Spice it up a little

Tonight is tropical shabbat...not just because of my juice making frenzy, although I do believe that ברוך אתה יהוה אלוהינו מלך העולם בורא פרי הגפן (Blessed are you God who creates fruit of the vine) works fine for the tropical juice I squeezed freshly for tonight's festive meal, including starfruit, pineapple, pomagranite, oranges, kiwi and strawberries...strawberries grow on a vine, right? Last night was reggae music in Jerusalem...or Jah-rusalem if you desire and tomorrow I'm meeting a friend from San Francisco for Shabbat lunch after going to see my roommate read Torah for morning Shacharit.

This past week the deans from the three stateside campus' that we return to next year came to visit and start to lay out what our return to the states will look like. Each campus does things a bit differently, but the dinner we had for students going to L.A. passed out a list of west coast locations and said pick from 1 to 5 where you want to "play" rabbi this September for high holidays and then to visit once a month. These are all congregations that operate without a rabbi three weeks out of the month and welcome the opportunity to have a student from my seminary come to lead services and offer some 'rabbinic leadership' one weekend a month and for high holidays. Me, a rabbi? A congregation looking to me to lead them in prayer and spiritual guidance...even if just for high holidays and once a month..its for real now I suppose.

Actually, during our professional forum when the three deans stood up to offer their take on the Reform Jewish movement and also the role we are to play moving forward as future leaders of that movement really gave a taste of the culture of the campuses we are going to next year. I guess when my dean got up and started talking about how we should be looking at our tradition and the religious practices we come from and reinterpreting them so that we are still honoring that tradition but with meaning I knew Los Angeles was the place for me. For example...why not put a mezzuzah on every door in your home...and think about what you can put inside that may NOT be the traditional prayer but still have meaning...a picture your child drew on their bredroom door...Song of Songs, an excerpt from the Tanakh that is among the most romantic and intimate poems from our scripture on the doorpost of the master bedroom...a blessing for peace on your front door. Why not reinterpret our tradition...not throw it out...but rearrange it to bring personal meaning to us.

My sister always tells me that her friends who have known me since they were little can't believe I am going to be a rabbi...afterall...I was the wild and crazy older sister...always on the move..always going to some show in some other state...running away to marathon in other countries...throwing parties that once they were old enough to come to they still sat to the side observing the outlandish personalities of my friends, the most incredible friends a girl could ask for. I got in trouble for teaching my sister and her best friends all of the 'bad words' when we were playing school at a young age, telling them they needed to learn how to spell every word because it would be on a spelling test I would provide them with later. We still laugh to this day about when my mom walked in and saw a chalkboard covered with curse words and my sister and her best friend sitting in their makeshift desks trying hard to memorize the words that Ms. Big Sister was teaching...

I guess I've always been some sort of teacher...but maybe my days of teaching curse words have been replaced with trying to find new and innovative ways to teach a tradition that, at face value, may sometimes feel alien to 2007 but can probably be tweaked and made to enhance our lives if we take the time to do so.

So, with my months here winding down and as I start to look forward to bringing my experience and my first year of studies home I am thinking about how I am going to embody my studies and all my thoughts as I move into my studies stateside. Luckily, the west coast mentality and the west coast campus of my school encourage individuality, innovation and exploration but with authenticity. I'm trying to envision how to bring bits of Jerusalem, a place where whether you are prepared or not, Shabbas roles in right on time every Friday afternoon, and take them with me and bring them into my life...not in a way that causes me to feel like I am choosing between the life I lef to to come here and what I've found here but in a way that makes me feel like I can intergrate and embody my experience...and enjoy it in the company of others...shabbat dinner with some guitars and drumming on a Friday night...a night to relax after a long week of work. Planting trees in honor of Tu-B-Shvat and maybe getting together a group of ladies at the beginning of every month in honor of Rosh Hodesh (new month) to be in the company of strong and dedicated women and appreciate the time together...fueling our feminine energy and being surrounded by women we admire.

So...thoughts of interpreting...of spicing it up...of tropical shabbat and finger paintings inside your mezzuzah are stirring my mind during these Jerusalem days. Last night at the reggae show I turned to my buddy and told him the set up of the venue was what I wanted my shul to look like. Somehow everytime I walk into a concert setting I realize that the energy that fills the room in such a setting is the same type of energy that I know is possible in connecting with the spiritual side...this particular venue was set up in a way that had ample room to sit and socialie outside the stage area. You then walk into a room with the stage set up, a more than decent amount of room to dance and stadium seating set up in a colliseum manner around the stage for those who may want to sit down or stand up only for part of the performance. The reggae band taked the stage minus the lead singer and the bassist lays down a beat that gets people moving, dancing a little bit, smiling, anticipation building for the moment in which the main event would begin. As the room heats up and everyone is 'jammin' to the music...U-Roy...a man in his 60's dressed in a bright yellow Zoot suit, dreadlocks tucked back behind his black hat with a red, green and yellow feather takes the stage and says... "Jerusalem...the holy land...my whole life I've been wanting to come to Jerusalem...and here I come to Jerusalem to bring you music...in peace I come and in love I come...and I come to make you dance...to bring you positive light and to enjoy the positive light you bring to me..." I turn to Ariel and I tell him...just you watch...you might think I'm mocking...but my shul will jam out just like this...afterall, isn't the goal of the synogauge to bring people together to connect to eachother and to God (or Jah...or wahtever your notion of the divine is) and to be with eachother and embrace a tradition and a peoplehood with vibrancy...spice it up.

Its time to go take the pineapple salsa out of the fridge and mix it with the brown sugar and ginger marinade that will go on top of the tilapia that we bought at the shuk this morning. There is a different bond you feel with your food when you have to stare it in the eye before you cook it and eat it..oh how I sometimes miss the luxuries of the seafood counter at Giant. And with that...Shabbat Shalom...all my love.