Rabbi Kushner on God

A quote from the book To Life: A Celebration of Jewish Being and Thinking:
Theology plays a relatively minor role in Judaism compared to other religions, as Rabbi Harold S. Kushner explains.

"God is important [in Judaism]; talking about God is not all that important. But this is mostly because statements about God are not really so much about God as they are about us.

To say that God heals the sick is not a statement about what activities fill God's schedule. It is a way of saying that when we have been sick and we recover, we have experienced God in our lives (not His face but His works).

To say that God forgives is not a comment on God's emotional state but a recognition of our own ability to feel cleansed of guilt because God is real in the world.

To say that God hears prayer does not describe God's auditory system. It answers the question of whether or not praying is a waste of time.

Statements about God, then, do not describe God (how could we ever dare to do that?) They describe how we and our world are different because of God...

While we cannot see God directly, we can see God-in-action. We can see the difference God makes as He passes through the world.

Just as we cannot see the wind, but can only see things blown by the wind and know that the wind is real and powerful...just as we cannot see love, but can see people behaving differently, being braver and more caring because they love, so we cannot see God. We can only see His aftereffects."
Shabbat Shalom.

Trekkin' Around

Here are a couple of photos of my bike trip today to Herzliya. I accidentally stumbled into Herzliya Pituach (a really upscale neighborhood with BEAUTIFUL homes right near the beach - no pics, sorry) and was a little sad having to go back to my
little apartment.

This is me on top of a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean just before I got to Herzliya.


Below is the photo I was meaning to take, but, personally, I think the first one came out much better.








More to follow when I'm not so pooped...

Excuse Me a Moment

Bear with me a moment as I explore new templates and colors for zis blog.
Feel free to leave comments as to whether or not you fancy or are not partial to a particular style.

Human Beings Helping Other Human Beings

Life is good.
Well, for me at least.
A great prophet (what was his name again, rhymes with Beezus?) said that no-brainer phrase "There's always gonna be poor people. Don't think this is gonna change.
Make sure you do something about it.
Don't think that just because they'll always be there you have the right to just up and ignore them."
Ok, he didn't say it exactly like that, but it's a close summary.
Anyway (I do have a point here), I just came across a story tonight that I thought I should share here.
Recently, a single mother and her four young children were evicted from an apartment they had illegally occupied - for lack of another place to live. Despite the fact that the family was eligible for government assistance, none was offered as there was no housing option open for them at the time.
A neighbor witnessed the eviction and saw the woman and her children standing out on the street in the freezing Jerusalem night. He offered the woman a bottle of water and a place to stay, indefinitely.

Okay, you say, that's a nice story, but it's not really, as my editor says, "NEWS." It's not hot, now or happening. You're right.

What if I told you that the woman and her children are Jewish Israelis, and the family that took them is Arab and lives in East Jerusalem?

Yes, that's what I said (wrote).

Lest you think that it's all hatred and blood here.......
Click here to watch the video from Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

All I have to say is forget about Annapolis Shmannapolis and the politicians with all of their crazy double-talk. If things are going to change, it's going to be at this level - person to person. It's people like this who are going to make a difference, people like you and me. Substantial change cannot be imposed on the people from the politicians; it must come from the people, from the grassroots level if it's going to influence and hold. Leaders exist to lead, not to force their crazy ideas on unwilling or indifferent minds.

Kudos to Yael for the tip.

Daily Musings

I have been thinking a lot about being here in Israel, and what that means to me. Would it matter if I stayed here? Would it make any difference to move someplace else?

Just before I went to the states for two weeks in September, I was getting very antsy and wanting to leave - wanting to be away from this place and its troubles, its battles, its heat (literally and figuratively).

I missed my family, my friends, familiar, comfortable things like Trader Joe's and my car and my favorite coffee shops where I know exactly what I want to order before I set foot in the shop.
But then when I got to Oregon (even when I arrived in the Newark airport), I felt so strange and very out of place. Here was my family, my familiar things, my friends, but it all felt so foreign to me - as if I were thinking about a dream that I had or some previous life-cycle.


I felt so happy to be with my family, especially the kids, whom I'm not getting to see grow up ( :0( ) but I also felt so out of place.

It's so ironic.
When I got back to Israel, I was so happy to be back among my "familiar" things (chuckle), back to my life.
It seems as though I've rent my life in two. It doesn't show any signs of clearing up, and I am quite sure that I will feel this bifurcation for a long time, if not my whole life. Sure, I grew up in Oregon. I have roots there, and family and friends, but I have a life here now. What I am supposed to do about it, I have no idea. It's just an observation from a completely new experience I guess. When I'm there I want to be here; when I'm here, I miss the people and places there, the green and the crisp Northwest air.
Then I called my aunt last week, and we had a really nice conversation. I've always felt very close to her, despite living miles apart for my whole life.
Just as we were saying our goodbyes, she stopped me and said, "Wait. I just want to know one thing - are you happy?"
I was so surprised because I didn't answer right away. It took me a few moments to think about it.
The answer is - yes, in some ways. But happiness as a result of moving here is not true happiness. Sure, I've followed my dream and it's been fulfilled beyond my wildest imagination. But if my happiness is based upon whether I succeed or not here, then I will be what I have been for the past six months - so worried about succeeding so that I could be happy and forgetting about actually BEING happy.
I had, somewhere in my consciousness, decided that the only way for me to be happy was to move to Israel. Once X, Y and Z happened, or once I achieved so many things on my list, then, not only would I be happy, happiness would come to me like the rain on a gray April morning in Eugene.
But why should I wait to be happy? Why can't I be happy now?

Why all this talk of happiness?
I recently made a fortuitous discovery, one that has greatly contributed to my happiness - I came across the blog of a woman named Gretchen Rubin (thanks Gretchen!) who embarked on what she has called "The Happiness Project"

It's a seemingly very simple but actually quite complex question - what contributes to my happiness (not leaving clothes strewn around, crossing off things from a to-do list, making small splurges, giving, receiving)? What doesn't contribute to my happiness (not getting enough sleep, not exercising, eating "fake food")?

More on this later, but I urge you to check it out. She, unlike yours truly, is generally very good about posting almost every day, and I've never been bored once - which is a success in itself.

One Year Later (Part 1)

I know it's hard to believe (I'm having trouble believing it myself), but Tuesday will mark one year since I arrived in Israel, one year that I've lived, laughed, cried, loved, learned, fell and lived my dream here in this ancient land.

Israel is many things (so much more than the violence, struggle and conflict that might come to mind). Israel has also been so many things to me, and, although I have gone through, experienced and enjoyed so much in the past year, I have just begun to scratch the surface.

Almost all of my dreams have come true in the space of this year, in this tiny country probably about the size of the Oregon Coast to the Willamette Valley across and from Portland to the California border lengthwise. To be honest, I never thought much about beyond my dreams. My plan was to get here, make it through the initial absorption process, after which I figured I would have a clearer idea of my direction here....Well, I've made it, and the question has come up - So now what?

There will be more on that to come, but in the mean time --

These are some of the things I've learned in the past year (this list is not comprehensive, and it will be updated as I remember (and laugh about) more things):

1. Never, ever cross the street against the light in Israel, unless:
-you have looked both ways AT LEAST five times, or
-a big, swarthy Israeli man walking his pekingese crosses in front of you, or
-the cars that tried to inch in past their own impending red light are all stopped over the crosswalk and will buffet you from any other oncoming vehicles, or
-it's 4 am and the street is absolutely empty, or
-you are absolutely, positively and in all other ways certain that no cars will come through the intersection at the same time as you

As a side note, and per the unfortunate but now very wise, advice of a friend of mine, if you decide to jaywalk, do a quick but thorough scan of the general area to make sure there are no cops in cars, on motorbikes or standing nearby. They will give you a ticket. If they try to give you a ticket, even if you know some Hebrew and have lived in the country for a year (me!), play the tourist card, feign ignorance, and, if you're gifted in that area, bat your eyelashes and giggle a lot. This last part is not recommended for men.

2. When you go to Europe (or at least to Antwerp, where I was less than two weeks ago), and you see little silver, mushroom-cap-like objects that seem to be demarcating a certain area or track for some unknown purpose --
do not walk there! Stay away! Do not even enter the general area for a few seconds or your life will be suddenly shortened by a crazy Flem (aka a Belgian) on a very fast bike.

3. Whatever cannot be communicated by language and words can most definitely be conveyed through various hand gestures, babblish baby-talk noises and bodily demonstrations. This works for anything from clothes shopping to picking up members of the opposite sex.

4. I do have an actual fear of telephones. Refer to number 3 to understand why this is even worse when trying to do it a foreign language. Despite what you might think from watching Israelis talk on their cell phones, nothing can actually be conveyed through body language and hand gestures over the phone. And without hand gestures, well....you can see why I put off calling my non-English speaking landlord for quite some time. It may also turn out to be a problem when I have to take driving lessons to get a license here.

5. No matter how much you can't wait to get away from your parents and out of their house and away from the general area in which they live, you will eventually miss them....

6. When your company sends you on a business trip to Europe (or anywhere for that matter), make sure you buy a suitcase.

7. Banks and governmental service branches will, without fail, be closed on Monday afternoons, all day Tuesday, Wednesday afternoons and Fridays/Saturdays, or any variation of the above that strikes the branch manager's fancy. At least twice, the said "service" branch will be closed when you most need to go there. Forget 9 to 5, on Mondays and Wednesdays, despite being closed in the afternoon, the banks reopen from 4 to 6. My particular bank branch, nearest to my house, is completely closed all day Sunday, but open for a few hours on Friday.

8. If you need to do anything of importance at the bank, you can't just do it at any old branch (even though they're apparently difference branches of the same bank). If you want to make an international transfer, order checks, order a new debit/visa card, speak to someone about a loan, you must either do it at your main branch (which, for me, happens to be the one at which I opened my account - IN JERUSALEM), or, the people at the other branch must phone the branch manager at your main branch and receive authorization from your main branch's manager to complete the transaction.
"Okay then," I said. "I don't live in Jerusalem anymore. I'd like to switch my main branch from that one to this one."
"You'll have to do that at your main branch."

Apparently, there's one more thing you can't do at any other but your main branch. A guy I know from the Jerusalem ulpan went to an ATM, which took his card and wouldn't return it. Fortunately, the bank was open, so he went inside to get his card back. The woman went over to the machine, removed his card, somehow found out that this particular bank wasn't his main branch and wouldn't return the card to him until she had received authorization from the main branch's manager, which took an additional 30 mins.
Unbelievable.

The First in a Long Line

The first things to go when exhaustion hits/begins (in no particular order):

1. My tolerance – for people who do things that annoy me, for others’ kvetching and complaining, for heat, cold, hunger and thirst, for both non-committals and over-committals, for flakes, for misunderstandings, for foul odors, for messy kitchen counters and stinky sinks, for very full garbage bags, also in my kitchen, for walking up three flights of stairs twice after forgetting something, for mumblers (especially in foreign languages that are hard enough to learn as it is), and for intolerant people.

2. My memory – for remembering things I did or didn’t do less than ten minutes prior, for remembering things that people told me to do less than five minutes prior, for remembering what it is I reminded myself to do less than three minutes prior and for remembering why I came into this room in the first place.

3. My attention span - an occurrence exacerbated by hunger, thirst and having to use the little ladies' room.

4. My empathy/sympathy – I just lose interest, I guess - something to do with the attention span, too, I think.

5. My cognitive reasoning skills – math is the first to go, followed by grammar and logic, also exacerbated when nature calls. Seems my brain prioritizes where it puts its energy.

6. My coordination and general spatial awareness - This includes tripping a lot on cracks in the sidewalk and when walking up stairs, as well as running into things and people (fortunately no cars, but bikes, yes).

7. My interest in writing this list