantastic! A wonderful bunch of kids who helped me reaffirm my being here, and made me fear Israeli youth a little less.

Bless!

Happy Julie

Julie was a six-year-old girl who wanted nothing more than to be a bird. So much so that all her physical activities were devoted to building up her upper-body strength so as to hold her own weight while navigating through strong convection currents.

Depending on her mood Julie would morph into a different species of bird and respond to her circumstances accordingly:

When Julie was thirsty, she was a pelican, holding vast bodies of water in her elastic-like bill.

When Julie was hungry, she wasn’t a magpie because worms were not to her taste.

When Little Timmy threw a dodge-ball at Julies face, Julie was a bird of prey.

Julie wasn’t quite sure what attracted to her to the idea of the being a bird, she didn’t relate to Jenny from Forest Gump, she was happy at home.

She thought of her home as a nest she could comfortably grow, live and learn in.

She received enough consensual hugs and (although not regurgitated) food form her mother.

Julie was happy.

Perhaps it was the colours, or the flaunting of feathers while defending her territory, or the calls, oh the calls!

The hunting calls.

The goodnight calls.

‘THE-SUN-IS-RISING’ calls.

They made Julie happy.

The mating calls didn’t interest her so much, she was six you sicko!

By the age of thirteen Julie wanted nothing more than to be a cat.

The weird part was the transitional period...

Julie would pounce, and scratch, rub up against strangers.

She still wasn’t one of those girls who was introverted cause she thought she was fat, or was flat chested compared to Stacey Mcfree, or had a pimple on her face connecting her eye-brows.

Julie was Happy.

Julie became more patient as a cat, and slightly more voyeuristic, she would watch people. As her teenage years went on her inner-animal became more metaphorical. She hunted information for school projects. She meowed secrets to her friend-girls in class about boys. She licked her emotional wounds clean which were caused by bitchy calls made toward her in the playground.

Julie became a vegetarian.

Julie became lactose intolerant.

Julie met a boy.

The boy though he was a dog.

Julie thought that was weird.

Julie is eighty-five.

She wants nothing more than some human contact. Her only friends are Mitzy, Mittens and Snuggles. She only eats chicken. It’s not as though she has had a bad life. She’s been married with kids and achieved things and such. Really her life has been rich and full.

Julie is happy.

Especially for a cat...

Gill

A month after my Aliyah I brave the old city to visit some close friends. Until now I'd been a avoiding the place for reasons unknown. Having strolled through the Armenian quarter, the January air beating against my face turning my cheeks red and making my eyes water, I figured it was only appropriate that I visit the kotel as well. In preparation of my meeting with the Holy rocks which create the boundaries of a now extinct temple I try to think holy thoughts:
''Chareidim are close minded'' no, that's not holy.
“ These rocks are the vertical version of the ones I’m walking on” still not so holy
''Rocks don't represent Godliness'' getting a little closer
''Daily meditation (or prayer) can help you get centred'' close enough! Off I go!

I wash my hands for ritual purity and like a fly to a web of black leather straps I navigate right into the mitzvah trap.

A black coat grabs my arm, it’s stronger than you would assume a man who studies chassidus all day would be.
''Is your mother Jewish!?''
Apprehensive response: ''...ye''
''Tfill!''
Politely refusal: ‘‘its ok thank you, I have them at home if I want to put them on I will''
''You are home! Tfill!''
He drags me to the mitzvah wagon dripping with men swaying to the rhythm of their prayers and starts binding the felactories to my arm. Wish I hadn’t left my whistle at home coz this was definitely not consensual.

''Why should I put these on?''
''God said so!'' he replies with the enthusiasm of a fat kid in a cake shop.

(so many questions, why does an omnipotent being care that one of his creation's skin is being strapped to another? How does a being without a voice box speak? How do the rabbis go from reading 'totafot' to 'teffilin'?) He doesn't have time, he needs to fill his mitzvah quota.

This spiritually riveting experience escalated when a pale senior with a long white beard and peyot to match locks eyes with me with and with no respect for my personal space starts to preach into my face.

I know this guy, its Guru Gill, I've read his book, went from being a Buddhist hermit on a mountain top to a member of the Chassidic world. It’s a shame that all his years spent in silence and he still hasn’t learn to listen...

He taught me these lessons Three:
(I'll save u the full transcript)
1) Men wear pants, physically and especially figuratively. A relationship works because man is dominant.
2) Being vegetarian is a good thing, but if God says skin a cow and strap em on, you strap em on!
3) There is nothing more to life than marrying a Jewish woman and popping out a few more Jews, the rest is peripheral ramblings.

I serreptitiously sneak away both of us enriches for the experience.
I head toward the bus feeling dirty from being mitzvah-raped...
Going back there on Saturday, such a sadist.

Poetry Slam, Wine, Popcorn, Shuk Duf, Beer and Dancing... I'm Home!



Last night was the first time I felt I could get everything I was missing culturally from Australia, in Israel.

Sitting on a bus yesterday in front of an Arse (Middle Eastern hooligan), who was blearing Sephardic pop music from his mobile phone to the point that the person sitting next to me’s ears began to bleed, I felt this figurative butterfly floundering around in the pit of my stomach, giving me an ‘oil and water’ feeling in terms of my place in this land.

Then, as though from my bowels to God’s ears, a poetry slam pops up on the cultural calendar!

Free wine and popcorn, of which I had three glasses, (yes I was that guy, the guy who took cups of popcorn to his seat). Sufficiently full of fermented grapes and carefully constructed sentences I strolled toward the shuk (the current love of my life).

On Monday nights at the ‘5th of May’ bar in the shuk there is live music followed by a DJ who plays the latest tunes. Something about dancing in the middle of the alleyways of the shuk which, during the day are jam packed with people, just rocks my socks in a very real way! Like eating a delicious cake, instead of taking a bag of drugs.

Surrounded by a facade of smoke, dreadlocks, knitwear, nose rings, and music improvised by a band with an androgynous looking drummer I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of ease, and I showed it to the WORLD through dance!

Sipping on a beer brewed in Ramallah perfected by Christian monks in the 1500’s who drank it to fortify themselves against their ritual fasts also helped.
(It tasted of oppression and x-ray machine)

Life in a Dryer

Just preface this by saying: Israel is great! But I’ve had some not-so-great moments, not bad, just not great.

I wouldn’t go as far as to call them beige moments though. Everyone would agree that beige is just this bland colour that exists between mother-of-pearl and cream and doesn’t really get people excited about much, but is used on upholstery because it isn’t offensive or political.

Here, there are no beige moments. If it’s not someone in the parliament being charged with something, it’s neighbouring countries causing a ruckus about something like a lack of health care or baseless killings or something. I recon it’s about the same level of excitement as there would have been in the Wild West (without the syphilis)...

Every “mundane” chore here requires a huge amount of energy and it’s definitely not for people with a heart condition. A classic example is my run in with the post office:

I needed to find number 144, I see number 142 and 146 and then in between is what looks like an abandoned warehouse up a long driveway with some unmarked delivery trucks. I figured it’s either the post office or the HQ of a kidnapping gang.

So I walk up toward a seedy man smoking a cigarette in front of a “no smoking” sign who sends me a signal with his hand which looks like he’s apathetically turning off an invisible tap. I return the gesture. He does it again. I do it again and keep walking. I know it means “what are you doing?” but I say “what are YOU doing?” Coz that’s how I roll!

I find the office which looks as though a 7 year old had set up a lemonade stand in this warehouse. But instead of a sweet blond girl, a pregnant lady who doesn’t look happy to see me says “Nu!?” and I hand her the receipt. Upon hearing my accent she starts speaking to me in her loudest broken English articulating the silent letters as well. “YOU - RECIEPT!?” (There is a difference between speaking a language with an accent, and being deaf lady! After our chat I just might be both...).

We spend some time arguing about the package for whatever reason, and man comes out from the back to sort it out. He tries to placate me by saying “This is Israel!” as though knowing that everywhere I go is going to be the same as this is meant to comfort me... I head out, he says “Shabbat shalom achi” (Peaceful Sabbath my brother) and we part ways neither richer for the experience.

At the end of the day feeling like I’ve just taken a ride in a dryer, ironically, nothing cured my troubles like clean washing fresh out of the dryer...

After Thought: I guess if he called me “brother” I may have made a friend...

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