Elul

Our last day of summer program also marked the first day of the month of Elul, the month of reflection. Elul begins as we are leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; its purpose: to be a period of reflection in which we prepare for the high holidays and move into another year being written in the book of life.

I welcomed the first week of Elul on the beaches in Greece. 13 of us travelled to Rodos this past week for a little bit of a break from the norm of day to day life in Israel and having to focus on studies. A couple of days in the sun, taking boats to other Islands, hiking through ruins that existed thousands of years before either you or me, and just taking in the hot hot but beautiful landscape is enough to dive inside the mind and find space to reflect on all those things we push to the side when we have to studfy for a test, wake up early for shacharit (morning prayer minyan), or attend another seminar on the status of politics, army and safety in Israel.

After an incredible few days, it was also nice to return to my quiet apartment. Seems like in the short week I've been gone the weather has begun to change. For the FIRST time since I arrived two months ago I actually pulled back my covers and got under them and woke up to a breeze that didn't seem to escape when the sun came up this morning. There are still horns honking outside my window, but I just added to my little windchime collection outside on my balcony, so the balance of pleasant and not so pleasant noise seems to be moving slowly towards center. I have only Shabbos until my fall semester begins on Sunday and dive full force into my purpose for being here this year.

So, Elul...reflection. Seems like the time sandwiched between my summer course and the Fall semester is quite appropriate to think about the time ahead in relation to the time that has just passed. I have to remind myself that it has ONLY been two months. In the two, not so short, months that I have been here I have moved to Jerusalem, met my class that I will move forward with for the next five years, been in the middle of a war on home soil, and managed to move my Hebrew skills from timid and totally embarssing to confidant enough that I can now talk with Israelis so long as I warn them that "ani medeberet ivrit, aval ani medeberet rak katzart ivrit. ani lomedet po b'yerushalayim akshav, l'at l'at bvakesha aval ani rotzah medeberet ivrit otcha." (I speak Hebrew, but I only speak a little Hebrew. I study in Jerusalem right now, please slowly but I do want to speak Hebrew).

As our plane landed back in Israel yesterday I turned to my friend Cheryl and told her that I didn't have the same feeling of returning home with great excitement that I would have had if I was returning home home from a vacation, but I also didn't feel as alien to what awaited me outside the plane like I did when I flew into Ben Gurion Airport back in June. As our plane approached the runway I couldn't help but reflect a bit on one of my main goals for both this year and to move forward into the rabbinate.

I spend a great deal of time talking with other classmates of mine about why we want to take on such a role in our careers and our lives. Many are enamored with Judaism and excited to live a life of prayer. Some are excited about the status of becoming a Rabbi. Others simply feel it is the next logical step on the track that begins with summer camp, moves into involvement and then leadership in a Jewish youth movement, takes a turn at being active in college through Hillel or Jewish student unions and then usually culminated with either a Jewish Studies degree in undergrad and/or some initial work in the Jewish community right out of college. Many of those things hold true for me as well, but I usually find myself saying that my interest really lies in how to re-attach people to Judaism that don't really know where their relationship lies.

The first few days of our program the head Rabbi of the program told us that our goal here was to fit into a story that has spanned thousands of years. I liked that, because I have always struggled with how what Abraham and Isaac were dong thousands of years ago, or even the Jewish community in Nazi Germany and their experiences are going to help me liven my Jewish peers and community in the future. I find myself saying to my friends here, my goal of the Rabbinate is to find a way that every person, no matter how ambivalent about God, religion and Judaism, can connect to a community. I am constantly reminded of my friends back home who have incredibly strong Jewish identities, many just through the holidays that they come together with family and friends at the dinner table, but don't see the need to be an active Jew. Personally, I wonder about what it means to be an active Jew and what it means to be inwardly Jewish. I guess that is what I am here to learn most about. It never ceases to amaze me though the way heads tilt just a little bit when I say, I am interested in looking at the periferal of the Jewish community, finding those of us who are up in the air about what our lives as Jewish adults will be and working there, not just where those who will come to the community because it has been passed down to them live.

I guess that is the foot I am starting on. I think I am so interested in that question because I sometimes sit back and laugh about how I ended up not only being involved but wanting to be a leader in religion and specifically Judaism. I surely have my own questions about what I believe, what of this road will be more uphill than I care to admit, and also the reward in being someone who openly questions many many things always hoping that the end result will make Judaism and the values that I take from it more reachable to those who may or may not know it applies in anyway to them beyond it being a birthright.

As I move into what I know is going to be a challenging semester, papers in Hebrew, reading Torah, finding my sacred space to pray and grow my spirituality while constantly adding to the questions in my head about how to move this into a strong Jewish community for myself and others in the future, I look back on the first two months that I have lived here and I already feel the shift that has taken place from that June day when I got off the plane and arrived in Israel, not for a trip that would bus me from sight to sight, but to live and study here...knowing that this time I will have to hike through each moment, every question, every challenge and this journey here, albeit with the help of a few friends and teachers, to find my place moving away from where I come and further into where I am going (also praying every day that those two places overlap, for that will be the greatest blessing I can imagine).

Elul reflection.
Shabbat Shalom.