Why I was never *really* kosher...

I just spent an hour and a half plucking feathers from chicken skin.

Why can't Trader Joe's manage to get all the feathers out before they package their very expensive kosher chicken? Is plucking the feathers yourself part of the kashrut experience? Do they assume that people buying the chicken want to get back to their shtetl roots? EEWW.

Seriously. gross.

Just sayin'.

I'm not sure where I can find my own spiritual fulfillment when I'm busy creating a space where others can be fulfilled spiritually. I love my job - deeply. It's rewarding, energizing, and inspiring, almost daily. I work with some of the most amazing students I've ever met. I learn from them. I wouldn't trade this job for anything. The only downside is that because I work at Hillel and I work Shabbats, I rarely get to escape the noise of the workweek during a Shabbat service.

There's one student who leads amazing services and when she's here, I can actually be in Shabbat instead of at work. However, she's so good that if I'm going to take a Shabbat off each month, I end up needing to skip hers. I'd like to skip the more challenging Shabbats, but those are the ones where I'm needed the most. It's a dilemma I'm facing.

It's never easy to "pray." It's never easy to silence the week and step into the space between one week and the next. But it's never been this hard before either. I think this is part of the learning process though. Maybe I need to find spaces outside of Judaism where I can experience that peace.

This is the first time anyone has tried to convert me since high school!

L and I were in the trails behind Natural Bridges today and a couple asked us "Have you girls found Jesus Christ as your savior?" They tried to give us pamphlets, all smiles.

L said "We're practicing Jews, no thanks," and I said "Yeah, I work at a Jewish community center.

Their curiosity got the better of them, and they followed us and ask all kinds of questions, including "Where in Israel are you from?" (Because clearly, all Jews are Israeli). L responded with "Our families are Russian Jews" and we tried to walk away. The guy called out "Just one more question, I'm wondering... What's the difference between Russian and Orthodox Jews?" Huh? 

L said "Russian is the ethnicity. There are Russian Orthodox Jews and Russian Reform Jews and..." At this point, the guy threw up his hands and said "But that's confusing! Russian Orthodox is a sect of Christianity!" and went on to talk about the schism in the Russian church in the 1050s (he explained that he had a college degree in comparitive religions). We finally came to a place where it was clear that we could split off and we started going the other way. 

As we walked off, he cried out one more time: "Are you sure you haven't even condsidered Jesus as your savior?!"

Oy vey!

Looking at cute pictures of puppies may be the only antidote for challenging conversations about the situation in Gaza.

I'm the token Jew in my Jewish family

The family Chanukah gathering was relatively quiet this year. Nothing like the madness that ensued last year or the year before. But there was one rather humorous moment. My uncle loves decorating for the holidays - he has a giant Christmas tree. He puts up stockings for his dogs. He has Christmas wreaths and Disney Christmas stuff all over the place, and he plays really bad Christmas muzak. With the exception of the decorative Chanukah menorah on the table (he never lights the candles), you wouldn't know the family's Jewish. Case in point: He cooked up a ham for dinner, and he gave my mom and me some sliced turkey because we're the only ones who won't eat it. 

Anyways, at one point, I jokingly suggested that we should light Chanukah and Shabbat candles (it was Friday night). My mom said "Don't push your luck" but my uncle agreed that we could light the Chanukah candles. He put the menorah on a Christmas themed paper plate for the wax drip. The family had just finished a ham dinner. And no one remembered the blessings (or felt like saying them, if they did remember) but me, so I said them, with Little Drummer Boy blasting from the stereo. 

Assimalation, FTW! 

On Miracles

L shared something interesting at the board meeting last night. It's a really interesting way of looking at miracles. He said that the miracle of Chanukah was not that the oil lasted for eight days, but that someone decided to light the candle in the first place, knowing that there was only enough oil for one. Similarly, the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea was not that the Red Sea split, but that someone took the first few steps into the sea, not knowing what would happen, but believing they would, somehow, be safe.

L. pointed out that in a way, it's kind of like our work at Hillel. We don't have enough resources, we don't have enough staff, we don't have enough time, and our Hillel is a storefront next to 7-11. The miracle isn't that we have a great community and organize terrific events. The miracle is that we keep working at it, despite the challenges.

I like seeing miracles as human acts of will and faith, rather than spectacular acts of divine power.

Ode to Hillel on Friday afternoons

It's Friday afternoon at Hillel. I'm drinking mint tea, listening to the rain, and waiting for Shabbat. Friday afternoon is the best part of the week at Hillel. It's so festive! Soon the interns will show up and we'll start chopping vegetables and boiling water for soup and the whole room will smell warm and fragrant. People will stop by to help out or hang out or both. We'll make decorations. We'll listen to bad Israeli pop music I don't understand.

Once 5:30pm rolls around, we'll be in panic mode - "The students will be here in an hour and we still haven't done x or y or z or all of the above!" But from about 12pm-4pm at Hillel on Fridays, everyone is excited and happy. There's no panic. Only giggling and making dinner and cutting out autumn leaves for table decorations.

I was a student here for six years. Hillel was the family I came home to, every Friday night, all through undergrad and my masters program. Now I'm the Program Director, and everything is different. Instead of attending events, I'm planning and organizing them. I just spent an hour with the new JSU President, helping her come up with a meeting agenda and brainstorming ways to get students more involved. It comes very naturally to me, and I love it, despite all the stress. Sometimes I have to keep myself from working for 14 hours a day because there's just so much to DO. No doubt about it, Hillel is a challenge.

But something happens on Friday afternoons, especially when we know it will be a mellow Shabbat. For a few hours, all of my work feels like a blessing, all of the stress is worthwhile, and Hillel, once again, feels like home.

Because it's time to start again with Bereishit, I'm re-posting this one

History of Loneliness

In a beginning, there was nothing. Then, God said.

There were light and trees and oceans and horizons,
and there was Adam.

God said everything into existence,
Those who missed something nonexistent no longer suffered.
Darkness was lonely, and there was fire.
The trees were despondent, there was shade.
Adam was aching. God said. And there was Eve.

God said “This is very good.” And it was.

But soon, Adam and Eve realized they missed the longing they’d felt without each other.
They built a fire, darkness disappeared,
and when the fire sputtered out, darkness became even louder,
thicker than before the first flame.

When Eve ate the apple, and offered it to Adam,
they were sent out of Eden.
And the first people on the planet felt another kind of longing,
called homesickness.

Ever since then, people have been obsessed with the notion of home,
and the notion of emptiness,
not to mention God.

You see, in a beginning,
God didn’t know that people could long for nothing,
could court nothing, could fall in love with absence.
So God filled God’s world with endless somethings
that begat more somethings,
and each something found a longing inside
that no other something could fill.

They say God’s light was a vessel that splintered
into millions of pieces.
We are glittering fragments trying to heal the world
by finding light in each other.
We are drawn to glowing because we are drawn to God.
They also say that God didn’t create the world,
but is creating the world,
so we are constantly repairing and shattering
and repairing again.

It wasn’t the beginning, it was a beginning,
and it was an ending.
It was the end of nothing.

(copyright 2007)

What I'm likely sharing tonight at Sukkot Shabbat

Shabbat Shalom, everyone! I have a few quick thoughts to share while you finish your dinner. Call it some food for thought. Sukkot was my first Hillel event in fall 2002. Can I get a show of hands if this is your first Hillel event? Welcome! Joseph and I came to Sukkot all dressed up when I was a freshman because every time I'd gone to synagogue, I'd had to dress up. How surprised we were to find everyone sitting on the ground together in the Sukkah at Porter college, some in jeans, some barefoot, everyone singing. Joseph and I looked at each other and smiled: This was something completely different. This was something we could get into.

The Sukkah represents several different - and contradicting - aspects of Jewish life. I've been told that the Sukkah is place where you feel the most safe, the most comforted. But at the same time, the Sukkah is, at its core, a temporary dwelling. This space of ultimate safety and comfort only lasts for a week, and the rest of the year we are left with its memory.

We recall Sukkot each week at Shabbat we sing "Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Sh'lomecha," and spread over us Your shelter of peace. But like the Sukkah, Shabbat is also a temporary shelter - the liminal space between one week and another. The difference is that we return to the shelter of Shabbat each Friday at sundown. Sukkot only comes once a year.

The point I'm trying to make is that whether it's Sukkot, Shabbat, or both, these holidays represent the transience of our personal shelters. Many of you left the shelters of your homes to come to college. Every student I met seven years ago at my first Hillel event has graduated, leaving the shelter of UCSC to seek comfort and peace in other communities. And even though I'm still here, celebrating my 7th Hillel Sukkot, I'm a different person when I enter and exit the Sukkah every year.

When we reconvene for Sukkot next fall, we'll all be a little different. But regardless of the transience of each of our personal shelters, the comfort and warmth that we feel when we gather in the Sukkah will inspire us to keep coming back. I look forward to seeing all of you in the Sukkah next year. Shabbat Shalom.

Brought to you by Great Moments at Hillel

Try explaining "Jewdar" to your Israel Fellow, who has never lived in a country where Jews are the minority, and is not sure how to pick the Jewish students out of the crowds while tabling.

"Um...look for people with curly hair, Star of David or hamsa necklaces, Hebrew lettering on their shirts, and well, skinny awkward guys are usually a safe bet, and..."

So, now I'm getting paid to be Jewish and do Jewish and live Jewish from 9-5, Monday-Thursday, and from 2-10 on Fridays, including Shabbat.

I went to Shabbat at TBE tonight, and didn't really feel...much...

It could be because I spent most of the week tabling and looking for someone to blow the shofar for Rosh Hashana, and I was already at TBE three days in a row this week (Tuesday for Rosh Chodesh, Wednesday for a meeting that didn't happen, and Thursday for two meetings that did). I wonder if Judaism is going to become "rote" for me - so much a part of my daily life that nothing will separate it from anything else.

I've already come to terms with the fact that Shabbat will become part of the working week - it will probably be a source of stress, for that matter. That's why I get one Shabbat off each month, which I figured I'd spend at TBE. I just hope I can separate it for myself, make sure it makes a difference, if that makes sense.

Jacob warned me about this, and he suggested finding new outlets. It's always good to find new outlets anyways. I'll ask Rabbi S. about it this weekend when he comes down for our training too.

It could just be this week and nothing else. Some weeks it is harder to let go. We'll see.

Amused...

Tabling for Hillel has taught me that I attract very awkward guys who:

a) Can't carry a conversation
b) Aren't Jewish
c) Aren't interested in Hillel and
d) Just want a captive audience

I did however, get two people to fill out info cards today, and I got five people yesterday. So I guess I'm doing fine.

Rosh Chodesh Elul

We have started the month of Elul, which, I read, means "search." Fitting for the month of release and returning, the month of Rosh Hashana, the New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Elul enumerates a process of cleansing and creating goals, of letting go of one year and starting another.

Tonight I attended my first Rosh Chodesh circle at TBE. I brought C with me, but every other woman there was over 40. There were candles in a circle and we introduced ourselves matrilineally, according to the tradition. We also welcomed into the circle women who were on our minds, but not physically present. We shared our goals for the coming year and we talked about the year that we're leaving behind. I told them what happened last year on Shabbat Shuva, the Shabbat before Rosh Hashana.

TBE always holds Shabbat Shuva at the beach. There's something about the end of summer, a bonfire, and the crashing ocean that is perfect for the final Shabbat of the retiring year. I was sitting in the dark listening to the ocean during silent meditation when it hit me. I don't have to be a grad student. Wave upon wave of relief, joy, sadness, and crushing raw emotion. I felt free.

I promised myself on that night that if I couldn't do grad school healthfully, I couldn't do grad school at all. And, as promised, I finished my school year and I have not applied to new programs. I'm working at Hillel, giving back to the community that was always the one space where I never had to be anything but what I am.

Part of me was concerned about losing that space. I mean, it's enough, hoping that I can help create that for someone else. But I was still searching for a Jewish space where I don't have to perform anything - a space where I can just be.

I found that tonight at the TBE Rosh Chodesh circle. I'm so glad they meet each month. I'm looking forward to this. I will make time for it, even after I start my own Rosh Chodesh circle for the students. This one, this time, it's for me.

It's been decided that I will dress up as "SuperJew" for the campus fair, where all the student orgs show up at the east field to attract the students.

I'm picturing a giant Star of David sandwich board, with lots of blue glitter, and possibly a blue baseball cap with sideburns attached.

It's my first week on the job, and it's already a costume party!

Transitions

I realize that I'm facing a world of brave new changes (new home, new job, no longer a student, getting married next year, etc), and while it's thrilling and wonderful, it's also more than a little scary. In the moments when I'm more afraid than excited, I've been reading parts of Estelle Frankel's Sacred Therapy, a book Rabbi P lent me awhile ago. Frankel suggests that ancient Judaism and other ancient cultures created a space for transitions. When we symbolically remove ourselves from our old lives, we must embrace the nothingness between an old life and a new one before we can move on. In the modern world, on the other hand, we do not value the nothing-time, the ayin, but instead focus intensely on what's coming next. As a result, we do not fully remove ourselves from what we're leaving behind. We carry it with us as we embark on new journeys.

While I find this very interesting, and true to an extent (oh how I loathe the nothingness of a barren summer!), it contradicts everything I've read and felt about Judaism and memory (see the last post for quoted examples). Do we ever really want to completely detach ourselves from the past? Is it even possible to do that?

Then again, one of the reasons I love Shabbat is because it's a space between two weeks, but it is not a part of either week. It is a space untouched by time, or it is time untouched by space. Perhaps the rituals that separate Shabbat from the working week are reminiscent of the ancient rituals of transition.

I love the contradicting messages about Judaism, memory, new lives and old lives. Should we strive to let go of our past before we can embrace what's next? Or do we honor our history by acknowledging its voice in the future? It's probably a combination of all of the above, and then some. Life is rarely as clear and simple as we'd like it to be, after all.

"In whom the past endures"

Tonight, Shabbat felt like crying. I didn't cry, but I felt like I finally found the release I've so desperately neeeded. I love Rabbi P. She exudes warmth, energy, love, and empathy. And I finally copied down a few of the quotations from the new Reform siddur, Mishkan Tefilah, that I've been enjoying so much:

"We are a people in whom the past endures, in whom the present is inconceivable without moments gone by. The Exodus lasted a moment, a moment enduring forever. What happened once upon a time happens all the time."

"A thought has blown the market place away. Shabbat arrives in the world, scattering a song in the silence of the night: Eternity utters a day."

And finally, one from Heschel: "The meaning of Shabbat is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things in space; on Shabbat we try to become attuned to the holiness of time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of Creation to the mystery of Creation, from the world of Creation to the Creation of the world."

After the service and a brief chat with Rabbi P, we went to a coffeeshop for live bluegrass. The band was AWESOME.

This was what I needed. All night, voices wrapped themselves around me like loving arms. It reminds me that Shabbat Shalom does not just mean "Sabbath Peace." The root of Shalom is also in Shalem - wholeness.

"Jewish Enough"

I learned a lot at the WHO conference. Most of all, I learned that this is a much better place for me than grad school ever was. I have a lot to say, and not enough time to say it right now, but I do want to make one quick note:

At one point, when everyone had gathered in the conference room for one of the sessions, the session leader asked us to raise our hands if we had ever felt "not Jewish enough."

Every single person raised their hand. These are Jewish professionals. Judaism is deeply important to each of these people, or they wouldn't be working at Hillels throughout the western region. Where does this insecurity come from? Is it guilt?

Is it because Hillel means working in and advocating a pluralistic Jewish environment? This means we are exposed to Jews who practice in a variety of ways - from secular/cultural Jews to Conservadox Jews to Jews who only recently learned they were Jewish at all. We are always "less Jewish" or "more Jewish" than someone else.

I actually hate using that kind of terminology because I do believe in pluralism. I consider myself religious, even though I'm a Reform Jew who gave up on kashrut after seven months during my one foray into some kind of Conservative Jewish practice.

I like that there is space for this kind of pluralism. It is very challenging to create a space where college students from a variety of backgrounds can have meaningful Jewish experiences. It means that some students will never be satisfied because we privilege pluralism over tradition, some students will never feel "Jewish enough," and even the staff may find themselves wondering if they are "Jewish enough" for their roles as Jewish professionals.

I'm grateful for these challenges. I'm even grateful for the insecurities. It means we're constantly asking questions, and that's a good thing.

Every time I begin to think I'm saying goodbye to this community, it turns out that I'm not. I am the new program director for my Hillel, the little storefront I came home to every Friday night through four years of college and two years of graduate school. I'm glad I can keep giving back. I'm glad I'll be here to help it change, now that our beloved rabbi and program director of eight years has moved to a different city. They hired a part-time rabbi to make Shabbat and holidays with us, so that part of the job is not up to me. It's all programs, all the time. It's event planning and organizing. It's Judaism and education. Social action and ice cream socials. I get to work with college students without having to grade their papers. Before the rabbi left, I thanked him because this has been the kind of blessing that endures. It's still enduring. Though something tells me it would endure whether or not I had decided to take this job.

I felt starved for change, I was so ready to leave this town. It turns out that once again, I will change the way I interact with the town and the community instead of leaving it behind alltogether. There is leaving and returning.

What a perfect way to start the New Year in September.

Mordechai says that in the short stories he writes, the characters he relates to the most are all somehow, vaguely Jewish. They never state it, or do anything that resembles Jewish practice. But he feels like they're Jewish. This, he says, is how he can tell he's connecting with his own Jewish identity. I couldn't be more grateful.

Also, before I forget -- Shavuot was amazing this year. I wish I could have stayed all night, talking Torah with a group of brilliant and inspiring rabbis. Unfortunately, I had class in the morning. But there is one interpretation that stuck with me.

Rabbi L. said that the Fall in Genesis is a story of separation and disconnect. Before eating of the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and Eve saw themselves as part of the world, intimately connected to the trees, animals, and earth. The knowledge they gained from eating the fruit was the knowledge of difference, of separation. They saw that they were naked, they saw that they were different from other animals. When God said they would "surely die" if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God meant that Adam and Eve would recognize their mortality. Animals don't know that they will one day cease to exist. Humans do. Human awareness of death is a way we are markedly different from the animals. So when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree, they recognized their mortality, recognized their difference, and saw themselves as separate from the earth, the trees, the animals.

Very interesting interpretation -- they must have been lonely realizing they were different, separate from the world. It's somehow in line with what I wrote in "History of Loneliness" http://adventuresinkosherland.blogspot.com/2007/10/simchat-torah.html

Ok, back to grading for me, but I had to write that down before I forgot. Also, the Sisterhood of Summer Shabbatot will be up and running this Friday. I'm looking forward to it -- home-based Shabbat celebrations and potlucks and the Nice Yiddische Meideles all summer long. It wasn't supposed to be all girls. But it somehow turned out that way. I'm looking forward to it.

Giraffes: Kosher!

In case you're keeping kosher and have a craving for it:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/2084281/Giraffe-is-kosher,-Israeli-vets-have-ruled.html