Hafsakah (Break)

Today marks the end of my summer course and leaves me with a week to free my mind from studies and schedules before beginning the fall semester, of which my schedule will be nothing short of hectic. Most everyone who has asked knows that my greatest fear or challenge in moving towards this goal of Rabbi has always been the Hebrew language. I recall a great story of the day I walked into speak with my Jewish Studies advisor in College Park and told her I wanted to change my major from Jewish Studies to Jewish History so that I could eliminate the Hebrew language requirement needed to get my degree. She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Jessy, if you want to be a Rabbi one day, you are not going to be able to avoice Hebrew."

Nearly 6 years later, and having got (at least most of) my need to focus on the major of socializing, beer pong, and the 'all American undergraduate experience at a big university' out of my system, I have just completed my summer Ulpan (intensive Hebrew program) and I finish knowing I am one of the strongest speakers in my actual citah (class). Feels nice to be on the stronger side of the spectrum for once while studying this language! Summer ends and we have our acadmic orientation...where they tell us that actually 85% of our courses this year will be taught...you guessed it...rak b'ivrit (only in Hebrew).

So, for those of you curious what the first semester of Rabbinical school looks like. Well, let me see if I can break it down. 5 days of classes, 4 days of which we go from 8:30 until 5/6:30. We do finish at 1 on Thursdays, allowing the option to escape the city with just over 2 days of down time before the week resumes (remember Friday is the new Saturday, Saturday the new Sunday, Sunday the new Monday). We study Hebrew about half of the week, every morning and some afternoons. Our other classes include biblical grammar and language (as if trying to learn one form of Hebrew isn't enough...we must learn how to speak to the nehag monit (taxi driver) as well as how to read the Torah...same letters...not the same language!). My Jewish History major places me in the advanced Modern Jewish History class and we take one day each week to study outside the classroom on what is called Israel Seminar days. The schedule continues with a seminar on progressive Judaism, professional development courses (in which I'll learn how to conduct everything from a briss to a funeral...b'nai mitzvot and weddings included) and near daily prayer. We have liturgy and bible classes, have to give D'vrei Torah (sermons), Hagbah (lifting the torah...woa!), leading services, reading from the Torah AND translating without a crip sheet. Oh yeah, in my 'spare time' my community service internship is going to be working with the World Union for Progressive Judaism to help better develop solicitations and programming for the progressive Jewish communities around the globe. And yes, we have homework.

But, this week I get to put it all aside. Tomorrow night my roommate and I are hosting Shabbos dinner at our place and then I leave Sunday morning for a week in the Greek Islands. I'm taking a book with me (not Jewish) and I'm taking my updated Ipod (I have residency shows to catch up on and good music still not uploaded to my Mini) and I plan on sitting by the beach, with plans to meet the other 10 or so people I am travelling with at the bar in the pool for lunch. I'd say that it is a much earned break, afterall, in the midst of studying Hebrew, my transition this summer has also included heightened political dispute, war, and realizing my spoiled American dependency on air conditioning.

I'm hoping that with the end of this summer's course and experience of adjustment I will also be able to put an end to my updates on the war and start to focus a bit more on rebuilding and repositioning thoughts to look forward rather than fall into a period of moment to moment questioning and uncertainty. I'd ask that anyone reading this please go to the following link to sign this petition on a call to bring democratic money to help int he rebuilding on Lebanon.
http://www.petitiononline.com/IAUN1/petition.html

Though the war is no longer on television, I will not be the first to say that there is still a much longer road in front than behind when it comes to this conflict in the middle east. The first days after the cease fire there was much talk about the rise in support for Hezbollah by many of the people in Lebanon. In many ways, Israel's agreeing to a cease fire without the return of the two kidnapped soldiers and without proving to have injured Hezbollahs capabilities (Hezbollah dropped a record 250+ rockets on the final day of the war...proving that even if their capabilites were injured they were still able to send more rockets on the final day than any other day during the conflict into Israel) left the Arab communities viewing Nasrallah and Hezboallah the victors in this battle and Israel without the ability to prove that this battle had not been in vein.

Now, the rebuilding begins, and I believe that it is incredible important that we look at history in order to not make, perhaps, the biggest mistake possible in this battle. If the international community does not help in the restoration of the damage (and I struggle with how I also believe Israel should perhaps play a part in this as well, knowing the billions of dollars of damage done on her own soil) than Hezbollah has only more room for gain in support. Hitler came to power, not only because he was able to talk a talk that people were intrigued by and possessed incredible charisma, but his party was able to provide a plan for Germany's people during a time of great deficit and struggle. As a result, the Nazi party and Hitler were able to rise to party and implement mass genocide while helping turn around the German economy. I am by no means drawing a parallel to Nazi Germany, but I am calling caution to those who think that the source of money and a plan to help bring Lebanon out of its damage will not add fuel to the fundamentalist fire. If Hezbollah is able to help feed money into rebuilding the community than it is likely that they will gain more support for efforts to help the general public in Lebanon. As it is there is overwhelming support for the activites of this helacious group, that it would be detramental to an already vulnerable region to see support for more islamic fundamentalism to gain momentum.

It is hard to make the switch from thinking in the day to day, counting bombs and fallen bodies, to now trying to think about the long term picture. It is the roller coaster of the middle east and though I have never been a Hawkish person or someone who believes that it is the responsibility of an international community to take care of those beyond their backyard, I am starting to see more and more reason for why it is important to play a role in the rebuliding. It scares me that notions of terror and killing those that are not our own even exists in this world, but it is terrifying to think that the source of money for the rebuilding that must be done could help Hezbollah gain more support and power from people that I would like to think are just trying to live their lives like you and me. But, like you and me, we all tend to support the powers that help us gain financial stability and feel secure. I am afraid to say, that Hezbollah is in a position to do this even more so than before, and it will be a scary day in the future should they come into greater power than they are right now.

So, my rant for this summer...my thoughts as I clean up my apartment, buy notebooks and textbooks (yes...Torah, Talmud, Gamara...the list goes on) for the fall and get ready to get on a plane to spend a week on physical and mental vacation. I know when I return I will be elbow deep in the history of my people, the fundamentals of grammar (which I hope I can do justice to more so than my native tongue), and continuing to try and put into context what all this means for my people in this 21st century. Still, I would like to think that one of the most basic Jewish thoughts is that we are working towards goodness and towards peace. I hope that our life time shows peace in this region, but if we can't guaruntee that, I do hope that we will find a way to recognize that money and power are inextricably linked and we don't set out on a path that will find us back in this same situation, albeit a lot louder and a lot worse.

Shabbat Shalom.
I'm off to Rodos!