Sparks

Ayal was the only person in the bar. It was eight o'clock, way too early for anyone else to stop in for a beer. I had just finished slicing the lemons and was slightly bored, so I grabbed my glass of Goldstar and pulled up one the metal chairs to his table. He smiled, and looked me over, from my kippa (skullcap) to my tzitzit (ritual fringes). 

"What are you doing working here?" he asked.

I knew what he was getting at. His sad, brown, Yemenite eyes had focused on the fringes sticking out from my shirt. Standard response to my job description by a religious adult is to cock an eyebrow. My Hebrew teacher in the States explained to me that your social circle largely revolves around who you are with, and that rolling with a crew of bartenders looks bad on the shidduch-resume. Others have wondered if I am about to shake my skull loose from its cap, like others in my yeshiva have done since leaving. To me the answer was simple, and a genuine continuation of what I had been taught in yeshiva. 

"Somebody's gotta raise the sparks, no?" I replied. 

An explanation might be required: 

According to Chassidic belief, before Creation, the good of the soon-to-be world was held as a powerful light inside vessels of G-d's making. Like any container that holds an ever-growing energy, these eventually exploded, showering the universe with shards and sparks that fell to the baby world. Our job in the world is to search for the sparks amongst the glass, the beauty and holiness within the mundane and even profane, and to raise them to their deserved level. 

Ayal smiled, and raised his glass in a L'Chaim. 

"This is good," he responded. "A boy like you, with a kippa on his head mingling with people who are different, this is what we need. True love for your brethren. That's what's most important for us, especially with this being the beginning of a month of happiness that was derived from our unity as a people." (The Jewish month of Adar, the month of the Purim holiday as well as important victories of the Hasmoneans of Channukah). 

We sat there in silence for a minute, while I pondered the question that so many ask me, and analyzed my response. I was reminded of a story told by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and decided to share it with Ayal.

"One year, as Yom Kippur approached, a little chassid named Moishele packed up his horse, kissed his wife and children goodbye, and set off to see his rabbi. This was the one time of the year that he had the chance to do so, and Moishele was eager to see his spiritual leader's holy face. He spurred his horse passed the Polish forests and countryside, arriving at the Rebbe's house before any of the other followers. Excitedly, he knocked on the door.

The door swung open to reveal the long bearded rabbi, who took one look at Moishele and ordered him away. 

'Leave Moishele. I don't want you here. The last thing that I want is to spend Yom Kippur with you. Get out of my house immediately!'

The words were spit out with such ferocity, that Moishele barely even realized that he has saddled up his horse. Dissapointed and downtrodden, he began his slow journey home. To ease his sorrow, he stopped at the kretchma, the local inn, and ordered himself a shot.  

Inside the kretchma, the chassidim who were on their way had congregated and were drinking, singing, and dancing with a passion. When they saw Moishele's face they had to ask what had happened. After he had unraveled his tale, one of his chassidic brothers clapped him on the shoulders and declared:

'Moishele, this is indeed a travesty, and therefore you must drink a L'Chaim with me.'

The others agreed, and soon Moishele found himself spinning around the room, rosy cheeked and optimistic, while his friends blessed him with rowdy "L'Chaims" ("To life").

"You know Moishele," the others said to him, "according to Jewish law, anything that the baal habayit (master of the house) says to a guest, the guest must do. Except if he tells him to leave. Come back to the rebbe with us. At the very least maybe he will give you an explanation as to his behavior. 

Clearly at this point Moishele was in no state to argue, so with a little help he re-saddled his horse and began the journey back to see his rabbi. As soon as he arrived on the doorstep Moshe began to tremble with fear.Suddenly,  the door threw itself open.

'Moishele!' the rebbe screamed with delight, enveloping him in a great bear hug, 'I'm so glad to see you!'

Stunned by the rabbi's spit-personality, Moishe stammered out a request for an explanation. 

'Ah, you see my dear Moishele," the rabbi began, "when you had first arrived, the malach hamavet, the angel of death, hovered above your head. I knew that you wouldn't make it through Neila (the closing prayer of Yom Kippur), and wanted you to spend your last hours with your family. But when your friends blessed you L'Chaim, they pushed Death away for years and years. With friends like these, you could live forever."

Chodesh tov! L’Chaim! May it be a month of unity and true living.

Live at the Slow

Recently I began tending bar once a week at “Slow Moshe,” the neighborhood pub in Nachlaot. A recount of the eventful, and retrospectively humorous, first shift in the works. Below is tonight’s experience. Enjoy!

Three in the morning and I’m finally beginning to close up the Slow Moshe. After a disastrous first shift a week ago, which ended with me releasing all of the gas from the taps, tonight was smooth (B”H). Nonetheless, it’s test season, and I’m ready to count out the tips and go to bed. Swiftly, I begin to peruse the bottles, lifting them to the light and feeling their weight, recording those whose time has come. As I begin to suds-up my hands for my next task, Chanan walks in.

Chanan is a Yemenite who was chozer b’sheala (left religious Judaism) and then chozer b’teshuva (returned to religious Judaism). We met the other night as I was re-training to ensure that no issues would occur in future shifts. Somewhere along the winding path of his religion, this Teimani learned to speak Yiddish and developed a taste for chazzanut (cantorial music). Although his favorite is Moshe Koussevitsky (who I have only heard on a few occasions) and mine is Yosseleh Rosenblatt, we were quick to bond over our love of religious music.

“Is it too late to have a beer?” he asks, and the look on his face tells me that I can answer in the negative, but that he would appreciate a cold bottle.

I tell him to have a seat. I have time before I finish closing up. Besides, this is a great opportunity to connect with a customer- an important tool in the world of service.

“Just a cigarette’s worth of time and I’ll be gone,” he assures me.

My hand slides open the fridge and pulls out one of the remaining Goldstars. Upon his request I hand him a glass as well.

Closing hours and clean up require music that gets you moving. As soon as I started moving chairs, I shuffled my iPod to the 120 song playlist of groove music- an eclectic combo of classic rock, blues, funk, emo, and punk. Seven minutes later, the length of a cigarette in legal army terms (for the record), Channan reappears with glass and bottle in hand.

“Tell me,” he says with a chuckle, “you don’t feel like cleaning with Koussevitsky?”

“To be honest, I don’t have any,” I reply, “but if you’d like Yosseleh, I have his whole collection with me.”

His face freezes.

“For real?”

“Sure. I’ll put it on.”

After reassuring him that Yosseleh could never be a bother a clean up session, or any other time of the day for that matter, I make the extreme transition from the Offspring to the greatest cantor the world has known. Ad Heno, taken from the Shabbat morning prayer-service and composed by Rosenblatt in an aria-esque style, is both a personal and family favorite. Rosenblatt’s versatile voice slowly fills the empty bar. He jumps from major to minor, all the while twilling the notes, rising and falling at will. Like a dove on blast of thermal air, he glides and maneuvers seamlessly through a swirling prayer of thanks that is an appropriate end to my successful night.

In between glances at the “to do” checklist, I look over at Chanan. His eyes are closed and his facial expression is one of depth, connection, and concentration.

“Could I have another beer?” he asks. “You put on music that was too good for me to leave.”

Gladly, I reach into the icy heaven of bottles and pop another one open for him.

Chanan’s “just a cigarette and beer” unfolds into six gorgeous tracks. Over the course of two brews and a few Marlboros, Yosseleh manages to wind us through various Sabbath and High Holiday prayers. Each track give off hints of vinyl crackle; cobwebs of a time that met a quick and painless digital ending, but like an old wine cask, always stays relevant and classy. While pushing a broom over the dirty floor, a surreal sensation overtakes me- peaceful and dreamlike. Monday night in a Jerusalem bar, in front of a diverse crowd of two, and over alcohol, tobacco, and cleaning products, the great Yosseleh Rosenblatt returned to life.

The Price Tag of the Price Tags

Periodically I look around Jerusalem and try to understand what it must look like from an outsider’s perspective. My neighborhood specifically, Nachalaot, offers a plethora of diversity. Black cloaked chassidim pass the colorful hippies and hipsters on the street. Secular students head for a beer in the same direction that the religious students walk towards to pray, while other religious students try to figure out where they can catch a service that is quick enough to allow them to catch up to their beer-swilling friend. I take it for granted that there is such a variety here, but every once in a while I peel my eyes open and am amazed.

Clothing to me does not make the man, but often times I take things to a higher level and try to understand the true differences between us. For some reason I seem to understand people who wear heavy layers of clothing in the summer out of a religious belief more than I can people who dress like me but hurly their heavy layers of religious beliefs at others.

Recently, one of my campers from two summers ago emailed me to ask me about my experiences and feelings with regards to the disengagement of 2005- a topic that was and still is very confusing for me. That was a summer that found me caught in a conflict between a belief in the inherent holiness of Israel’s land and a desire for peace and security for the Jewish people. As I recounted to my chanicha, for me a Jewish soul was more holy than the Jewish land, which is why I was not completely against the disengagement. To be clear, I was not for the disengagement either, especially because it involved uprooting fellow Jews from their homes, something that infracted upon my previously mentioned belief of caring for others. Nonetheless, as the rabbis who would become my roshei yeshiva would tell their students serving in the army at the time, I believed then that (theoretically speaking) I would not disobey orders. If told to do so, with a heavy heart I would remove Jews from their homes.

The hitnatkut took place over six years ago already and in many ways my view has changed. Hindsight, as we all know, is 20-20 (or 6-6 in Israel), and it has affected my stance. Last year during a car-ride that I had hitched from Latrun to Jerusalem, the drivers routinely asked me a bit about myself. When I mentioned that I was in a Hesder yeshiva (a program that combines yeshiva learning with army service) they asked me what the “hesder” (Hebrew for arrangement) was- would I or would I not participate in pinuiim. My answer was no, but my hesitation revealed that I had not completely accepted my new answer. They warned me that those few seconds of thought would be my undoing if faced with such a situation, and that a Jew should never uproot another Jew.

Yesterday’s events in the Efraim territories have once again caused me to question my stance. Personally I do not think I could participate as a soldier in removing someone from their home. I also cringe at the thought of giving up land. It failed in the past, and yes, I believe that we have a claim to Israel and should be living in all of her nooks and crannies. For me it is hard to point fingers in this situation. Truth be told I wouldn’t mind letting whoever wants to camp out on a hilltop do so (provided they understand the security risk that they put themselves in). It hurts to hear about another evacuation.

But the behavior of the noar gvaot, the hilltop youth, hurts more. At the end of the day, unity as a people takes priority and demands sacrifice. Five families do not compare to the communities that were destroyed in Gush Katif. We elect our leadership and grant them executive decisions. If the majority of the people chose a leader who takes a stance that I don’t agree with, then I will yell and protest, but when the day comes, I will not fight them. A holy land without a united people is worth nothing.

Noa Mandelbaum, an expert in special needs education, once taught me that we all have eyes, brains, and hearts. The difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is in knowing how to use them. One who knows how to look around, analyze a situation, and understand the emotional intensity of a situation is the one who will be able to give the proper response. I see and feel anger all around me. Not just with regards to the debate over land rights and security, but in debates about other religious issues (the most prominent being those of women’s rights and modesty laws in Judaism).

Back in 2005 we feared that the disengagement would lead to civil war. We were granted about five year of quiet, possibly out of the shock and trauma of that summer, but the fear and frustration that were planted in the Gush Katif uprooting have begun to sprout into hate. Jewish soldiers have been attacked with rocks, Molotov cocktails, and the rest of the DIY arsenal, and forced to counter-attack fellow Jews. Religion, what should be the bond of the Jewish people, has once more become the ironic source of rift. The dati leumi (“Modern Orthodox”) world is tearing at her seams- and this is only one faction of the religious world in Israel!

The easy path is to protest the protesters, funneling all of the aggravation that they are causing us back at them. Justice is served and all of the injured, be it physically or egotistically, are avenged. Our challenge is to analyze the dynamics of the struggle and keep our emotions in check; to add thought to sight and emotion. Stay cool, boy. There is a big picture that we must be mindful of; a nation whose survival and being revolve around unity.

Living with people whose opinions are far more radical than yours is much more difficult than living with people who dress in a different fashion. Should we let rioters walk? Absolutely not! But at the same time, these are people whose roots, both physically and spiritually, are the same as everyone’s, and both sides are hurting. Few of us will actually stand face to face with a protester from the other camp, whatever side it may be, but every day we battle them in our discussions with friends. How we describe them and relate to them in words is what paints our vision of reality. Demeaning them in thought and speech will eventually result in a tangible hate, something that we just cannot afford.

This week’s parasha (weekly torah portion) deals with the first Jewish family to be torn apart by anger and frustration. Both Joseph’s slandering and his brothers’ jealousy and hate were guilty in causing the rift that lead the first Israelis into Egypt, the original diaspora. Years later it is our responsibility to fix their mistakes.

Thanksgiving

"How did you come out with the idea for this cocktail?"

How do you explain these things? How did someone figure out that honey and hot sauce work so well together? How do feet seem to move on the dance floor out of their own free will, dragging, pushing, coming together to create fluid movements? There's a feel for it, a touch. Somehow you know when things work together.

"Could you explain to us what's in it?"

When you're living as a bachelor in Israel, tehina is the new ramen. It's cheap, it's healthy, it can be spiced in different ways depending on your mood. You want me to bring you in something to make a cocktail with? I'm gonna open up my pantry and see what we have. Tehina, it's what's for dinner. And lunch. And breakfast. Why wouldn't I drink it as well?

"Just tehina?"

Tehina, water, silan (date honey), milk. I was going for halva, and it's not too hard to do. Especially when you have roommates who have been showing you for three months the best way to prepare the pasty goo.

"Oh, yeah, how's it going with your roommates? Isn't it hard to live like that?"

Rooming is a relationship in every way, and you have to have chemistry. Even after the chemistry, you have to keep working at it.

"Ok.... so back to the cocktail. What's it called?"

"Agrippas 115." New digs open new doors. Roommates who cook, roommates who clean, roommates who you feel you can talk with, everything changes. Old ideas turn new, and there's a constant input from free flowing good vibes, and plain old advice and brainstorming. Raw tehina is no longer just a gunk. It's dressing, dip, candy, and cocktail. Potential in the rough.

What's the point of this jumble of words spewed out at 2 am? This Thanksgiving I'm sending out thanks for my family and friends, as usual, but the big one goes out to the roomies who make this apartment feel like a home. Last night's victory comes, unknowingly, from months of teamwork. Thank you brothers!

Well this is a pleasant surprise

Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organization through which I made aliyah (moved to Israel), has asked their olim (new immigrants to Israel) to submit their favorite story from their aliyah experience. After flipping through my archives I decided to abandon the "inspirational" type story and go with something more humorous. I thought it was the best of my army stories, but that certain nude aspects of the story (relax, it's about taking a cold shower) might render it inappropriate for a family-friendly website. My fears were unfounded, and today I was informed by NBN that my story was chosen for their inspirational portal. Big thanks to Laura Ben David and the rest of the NBN crew, not just for this selection, but for everything that they do in helping the Jewish people and state. Keep up the good work!

Now gimme a read! http://inspire.nbn.org.il/aliyah-stories/369-sometimes-youre-hot-and-sometimes-youre-just-plain-freezing.html

More to come soon... I promise.

REMories

BS”D

Sixteen or so years had passed since the last time I saw her. She and her family lived on our street in Cleveland Heights, one block down from us, or up depending on how you looked at it. Her father was the principal at one of the local Jewish day schools, and our parents had known each other for a long time. Years before they moved to Cleveland, apparently, our families spent a summer together, while both sets of parents helped run the educational departments at a popular Jewish sleep-a-way camp.

Short hair that wasn’t even a bob-cut, she played hockey in elementary school, and, according to what her father told us over one Shabbat meal at my childhood home, she could terrorize the rink.

“At one game she checked a guy on the other team, stole the puck, and drove it in for a goal. I jumped to my feet yelling, ‘THAT’S MY GIRL!’ and was met by startled looks of confusion,” he would recount.

She was as Tom as a Tom-boy could be. Hanging out with her, we would discuss Charles Barkley’s impending retirement, and then head down to the garage to look at her hockey sticks. In all honesty, back then I was still playing with Barbie dolls. If she had any of those they must have been decked out in hockey pads as well.

Winter of ’96 gave the youth of Cleveland three consecutive snow days. As it grew whiter and whiter outside, with snow eventually piling past the door of our Fisher Price playhouse (at least a foot and a half deep) I spent my free time in her front yard building snow whales, snowmen, and other various sculptures with her and her brothers. Back then I was still innocent. I vaguely recall feeling a slight tingle around her, the tiniest of inklings that she was interesting, or more correctly, that I was interested, but for the most part I was there to hang out with her two brothers. And for all intents and purpose, she was really one of the guys.

It had been sixteen years since that wonderland of a winter. Her family moved to Cincinnati a year later; one more victim of the rabbinic familial lifestyle- the constant hop up the ladder of opportunity and around the map. Over an NCSY Shabbaton a few years later I ran into her sister and father. Seeing them was nice, but there was nothing that I felt that I was missing.

Last night she made a cameo in my dreams. After years of not missing her, of barely remembering of her family, she reappeared. And somehow I recognized her. In this particular eyelid film she grabbed the lead role. For some reason the girl I held in my arms, the one who made me complete until my REM cycle ended and the sun came up, was her. Not once did she mention her name, and her father was replaced by someone with a different face, but her features were unmistakable.

I woke up lost, spending my first morning minutes trying to understand what I had just seen. Angered by the fact that I had once again held her, my one and only, in one of her many forms, only to wake up to a shadow of a memory. I craved her touch and that feeling that I had dreamed of, the one of finally allowing myself to let go, to disregard the restrictions that I took upon myself for all of these years and to finally hold and be held for the rest of my life.

Her name moved quickly from its place in a cranial pocket to the tip of my tongue. Sixteen years it lay there dormant. Sixteen years it sat biding its time. I whispered it, her full name, shocked by the fact that I could place her face so fast and that I had no doubt as to whom I had seen. How did I remember her family’s name, let alone her own name?

“It must be a sign,” I thought in my typical manner.

Before I lay myself down to sleep that particular evening, I had gone out on a blind-date with a sweet girl who was very much not my type. I was ready to move on. The regular cast of characters, the crushes that came and never seemed to go, the names that cause me to sigh with regret of having never taken a shot, had all returned to my mind. Out of all of those girls the one whose basketball cards I had drooled over was the one to haunt me. If all of these years later she had returned with such a force, then this must be a prophecy some kind.

What-ifs rushed through my brain:

“What if she moved to Israel?”

“What if she’s single?”

“What if she dreamed something similar?”

I resigned myself to making contact with her if she was living in the country, and then opened up facebook.

“How did she spell her name? Am I wrong? Did I make a mistake with her last name? I remember the first three letters for sure, let’s see what the search engine gives me. Please Marc Zuckerberg come through, this could be it.”

Quickly I scrolled through the names and faces. Nothing. I typed again, varying the spellings, changing letters, praying silently that this would come through.

Success.

Her face was the same as in the dream, her hair longer than the last time I had seen her and her eyes were brighter than I could have remembered, especially because I never recalled looking into them when I was eight years old. There was no doubt- she was the one who had haunted my sleep last night.

I looked at one picture of her and then another, and then one more. All with the pure intentions of confirming that this was indeed her.

And then he appeared.

She stood behind his chair beaming, and the comments left by her friends leave no room for mistake. She’s taken by someone else. My eyes scan the information bar at the top. She still lives in the US.

Fist and table meet. One bang then I’m done. The hour is late, and Queen Mab already lies in waiting with her dust. Tonight I will dream again, a bit heartbroken, but one step closer to the truth.

Winter

Winter's chill has moved quickly from my bone's to my mind, numbing my brain and slowing down my reflexes. Day move to night much faster and the accompanying darkness weighs down on me. My animal instincts are attacking every fiber of my body- "SLEEP!"they scream. "Curl into a ball, fetal position, and just close your eyes..."

Yesterday it was summer, or at least fall. Now I am struggling with schoolwork, bar-tending classes, job hunting, and the regular grind of day-to-day errands.

Brown, gray, black. I look around, nostalgic for the yellow, orange, and blue. Morning, afternoon, and evening, when I wake up and before I go to sleep, I scour the Indian's website for my recently-departed summer, frantically clinging to the digital diamond, the green grass and pale brown dirt. When the Tribe offers no news I move onto the MLB site. Highlight reels, historics games, whatever I can get. Baseball diamonds have become an opiate for me. Seeing one calms me, withdrawal depresses me. The boys of summer have gone.

When Jerusalem is lit up she sparkles, shining like the beacon that she is to the world. Winter's early gloom in the holy city cuts even harder. "A few weeks," I tell myself, "in a few weeks you will have gotten used to the idea of long nights and short days. Quilts will once again become a comfort and not a necessity. Your bed will release you from its grip. A few weeks."

For now, my nesting instincts are go. Cooking has become a new joy in my life, a new distraction from the work and responsibilities that I have or am supposed to acquire. Corn bread, onion jam, even a quiche. It can take me hours, but I pull it off in the end, and smile with the realization that I can still learn new tricks.

Maybe I'll learn to let winter's opening days not stew my brain.

This too will pass.