Kippot

Now that I'm officially future clergy, I've been trying to find ways to deepen my Jewish practice. One of the things that I have been doing is wearing a kippah (Jewish head covering) at times when I am not praying. I don't wear one all the time; just a lot more often than I used to. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this practice yet. Does it really deepen my connection to G-d? I don't know yet, which is why I'm still experimenting with wearing it more often and not just wearing it 24-7. One of the things that I have been doing is that if I put it on to daven shacharit (pray in the morning. . . something I've been trying to do more of anyway, though it's hard to get up because I'm not a morning person), I'll just wear it all day. Since we have a communal shacharit at HUC on Thursdays (i.e. praying doesn't require me getting out of bed any earlier than normal), I end up always wearing my kippah all day on Thursdays. While no one would look twice at a woman wearing a kippah in Los Angeles, in Israel, whether I like it or not, it's a political statement. Last Thursday night, I had a late rehearsal for a concert about women's rights as they pertain to religious pluralism in Israel. Good stuff. It's chamber style, which is something I want to be doing more of anyway. Singing first soprano, which should only surprise those who haven't heard me sing for a while. Anyway, rehearsal ended at 10, and there was no way I was cooking dinner that late, so I decided to stop at Burgers Bar (never fear, I am still a vegetarian, they have a great portobello mushroom sandwich). The following conversation happened between me and a cashier.

Cashier: You're a girl, and you're wearing a kippah.
Sara: Yes, of course.
Cashier: But why?
Sara: Why not?
Cashier: It's weird for women to wear kippot.
Sara: But I'm Reform.
Cashier: What's that?
Sara: It's kind of like religious, but egalitarian. (Side note: I don't mean to offend any of my friends who are more traditional than I am; this was the only way I could come up with to explain it on the fly to an Israeli who has never heard of Reform Judaism, in Hebrew nonetheless.)

Then, a young guy wearing a kippah came up to me.

Young Guy: You're wearing a kippah?
Sara: Sure.
Young Guy: Why?
Sara: Why not? Women can wear kippot too.
Young Guy: It looks nice.
He then put another kippah on my head over the one I was already wearing and told me to keep it.

I must reiterate: This would NEVER happen in Los Angeles. In LA, I used to lead Saturday morning minyan at my shul and then go out to lunch while still wearing my kippah, sometimes even to Israeli restaurants, and no one would say anything to me because no one cares. I feel like there's this perception in Israel that in order to be a religious Jew I must be Orthodox. But Jews come in all shapes and sizes and observance levels, and it kind of bothers me that a woman wearing a kippah in public is virtually unheard of in this country. If your understanding of Judaism leads you to believe that women shouldn't wear kippot, that's fine, but my understanding of Judaism leads me to believe that it's wonderful for women to wear kippot, and that should be fine too. I want to connect to G-d too! I want to wear a kippah and pray with a tallit, and if that doesn't fit into someone else's schema of Judaism, how is that my problem? My Judaism is no one else's business, unless I'm somehow personally affecting you (i.e. I use my religious beliefs as a justification for beating you up or personally insulting you or something). Why can't I just walk around Jerusalem in my kippah and not have anyone comment or look at me like I'm an alien?

Anyway, in a few days, I'm leaving for Berlin for a conference, and then Belarus to lead Pesach programming. I will be leading seders in Minsk and Baranovichi, as well as leading Pesach music for elementary school kids and singing in a cantorial concert in Minsk. I'm going as part of the Former Soviet Union Pesach Project, which is run by the World Union for Progressive Judaism. I am beyond excited. I will make sure to post after the trip is over.

Purim!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A lot's been going on here recently, which is why I've been so lax about posting. But I wanted to talk about Purim. Purim is one of my favorite Jewish holidays, because it's basically an excuse to dress up and party. Hooray! If you don't know the story of Purim, you should check it out. I'm linking the Chabad website because it has more than one version:
http://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/1473/jewish/The-Megillah.htm
So, yeah, awesome story with the theme of "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat." And when we read Megillat Esther (the scroll with the story of Purim), we get to use these awesome things called groggers in order to blot out Haman's name.

If you forget your grogger at home or don't have one, never fear; you can always boo, or hiss, anti-Stanfurd style. And you know what's even cooler about Purim? We get to eat hamntaschen, or oznei Haman in Hebrew (literally translates as "Haman's ears"). They're these delicious triangle-shaped cookies that are supposed to look like Haman's hat. . . or ears if you're Israeli. In the US, they're usually filled with jelly or poppyseed, but here they have such interesting flavors as date and halva.

Now that you are all as excited about Purim as I am, let me tell you how it was in Israel. The Friday before Purim, Max and I headed to the elementary school where we songlead to go sing some Purim songs with them. Well, the songleading part didn't really work out as planned, but the kids looked awesome, and we got to experience what Purim is like at an Israeli school. The costumes were really elaborate. Think Halloween in the US, but on steroids. Apparently, they had dressed up every day that week, with each day being a different theme, and then Friday was a free for all. WHAT!?!?!?! When I went to Jewish day school, they only let us dress up for ONE day!!!!! Their were some really cool costumes. One kid dressed up as a falafel pita. Another kid was an Israeli astronaut. There were a lot of clowns. And there were definitely some costumes that would have been considered politically incorrect in the US. It was also the loudest assembly I've ever been to, but it was still really fun.

On Saturday night, a bunch of us went to Modi'in to read Megillat Esther at a progressive community there. That was a lot of fun. Kind of crazy, though. Lots of cute little kids running around. I can't explain why, but the experience felt very Israeli. It was just totally different than reading the megillah at Temple Judea or Hillel or wherever else I've ever spent Purim. . . actually last year was Ikar I believe. . .  The costumes were so cute. My favorites had to have been where the parents dressed up their babies. So cute!

Since Jerusalem is a "walled city" (well, only a very small part of it, but close enough), we celebrate something that is called Shushan Purim, which basically means celebrating Purim a day late, so we had an EXTRA day of Purim. Yay! On Sunday night, we read Megillat Esther at HUC. Here is a ridiculous picture of me chanting. It's on Facebook, but I realize that not all of my family members have Facebook. . .

I don't actually know what's happening in this picture. It just is and we shall have to let it be. Before we heard the megillah, we had a ma'ariv service. Led by puppets. Really. A Chassidic guy puppet and a camel puppet. The camel puppet acted as the cantor. It was so ridiculous that it was amazing. After the megillah reading was over, we had the Purim Shpiel, which was Michael Jackson-themed. Among other things, I got to play Teresh, one of the evil servants plotting to kill Ahashverosh, and sing "Smooth Criminal." Someone videoed it, and when I find out where it is, you will get to see it. We also had an HUC party afterwards that was a lot of fun. I did go out for a bit afterwards just to see what Purim in Jerusalem looked like, but I didn't stay out for very long because Sunday was a big day. In any case, Purim in Jerusalem is a bit nuts. Almost too nuts for me, so it's a good thing I didn't stay out too long.

On Sunday morning, I woke up bright and early to chant Megillat Esther at the Kotel with Women of the Wall. It was my first time EVER chanting anything at the Kotel, and I was shaking in my boots. I got to read the entirety of Chapter 6. The anticipation of reading was killing me. I didn't know how I wanted to do it. Did I want to get through it quickly? Or did I want to be expressive? Did I want to chant loudly or quietly? What would happen if they were to arrest me? But it all worked out fine, and I am SO SO SO SO SO glad I did it. I'm going to post the video of it here. If you have your own copy of Megillat Esther and want to follow along, note that my trope is not entirely correct since I was nervous, but I am still beyond proud of myself.

After that came my favorite part of Purim: hanging out with the wonderful and amazing Dana, who I had not had the pleasure of seeing since last June. We got to eat delicious food, I got to meet one of her college roommates, and we played major catchup. We unfortunately forgot to take a picture (I blame the blond hair. . . I know I use that excuse way too often, but it's so convenient). It was so refreshing to have one of my closest friends from home here in Israel. And it was especially amazing because (friends in LA, please don't hate me), I have a job for this summer and probably will be spending all of two weeks in LA.

Anyway, ta ta for now! Someone please get on my case about posting more often.

Hooray for Politics! And Debbie. And Maybe Life Too.

Israeli elections happened last week. The powers that be divided our class into groups and sent us to various cities. My group went to Bat Yam, which is a beach town that is sort of near Tel Aviv, but way more impossible to get to. Then, we had to make a video about it and put in on Youtube. Here's ours. It's about half English, half Hebrew. The part where I explain how the elections work is in English, so even if you don't understand a word of Hebrew, you should watch it.

Now, people keep asking me, "Who is this Yair Lapid guy we keep hearing about?" Well, he is an Israeli talk show host and newspaper column writer (journalist?). He started a new centrist political party called Yesh Atid (There Is a Future), and he won 19 seats in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), which put him in second place, a big achievement for a brand new political party. It remains to be seen whether Yair Lapid and his party would be willing to join in Bibi Netanyahu's coalition and become part of the government. A lot of people seem to think that he will, since it is in his best interest if he wants to have a shot at winning the next election. The last centrist party that won a lot of seats, Kadima, did not join the coalition and is now more or less irrelevant.

These last couple of weeks have honestly been a bit stressful. Just have had a lot to think about. We have a Debbie Friedman memorial concert coming up. I was asked to give a speech on behalf of the students, probably because of my Hava Nashira-ness (i.e. I actually got a chance to know Debbie). I was reluctant. I was in Israel leading a Birthright trip when she died, and it was very hard to mourn for her properly. I reacted by locking myself in my room for the night, not really talking about it or anything, not knowing what to do while I was so far away from home and didn't even have very good internet access. It was honestly hard to write a speech. Most of my Debbie anecdotes don't really belong at an HUC concert speech. I have a lot of really funny ones, but I thought it was best to keep those to myself. I didn't really want to talk about the time that we had an argument over the merits of cantorial music versus congregational music. Or the time she complimented my political views as expressed through my rain boots, which totally cracked me up. Or countless other stories that are better kept in my memory. (Hey, remember that time we were singing Oseh Shalom, and Debbie stopped us to correct us?) And I'm really not good at the sentimental stuff. I'm not going to write here what I did choose to talk about in case some of my classmates are reading this; maybe I will later. The writing process turned out to be kind of cathartic. I guess it was a chance to finally mourn properly.

It is the middle of our mid-year colloquium, and all sorts of faculty from all of the American campuses are currently here. It's nice. The head rabbi of the New York campus met with all of us who are going to New York and brought us American candy. In a CVS bag. Rock! We've had all sorts of lectures and discussions on the topic of "Jewish Peoplehood." Not even going to start going into that because it's super complicated and doesn't make any sense, but it's been interesting. We heard from an Orthodox comedian tonight who had converted to Judaism through three different movements. I am usually wary of standup comedy, but this was the funniest thing I've ever seen. His name is Yisrael Campbell. Go hire him.

Well, I'm off now. Here's to the start of a great semester!

Normalcy

I think after a half a year of living here, Jerusalem does feel like home. I know that I'm going to leave at the end of the school year, but for now, I've very much come to terms with the fact that I'm living here. I'm on winter break right now. I was almost going to plan a last-minute getaway to some sort of exciting European country. Why didn't I? Mostly because my wallet disappeared. It was the same day that my good friend lost her keys. We scoured HUC for our stuff and got everyone we could think of to help. No luck. I even checked the refrigerator. So, with my cards not having arrived by the time break started, I thought it might be nice to chillax in Jerusalem. It has been nice. Some of my friends are still here, so it's been nice hanging out with them. It's also been just nice catching up on sleep. And I finally organized my room today. And tomorrow I have a shopping date. And I'm finally getting my hair done later this week, which I should have done three months ago, and I really don't want to start looking like Einstein.

Anyway, I wanted to write a post because friends from home keep asking me what I do in Jerusalem. The truth of the matter is, I really have no idea what to tell anyone, because I often do just what I do in LA, with maybe a twist. Here are some examples.
1. School. It eats my life, but I love it.
2. Extra-curricular activities. This includes things such as being on the Va'ad Tefillah (prayer committee). We're in charge of planning all ritual activities outside of the normal weekly HUC services.   Like on tiyulim or if there's a holiday or something. I also have this thing called a Trumah Project, which is a volunteer project that everyone has to do. Mine is songleading at an elementary school with friends Dan, Max, and Alex. When we walk in, kids give us high fives. They are all so adorable. Also, Israeli schools are kind of awesome because instead of bells, they play music. If they were to do that in American schools, maybe kids would like school more. Also, there's a cuddly cat that lives at the school. If you can't tell, I'm slightly obsessed with cats.
3. Run errands. See? Not much different from home. Like in LA, I live a block from the market, which makes things easy. Though, sometimes I like to go to the shuk, which is like a farmer's market but bigger and more Israeli. "What do you mean by more Israeli?" you may be asking. You just have to go there.
4. Hang out with friends. We do normal friend stuff like hanging out, eating dinner, going shopping, and spending nights on the town. See? Just like in LA. But with new friends. (This is in response to people asking me what I do for fun. I don't know? Normal fun things?)
5. Going to shul. I think the main difference here is that I don't often go to Reform services in Jerusalem. I like the Reform congregations here, but I also want to have new worship experiences.
6. Potlucks. Enough said.
7. I fed my friend's cats while she and her husband were away for the weekend. I cuddled with them.

I don't want to make it sound like my life in Jerusalem is completely mundane; in some ways it is, but in some ways it's really not. First of all, the city just looks different. It's so full of history. I don't really get into the Old City much, with the very notable exception of Rosh Chodesh, but when I do, it's kind of awesome to think that people were living there in the tenth century BCE, and how much it's grown and changed. Even my neighborhood has some interesting history. It was established in 1921, and it was a place where Zionist gentry would sip coffee and talk about Zionism. It is also home to many government officials and has been historically. I mean, what ever happened in my neighborhood in LA other than a couple of teenagers digging a pool and finding a caveman who looked like Brendan Fraser? (If you're younger than I am, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Don't worry about it.) And the city just looks kind of old, yet still modern. There's something about a light rail going up a street filled with only stone buildings. And there's one huge difference here from life at home: Even though I grew up in a neighborhood with a heck of a lot of Jews, Jerusalem seems to have a heck of a lot more Jews. And they speak Hebrew, which is amazing, because only in Israel do I ever have the chance to see Hebrew as a real, living language. Hebrew was actually the second language I learned, and then Spanish much later, but it sort of seemed like Spanish was my second language and Hebrew was my third because so many people speak Spanish, which means I actually have a chance to speak it (even people here speak Spanish, it's kind of awesome), whereas few people outside of Israel speak Hebrew (thank goodness for my Israeli camp friends or I would have forgotten it all before I came here). But now I have a chance to really speak Hebrew too! I don't know if I'll come home fluent, because Jerusalem is pretty touristy and also filled with olim, but I've already gotten so much more confident in my speaking abilities since I've been here, and I can only get better from here.

Anyway, I've got a long day of shopping ahead of me tomorrow, so signing off! In the mean time, here's a Jordanian cat for your oggling pleasure.

The December Not-So-Dilemma

Last week at school, we had a day of learning about Chanukah. One of the sessions talked about the "December Dilemma," i.e. it's hard to be a Jew on Christmas. This "December Dilemma" was something I didn't really think about as a child. Growing up, I went to a Jewish day school and lived in a pretty Jewish neighborhood. I never felt left out of anything because as far as I knew, Chanukah was the best winter holiday ever, and I enjoyed celebrating it with my family and friends, even if it wasn't a major holiday. When I was in high school, I didn't really care about Judaism, and by the time I was in college, my Jewish identity was strong enough that I didn't feel left out of anything. It was only as an adult that December 25th started to bother me. Not because I felt left out, but because I felt that it was really hard to grapple with my identity as a Jewish American when everything around me screamed of something that I had always thought of as someone else's holiday. It was almost like my identity as Jew and my identity as an American didn't mesh. I know Christmas is technically a national holiday, but is it cool with everyone else that I don't celebrate it? I enjoy Christmas music and think trees are pretty, but when it came to the day itself, I really didn't know what to do with myself. I wanted it to be just another day, but it wasn't. Even when I worked for Hillel, I had off work on December 25th, which always baffled me. I'm not complaining about an opportunity to party with my friends, but it was still weird.
Here in Israel, there is no "December Dilemma." When you go into the supermarket, they say, "Chanukah sameach," just like around Rosh Hashana they say, "Shanah tovah."I'm missing the peppermint mochas and gingerbread lattes at Coffee Bean (American winter staples for me), but I'm loving the fact that I have already eaten my body weight in delicious sufganiyot (like jelly doughnuts, but better) and still haven't tried every bakery. And I love the fact that I have a final on December 25th. I don't like to be exclusivist, and I think it's important that every culture or religion in any given society is given a space to express itself, but sometimes, it's just nice being in the majority. I like not having to explain my holiday to people I meet on the streets because everyone already knows what my holiday is about. I can just be. It makes me kind of want to fly to Israel every December. . . after a trip to Coffee Bean, of course.
So far, Chanukah has been nice. One of my friends has decided to do this thing called the Sufganiyot Challenge where we try different sufganiyot every night. I actually got a head start because I'll be out of town for a few nights with my parents, but whatever. Last night, we went to Roladin and English Cake, so I had a tiramisu one and a blueberry one. Om nom nom.

Today, we counted the free ones they gave us at HUC as part of the challenge. Speaking of which, today, we had a candle lighting ceremony at HUC for night two. My friend Lori and I planned it, and three other friends played guitar with us. It was a lot of fun. Most of the stuff we ended up doing reminded me a lot of my childhood (read: almost all in Hebrew, yeah, I didn't learn "The Latke Song" until I was an adult), but this was even better than my childhood because it consisted of fifty something adults all beautifully singing Chanukah songs together. I knew we had a musical class, but wow. Chanukah song sessions need to happen ALL THE TIME. And people should rotate and lead their favorite Chanukah songs. It also reminded me of what is perhaps my favorite thing about HUC: community. If I can't be attending parties with my friends back at home involving latke wars and irreverent party games, I'm glad that I can be here. Also, our apartment came with a chanukiah.

I've been a bad, bad girl.

So, I haven't posted in forever. I like my posts to be well-thought-out, and HUC is eating my life. In a good way. But Karen called me out on not posting a couple weeks back, so I think now it's time to post. So, I was going to post about Sukkot, but that didn't actually happen. So, very briefly, I attended my first ever Sukkot services. You may be asking, "Sara, aren't you super Jew? Didn't you grow up at a Jewish school? Haven't you literally been a professional Jew for the past however many years? How can you have NEVER gone to a Sukkot service before?" Well, I don't know the answer to that question, but there's a first time for everything! It was really interesting. I went to Shira Hadasha since I wanted a more traditional experience in which I could also participate. Mostly, the service looks like a traditional festival service, but there are a bunch of parts where you wave the lulav (palm branch thingy with two other kinds of trees, used in conjunction with this yellow fruit called an etrog), such as at the end of Hallel. There's also this part called Hoshanot in which everyone takes their lulavs and walks in a circle waving them. Since Shira Hadasha has a mechitza, the women and men each made their own circle. It was easily the coolest thing I have ever seen happen in a service. I want to go to Sukkot services every year! Not that I have a choice in the matter anymore ;) Also, I would love to give you an idea of what Sukkot looks like in Jerusalem.

Every kosher restaurant has a sukkah because much of their clientele feel halachically obligated to eat in it. Also, it's just nice to sit and eat in the sukkah. There were some streets that you could barely walk down because of all the sukkahs. Not going to talk about Simchat Torah, as my experience was pretty standard Reform, but I did get to play guitar both in the evening and in the morning, so that was nice.

I was also going to talk about what happened at the Kotel on the night that Hadassah came to visit in October. I got most of my anger out on Facebook, but I do want to say that what happened was deeply disturbing. It was Hadassah's 100th anniversary convention, but they were not able to come to the Kotel on Rosh Chodesh, so Women of the Wall invited them to come the night before. HUC students were volunteering at the event, and those of us who sing had prepared to lead them in song. The police were eyeing us from the beginning. When the Hadassah women got there, Anat Hoffman gave a quick speech, and then my friend Alli led everyone in the Sh'ma, the prayer/verse that many, myself included, find to be most central to Judaism. By the time we were done, Anat had been arrested for supposedly saying the Sh'ma too loudly. Utter madness ensued. Haredim were screaming at us and arguing with us. Those of us who were brave enough argued back. People were arguing with the police. It was scary, but I felt empowered to be there and support the cause. Anywhere else, this would be termed religious discrimination, but not in Israel. Let me be clear that Anat did NOT get arrested because of kol isha (the concept that men aren't supposed to hear women's voices). They usually only arrest people for wearing a talit. They never arrest the service leaders unless they're wearing a manly talit or something. And even then I've usually seen them wait until after that part of the service is over. They basically just arrested her because she's one of the leaders of the organization and they wanted to scare the rest of us. I haven't worn a talit to the wall the past couple of months. I wouldn't have a problem getting arrested for a cause I believe in, but I worry that my visa might be in jeopardy if I do. Maybe I'll once again be brave enough at a later date.

And now, the thing you all are really wondering about, judging by all of the "happy birthday" wall posts coming from America: Yes, I have been safe. The first azakah (alarm) was scary, as I was walking to services alone and had no idea what to do. I decided to keep walking to services after it was over, since services were in a basement and many of my friends were there. And it was Nava Tehila, meaning said basement was filled with awesome music. I did feel the need to tweak my Shabbat dinner plans in order to be able to walk home with my neighbors, and I'm glad I did because I felt so much safer. There was a second azakah during liturgy class on Tuesday and we all had to go into the bomb shelter. Fortunately, Hamas really can't aim. They're terrible. They ended up hitting an uninhabited area in a Palestinian village in the West Bank, which is also bad but is clearly less scary for me than if they had hit Jerusalem. When I think about it, even though being scared is perfectly valid and the emotional half of my brain wanted to be scared while everything was happening, the logical half of my brain told me something different. I have almost gotten hit by more cars than I can count since I have been here in Jerusalem. I have heard two azakot. Shouldn't I be more scared of being hit by a car? In any case, there's a ceasefire now. Let's hope it holds. If I were to have my choice, I'd much rather spend the rest of my year worrying about not getting run over by a car.

We were able to get our minds off what was going on with our tiyul (trip) to the Arava (in the south, but on the other side of the country where it was clearly safe). We saw a crater in the desert that wasn't really a crater (there's a Hebrew word for it but none in English), and three of us gave speeches about how it was created and then the class had to guess which was correct. I gave a speech about how a meteor hit in that area and killed all the kosher dinosaurs. But it turned out that the crater thing was actually created by "total pwnage." We then got to take a gorgeous hike in the crater thingy. The next day, we hiked up this mountain called Har Shlomo. Israel does not do "trails" the way America does. I would say this was closer to rock climbing than hiking. I used to be really afraid of heights and had thought I had gotten over that fear, but apparently I didn't because I had a quasi panic attack. For a good reason: There was a ledge where you had to hold onto a handrail in order not to fall off the mountain. But everyone on the hike was supportive of each other, and we all made it to the top. Special shout out to Ari and Max for their mad cheerleading skills. And the view was spectacular.

The way down was also pretty scary. But don't worry; I only fell down one cliff, and someone caught me, so I'd say it was a successful day! But seriously, that was one AMAZING hike and I'm so glad I pushed myself to do it. When we got back to the kibbutz, we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner cooked by some classmates. There may have been some Madlibs at the table. I may not want to repeat said Madlibs. There was also lots and lots of pie. I really like pie. And I learned a new game called Cards Against Humanity, which is like Apples to Apples but better. Other things that happened on this trip include going to another kibbutz and making mud bricks, eating ice cream at a kibbutz that has a giant dairy factory (sorry, Nick, I forgot to take pictures), and snorkeling in the Red Sea. Also, Shabbat was really cool. It began with services. We split the service in half. My friends Danny and Sam led Kabbalat Shabbat, and I led Ma'ariv with my friend Chase. It was a lot of fun. The zemirot after dinner, which my friend Jordan and I led, were equally fun. The rest of Shabbat was sort of a blur, though I really enjoyed the Saturday morning service, since it involved the "Free Willy" song. By that point, my sinuses had decided to take revenge on the fact that I was not firmer in demanding antibiotics from the doctor I saw prior to the trip (they don't seem to like to give them out in this country, and while I don't think they should be available on demand, this is one instance where I know my body better than any doctor). Oh well, at least I used Shabbat for what it was meant for: REST. Overall, it was a really good tiyul, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my classmates. I'm so glad that these are the people who will be my future colleagues.

The Holiest Days of the Year

It seems fitting that as a cantorial student, I should write a post on my High Holiday (henceforth referred to as HHD, since I am too lazy to type the whole thing multiple times) experience. I'm not allowed to take pictures at services, so I will attempt to pepper this post with random pictures of HHD-related objects. Like this apple with this honey:

I spent Erev Rosh Hashanah at HUC, singing in choir. It was a bit weird for me. It was my first time in five years not being at my home congregation. When I was in college, I never came home for the holidays, but it was a bit different. When I was in high school, I didn't really care about Judaism, which meant that I didn't really feel any sort of attachment to my home synagogue at the time, so I was completely open to celebrating the holidays with my new community at Berkeley. In the five years that I was home between college and cantorial school, I did form an attachment to the community at my synagogue, especially the choir, so it was very hard to be away. But it was nice nonetheless. It was awesome seeing my friends lead parts of the service. They all sounded beautiful. As for the sermon, it turns out that Rosh Hashanah is also the new year for vegetables. The rabbi kept mentioning "vegetable love." I think that needs to become a thing.

For the first day of Rosh Hashanah, I went to Shira Hadasha, the feminist Orthodox congregation that I mentioned previously. It was pretty awesome. I didn't get there quite at the beginning of the service, but I got there early enough that they were able to find a seat for me, which is good because if I had gotten there later I probably would have been standing the whole time. It turns out that even in Orthodox communities, HHDs are the most attended services of the year. It was a nice service. It was my first time ever attending an Orthodox HHD service. It was an experience. The service order for some reason made a lot more sense to me than the service order in the current Reform machzor (HHD prayerbook), Gates of Repentance. That may change when the new one comes out. There were several places where the shofar is blown. There was the specific shofar service, where it was blown a bunch of times with some prayers. Then, there were the three different sections that I am familiar with; the Reform movement uses these sections as the shofar service, whereas the Orthodox put them in the Musaf Amidah repetition. After ever section in this part, they sang the cool Chassidic Areshet S'fateinu that we used to sing in my synagogue only after the third section. They also did a bunch of shofar blowing at the end of the service.

I have a lot of respect for the guy blowing the shofar. He had to blow it a lot! In Orthodox services, much of what I consider to be the most interesting liturgy is actually in the repetition of the Musaf Amidah. For example, Unetaneh Tokef, the really scary judgement day one that ends with the "on Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed" thing. Apparently many Israeli congregations do a melody written by Yair Rosenbloom. He's one of the people who wrote my favorite Israeli song, "Shir Lashalom." He wrote this Unetaneh Tokef after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. The melody beautifully illustrates the text. And it seems like EVERY Israeli knows it. I couldn't believe how many people were singing along. In my experience, it's usually been more of a cantor/choir prayer. So powerful. I will admit that while I recognized much of the liturgy, there were some parts of the service that confused me. For example, there were a lot of piyutim within both Amidah repetitions that were done out loud, while much of the text that I grew up thinking was the most important was done either b'lachash (silently) or just chanted quickly by the service leader. That being said, I was able to follow along and participating in a surprisingly large amount of the service. I recognized things like HHD nusach, and most of the Torah service, and "staples" like Avinu Malkeinu. It was overall a wonderful service, and I'm so glad I decided to have a more traditional experience, since I will most likely never have the opportunity to have a traditional HHD experience ever again.

For the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I prayed with a Jewish Renewal congregation called Nava Tehila. My friend was playing mandolin, and I had wanted to pray with them anyway, so this was a great opportunity. This congregation writes much of its own music, and it's very mantra like. And it works. It gives those of us who don't know the melodies an opportunity to catch on. This was good, because I didn't really know any of the melodies, other than the standard nusach and I think maybe Avinu Malkeinu (or another one of those prayers that you just can't get away with not doing the "traditional" melody). The service was held in a tent in the Jerusalem Nature Museum, i.e. outside. Allergies aside, it was a nice atmosphere. For both of the silent Amidahs (Shacharit and Musaf), they basically gave us time to meditate. They sent us to the far reaching corners of the museum and allowed us to either use the words on the page or to just sit and be, which was nice and relaxing. They also gave us a lot of time for reflection and discussion with our neighbors. The also did group aliyot. I wish I could remember what they were, but I did go up for one of them. The rabbi was also really awesome. Everything she said just made me want to take a deep breath and take a look at the world around me. There were a couple motifs throughout the service. One of them had to do with the things you wanted to change about yourself, your community, and the world. The other had to do with present, past, and future (in that order). One of the coolest parts of the service was at the end where they brought everyone into the center of the tent, and we sang this piyut called Hayom (today). It was overall a nice experience, and I was glad that I had the opportunity to do something completely different from what I am used to. There were also plenty of delicious classmate potlucks. So happy to have found a community here.

Before I talk about Yom Kippur, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Shabbat Shuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), since it was my first "official" HUC service (official meaning the first one that counted as one of the services I'm supposed to lead). I led it with a good friend of mine. It was my first time ever leading as Shabbat Shacharit service without guitar, but I was able to incorporate some of the things that I learned both as a camp songleader and from leading minyan at home, and I got to use some awesome new music as well. I had fun leading. I used to get really nervous while leading services. I still do, but now mostly just beforehand. The nerves go away the second I start singing. Which I believe has to do with kavanah and text and all of those things that I as a future cantor think about. And also, since my perception of G-d changes from minute to minute, I'm going to say it has something to do with G-d, like I'm connecting with G-d or something. Also, leading services was something that I always did recreationally, and it finally dawned on me that this is part of what I'm going to be doing for a living. It blows my mind. Wow, that was way too introspective for the interwebs, and this is more of an experience blog than an innermost personal thought blog, so I'm going to just stop here and give you a picture of a delicious round challah.

Yom Kippur in Israel was interesting. For one thing, they just stopped daylight savings time. There's actually a big argument going on in Israeli society about this, which we touched upon in Hebrew class. All of the secular Israelis are against going back to standard time so early because it wastes energy, but many of the more observant Israelis want to change the time before Yom Kippur because the fast ends earlier. I have to agree with the secular Israelis on that one. Yes, the fast ends earlier, but it also starts earlier. My friends and I ate dinner at around 3pm. So early! And, Yom Kippur services start early because Kol Nidrei is basically a legal document, and you can't talk about legal stuff on a holiday, so it ends up being a really long fast anyway.

For Erev Yom Kippur (AKA Kol Nidrei), I was back at HUC. In addition to singing in choir, I got to lead most of the Vidui (confessional) part of the service. Among other things, I got to sing the piece that I auditioned with, so that was nice. It was a prayerful experience. I also got to see some more of my extraordinarily talented classmates lead other parts of the service. I have a great class. After services, a bunch of us went to this street called Emek Refayim for a walk. Apparently, it's a "thing" in Israel. It's normally a very busy street. On Yom Kippur, it is still busy, but with people, not cars. So, that was quite fun. Also, on Yom Kippur in Israel all the secular people ride bicycles, especially the kids, and it's gotten to a point where people have jokingly referred to it as Chag Ha'Ofanayim (Bicycle Holiday). So, we saw a lot of that.

After that, four of us went to the park to play on the swings. I may technically be an adult, but I'm still a kid at heart. Then, three of us went to the intersection of King George and Agron, which is one of the busiest intersections in Jerusalem. It's so busy that crossing the street here adds a good five minutes to my commute to school. I can't speak for all of Israel because I haven't seen it, but in Jerusalem, NO ONE drives on Yom Kippur, not even the secular Israelis. The only cars on the streets that I saw were the occasional ambulance and also special shuttles that went to and from the hospitals (there are no taxis or buses on Yom Kippur, so people need some way to visit their loved ones). So, what did we do? We sat right down in the middle of the intersection and chilled for a while. Yup, just sat right down. It was easily one of the coolest things I've ever done. I most likely feel this way because I am very much a goody-two-shoes, and I guess this had an element of badness to it, but whatever, don't burst my happiness bubble. But it was also cool from a "for the first time in my life I'm living in a country where the majority of the people celebrate the same holidays as I do" perspective.

I was at HUC for the entirety of Yom Kippur, which meant having the chance to see even more classmates lead parts of the service. I'm not going to comment on the services themselves because, honestly, the best part of the services was having the chance to see my classmates lead. There was this one part of the morning service called Zeicher L'musaf (the Reform service does not include musaf. . . I shall have to find out why), and I've never actually looked at the part of Gates of Repentance that they used, so I probably could not tell you what was going on, but it involved a lot of singing awesomeness and insightful classmate speaking awesomeness, and it was pretty much entirely led by HUC students. Let's just say that I am very proud to call these people my classmates.

It didn't feel like all that long of a day, probably because I had many classmates to chill with in between services. It was also a much easier fast than the past couple of years have been. Not sure why. Possibly because I was singing a lot less (even though I did more leading, the choir was not singing for as many services). This whole fasting thing is something that I would like to figure out while I'm in school so that I don't have to worry about it as much later on. I'm extremely uncomfortable with the idea of not fasting and haven't not fasted since I decided I liked Judaism again, but it's hard to be lightheaded while singing. I can deal with it while singing in choir, but my hope is that I will one day get a job as a cantor. There has to be a trick to this. . . I did lead a good chunk of the Ne'ilah service (the last service of the day, means "locking" in Hebrew, a metaphor having to do with the physical manifestation of "gates" of repentance, and also being inscribed in the Book of Life) and felt fine, so maybe it won't be so bad. . .

We pretty much all ran downstairs for our bagel break fast after services were over. I hope that all of my wonderful friends and family also had fabulous HHD experiences.