Second Meltdown in Nine Years

Yom rishon, 16 Shevat 5777.

Dear Lady in the Audience: Thank you for publicly reminding me how stupid I am. Love, Every Olah Chadasha in the Audience with You

When I arranged to attend the concert, I really didn't expect to understand anything. I was just looking forward to a night of good music by a really cute and talented duo.

Because there are a lot of Anglos in the community that hosted the event, the musicians asked if they should speak between songs in Hebrew or in English. An overwhelming segment of the audience requested English. Though I didn't vote, I was relieved. There was hope I would understand something, which would add to my appreciation of the performance. Perhaps they would say a little about each song, thereby giving me a "hook" upon which to hang my efforts at translation...

But halfway through her first statement, the delightful young artist was shouted down by the all-too-familiar refrain: "Rak b'Ivrit! Anachnu biYisrael!" (Only in Hebrew. We're in Israel.) The small but intimidating band of possibly Israelis from birth but more likely olim vatikim persuaded the young lady to switch back to Hebrew. I tried vainly through the evening to understand more than a word here and a word there -- but as usual, I didn't get the jokes, and didn't understand much of anything else, within the mostly Hebrew songs and their accompanying explanations.

I worked hard to get past this, to no avail. Of course, the shouter was correct. We live in Israel, we should speak Hebrew. God knows, I'm trying, with many ulpanim under my belt, and with four hours a week with study partners, as well as independent study throughout the week. I'm getting better, l'at, l'at, but enough fluency to understand people speaking faster than the Pimsleur lady is still an oasis shimmering far off on the desert sand. At nearly 60, I have to admit that the fact that my sons are all fluent and many of my grandchildren will be fully bilingual may be the most pride I will attain in this wonderful but oh-so-foreign tongue.

I listened to the songs, tried to interpret lyrics and sweetly-worded commentary, and finally tried to relax my jaw while I mentally penned a "love note" to the shouter.

Dear Israeli Lady or Olah Vatikah:

While you are of course correct, I am guessing that living in this town, you either have passable English, or are more likely a person who came from an English-speaking country when you were 30 or younger, and managed to immerse yourself in this beautiful language, and got it. Kol hakavod to you! I am duly impressed.

But would it have harmed you in any way to let those of us in the audience -- who struggle daily to understand our phone bills, arnona notices, bituach leumi reminders, even our grocery bills -- to have even a partial comprehension of what you probably could have understood in both languages? And even if you are Israeli, and struggle with English, couldn't we have split the difference -- you understanding the song lyrics, and me understanding the commentary in between?

Thanks for reminding me that I'm too stupid to accomplish what you so proudly did.

I have to say that I was so depressed by the ordeal, I thought briefly of calling my various chavrutot and saying "Let's give up. It's not working."

Briefly. Because even though it is still a struggle, even though I don't know if I'll ever "get" this language entirely -- I am getting better all the time. I can make myself understood, even though we have to often potchky together the conversation with bits of Hebrew and English and body language. If someone has something important to impart, I know how to ask them to slow down, to speak to me as if I were a child (meaning that they should leave out all the extra words, and cut to the chase). It delights me that as we try to communicate in Hebrew, many Israelis discover that their high-school English isn't as bad as they thought it was. We work it out, in two languages.

My mood was rescued near the end of the performance when one of the singers was thanking us. She ended by thanking in English those of us "who didn't understand anything we said tonight." I appreciated her acknowledgment. And then she did an even sweeter thing, by finishing with a song that said it all: a lovely and heartfelt rendition of a song by Jason Mraz with the line "We've got a lot to learn, but God knows we're worth it." I felt validated, and embraced. As if she were saying, "It's okay, Aunties and Uncles. I know you're trying. Don't give up. I hear you."

I bless all of us that we will have the brain cells and pertinacity to keep trying, and to have people around us who remind us that we are improving, slowly, slowly. I bless us further that we will always retain the humanity to remember with kindness and patience those who are struggling to climb whatever pinnacle we ourselves have managed to surmount.

Glossary:
Olah Chadasha: new (female) immigrant (male would be oleh chadash)
Anglos: English speakers
Olim vatikim: veteran immigrants; immigrants who've been here for a fairly long time
Ulpanim: Hebrew language classes, the best of which are Hebrew study in almost exclusively Hebrew
L'at, l'at: slowly, slowly -- what every comforting Israeli says about every immigrant's efforts at the language
Pimsleur: a very patient style of study that builds comprehension syllable by syllable
Arnona and Bituach Le'umi: Don't ask until you live here. Once you do, you'll understand. Taxes and insurance.
Chavrutot: One-on-one study sessions (chavrusas in America)
Potchky: probably Yiddish for sticking together haphazardly, hodgepodge
Mraz: I haven't a clue where that name comes from, or if it's an actual word -- but he writes pretty songs

Where Do You Start: Thoughts on the Road to Aliyah

Yom shishi, 24 Av 5769.


Michelle and Marty Gordon will be making aliyah in September.  I haven't had the pleasure of meeting them yet; but Michelle's words to their Washington D.C. congregation suggest to me that we will be friends.  I hope to be privileged to meet her, as she leaves her Nefesh B'Nefesh flight, and enters her new Homeland.  Finally!  (And I thought waiting sixteen years was long...)

One of the best things about having your own blog is that you can choose what to publish.  A friend here in my yishuv thought I would appreciate Michelle's dvar Torah, sent to Shauna by a friend of a friend of a friend of hers.  (Thanks, Shauna.)  

I think you will enjoy it, too.  


"Where do you start?"  I was asked by a fellow congregant of this shul.  That’s a great question.  Where did I start on our road to aliyah that will, B"H, lead Marty and me to begin our new lives in Jerusalem in less than one month from now.


I could tell the congregant about how we opened our tik aliyah, our aliyah file, one year ago.  Or how we’ve been shoveling out twenty-six years of flotsam and jetsam from our house so we can fit into a small Rehavia apartment.  Or how my head is filled with practical details like shipping quotes, rental agents and property managers.  And how I’ve  attended seminars and webinars on employment, ulpans and healthcare.  Like a kid packing for sleep-away camp for the rest of my life, I’ve been stockpiling my favorite American brands of deodorant, dental floss and hand lotion.

But, that’s not the real answer to the question, "Where do you start?"

My start was thirty years ago when I first went to Israel on a year-program called WUJS -- World Union of Jewish Students.  I remember waking up the morning after my arrival, in the middle of a chamsin -- a hot desert wind -- and feeling the thin film of gritty Negev sand on the windowsill of my absorption center apartment. "What was I thinking?" I said to myself.  "How am I going to stay in this country for a whole year?"  But I stayed. For sixteen months.  Those were the days before cell phones, when you had to make an international call from a pay phone that ate up your asimonim, your phone tokens, almost as fast as you could put them in.  The taxi drivers would wax poetic about the virtues of America!, the Grand Canyon!, Niagra Falls! and their cousin Moishe who lives in L.A.  But before I’d get out of the cab they’d turn to me and say, "You stay here, live in Israel, join us."  I fell hopelessly in love with the country.  Even the most mundane tasks -- going to the grocery store, doing the laundry -- were somehow elevated just because they were being done in Israel. I feel different when I’m in Israel. I feel completely whole.  It’s a feeling that cannot be replicated anywhere else.  And so I never recovered from those sixteen months.  I never forgot how incredibly blessed we are to be living in this period of history where we have the privilege -- and the ability -- to return to the land.  Yes we can!

By the time I returned to the States in 1980, my aliyah dream was born.  And as our own Rav Shmuel said, in last year’s Rosh Hashana sermon, "You can’t have a dream come true, if you don’t have a dream in the first place."

For close to thirty years, I have not forgotten my dream.  I did not let weeds grow around my dream.  I tended it, watered it and pulled out the dead leaves.  I watched it grow and flower.  And in recent years, our daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, already living in Israel, have added to the magnetic force that has been pulling me eastward for all these decades.

So, back to the question, "Where do you start?"  With a dream. But not only a dream.  A dream must also have a plan. Too often people say that they will follow their dream "someday."  But "someday" will eventually become "never," without a plan.  It takes a very strong force to turn "someday" to "today."

Do you remember your high school physics?  The second law of thermodynamics?  Inertia.  It states: a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force.  In the case of aliyah from our cushy, comfortable lives in America, this inertia must broken by a determined internal force.  It was so tempting to continue our lives here with our chevra, our mishpocha, and our warm community.  And it will be sad to leave.

But we cannot be two places at once.  And so we will go forth, Lech Lecha, on a new adventure, to a land that reverberates with tangible spirituality, and we will leave behind our familiar comfort zone.   We’ve had to lighten up for the journey.  We don’t need a lot to live a spiritually fulfilling life.  In fact, it is our over-abundance of possessions that weighs us down.   In ridding ourselves of that which holds us down, we are free to flow like water in a stream.

Last November, Marty and I were on a bus near the Dead Sea when we witnessed flash floods in the Negev.  The rains had started suddenly, the forceful water mixing with the brown dunes looked like chocolate milk spurting, streaming out of every crevice in the rock face. It was a powerful sight.  Someone grabbed the bus microphone and lead us in singing "Shir Hama’alot" where we say "Shuva... et Sheveteina, ka’afikim b’Negev" -- "Bring us from exile as the streams return to the Negev."  

Ka’afikim b’Negev.

I want to be part of the streams of exiles, returning from the diaspora. It is a miracle in our time.

On September 7th, when Marty and I board a charter flight at JFK, filled with North American olim chadashim, new immigrants to Israel, we will become a part of the prophetic ingathering of exiles, the "Kibutz Galuyot." It is the answer to the prayer we say every time we recite the amida: "She ta’ah’laynu bsimcha l’artzetu, v’tee’ tah’einu b’gvul’aynu."  "Bring us up in gladness to our land, and plant us within our boundaries."

Flash flood photo by Dani Landes

The eagle has landed, bringing more of my brothers Home.

Yom shlishi, 15 Tamuz 5769.

Our friend Yarden has written another fine and heartfelt post on his blog, Crossing the Yarden.  He gave me the honor of agreeing to be a guest here.  If you didn't get to farewell the new olim on the North American side of the world, or greet them on the Israeli side, you can still catch a little of the Nefesh B'Nefesh aliyah fever by watching the recording at http://www.nbn.org.il/live/.

Dear Eric and Laurie,

So now you know.

No matter how much I try and explain what it is like emotionally for
those of us who have made aliyah, it is a hopeless task. In the end,
it is only those who step off the plane with an “Oleh” sticker on
their shirt and a exhausted but happy smile on their faces that can
ever truly comprehend the Aliyah experience.

You have left your homes, your jobs, your friends, and your family
for….. Well that’s just it. You know in full detail what you have left
but you cannot have anything more than a vague concept of what you are
getting. You have a vision and have followed your dream, but tomorrow
you open your eyes and see the reality.

What are these details? What will your life be like?

You will marvel that the Kotel, the holiest site in Judaism for
thousands of years is just a short car ride away. You will be
frustrated when you try and translate “taco shells” into Hebrew at the
supermarket. You will be filled with pride when your children sing
Hatikva on Yom Hatzmaut, and will be at a loss when you need to get
your car through the annual inspection process. Your children will
delight in racing around a kosher food court in a mall, and you will
wonder how on Earth everyone you know lives in “minus.”

You will scream, and cry, and grasp each other when you hear the
terrible news that is a tragic part of life here. You will be filled
with rage from top to bottom when you watch Israel’s enemies act like
human beings on television. And you will be filled with an almost
inexplicable joy every time you see a young Israeli man or woman
wearing the green of the Israeli Defense Forces.

You will have fierce arguments with friends and neighbors over
anything and everything in the news. And you will end up feeling
closer to them than friends and neighbors can ever feel. You will
laugh, cry, joke, and lean on them because that’s how Israelis get
through things, be they wonderful or terrible.

Many leaders of the world, in a sincere but naïve attempt to create
“peace,” say Jewish settlement in the heartland of Israel is not
legitimate. They will look at you and your children and label you
“obstacles to peace.” The “experts” on the Sunday news shows will try
and explain how your desire to live over the “Green Line” is the moral
equivalent of the desire of others to do you harm.
But even Presidents and experts are without a clue when it comes to
the desire of Jews to return to the  places that our ancestors were
forced out of thousand of years ago.

What you did today was not just a move. Your decision to build a home
and a life for you and your children and one day grandchildren is a
message that is heard around the world. The ongoing return of the
Jewish people to the Jewish national home cannot be stopped. And you
and your children are a part of this amazing revolution.

And maybe four years from now, you will be working in front of a
computer one morning. You will have forgotten the joy and exhaustion
of your aliyah day and be more preoccupied with paying the mortgage
and deciding what to make for dinner. Then you will take a break and
watch a live arrival ceremony at Ben Gurian airport, and the tears
will roll as you watch a few hundred more happy and clueless new
immigrants walk off a plane and onto the beautiful roller coaster that
is life in the nation of Israel.

To Eric, Laurie, and all the other Olim,

You made it. Welcome home.

Yarden Frankl, Neve Daniel, Israel

And if you still have room for a bit more vicarious aliyah, check out my friend Romi Sussman's blog post for today at Sussmans b'Aretz.  And for fans of the book, MOVING UP: An Aliyah Journal, word has it that Laura Ben David will be greeting TWO of her sisters on this flight with a very special sign.
Bli ayin hara, puh-puh-puh.  Kein yirbu.

Tikkun Leil Gridiron

Yom sheni, 8 Shevat 5769.

There are two quiet, holy mornings each year, that are really just for women.

The more kadosh of the two is Shavu'ot.  

In many communities, the men and older boys have spent the entire night learning Torah for Tikkun Leil Shavu'ot, a night of perfecting the world through the holiness of constant learning.  This custom derives, we are taught, from the need to "repair the damage done" by the Israelites sleeping the night before the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai.  (The argument is that when one is about to receive the greatest gift mankind has ever received, he should sit up all night in anticipation.  An argument in response is that sleep is the first refuge of the utterly terrified...)  In any case, the men and boys learn until the wee small hours of the morning, in gatherings at people's homes, or at shul.  Then, the weary soldiers daven the early morning prayers, and drag their spiritual swords and shields home, where they indulge in a few hours of well-earned rest.

The town is absolutely quiet, filled with a special aura that exists only in a world free of adult testosterone.  Small children people the streets, giving the community a Lilliputian feel.  Soft voices of women fill the air, chatting quietly, singing, laughing softly.  It is a world inhabited only by women and children.

It is a few months' time until Shavu'ot, with its particular sweetness.

This morning I am enjoying the other, less-holy "women-and-little-ones day."  This morning is the quiet, man-free morning known of as "Super Bowl Monday."  Who would have thought that the American Super Bowl would follow us to Israel?  (The only difference is that, while in America, the kickoff is around 6:30 PM EST, in Israel, game time is at 1:30 in the morning.  Imagine spicy chicken wings and chili at 3 AM!)

As the last warrior came home, a huge smile on his face, as he anticipated hours of sleep, I remarked on the similarity between the two days.  "Feels like Shavu'ot, doesn't it?"  I asked him.  "Yeah," he answered, his six-foot-plus teenage frame stretching into a big, satisfied full-body yawn.  "Except less kadosh," I added.

"Whadaya mean?" he asked.  "I just got back from making a siyum with the guys I learn with.  We just finished our first perek in Brachot.  After I finished davening."

"Yasher koach!"  I responded, proud that he hadn't immersed himself only in the secular.

"Besides.  Ema.  It's the Super Bowl.  C'mon.  That's kedusha."  Fortunately, this profane comment was uttered tongue in cheek, as he wandered off to his bed.

Ahhhh.  Quiet.  Blessed femininity.  The birds even seem to be singing more sweetly.

Now if we could just train those Arab workmen on the roof next door to take up the holy study of American football...       

(Sexism disclaimer:  It may be that there are secret enclaves of female football fans out there, wearily making their way back to their beds after a night of popcorn, chips, and insult-hurling at Sling Box TV hookups.  I just didn't notice the ad in the online chat list.)

Glossary:
kadosh:  holy
Shavu'ot:  holiday observing the giving of the Torah
siyum:  completion of the study of a holy text
perek:  chapter
Brachot:  one of the books of the Talmud
Yasher koach!:  Way to go! 

***  Two important links:  Haveil Havalim, The "Did You Love Leah?" Edition, is out at Ima on (and off) the Bima.  And West Bank Mama has put together a roundup of commentary on the Gaza War by new immigrants to Israel.  ***