I am Woman, Hear Me Pray

Well, I got through orientation week and the first week of ulpan (basically intensive Hebrew study). I somehow managed to test into kitah dalet (level four), which is the highest level this year. Yeah, no idea how that happened. It's challenging, but I like the teacher, and I am definitely learning something. We are also required to take a biblical history class this summer. I have never taken any class like that on an adult level, so this should be interesting. . .

It has been a wonderful Shabbat. And Rosh Chodesh, for that matter. After all this time, I finally got to go to Women of the Wall! Women of the Wall is a group of women of all Jewish denominations and practices who meet monthly at the Kotel in order to pray on Rosh Chodesh (the beginning of a new Jewish month). The Kotel has gotten pretty bad in terms of the way women are treated, and they want to do something about this. Women are currently forbidden from wearing a talit at the Kotel (seriously, there's no actual halachah against it, and don't they have better things to make secular laws about anyway?), and they aren't allowed to sing either. So, every month, these women get together and stand at the back of the women's side, wearing their talitot, and davening together. Here is their website, in case anyone wants to learn more:
http://womenofthewall.org.il/
It was a wonderful service, and a wonderful experience. They use their own siddur, which contains traditional liturgy (minus the addition of women into a couple of prayers). There was a lot of nusach, a lot of personal davening, and a lot of singing out loud. Even though I am not a very "traditional" Jew, I like praying more traditionally once in a while. I never properly learned how to pick up a siddur and daven through everything, and the only way I am going to learn that is by doing it. And I did like the communal singing as well. There's just something about praying among a group of women who are all there for the same purpose. Surprisingly, this service was relatively quiet. Last month, someone got detained for wearing a talit, and they ended up having the Torah service at the jail. This time, nothing happened. A couple of my friends said they heard someone say something on the men's side, but then another man told them to be quiet because we're all Jewish. Wow. Anyway, it is actually illegal for women to read Torah at the Kotel. Not only that, they were recently told that they're not even allowed to bring the Torah to the Kotel. Don't even get me started. Suffice it to say that I've chanted Torah many, many times, never once thinking there was anything abnormal about it, and it baffles me that there are people out there who don't think that women should chant Torah. So, we marched, singing, around the corner to this place called Robinson's Arch, which is in an archeological park and part of the same wall, just a different side and discovered later. The Torah service was wonderful. They gave an aliyah to a young Israeli woman who had never had an aliyah before. It's interesting, because I've had multiple aliyot over the course of my life and haven't thought twice about it, and she hadn't had one, so it was a huge deal for her. Israeli religious society is so different from what I'm used to back home! It was so wonderful to see her being called up to the Torah for the first time. I will definitely be going back to Women of the Wall, hopefully every month.

After that, my friends and I rushed out of the Old City to grab a sheirut (I guess it's like a shared taxi) to Tel Aviv with the rest of our class. Tel Aviv was wonderful, though ridiculously humid. It was like the East Coast on steroids. First, many of us took a tour of Neve Tzedek. I don't remember ever going before, so this was nice. It's the oldest neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and it is gorgeous. We got to see a lot of interesting buildings, some schools turned apartments, some historically owned by famous Israelis. I would start throwing out specific random factoids, but it was so hot that I cannot really recall much. But it was very interesting. The tour was led by someone named Alyne Bat Haim who made aliyah many years ago, and she invited us back to her apartment for refreshments and to talk about our perceptions of Israel. Very interesting woman.

Afterwards, we went to this place called Abu Chasa in Jaffa which has the best hummus I have EVER tasted. That's not even an exaggeration. The ridiculously long line should tell you how good it is. In fact, the line was so long that we couldn't even eat in the restaurant. So, we nommed on our hummus at a lovely shady spot by the port. Then, we went to the beach. It was hot, so I went in the water to cool off. The Mediterranean Sea is NOT like the Pacific Ocean. How so, you ask? For starters, it's really warm. So, it's much easier to just dive right in. However, it's also extremely salty. It was a pleasant afternoon at the beach.

For services in the evening, we went to a place called Beit Tefilah Yisraeli, a progressive congregation. During the summer, they meet on the north port. Yes, this was where we had services:

Yes, there was a glorious sunset involved. The guy who was leading the service (not a rabbi yet, currently a student in HUC's Israeli rabbinic program) timed the service so that the sunset would coincide with L'cha Dodi. Perfection. There was a band consisting of a violin, a string bass, a keyboard, drums, and more. The person doing the singing was apparently one of the finalists on Kochav Nolad (the Israeli version of American Idol) at one point. The siddur was progressive in some ways and traditional in other ways. It did not specifically change any of the liturgy, but there were some omissions (most notably V'shamru and the Aleinu). There were also many Israeli songs throughout the siddur, and we sang some of them instead of the traditional liturgy. For example, in lieu of one of the psalms, we sang "Eizeh Achla Olam," a direct translation of "What a Wonderful World," and instead of Mi Chamocha, we sang, "Lu Y'hi," which was basically Naomi Shemer's rewriting of "Let it Be." There was also a part where we sang a line about being thankful (don't remember exactly how it went), and the service leader went around with a microphone and people said what they were thankful for. One guy named Ariel said that he was thankful for his family, and the vocalist then sang something along the lines of, "Ariel is thankful for his family," completely kosher gospel style. We used a lot of Israeli pop melodies for things. They did the entire L'cha Dodi and switched melodies in the middle as is tradition. They modulated many times. Wow. We did not face east and instead faced the ocean, with the idea that we were facing Jerusalem, just from the opposite angle. I'm slightly disappointed that we learned several of their melodies at Hava Nashira and they weren't used in this service, but I liked the meodies that were used. It was an interesting prayer experience and a wonderful way to bring in Shabbat.

We had something of a Hava Nashira dinner where we were talking about it. There was definitely a performative aspect of it. The good thing about this is that it brings a lot of Israelis who would otherwise never ever attend services. A lot of people who are walking along the promenade end up stopping by and staying for a while. The chairs were completely full. In this way, it definitely serves its purpose. I am interested in seeing how the service is during the year when they are not at the port.

Well, that's all for now. Until next time, here's some glida for your ogling pleasure.

We're WiFi-ed! And Other Musings on G-d

Well, my awesome other roommate, Emily, is here, and with her, she brought the gift of WiFi. Which means more Facebook. Or probably not because things are really starting to pick up and it looks like I'm going to be quite busy for the rest of the year. But it does mean that we did some more house shopping today, and now that this place is feeling more like home, I will try to post some pictures soon. Orientation is finally starting, followed by ulpan. I think that it will be nice to get into a routine.

We had an HUC alumni event on Saturday afternoon. The premise of the event had to do with spiritual guidance. We got to hear Rabbi David Ellenson, the president of HUC, speak about his own spiritual dilemma. He has to be one of the most interesting people I've ever heard from. This was followed by some breakout sessions. I chose to attend a session where we got to watch a live video of a simulated spiritual counseling session. Rabbi Na'amah Kelman played a woman who needed spiritual counseling, and some volunteers played a rabbi who was offering her spiritual counseling. Afterwards, we discussed it. This is a tool that HUC uses in their Israel rabbinic program. It was very interesting. Apparently, in Israel, rabbis don't do exactly what they do in the US in terms of counseling. The counseling is pretty limited to the confines of the synagogue, and hospital chaplaincy is just now starting to make headway. The rabbis that work in hospitals are pretty much there to make sure that the hospitals are up to halachic standards. HUC has a big part in the emergence of rabbis as hospital chaplains, but for now, Israeli Reform rabbis mainly focus on spiritual guidance within the congregation. Even though this is not exactly how they will be training us, since Reform clergy in the US has a different role, it was still very interesting to see. In recent years, the cantor has taken on a much larger role than just singing, so I am going to have to do a lot of counseling. It was interesting to get a taste of part of what my job will be. After that, we had a seudah shlishit (basically, a Shabbat snack). Afterwards, we did havdallah. Ken Chasen led it and invited students to lead it with him, and I and a few other students did so. So much fun! I've known Ken for a few years, but I think this is the first time I've actually ever played anything with him, so it was nice. Also, my friend Danny played the mandolin, which was lovely. It was somewhere between camp and Hava Nashira, but better because it occurred in Jerusalem.

Today was the first day of orientation. My roommates and I spent the morning house and grocery shopping, and we are set! Then, I had lunch with my friend Lauren who is a fifth year HUC cantorial student and her friend Matt who is a cantor in DC. They definitely warned me about the madness that I have gotten myself into. But Lauren definitely had many nice things to say about her years at HUC and the wonderful faculty she has gotten to know. And Matt had many wonderful things to say about the cantorate. Also, Matt is a JTS graduate, and he loved JTS. I got to hear a little bit about the differences in theology and curriculum between the two schools. I was reassured that I made the right decision for myself. I am NOT saying anything bad about any other schools, just that HUC was the best choice for me personally. Though, I had never actually considered JTS because it didn't really fit my theology. Growing up, I didn't really identify with any particular denomination, but I think I was somewhere between Reform and Conservative (this was, obviously, before my "I don't believe in Judaism" faze). This was definitely because of my Jewish day school, which also did not identify with any particular movement. My parents have always identified as Reform, but I have not. I did not grow up at a URJ camp (my camp, Machaneh Gilboa, was run by zionist youth organization Habonim D'ror, and it was awesome), I was not involved in youth group since I already had so many Jewish peers at school (and they all had different levels of observance), and I did not attend my Reform synagogue on anything other than holidays. As a young adult, although I have retained (or reacquired if you count my years of anti-Judaism) some of the practices that I developed while attending my non-denominational Jewish day school, such as observing Pesach for the full eight days, not spelling out the full name of G-d, and preferring to pray entirely in Hebrew (except for maybe Debbie's Mi Shebeirach because that's meSinai at this point), I have realized that I most closely believe in the theology of Reform Judaism, and HUC was definitely the best choice just based on that fact. There are also other reasons why I think it will be a good school for me, but that is not for this post. Also, hearing cantorial students and people who are already cantors talk just confirms for me that I have made the right career choice. Anyway, it was wonderful to have lunch with two lovely people. We ate at Tmol Shilshom. I can definitely see this place becoming a hangout for me.

I have sort of been nervous about starting school ever since I received my acceptance e-mail. They did send a letter too, but the e-mail came first, which was actually good because I would have otherwise gone three weeks without sleep instead of just one. Seriously, the waiting period was torture. Anyway, I don't know that I really have anything to be nervous about. Yes, it will be a LOT of work, but it will be work that I will enjoy doing, and the faculty and administration seem super nice. We had been told that this would not be a typical grad school orientation. They did not lie. We started out by hearing from Dr. David Mendelsson, the Director of Israel Studies, on the importance of the work that we are doing. He also talked told a story involving taking the path that is "short but long" verses taking the path that is "long but short." I am definitely into taking the path that is "long but short." The idea of going to cantorial school first popped into my mind when I was a sophomore in college. Now that I am here all these years later, I am totally okay with spending five years in school. In fact, there is so much to learn that I can't even imagine spending fewer than five years. And I know that it will be rewarding.

We then broke up into smaller sessions where we were asked some pretty deep questions. I am not going to give details on that because it is very personal, but I will say that in one of the groups, we ended up having a wonderful discussion on G-d, and it made me think a lot about my own belief. I definitely believe one hundred percent that there is one G-d. It is the central tenet of Judaism, and I would not be studying to become clergy if I believed otherwise. However, I have no idea what that means. At least not concretely. There are so many textual representations of G-d, both in the Torah and in our liturgy, and I believe in a different one of those pretty much every day. Because there are so many diverse textual representations, and it's very hard to just choose one, I don't know if I will ever form a solid belief of exactly what G-d is. G-d is the beauty of nature, G-d is an angry parent who is out to get me, G-d is an entity in which I can take comfort and gather strength. All of these and more are G-d. I look forward to continuing to think about this as I study our dense, wondrous texts.

Anyway, because HUC is a Jewish institution, they fed us a rather large Israeli dinner. It was very chill, and I got the chance to talk to some of the faculty. David Mendelsson is wonderful and very personable. I also got a chance to briefly meet the head of the cantorial department in Israel, Tamar, and she seems awesome. Then, they took us up to Har Tzion, right outside the Old City, where we discussed the text, "Ki mitzion teitzei Torah," which means, "For from Zion comes Torah," while we watched the sun set. I have never thought much about this piece of text. It's in the Torah service, and it seems to pass by quickly for me. I usually do think a lot about the texts that I am singing, but this one has always just been a "Hooray for the Torah!!!" piece of text. Now that I've started to think about it, I'm not sure what I think about it. It's pretty profound, and now I need to go and think more about it, and then I will tell you what I think about it.

Because this is a cantorial school blog. . .

. . . and because I do actually listen to cool people who give me awesome ideas, I wanted to talk a bit about services the past couple of weeks, particularly from a musical perspective. I have no qualms about blogging on Shabbat, since I do not consider it to be work. Warning: I have many friends of different religions, as well as many Jewish friends and family members with different levels of observances. I am a failure at explanations and might not actually know what I'm talking about anyway since I haven't started school yet, and I also didn't want this post to fall under the category of TL;DR. So, Google away. For easy Googling, download Chrome.

In my gushing over Rabbi Ada Zavidov's sermon last week at Kehilat Har-El, I neglected to mention anything musical about the service. The cantor at Har-El is Evan Cohen. He does play guitar, though the service had a very different vibe from the services I'm used to at home and elsewhere. We used many melodies that I am quite familiar with: Debbie's Shalom Aleichem, that Mizmor Shir that I've been singing since first grade and we always do at Valley Ruach (no idea who composed it and Shireinu says "unknown"), the "traditional" Ahavat Olam that I also learned in first grade, if I remember correctly a bit of Carlebach, and the Sufi chant psalm 150 (all of it), among other things. Speaking of which, psalm 150?????????? It was in the siddur before all of the traditional Kabbalat Shabbat psalms, but I have no idea how it got there, as it is traditional morning liturgy. Could this have just been an addition to the siddur to give them something additional to sing (it is a really nice psalm), or is there something I don't know about? Are there any cantors reading this who might have the answer? Also, there was a LOT of Hebrew reading in this service. For example, we sang the first line of psalm 95, L'chu Neranenah, then read the rest in Hebrew, and then the cantor chanted the last couple of lines. Same thing with psalm 96, Shiru L'Adonai. And a lot of other things too. There was not really an emphasis on davening, but more on reading together. But going back to the endings of the psalsms. . . the nusach was completely unfamiliar to me. I learned Kabbalat Shabbat nusach straight from Katchko blue. While I know many different people have written down Kabbalat Shabbat nusach or made up something they didn't write down, and I very well admit to not having delved very deeply into the world of nusach yet, I have looked over or heard a couple other versions of the nusach, and I remember the last three notes as fa mi do (or 4 3 1 depending on how you learned to read) on a major scale, or occasionally so do (or 5 1). I don't remember what this was, but it was not that. Super interesting. When they got into ma'ariv, it sounded a bit more familiar to me. There was still a lot of Hebrew reading, though, which is something I've only seen at home during very specific parts of the service. The emphasis seemed to be on making sure that everyone said every word of text. It was a very communal type of prayer, in a very different way from what I am used to. It does make a lot more sense to do something like that in Israel, where people speak Hebrew natively. Also of note is that they sang pslam 121, Esa Einai, as one of the closing songs, but it was that Israeli pop/hip hop melody. Anyone know what I'm talking about and who wrote it? It added something uniquely Israeli to the service, which was wonderful.

And now we move onto this week. Tonight, I went to Kol Haneshama for services. Very different musically from Har-El. The rabbi definitely sounded American and conducted the service bilingually. He talked a lot about taking a deep breath and thinking about Shabbat, the past week, and the week to come. Very meditative. It makes sense considering the name of this congregation. Neshama, soul, has the same root word as neshima, breath. This congregation has no cantor and no instruments. It does seem to have a very sing-y congregation, though. Or maybe that's just because I was sitting with a bunch of HUC students. Anyway, despite the lack of instrumentation, I was pretty familiar with some of the things they did musically. They definitely used at least one Debbie melody, and also some Carlebach, and nusach that I was more familiar with than I was last week at Har-El. The siddur was very Progressive in the sense that it took a lot of liberties with the text. I even saw "Brucha At" instead of "Baruch Atah"(feminine instead of masculine) there at one point. Pretty cool, but never seen that in a siddur at home. There were times, especially during the Amidah, where I had no idea where some of this text came from. Mostly a few words here and there, but it threw me for a loop. Because I went to Jewish day school as a child and almost never went to Shabbat services at my home synagogue, I grew up praying from siddur Sim Shalom, which is a Conservative siddur, and I'm pretty aware of how that text differs from that of Mishkan Tefilah, and I have never seen some of this before. Based on how it translated, I'm 99% sure it didn't come from a traditional siddur. One of these days, I'll need to sit there and analyze it. Also, there were a lot of random psalms in the siddur after psalm 93, which I'm pretty sure were there in place of where we would put English readings in an American siddur, and we read psalm 15 together. But then we started singing Ilu Finu (the three-part one by Miriam Margles, if you haven't heard that one, definitely Youtube it), which definitely wasn't written down anywhere on the page since it's from Nishmat Kol Chai. But there were also many elements of tradition in this service. For example, there was a lot of space for individual davening. I liked that, since it's something I want to get better at. We also sang Magein Avot, which I don't think I've ever heard at a Reform service before. It's a nice piece of text. They also sang that Israeli pop/hip hop psalm 121. I have a feeling that if I keep attending Israeli Progressive services, it's going to end up becoming something that I will want to find use for in my own service leading one way or another. I enjoyed the service overall. One of my classmates was telling me that once a month they have something which he described as a "Jewish renewal" service. I'll have to check that out too.

I will definitely go back to both of these congregations at some point. There are also many Orthodox congregations that I would like to check out. Stay tuned for more of these posts, and I will also keep posting about my general Jerusalem adventures. Shabbat shalom!

Out and About

It's been an interesting few days in Jerusalem. Allow me to share some highlights with you. On Tuesday evening, we watched the sunset on the tayelet (I believe that's Hebrew for promenade) over Jerusalem. After an obligatory icebreaker, we did a short text study on a poem by an early Israeli poet named Saul Tchernichovsky. He began writing poetry in Hebrew long before Israel was even a state. Since I'm pretty sure this has to be public domain by now. . .

 "Wondrous rose, a blessing from G-d
She blooms to each and every man.
There are those who search for her all the years of their lives.
There are those who find her quickly 

And the ways of life, we wander in them,
Until our days end.
Every flower we meet we question,
Are you my rose? You? 

And then a sad wintery evening arrives,
And the wild fields mourn,
As you take note, discern your way,
Your rose already picked. 

Happy is the man that finds his,
And in his hour picks her.
And woe to him to the man who doesn't recognize her,
While he is on the roads of his life. 

He has it good if his life's light has not been extinguished,
And like the fallen descend into the pit.
Indeed, he would be like a blind man,
Whose light was darkened."

I shall leave you to interpret that as you wish. I chose to leave the non-gender neutral translation, as it seems to be more true to the Hebrew. Anyway, after that we watched Jerusalem light up, with the sound of the Muslim evening prayer call in the background. I promise pictures after I stop being such an atzlanit and actually plug my camera into my computer.

On Wednesday, we had a 4th of July barbecue/potluck, which means that Carly and I braved the shuk again, this time with friends Michael and Lindsay in tow. This is what the shuk looks like.

I quite like the shuk. Fruit is so cheap. Not that I've ever purchased a lemon in my entire life (yay for having a tree in the backyard), but a lemon here is just one shekel, or the equivalent of about a quarter. Same thing with an onion or a head of garlic. Try finding a deal like that in the Hollywood Farmers Market. I will admit that I'm a bit thrown by the complete lack of limes in this country. I'm going to have to use lemon when making guacamole. We shall see how this tastes. Inside the shuk are many delicious and low-priced restaurants. Just outside the shuk is my favorite bakery, Marzipan. Om nom nom.

Today, we went on a "100 meters around HUC" tour, led by Udi. It wasn't quite what I expected, but in a good way. First, we went to the YMCA and learned all about the architecture. I didn't take any pictures, but since I'm planning on joining the gym there, pending getting a hold of some necessary paperwork, I should have a chance later to do so later. The most important thing to note is that the architecture contains Christian, Jewish, and Muslim imagery, which is awesome. Then, we took a peak inside of the King David Hotel. Gorgeous. Running up and down the lobby is a long, white tile containing the signatures of many famous people. They have everyone from Madeline Albright to the Black Eyed Peas (really? how did they get on there?). There is also a hallway filled with pictures of many famous Israeli and world leaders. There was a good one of Bill Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin. We also got to see the table where the peace treaty with Jordan was signed. The table was actually transported from the hotel to Joran in order to sign the peace treaty, and then transported back. Afterwards, we had a talk at an organization called Gesher. Gesher is basically responsible for bridging the gap and facilitating relationships among the may different groups of Jews in Israel. I am not going to get into that at this point in time, as I feel like that will be the theme of many of my posts, but I am SO glad that someone has been working on this daunting task.

Tonight, Sam took me and Jen to a concert of Sephardic music sponsored by the Cantors' Assembly.

Best. Concert. Ever. I realize that I say that about every concert, but these musicians were truly amazing. Such skill! And so fun to watch! Especially the guitarist. He got really into what he was playing. This in itself would make any concert worth watching, but since Ladino music is quite dramatically romantic, it worked especially well in this context. Here is a translation of a couple of verses of one of the ones that we really, really liked:

"The morning meal,
In the afternoon I'll bring it back,
So that my mother will know
that I wish to marry you 

An hour by the window,
another by the balcony,
so that my mother will know
how much I love you"

See? Fun stuff. I LOVE Ladino music. We were talking to both the guitarist and the violinist after the concert. VERY cool people.

On a completely separate note, there seem to be more non-kosher restaurants in Jerusalem than I expected. As a vegetarian who often dines with carnivores and cares much more about the ingredients than about the supervision, I don't actually have a problem with this; it's just a bit unexpected. This has been quite the long post, so signing off!