Zorba

This past week I spent five intense days at the Zorba the Buddha Festival at the desert ashram, in the middle of the desert (obviously).

From 8am till 7pm there were 12 different sessions going on in different tents, each tent’s name indicating the type of meditation, therapy, or exercises they offered. Then from 9pm till dawn is live music.

There was the Chai tent, the Hebrew spirit tent, focus tent, yoga, theatre, Buddha, Chi, breathing, New-Mind, therapy, movement… You get the point.

A couple of sessions I went to really sung through.

Doing yoga surrounded by the dry forest of rocks and sand as the rays of the hot sun poked the morning sky was bliss.

Tantra Pulsations was a class aimed at opening the ‘Love Chakra’ (energy pool) where I sat a gazed into a strange woman’s eyes for an hour, no talking, only breathing and gazing.

Belly dancing class, where I was the only one with a Y-chromosome, formed a steel-like comradery between me and the other women of the ashram. I didn’t learn their names, but I could speak to them the next day with a silent side-thrust of the hips and they understood me just fine.

Also, the ‘return to the root of the child’ session where I had to be the baby of an alternate couple who had to stroke me, sing lullabies, and whisper soft words of encouragement was a real experience.

The most powerful of all the sessions was most definitely the ‘AUM’ workshop. No we didn’t just sit in a circle saying ‘Om’ it was quite different.

The easiest way to describe this session was surgery on the soul where you are both the patient, and the surgeon.

The meditation goes from 1am until 5am, you need to bring 1.5litres of water and you can’t leave until the end, just as you can’t leave the theatre before the surgeon has sewn you up.

So we’re in a dimly lit dome tent, packed with 80 people, just enough room to violently stamp your foot on the ground without hurting your fellow man. The session has 12 stages, im not going to mention all but it starts with a trance party. Then you need to summon all your anger and walk around the room and scream “I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” to whoever you make eye contact with, plus whatever follows on from that (my mum would not be pleased with my language...). Then after 10minutes of that you need to walk around touch a person on the shoulder and say “If I hurt you I’m sorry” and hug. Then you need to look deep in to peoples’ eyes and tell them you love them.

The night progresses, the instructors goal is to tire your body out entirely with through physical movement that you at such an emotionally vulnerable state.

At one point we had to run on the spot with our hands straight up in the air for 20 minutes while listening to motivational music. The instructor lets anyone who is struggling into the middle of the tent so they can feed of everyone else’s energy.

I also spend 20 minutes chucking an absolute tantrum, stamping my foot, banging my fists on the floor, screaming at the top of my lungs “NO! NO! NO!”

The final few stages are sitting with my stomach and chest against a guy I don’t know, legs and arms pretzled in an embrace and head tilled away from his ear shout with every ounce of energy you have left “I’M AFRAID, I’M AFRAID...” then whatever flowed, just go with it. Then “YOU HURT ME, YOU HURT ME, YOU HURT ME…”, then “I NEED, I NEED, I NEED…” until you break down into a 10 minute crying fit with your stranger.

The instructor builds you again through a process of laughter, hugs, a Namaste, and the final “Om” which is actually chanted.

After this session I was exhausted, I woke up with the biggest hang over, no voice at all, muscles aching (could also have to do with setting up my tent of jagged rocks), but also somehow refreshed, awake, and more alive than I’ve felt in so long.

To the Zorba Family,

Together we walked,

Together we laughed,

Together we embraced,

Together we breathed,

Together we pondered,

Together we wept,

Together we deconstructed, dissected, deepened ourselves,

Together we danced like tribal warriors creating rain with their bodies,

Together we sweated,

Together we opened our chakras,

Together got burnt by the desert sun,

Together we loved,

Together we shared,

Together we will remain.

Thank you.

Are We All Free?

Patriarchy controlling who leans

Reclining in my seat while drinking wine was a custom I grew up on around the seder table. As I laze over the arm of my chair covered with a pillow of sorts like a bloated emperor I looked  around at my family and guests and always saw everyone, women and men alike doing the same “כולנו מסובים” “we all recline”.[1] I grew up knowing that on Passover eve there was a direct correlation between the freedom we celebrate, and the action of lounging about the dining table in an intoxicated state - Most probably a practise borrowed from the Greek or Roman emperors who behaved this way which we’ve done since then.

Something that was not always practiced is the act of allowing women to recline as men do, which may have been a result of the following laws:

(1)    “A woman near her husband does not need to lean, and if she is an important woman, she needs to lean”[2]

(2)    “A woman does not need to lean, and if she is an important woman she needs to lean”[3]

(3)    A woman does not need to lean, because of fear of her husband, and she is subservient to him”[4]

(4)    “A woman does not need to lean, as there is no freedom for a woman near her husband. And if she is an important woman, she needs to lean, as there is no servitude in her marriage relationship. Therefore all that are not in the presence of her husband, it appears she needs to lean.”[5]

(5)    “A woman does not need to lean, since she serves her husband”[6]

I think you get the picture.

I find it so interesting that on a day when we celebrate our freedom as a nation, our Rabbis dictate that women are in fact still enslaved.

This is not the first time women are grouped together with that of servants; “women, slaves and minors are exempt from the reading of the Shema”[7] the main reason for this being that when she reads “Hear O Israel the Lord my God, my Lord is One” she is lying because she has a second master over her – her husband.[8]

Now there are many words used in Jewish Law to describe a woman (Maidservant, youth-woman, girl, wife, virgin, slave-girl, widow, divorcee), and I think in this instance it is really important to define who is being exempt from leaning at the seder table and is therefore not entirely ‘free’.

Now I was told that Rashi, one of the most literal commentators, died in the middle of his commentary of these laws, but he was survived by his grandsons and sons-in-law, who actually change the status of all women regarding this situation by saying “nowadays all our women are considered ‘important’ and need to lean”[9]

This is huge!

Instead of changing or finding a loophole within the laws they simply come along and change the defining terms which limit women from this ritual.

I’m impressed, and to me it seems that if things like this can happen then there is hope for the oppressive patriarchal laws within our tradition.

Something similar happened a while ago as well; the hearing impaired used to be grouped with the intellectually handicapped because in the 3^rd Century C.E. someone who couldn’t hear usually didn’t receive the sufficient therapy to be able to communicate, so it was assumed that they didn’t comprehend and had an intellectual handicap as well and where thus expect from leading services: “A deaf-mute, an imbecile and a minor do not fulfil an obligation on behalf of the many”.[10] The correlation between impaired hearing and mental disability is known today to be false.  

Chag Sameach! May we all progress toward a more complete state of freedom

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[1] For the Mah Nishtanah

[2] Babylonian Talmud, Pesakhim, 108b

[3] Rif, Pesakhim, 23a (1013-1103)

[4] Rashbam, Pesakhim, 108b (1080-1160)

[5] Meiri Pesakhim, 108b (1249-1315)

[6]Ran of the Rif (1320-1380

[7] Mishnah Tractate Brakhot 3:3

[8] See Talmud Bavli Brakhot, 20b.

[9] Mordokhi (Tosafot), as quoted in Sefer HaMaharil, The Hagadah S.V. Haseibah (1360-1427)

[10] Mishnah Rosh HaShanah 3:8

The Mattress

The following story is true. You may have heard it somewhere, whereas I heard it from my Grandfather, son of a Hasid, who heard it from his teacher the Tzaddik of Lodz, direct fourth generation descendent of Yitzchok of Vurka the Holy Rebbe who did not embellish or bend the truth. And because of the way in which I heard this story from my father's father, who herd it in the very language the Rebbe told it in, and did not add a word because he was not a fan of adding cheap frills for the sake of the story, my version is the direct from the original stock.

There is no other way to describe Reb Yitzchok of Vurka’s socio economic status apart from saying plainly that he was extremely poor. It happened one night in early spring just two weeks before Passover, after returning to his home devoid of material possessions from the evening service. It was one of the first nights he was able to walk the streets without fear of getting frostbite from the deathly cold of the winter now past. For fear of getting his dovening trousers dirty he had tucked his pants into his socks much in the style of the Chassidim of today. Feeling drained as he usually does after projecting his voice with words of Torah through the drafty shule, he rested his frail frame by lying down on his bed, upon which one of the planks of wood which had rotten through during the winter gave way leaving an indent in the Rebbe’s mattress. The Rebetzin, being handy as she was, managed to repair the indent cheaply with a bit of straw which left a dense lump in the mattress. Although the Rebbe found it difficult to sleep because of the mound of straw, he thanked Ha-Kadosh-Baruch-Hu for the challenge, and attempted to cope with the blessing in disguise.

After a week of sleeping on this mattress the righteous man had developed a knot in his shoulder which throbbed relentlessly and on the eve of Passover the pulsating pain had escalated to an unbearable point which even two cups of wine could not numb.  Surrounded by his disciples the holy man of God understood that he could not halt the reading of the Exodus from Egypt. He thought long and hard and despite fear of appearing immodest he called his gentle wife from the next room to sooth his ailment by rubbing his back. The seder continued and they sang with sorrow the song “we were slaves in Egypt”. The disciples, understanding that the Rebbe would not be openly immodest without deep significance, interpreted the act as a representation of the Talmudic passage “The Jews were redeemed as a reward for their righteous women” (Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sotah 11b). So mid-song, they too called their wives to rub their backs. And in a crescendo of song and deep tissue back rubbing the passage came to a close in a gentle fade-out at which point a deep groan of relief escaped the Rebbe’s mouth “Yhoy-vey!”.

The students gasped at the sound of the four letter unspoken name of God (י-ה-ו-ה) bounding against their eardrums, but their blind faith of their holy leader accepted it as sign of the spiritual height the Rebbe had achieved through the song.

The Seder ended with “Next year in the rebuilt Jerusalem” and everyone went on their way feeling a sense of elation at having experienced the Rebbe’s spiritual ascent.

It happened that in time, the righteous Rebbe passed on. His successor in remembrance of his beloved teacher maintained his mid-seder minhag of having his back rubbed by his life partner, only after expounding on the Kabbalistic relevance of the act. Is came to pass that generations later, the tradition spread to all of Ashkenaz who to this day recline in their chairs and are massaged by their wives in order to reach the spiritual climax of the Rebbe long gone.

SHAKAKI!

"הפלשתינאים ביקשו יפה מדינה. קיבלו? זיבּי קיבלו. עברו להתפוצץ על ילדים באותובוסים, פתאום התחילו להקשיב להם"

“The Palestinians asked nicely for a State. Did they get one? They got babkas. They moved on to blowing up children on buses, suddenly we started paying attention to them”

-          Etgar Keret - Suddenly, a Knock at the Door, 2010 (My translation)

Last week I had the privilege of hearing Dr. Khalil Shakaki, the #1 Palestinian pollster, speak. It was really refreshing hearing a summary of the conflict from an academic grassroots perspective, as opposed to an emotional irrational lecture littered with remarks containing vocabulary from another people’s suffering. i.e. “The Israeli Holocaust Apartheid Regime, inflicting a Hiroshima-like barrage of bombs on the Palestinians. Israel is building a slave trade out of their babies, tsunami, Stalin, 9/11, Satan, bad men…”

I feel it necessary to mention that Prof. Shakaki’s brother was head of Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Israel may or may not have assassinated him. Despite this Khalil was quite a moderate speaker.

The topic of his talk was on “Palestinian Domestic Politics and the Peace Process” focusing on number of subject areas but basing his opinions in statistic he gathered from the residents of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

I will try to attach the slides to his presentation but the main fact which interested me was the differenced statistically of the perception of one another’s intentions.

The amount of surveyed Palestinians who support a two state solution where Israel lives side by side with them as two separate states, each having autonomy of their own territories with the right to defence and economic freedoms was 62%! A fantastic majority.



I hade the breakdown of these stats if someone is interested

Of course I’m not so naïve as think that if half of Jerusalem is handed over to the current governments of the Palestinian territories along with the West Bank and all the Israeli settlements within it, that peace will come to our doorstep on the wings of a dove riding a rainbow like a teenager dizzy on acid.

But the most interesting part was the surveyed Palestinian’s perception of Israel’s goals. Only 15.7% perceive Israel as wanting to resolve the conflict.

On the Israelis side the perception of how many Palestinians want a two state solution is less.