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.