Jerusalem in the Summer

Jerusalem is about to start buzzing with culture and music and I'm getting exctied. The Shuk is going to buzzing till late at night with the smell of parsley and the buzz of poetsm live bands and I'm sure the odd screaming chanting prophet here and there. That's one thing Jerusalem seems to keep recruiting - screaming prophets.

Most of the prophets though tend to profess the present though. With dread locked bears and dirst smeared faces they grumble "AHHHH! Its HOT today! No chance of rain! And Wo unto those who dont slip, slop, slap! Thou shalt get burnt! That is thy Lord who burns you! AHHHRRGGGG"

The last couple of week my local ancient city was lit up with light instilations thoughout the city for the Jerusalem Light Festival. It was cool to see on the backdrop of ancient stones with 80's disco lights. STAM! It wasnt tacky, it was actaully really cool.

This is some examples of the instilations.

Greener Grass

The other day a friend of mine told me they were considering making Aliyah and I just about had to wrap both hands around my mouth to prevent a violent “WHY!?” from exploding out of it.

Not really sure why that was the first thing to wiz through my head. Maybe it was the result of the ache in my back from washing chocolate soiled dishes at the ice cream shop, added to the twitch I now have in my right eye from reading fine print to make sure I don’t screwed over by some asshole boss with a crafty accountant, in addition to my sore throat from explaining to the seventh person I was transferred to on the phone that in fact I am in Israel and they should be providing me with medical insurance.

Or maybe it was just because my jeans were sticking to the sweat that was running down my crack like Niagara.

Some days I really feel that you can solve both Israel’s water and electricity problems just by harnessing the water and potential hydroelectricity from the sweat that runs down Israeli’s cracks during the Middle Eastern Summer.

Today wasn’t really a rough day in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn’t a “wow! I’m living the dream” kind of day.

My morning coffee was interpreted by a siren used in war times to tell people to get to the nearest bunker.

Too bad the siren couldn’t also announce that it was a drill… If we were under attack my last words would definitely not have gotten me into heaven.

Just like in Sydney I have good days and bad days. Today I was quite pissed off at having to walk for an hour to fill out some forms so I can get payed for a job I did 2 months ago. But surprisingly after a slice of pizza with extra cheese and a couple of table spoons of Nutela, I felt a lot better.

The grass for me has been greener one this side and I’m happy. It’s just some days I have to remind myself that for green grass to flourish you also need the worms which bore through the grass like maggots through a corps, you need water, and every so often you need a little shit.

A Day in the Life of Ulpan Etzion

Sorry for the hebrew, was going to translate but really can't be assed.

 A Film By Ben Goldman

This film, although in hebrew, gives a pretty good summary of the months I spent at the Absorption Centre/Ulpan. I feel it describes the excitment, the frustration of standing in lines to sign stupid forms and then not having the right piece of paper, getting lost, dealing with the hebrew language and making friends, all of which I've probably written about somewhere in this blog.

I am ready, I am.

Today I moved out of the bubble the government provided for me and 249 other Olim Chadashim (new immigrants). My toilet roof was leaking most of the time, the drains vomited frequently, it was infested with fruit flies for a bit (despite the complete absence of fruit - wtf), it was freezing in the winter and hot in the summer, and the walls we paper thin so I was privy to my Argentinian neighbour’s domestic disputes, but for 5 months it was home.

It’s really quite liberating. I’m still in the same city, same job, same friends, only now, I filled with this sense of independence. That life has begun. It’s real.

I think I could really liken my experience in the Ulpan to purgatory. You’re neither here, nor there, but you know something big has just happened, and something even bigger is going to happen.

Unlike the old place, the new place is definitely more furnished than the room of a teenage Buddhist monk. My new housemates don’t live in the same room as me. They are also both of the female gender.

The final party at the ulpan was really nice. Looking around at the people I remember looking at in the same room. I remember judging them at first glance; hot, not so hot, cute, potential friend, indie etc.

At the end of year party I had deeper adjectives by which to describe my friends, my family; the laugher, the woman who cares, my neighbour, the guy who’s always up to party, the stoner, the girl with the butch waddle, the talker (avoid when in a rush), the shtettle mum, etc.

During ulpan 5 couples go engaged, 3 got married, a couple people dated and broke up, and 3 people were in an intensely awkward threesome. Memories.

I was a little apprehensive to leave the nest, but I think now I can safely say “I’m ready to start living!”

Stay tuned for my video apartment tour.

Ice Cream

Finding a job and a place to live has been great, I move in in a week and I’ve already been working for a week. I really enjoy being a part of the Ben Yehuda back drop. Seeing Birthright groups come and go and satisfying pregnant women’s craving for Snickers ice cream and Coconut sorbet. I have to admit I have started to find the work a bit mind numbing.

Two days ago I did an 11 hour shift. Which means I probably wiped sticky ice cream of the tables 55 times, scooped 123 ice cream cones (give or take) which is about 356 balls of ice cream (give or take), made 14 waffles, 12 milkshakes, 5 take away tubs of ice cream, and 4 lattés (they were for me).

Now after you’ve tasted the 26 different types of ice cream three times, you already feel a little sick, so you need a latte for some savoury. Then your mind starts playing tricks on you. You forget who ordered what ice cream and end up giving whisky flavour to a 3 year old (which is fine, they’ll just sleep well). You forget what language you meant to be speaking to the customer (Hebrew, English or French). You even forget what languages you speak. It ends up sounding like this:

  Customer: Shalom

Me: Errr…

Customer: Can I try the Twix ice cream

Me: Errr…. Weh

Customer: That’s delicious

Me: Tu vous gutey encoure?

Customer: What?

Me: Oh, סליחה, רוצה לטעום, I mean, ah, what?

<then I blame my confusion on the noise>

Me: Sorry the music’s so loud, what can I get you?

Customer: What music?

Me: … (I don’t have an answer) …We don’t have that flavour.

Customer: … (silence) Can I try the mint chocolate chip…

You get the point

I was worried that my mind was going to melt like a little boys ice cream in the Middle Eastern sun, I was worried my mind was going to get smeared all over some hungry kid’s face.

I decided to start playing mind exercises to make sure I don’t lose mine.

When I whipped down the tables I estimated how long the ice cream had been smeared over the table for. There are a lot of factors; temperature, humidity, sun/shade, thickness of the blob, even the sugar content of the flavour.

As I used my finger nails, brute elbow grease, and a thousand sprays from the Windex equivalent I turned physical labour into actuary.

It gets a little worse.

Yesterday I found myself speaking to the ice cream. “C’mon Ferrero Rocher, get in the cone, I’m always so good to you, whenever people ask me for my recommendation you’re my go to guy, why are you being difficult”.

I looked up at the confused customer, and fade out surreptitiously and faded back in with the words of the song playing in the background pretending I was singing it all along…

Besides the worry that I’m losing my mind, I also worry that I might have lost my bandaid in a scoop of strawberry sorbet.

Other than that, I get lots of visitor which is fun, and I think I’ve mastered waffle making.

איש חיל

So yesterday I logged onto the army equivalent of facebook. It’s pretty much the same, only with a few differences: The colour themes are camouflage green, rather than baby blue. There are chat groups where you can receive instant orders from your commanders in your free time. There’s no ‘like’ button, just one that says “yes sir”. It has tips on how to avoid smelling like a dead skunk while living in a tent in the Middle Eastern summer. What to pack for your next mission. There are also groups about you rights and your obligations – contrary to popular belief, you don’t just leave your civil rights at the door when you enlist. Another difference is that you don’t write your profile, it is written for you.

They don’t include what music your into, or what quote you’re finding most ironic at the moment. They just give you scores.

These scores are not like HSC (final high school examination) scores, which make you feel like shit because they’re never good enough but don’t actually represent your value as a human being. These scores do. They describe how you are physically, emotionally, psychologically and intellectually.

The army is so efficient at valuing your worth that they can do this after just 2 hours of examinations.

They checked my eyesight, my height, my IQ, my private junk, they ask you personal questions like “do you have friends”, “how many times a week do you call your mum” (it’s a Jewish army, so the more often, the better the score).

Digression: To get in to each of these examinations is like trying to convert to Judaism (despite there being conscription); you go into each office and they say “we can’t help you” three times before something starts happening. Only once your eyes are twitching from over exposure to the waiting room’s florescent lights, and your mouth is foaming from hunger and thirst, and your arms are flexed like an Alpha Male gorilla defending its pack do they say, “Ok, now you’re ready to enlist.”

I overused the sentence “אני לא זז מפה עד שתתנו לי מה אני רוצה” (I’m not moving from here until you give me what I need) so much so that I could shorten it to “לא זז” (not moving). I walk in past the security guard saying “לא זז” (no move) waving away his objections. I walk past reception “זז” (move) they just knew what I meant. Then I’d wait until someone called me in.

So I’ve finished this process and I’m on the army facebook and I open my profile and it turns out my marks are posted and they happen to be the highest you can get! Yay me!

I mean, I always thought I was a Wolverine. Ultimate warrior! Like if Xena and Yoda had a kid. (sick³) Toughest mucho man, most emotionally stable soldier to be!

Anyone who knows me knows this is a gross overstatement. I can do one sit up a day, and that’s when I get out of bed.

I know what you’re thinking, first you thought “wow kudos, you’re my hero”, then you though “I bet you only got that score because you let the doctor cop a feel of your dangly bits.”

Well you know what?

Sometimes a man’s gotta do awkward things to get what he wants! I’m not proud of it, but I’m trying to succeed here.

What’s worrying about this score is that the army likes to chup (scoop up) the guys with high scores and try get them to enlist for longer…

Why didn’t I wear my man-kini to the psychological interview!?!

Salt

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."

-Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke )

This quote really rings through for me at this point in my Aliyah because thanks to the powers on high I managed to get two jobs. The employers, without out a doubt, get a lot more than they pay for. The minimum wage here is less than the cost of a glass of beer, and I certainly sweat more than a pint during each shift.

Both of these places of work gave me much more credit than I deserved.

First was the ice cream shop. The boss within in the first hour of me working there, left me alone in the shop to scoop ice cream for hordes of tourists groups alone. It was a great first shift though. I ate ice cream till the point of ‘bloated and crying’, and what was meant to be a 4 hour shift somehow transformed into eight.

It was hard work, and on the bus to go home feeling sore sticky and smelly, I worked out that I had earned what I could have earned in Australia in 2.5 hours. Despite this I somehow felt a strange sense of catharsis.

The next job was working with a catering company which is just starting up. It was a small home based Bat Mitzvah for 101 people in Modi’in.

My given shift was from 1:30pm till 11pm, that’s fine. I got home at 3:30am.

Every muscle in my body crying to be put out to pasture and put out of their misery. I schlepped, I set up tables, I served food, I cleaned, I schlepped some more, and all with a smile.

The entire time I had Ben Gurion’s picture in my head, the one where he’s pushing a wheelbarrow at age 80-something. I thought to myself, so this is what it was like to work hard to establish the state of Israel. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. I think it was so difficult because of my complete lack of upper body strength.

It’s amazing that it wasn’t my past job experience, or my university degree which helped me through this, but rather my experience in the Youth Movement.

Packing the truck, working on getting food out in time, and serving apple crumble to kids craving more sugar even though their twitching eyes and jittering hands told me they’d already had too much.

Knowing that my Zionist youth movement actually helped me which my Aliyah gave me a real sense of satisfaction.

I’ve swam in the salty Mediterranean here, sweated like pig in heat, and cried on a strangers shoulder. I think whatever needed curing, has been cured.

The Idealism of Huge.

Last week I was fretting about several things, namely; my army draft date, work, and accommodation after Ulpan. Three important facets of life which weren’t sorted by any means. But I kept my chest in the air, and thought to myself “the early pioneers had a shit-load more to deal with, so calm down”. I let this phrase circle my head like a mantra, calming me, soothing me…

Recently everything just fit together.

It didn’t help. I sat in class quietly freaking out. I was simultaneously learning how to conjugate weak roots (which sounds a lot dirtier than it is), and facebook stalking people when I stumbled upon a friend who posted that his apartment is up for subleasing for two months in the exact dates that I needed! HOO-HA!

I pounced on that one and got to cross one worry off the old list. But how am I going to pay for this new expense? “The early settlers didn’t even have a roof over their head” I chanted.

On the way to check out this apartment I get an email from the owner of a restaurant I interview at saying: “When you memorize 80% of the attached menus in Hebrew and English you can start work”. About eight excited breaths later I get a call from an ice-cream shop on Ben Yehuda St I applied for asking if I can come in tomorrow for a trial. “Amazing!” I sung out loud while dancing and politely thrusting my hips as a sign of ‘Yay-ness’.

Now when I was at the apartment having a look around I  get a call from a private number. “Shalom, this is the army”, “Shalom Chaver!”, “Can you come in on Sunday for your final interview before we sort out your draft date?”, “YESH!”

Three strikes and my life seems sorted!

But no, my Jewish genes can’t cope with being ‘ok’. I feel the wretched worry-worm creep up my neck and start nibbling the inside of my scalp. I have everything the early pioneers didn’t… except idealism.

My mind start ticking as though it has a mind of its own, or, it’s its own mind. I’m confused. Anyway…

I start thinking about the idealism behind scooping ice-cream balls. What would Ahad Ha’Am say about it? Would Herzl approve?

I guess ice-cream can be used to help solve the conflict. Everyone’s smiling when they have ice-scream, even Abu Mazen would smile if he got an ice-cream…

And I guess you could take and ‘idealistic reading’ into being a waiter in a Charedi Italian restaurant. I mean waiters listen to people, and are easy going, which is something you could use to make Israeli society more tolerating.

There, I’ve managed to justify it to myself. It’s not making the desert bloom or promoting coexistence or helping new migrants integrate. But it’s something.

Home Hunt

Future Home.

Ulpan is about to come to an end.

Now more than ever I really feel that I am actually making Aliyah. By ‘Aliyah’ I mean running toward a blurred horizon where everything is uncertain but has some sort of purpose.

When I left Australia I knew where I was going to live, what I was going to eat, and what I was going to do when I got here. Now, everything I plan on doing in the next 6 months to a year is followed by a “maybe”. 

This is both exciting and intensely unsettling.

I like to forward plan, but in this country if you approach someone and say “I’m interested in renting this place in a month”, they say; “come back to me in a month”.

Just reflecting a little on the whole Absorption Centre experience. I’ve made some great friends, some who I will keep in touch with post Ulpan. Then there are some I can’t stand, and after Ulpan I will carry a plastic bag at all times coz if I see them I might throw my guts up.

We have our final exam next week, but we have classes until the 6^th June (weird), and are expelled from the building on the 15^th. So if you do the math, the 6 month Ulpan the government is meant to provide its new immigrants isn’t very much at all.

If there were no breaks it would only be 4.5 months, but there were many breaks; Pesach, day trips, Independence Day etc. Now 4.5 months becomes just under 4. But then the Ulpan itself was never full-time, it was 3.5hours a day which in my opinion was a good thing, but nonetheless halves the Ulpan period which come to 2 months.

My Hebrew has improved immensely, that’s for sure. I can bargain for a better price for my veggies in the shuk. I can complement a soldier at the recruitment office on his compassion for ‘Lone Soldiers’ so that he gives me what I need. But could I write a Master’s Thesis? – Harbeh Lo. Can I deconstruct the literary devices of a Yeuda Amicha poem – Pashut Lo. But I’m getting there.

I can understand about 70% of the news, so that on El-Naqba day I knew that someone from Syria had broken Israel’s borders, not sure if it were their tanks or protestors. Lucky I don’t worry about these things.

Hebrew can often be confusing though, especially with the news. Neshek (weapon) and Neshikah (kiss) are very similar. So a young man in downtown Lod was cought kissing a teenage boy, big deal, is that really news worthy?

The security guard at the supermarket asked me if I had a knife (sakin) I said yes and showed him my plastic bag (sakit) I wanted to reuse. ‘To wait’ (lechakot) and ‘to copy’ or ‘imitate’ (lechakot) are identical to the ear. So when an Israeli friend told me to wait for her while she went off to go to the toilet, I followed her and did as she did. Awkward…

Especially being Australian where pronouncing each consonant isn’t so important makes Hebrew all the more difficult where an ‘i’ or and ‘eh’ can change the entire meaning of the word. And I don’t think I’ll ever learn to pronounce the ‘resh’ (‘r’ sound)

Oy Vey.

Apartment

This is a short tour of my apartment. It's minimal, but functional.

This was taken about four months ago so the cupboards and fridge are more full, and the bathroom is less clean.

Production, cinimatography, lighting design, set design, costume design, script, acting, editing is all me - could you tell?

Tha Mazal of a Chest Infection

So I’ve been coughing for about a week now, thought it would pass so I just pumped myself full of Echinacea and vitamin C and went about my day. Then the phlegm transformed from an ‘ok-clear’ a thick ‘not-so-ok-green’, making it look as though fat slugs were jumping out of my throat with each cough – a good sign to go see a doctor.

I go to my not-so-local medical centre in the hope of getting a quick check up but all their doctors are book up until next year. I knock on the door of a Dr. Moirman anyway in the hope that he’ll see me for long enough to print me out a prescription of the strongest antibiotics available. You know, the ones which make you nice and drowsy and give you a good trip, and destroy the virus along with your immune system.

He begrudgingly takes me into his sterile office and takes my membership card swiping it into his computer, at this point I’m grateful, but feel I only have one lung left to cough up. He looks at his computer through overworked, underpaid eyes and asks “are you sure you’re with Maccabi” (NB: Maccabi is my medical insurance company). “No dumbass, I have a plastic card with my name, and ID number printed on it as something fun to show my friends” I think to myself. I’m not a violent person, but a throat full of mucus and a nose full of shnot is not a combination for a happy-chappy.

This is where it gets fun.

Dr. Moirman sends me to the admin offices to sort out my lack of membership appearing on his computer and tells me to come back to him when I’m done.

I wait an hour in the line only to be given two phone numbers of the Nation Insurance, neither of which works – thanks.

So I join the queue again only to be told that I need to go to the national insurance office physically to sort this out, because right now I’m not insured. I tell her “I’m really glad it’s not something more serious than a cough” – she agreed but showed no sign of sympathy.

It takes me half an hour to walk to the Insurance office coz now I’m scared out of my brains I might get hit by a car, or graze my knee without insurance. Before I wasn’t worried at all about the Middle Eastern conflict because I had insurance. Before I was like “do your worst Islamic Jihad! I’ve got Gold Class cover!” Now I felt like I was tightrope walking without a net.

I get there in the end. I wait in line only to be given a number by an angry Russian woman who has one of those flat secretary bums and looks like she escaped from Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I think this was mainly because her skin was slightly yellow from makeup and she had plucked her eyebrows so she looked constantly angry.  I’m sure she has a nice personality though.

She gave me number 267, and the three people working behind the counters were up to number 222.

I pictured myself growing old in this room. I would have to raise children and grandchildren in here, and live off vending machine snacks.

I get called up by number to an office where a typically looking Israeli woman with skin sitting on her face  like dark loose leather brings up my file which has all been legitimately approved yet they decided to cancel my insurance anyway just for shits-and-gigs. Hilarious! Jokes on me! Lol! Rofl! Icbiwoop![1]

The lady makes a call to the head office on the other side of the country, socializes for a while, then hearing my sigh, she gets to the point, sorts it out, hangs up, and tells me in her jaded unfluctuating tone to wait an hour and it will be sorted. She prints off the form I filled out 3 months ago [‘Thanks I didn’t remember waiting 2 hours to fill this out last time’] and sends me on my way.

That only took 2 hours, but that’s fine, I’m not busy.

An hour passes, I give them a call – They’re closed for the day. It’s 1pm, such hard working people. Still coughing my bowels out… Welcome to Israel Motherfu**er!

I decide to walk back to the medical centre, as I walk in Dr. Moirman is locking his door and going home for the day. Great!

I wait in the admin office line again, where a new woman decides to toy with me. As she’s checking my file on her computer she says things like “you file is probably ok, but if it’s not okay you’ll need to wait another day.” She sends me on an emotional rollercoaster, I’m dizzy and nauseous enough as it is! This goes on for ages

Eventually I get to see a South African doctor, someone who speaks my language! Only his cure for my illness is to laden me with nonsensical doctor mumbojumbo which translates as ‘you have a virus, go home and drink water’, no prescription, thus ending the whole fiasco…

At least now I have insurance, I guess it’s all part of the fun!

---

[1] Icbiwoop – I chuckled but it was out of pity (Lisa Kappel c. 2008)

V-Club

In February this year I conceived an idea to put on a production of the Vagina Monologues in English in Jerusalem as a way of raising funds for the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Centre (JRCC). The seed was taken by a friend of mine who works there, and it gestated with her for a little while. The idea slowly took form, and now is born, moving and breathing by itself, the play now being less than two months away.

My role in the production is in the behind-the-scenes side of things, and (self promoted) assistant director. This is mainly because, due to my physiological makeup in my Be’er Sheva region, I cannot perform.

This is also because a lot of the monologues include the phase ‘My Vagina’: “My vagina is angry…”, “My hairy vagina…”, “My menstruating Vagina…”, “I saw my vagina…” etc. and using a possessive pronoun with the word ‘vagina’ doesn’t work for me, and that’s okay, it’s something I came to terms with a long time ago. I have the right to a vagina, but physically I don’t have one.

Anyway! Last Friday we met with the director and the actors, this was a phenomenal inside look into the feminie sphere. The meeting took place in a small classroom the chairs were pinky-red, a fitting colour for the discussion about to take place. The room was carpeted, also fitting…

As the women entered they greeted each other, either by their vaginas or by the state of their wombs. The babies who were brought in with their strollers were greeted as “my cute little vagina”, where as a hearty “hello Mama” was directed toward the heavily pregnant woman, who walked in a swollen-ankles-aching-back kind of shuffle. There was also the ‘recently pregnant’ woman who was deciding if a C-section is the best way to go for her next birth.

And then there was me… The lone man, with no part worth mentioning him by, so they just called me by my name.

But I was happy.

At one point I was sandwiched between a middle aged woman who was breast feeding, and a woman recounting the story of finding her 4-year-old daughter discovering her “bagina”.

The meeting as you can tell was not so productive. But even though I felt a part of this newly established ‘Vagina Monologues’ community, I felt it was not my place to assert my authoritative patriarchal view of productivity onto them. It’s just too imperial. Perhaps the idle banter that went on for the two hours was what these women considered ‘productive’. Who am I to impress my view upon this clearly female forum?

So I stayed quiet, meak, and submissive.

The meeting was a wonderful, and I’m sure the next will be even better.

The Vagina Monologues will be held in Jerusalem in mid June, stay tuned for more details.

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.