A touch of holiness

Yom Kippur in Israel is like imagining what the world could be like if everything stopped. If all systems shut down. Like being on a Hollywood set, except it’s real. It’s like grappling the realness of the world we live in. Not sliding by day after day in hurried routine, like everywhere in the world, all the time. It’s a sudden stop. A sudden silence. Everyone together recognizing suddenly that this is real, that we are all alive, that this is amazing. And Yom Kippur is not a day of suffering, even though the feeling of hunger is possibly the worst feeling in the world. It’s a day to celebrate that we are alive, that we have God, that we have limitless potential to create and be anything that we want. Sometimes we need to get out of our heads to feel that different perspective – and focusing in on our bodies is one way to help us do that.

(For those who don't know, on Yom Kippur in Israel everything is shut down - it is the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. it is forbidden to drive and not a single car passes on the road except police or ambulances. Every single thing is closed except maybe one hospital per city. There is no television, no radio, nothing happening for the 25 hour holy period of Yom Kippur.)

I went to an interesting shiyur (lesson) today at “Bait Hayihudi”, an Aish house, in Tel Aviv. We were discussing the six mitvot surrounding God – to recognize his existence, not to put any powers before God, to unify God, to love God, fear God, and not indulge in our base desires. Someone raised an interesting point about the second mitzvah – how do we feel proud of our own accomplishments, if we’re never supposed to put any power before God, and all credit goes to God? And the response is interesting – any amazing accomplishments we humans accomplish are what we are supposed to be doing. We were put on this earth to fulfill our own potential, which entails doing amazing things. God has given us that power. But when we do accomplish something extraordinary, the mitzvah tells us to “take pleasure” in the accomplishment, rather than feel proud. All of our gratitude should be towards God, for giving us the opportunity to fulfill ourselves, to reach higher points, etc. I like that way of thinking. It’s dangerous to get caught up in too much self-pride. It inhibits our ability to grow. I’ve noticed this in the smallest ways with myself – for example, with my Hebrew studies. Sometimes I’m doing really well, such as in class when I understand everything and know all the answers and speak correctly. But then it’s easy to fall into the “oh, this Hebrew isn’t so hard, I’m so good at it, I don’t need to try so hard” etc etc, and if I let myself think that way, just because I had one good class as a payoff for my hard work, then for SURE in the next class I’m doing less well. Pride is a downfall. The same can happen in yoga class. If I have a really good class and I’m able to hold certain postures better or longer than others, I start to think I’m so good, and it’s that much harder for me when I come across a posture that’s difficult for me. The best way for me to continue to improve and grow is to “take pleasure” in my accomplishments, but not be proud. And that’s exactly what God has commanded of us, because God knows that that’s how we grow. And we owe it to God to grow. When after we die we go to heaven (or whatever happens after we die) and God asks us what did we accomplish in our lifetime, do we think he will be impressed that we started a business or built a highway or developed chain stores? In my opinion, no. Not that those are bad things, but God wants to hear us say at the end of the day that we fulfilled our potential. That we took risks and followed our hearts. That we focused our lives on love. That we were grateful and not proud. That we appreciated life. And that’s another reason Yom Kippur is so special – when we abstain (for a 25 hour period) from all physical pleasures – food, water, showers, sex, comfortable shoes, etc – it forces us to appreciate all of these things. God doesn’t want us to suffer. God simply wants us to appreciate every minute that we are alive.

And it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing to walk the streets of Israel on this holy day. People everywhere, and utter silence. Not a bleep to be heard. This is what peace feels like.

A change of season

So according to Israelis, autumn has officially descended upon us. The only difference I can detect is my morning shower no longer has immediate hot water (the water here gets heated by the sun, so when the weather cools, it's not as naturally hot. But the evening showers are as hot as ever!) I will grant however there is a detectable cool breeze in the evenings. And we're not all drenched in sweat in the outdoor clubs at night. So I guess that qualifies as fall, even though my definition of fall doesn't typically include 82-degree temperatures like we had today!
In more exciting news, I bought my first book in Hebrew. It's one of a series called "gesher l'ivrit" which means "bridge to hebrew", so they are like dummied-down versions of real hebrew books, with larger font, vowels, and translations of the hard words at the bottom of each page (translated into English and Russian). But nonetheless it's a BOOK, and i'm so excited every day that I sit down and read it. It's a really good feeling. Some friends in the ulpan and I are starting a casual book club where we're each reading a different 'gesher' book and then going to pass them around. We're all really excited that we've reached this level.
I've learned some interesting things about the way the brain works when learning a new language. For example, I understand almost twice as much when my eyes are closed than when they are open. That may sound weird, but I guess it makes sense when you think about how with my eyes closed I'm not distracted by visuals and more focused in on the actual sounds of the words. Also when I watch TV with subtitles, Hebrew subtitles, I understand twice as much than when I watch TV without them. It's also amazing how as soon as I've learned a new word, I start hearing that word all the time, even though it felt like I never heard that word before. Every day I notice new things about Hebrew or English or about the way the brain works.
Back to the book now!

A taste of Madonna, Israel-style

Indulging in Hebrew and Madonna...

My boyfriend got us tickets to the Madonna concert here in Tel Aviv last week - which also happened to be the last night of her "sticky and sweet" tour, so it was an extra special night. I had never seen Madonna live before and I'm not sure what I was expecting - some "like a virgin" and impressive dance routines, but I wasn't expecting much more than that. How wrong I was! I left Madonna's concert feeling so inspired. She just came across so human and yet so incredibly accomplished – making us in the audience feel like we can be anything we want to be. It’s always a shock to me when I see celebrities in person – like they suddenly seem so human and regular. Anyway she put on an amazing show and I’m posting here one of the videos I took at the concert for your viewing pleasure. :-)

My days continue to be Hebrew-packed and I’m just trying to swallow up as much Hebrew as I can, as quickly as I can! The ulpan is advancing and extremely tiring, but I have a very good teacher and I’m grateful for that. From five hours of class I move on to my babysitting job for the next five hours of my day, with an adorable Israeli girl who understands English but refuses to utter a word. It can be funny and it can be frustrating (often depending on the mood she’s in). A lot of times my Hebrew bumbling just makes her laugh and we even try sometimes to read books with difficult Hebrew just because it’s so hilarious for her to hear me stumbling through the words. But sometimes she just wants me to understand her and shuts down in frustration when I don’t. And it’s the most frustrating feeling in the world for me, because with everyone else I interact with here in Israel, we can always turn to English when in need. The girl understands English but for whatever reason refuses to speak it. For example, she’ll ask me if I know what a certain Hebrew word means, and I just keep guessing English words until I get it right. And she can correctly identify once I’ve said the right word. But she can’t seem to come up with the English word on her own. Now that she’s started school she has homework every afternoon, and one of my babysitting duties is to sit with her and help her with the homework and check her answers. This is seriously the hardest Hebrew experience I’ve encountered yet!! First of all, I’m helping her with her MATH homework, and for anyone who knows me well, you know me and math! For one thing. For another, math in Hebrew. I have yet to learn the Hebrew words for “integer” or “multiplication” etc so yeah, the whole experience is a little amusing to say the least. I literally sit there with her Hebrew math book and a dictionary and visualize the situation as if from up above looking down on myself, and simply laugh.