Happy new year - by Michal

What a whirlwind week it’s been. First, shana tovah to everyone! (that’s have a good new year). Rosh Hashanah is upon us, and it’s amazing, the whole city shuts down. Everywhere we go people are dressed up nicely, are especially polite, and they all look stuffed. RH is two days here, not one, which in practical terms means I get a day off school and so have the time to update this blog.

Leaving aside all spiritual concerns of the day (which are many, but I’m tired), let me talk about HUC services and complain for a minute: they were NOT what I expected. The choir was beautiful, since it was made up of the student cantors, but the rest of it? Boring as all hell, if I may say so myself. The cantor, who is the head cantor/teacher at the school, apparently has a different philosophy of cantor(ing?) than most contemporary North American Reform congregations – he thinks that the cantor is there to inspire the congregation with his or her voice, and the congregation should listen and shut up and be grateful. This means that whenever anyone tried to sing along, he would improvise some warbly sound – I don’t know the official term for this – so that no one else could possibly match him. There was a dinner afterward at which he sang the Kiddush and Shehecheyanu – two very common prayers – and he looked offended when people sang along, and then afterwards re-sang the prayers like the first time with the community wasn’t good enough for him. I understand it’s a more traditional way of being a cantor, but geez, congregations today are much more empowered and participatory. Grrr. At least that's out of my system now.

The dinner after services was great, however. We had an RH seder, which I’d never experienced before. You eat olives, apples and honey, challah, dates, beets, there was even a fish head on the platter to signify the head of the year! Very odd, but very cool. I like RH here, the whole concept makes more sense than at home – the air is crisper and you can actually feel the season change, the summer fruits are waning, kids are going back to school… it really is the beginning of the new year here, with all that entails.

Oh, I have to share, I experienced an amazing instance of Jewish geography at the dinner. A girl was sitting across from me who looked very familiar, and I to her, but we couldn’t place each other. She’s in medical school at Tel Aviv University, is from Northridge, CA, and we had never overlapped in youth group, known each other’s siblings, or any of the other typical Jewish geography links. Then it hit me – we both spent a short while living at the Hillel House in Berkeley! I had spent a week or so visiting Glenna one summer, and this girl was taking a summer class in physics. This was in like 1999 or 2000 – and here we meet again in Jerusalem! I love randomness. And now I have a new friend who’s outside of the HUC bubble.

Last Wednesday Jonathan and I went to my sister’s army training graduation. She’s already been through boot camp, and then she spent six weeks doing special field training, learning to do all kinds of things like navigation, surveillance, etc. The base is about an hour southwest of Beersheva, for those who know where it is, and it’s huge. They have a fake city so that soldiers can learn to fight in urban environments, obstacle courses for the soldiers, hummers, tanks, every kind of equipment imaginable. Here’s a picture of me and her back at the tents where the soldiers sleep.



What else? Well, our cat is adorable. He plays fetch, honest-to-goodness fetch. As in, throw the ball, he chases after it, tumbles a bit, meows at it, then comes back and drops it in our hands or at our feet. He’s also quite the little hunter, having already caught a moth and presented it to Jonathan. Two hours later, he comes back, stares up at Jonathan and meows as if it to say, “well, if you’re not going to eat it, then I will!” and then takes off with his snack. We also bought a feather duster, you know, to dust… he disagreed with its purpose, and found out where we hid it! He had the smarts and wherewithal to peek inside the shuk cart (which has a latch), then poke his nose in, then a paw in, then two paws, then his head, then his whole body… then we heard some scuffling, a meow, and then we see the wooden handle emerge from the corner opening in the shuk cart. The rest of the feather duster and a very smug-looking cat soon emerged, with Simcha trotting through the house dragging the feather duster behind him.

School-wise, things are okay. I’m still not enjoying classes as much as I hoped I would, because it’s all very basic. I can only conjugate so much before I start to need intellectual stimulation! I’m also somewhat nervous about the service I’m leading on October 16th. It’s like my Bat Mitzvah all over again, I have to learn prayers that I don’t know, new tunes, plus original readings. One thing that’s nice, my father lent me my grandfather’s tallit, prayer shawl, from Romania, which I’m going to wear on the bima. He also brought up his tefillin, the boxes and straps more conservative Jews wear on their arms and forehead while praying, so I want to try those out as well. Have no fear, people, I’m still as Reform as they come, but I figure this is THE time to experiment in forms of prayer. I was blatantly honest in a journal entry for class about how formal, ritualized services isn’t usually the best way for me to connect to God. I ended by asking if I was hypocritical for wanting to be a rabbi and not enjoying most services. I really don’t think I am, though. I keep in mind that I was bored out of my skull when I took history classes in Hebrew school, so when I ended up teaching it, I tried to make it interesting. Hopefully I can do the same thing with services, and draw people in rather than push them away.

And speaking of school, I’m off to do homework. The original plan was to do it yesterday, but we ended up having people over spontaneously for a movie. I swear, this really is like college sometimes!