Category Archives: religiousness

On Jews, Jerusalem, Women and Walls

Posted on by
Comments

Note: Reflections based on my rare February and March 2013 trips to the Kotel. Based on today’s news, I figured today’s as good as any to post. 

I’ve been to the Kotel, the Western Wall, way too many times in the past year. Previously, I had a comfortable average of maybe once every two or three years. Maybe less. It felt long enough between trips. And the trips are always for the sake and pleasure of other people.

But throughout the last year, I’ve accompanied various visiting family members through the Old City, the pathway inevitably leading to the token Kotel visit. Some pray, some don’t. I never do.

The Kotel, the Old City, and even Jerusalem for that matter have come to symbolize discomfort, pain, ambivalence, shame, conflict. I don’t want to pray in those places. I don’t want to pray alongside people I can’t trust. I don’t want to reach deep into myself and summon a spiritual presence in such a political place.

You know where it’s lovely to pray? In a forest. There’s plenty of forest around Jerusalem. I live in it. I think it’s a not-so-big-secret that many other ancient sects of humanity get that we don’t. Man-made holiness hurts. Holiness existed before we did. Why wouldn’t we jump over each other to access that?

By all means, if the Kotel means something to you, enjoy it. Women of the Wall, Women for the Wall, women who wear falls, women who wear shawls. Men who throw garbage, men who who wear jeans, men who think learning is working, men who think working is earning.

When I’m standing in the Kotel plaza, I’m filled with anger and pain. So please, count me out. Take my spot. I hope though that between me and you and everyone else, some kind of spirituality will eventually solve our crisis.

——-

Things I can’t handle #745873: Beit Shemesh Taliban mother and daughters. Visiting the Kotel in March 2013.

 

Religion and kids and Israel and me.

Posted on by
Comments

I can’t really blame the ganenot (my kids’ teachers). It’s not their fault it all looks so terribly confusing. Or actually that it looks so black and white: my kids go to a Chabad gan system, and therefore, it  must have made my son very ‘religious’ minded.

You see, on most days, he wears a black velvet kippah. The days he doesn’t, it’s blue sruga (knitted). Every day, he wears tzitzit. He must have a very heimeshe soul, and we must be doing something ‘right’… right?

Then again, look at his mom. She takes him to gan in leggings and running tops, and picks him up in skinny jeans and red toenail polish. Oh. She must be secular. Good thing she’s sending the kids to Chabad!

Sometimes I get patronizing comments. “You know why he wears tzitzit, right? Because we say the bracha every day.”

You know who gave him the tzitzit before you and he started saying the bracha every day. Right?

You  know why we chose Chabad over the government-religious gan, right?

You know I grew up learning and practicing the halachot, many halachot you may not have dreamed of, halachot only men need to know, sukkah-building rules emblazoned in my brain. You know I’ve gone down the shomer negiah road, I’ve cried at the kotel, I’ve yearned for Mashiach. One day or another.

Maybe I ought to try a black velvet kippah and tzitzit next, eh?

What you don’t know, though, is that he likes to dress up in a pink butterfly costume. And sometimes asks for a coo-coo like his sister. And that I give it to him. In public.

Anyway. The black and white of the black and white here is fascinating to me. I miss Diaspora like that. My charedi brothers-in-law have gone to pick my kids up from gan and my IAF soldier brother has, too. We’re a bundle of odd identity.

If they only knew what I know. Or not. Who cares.

I just don’t care for the patronizing.

But I can’t blame them, I guess. It looks funny on the outside. Consider the shock  of the actual secular parents we pass on the street.

Here are three facts: I’m a very spiritual person. My son loves the color black. And he cherishes the kippah my brother-in-law gave him.

We thought we saw it all, Bnei Brak. Then you do this.

Posted on by
Comments

Kashrut enthusiasts! Kosher-keeping container collectors, gather round!

You’ve seen the blue Dairy stickers…

You’ve used the red Meat stickers…

You’ve stuck on green Pareve stickers…

You’ve dusted off the purple Passover stickers…

And now, for a limited time only, you have the stunning option of adorning your most chametzidik dishware with the one, the only…

…’Sold to a Goy’ stickers!

 

h/t Aaron

8 things I’ve already learned this Chanukah

Posted on by
Comments

It’s only the fourth night and I can point to eight things I’ve learned this Chanukah:

  1. Chanukah is really really really hard with comprehending kids and not much/no family around. Watching your other immigrant friends run around to local family parties with parents, in-laws, siblings, etc. is tough.
  2. Giving out-of-the-blue presents to a small child is not simple; even when attached to a ‘reason’ like Chanukah.
  3. A second child opening a gift is different to a firstborn in his loner years; the paper used to be the most fascinating thing. A second born knows from watching closely that the paper’s just a distraction.
  4. I really don’t love sufganiyot. There, I said it. There are exceptions, but most are simply not worth it. But for the love of miracles, keep the fried potatoes coming.
  5. My 3.5-year-old can handle holding a burning candle and lighting his chanukiyah by himself… and I didn’t even think twice about letting it happen?!
  6. My kids are already starting to gang up on immigrant mom and they don’t even know it yet. For days Bebe has been pointing at things and saying ‘apiphon! apiphon!’ I asked Koala what she was saying, and he said ‘chilazon!’ which, oddly, I took as a valid answer. Then a couple days ago I heard her sing, ‘apiphon, sov sov sov…’ and felt immigrant-dumb.
  7. I can burst into the Twelve Days of Christmas carol in an instant, while my kids watch in amazed wonderment, replacing all the words with Hanukkah-friendly lyrics – freestyle, just like that, not a pause. And Koala doesn’t miss a beat, sings parts back while on the toilet in the next room. Lyrics below.
  8. A family technologically-savvy enough to get it together from four corners of the world – in this case, three different American cities and one Israeli suburb – and sign on to a Google Hangout to have a virtual candle lighting with their grandchildren/nephew and niece, is a truly amazing miracle.

Eight Nights of Chanukah, remix, lizrael style:

On the first night of Chanukah, my true love gave to me… a dreidal in a dreidal tree…
On the second night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 2 hot latkes…
On the third night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 3 fried doughnuts…
On the fourth night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 4 colorful candles…
On the fifth night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 5 golden menorahs…
On the sixth night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 6 wrapped gifts…
On the seventh night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 7 hanukah songs…
On the eighth night of Chanukah my true love gave to me… 8 bottles of oil…

Yeah, ‘a dreidal in a dreidal tree’ is not the best, I admit.

Little Midrash, Lizrael style.

Posted on by
Comments

“Do you know what this week’s parsha is? Lech Lecha. Basically… Avraham Avinu, do you know who that is? No? So… he was the first Jew. He had the first brit milah. Do you know what that is? Well. You had one… All yehudim with a penis have one. So all boys who are yehudim have one. You, abba, your uncles…

Anyway… Avraham Avinu had a brit milah, he was the first yehudi. He was the first person to make Aliyah. That means he was like the first Jew to come back to Israel. Like abba and ima. We grew up in America and Australia and then we came on a matos and made Aliyah to eretz…”

“…Yisrael.”

Not so fast: Tzur Hadassah mikvah update

Posted on by
Comments

About a month ago, we took a walk to where the currently-malfunctioning mikvah stands in Tzur Hadassah. Apparently, ‘they’ have found donors/money to get it functional, (I understand the malfunction is a plumbing issue) and it seems the rest of the area is getting prepped as well. The road leading to it from next to the supermarket has been flattened, so it’s easier to access. A sidewalk was added along the way towards the building.

That’s all I really know. But here’s what it looks like:

The road soon to be taken?

Front view (the building, don’t be gross)
Back view