The I is in Israel

I spent six weeks in Israel the summer of 2009. It was one of the most amazing and definitive experiences of my life and served as the perfect bridge from homeschool and Hebrew school to college. One of our writing assignments near the end was to write about what it means to be Jewish. A lot of people despised it, many of us knew it was coming, and I just sat in the computer lab until it was finished.

No matter, as a prelude to the assignment, we were asked to walk around an area of Tel Aviv where we were visiting for the day and see what people living in Israel considered Jewish. We went up and down the streets in small groups. We walked to a cafe. We walked past soldiers. We sat down with some modern Orthodox Jews. It was exciting, yet nerve-wracking approaching strangers in a strange land (alright, it wasn’t that strange, but I’m naturally quiet, so it was surely an exercise in extroversion!). And then, with our classes, we sat down. And then they dumped it on us.

The essay doesn’t stand as my best example of writing (in rereading it, I feel it lacks an air of sophistication about its coherence and structure), but it reflected my evolving views on Judaism and being Jewish at the time, and for that, it did what was intended of it. I hadn’t ever had the intention of sharing it at the time, at least with none other than our teacher, and since length wasn’t it issue, it ended up becoming a fair bit longer than the bit I posted yesterday. So, without further ado, I present to you the essay I called “Recon.”

(Short for “reconfirmation,” of course.)

Bring Out the Bling

There’s something ironic to everything, and I think one of ironies of my life is that everything I say I’m not, I become. For example, I’ve never considered myself one for jewelry, and yet I find I wear more now than I ever had before–period. The funny part is, when I forget to put on my watch, or when I lost my Equality Ring in the car one day, I felt a part of my identity had slipped away. It was like missing a breath and knowing your lungs aren’t as full as they should be–but that breath is already gone and you can never bring it back.

So, although I’m sure it’s an odd thing to say (especially coming from one such as myself, who frequently must refer to dictionaries to divine the meaning of slang), today I’m thankful for bling.

A Family Theme

This morning was the second “Shababa” at the religious school where I teach. It’s a new experiment this year, having “Shabbat school” one weekend every month or so instead of having school on Sunday. So far I’ve enjoyed them; they’re different, but unique and a pleasant experience for the teachers and students alike.

Today I had the honor of giving the d’var Torah, which in Hebrew means “words on the Torah.” It’s comparable to a sermon, except it’s not preaching, it’s teaching. See, Jews don’t proselytize–we perseverate. And with all our perseverative studying, it’s only natural to share it with others (studying the Torah is itself a commandment).

In any case, though short and sweet and written with a younger audience in mind, I thought I may as well share the drash here for anyone who may wish to read it.

Occupy America

It’s been a while since I wrote my last post. I was hesitant to post it before I got my grade back in case I had miswritten or misrepresented anything in composing the piece. I appreciate facts. I want to make sure I’ve got all of mine in order before I say anything. This is simple in op-eds and fiction. Not so simple in journalism. It’s why I want to be a novelist not a newspaper headliner.

My point is, Occupy is still around. It’s still as relevant today as it was then–and perhaps even more so because it’s still there and it’s spread further still. Their position has gotten clearer although their leadership remains sparse, and news reports abound with both the good and the bad. I remember the morning after I submitted my paper I saw a clip on the news about the protests at Wall Street: Not only did they have free yoga classes in the middle of the park, they had a library composed of hundreds of books that Occupants had brought by. There were groups to go around collecting trash and recycling and there was a breakfast served for everyone there.

It seemed peaceful. Like a picnic.

But the principles were still there.

I is for It Gets Better

Back while I still pondering over what H is for, I felt I was for Invincible. I said to myself, being open, being confident, being who you are, makes you invincible, makes you impervious, makes you incredible. I felt of sharing: When I’m afraid, when I don’t think I can go on, I surround myself with positive things–with thoughts of my friends, thoughts of the great people in whose presence I stand, of the glory of God imbuing everything there is with his light and his love, and then I feel invincible and I can go on.

Last week, I began to wonder if I really is for invincible. Instead, I began to think I is for Individual. I felt of sharing: There is no greater bliss than of knowing who you are, all your faults, all your foibles, all your fortes. To understand what goes on inside is to make you impenetrable, insightful, indivisible. To feel, nay, to know what is hidden beneath your exterior, that part of us that we so often wrongly equate the entirely of “I”, is to open doors and possibilities and events that otherwise would remain lost forever. To be an Individual is perhaps among the greatest gift God has ever given us.

Today, although both of these statements stand true and always will–I am Invincible, I am Individual–I know that they are not all I is worth. I is worth a wealth of ideas, a well of inspiration, a river of incentive. I spoke the other night with a wonderful man, a man of whose nature and build I did not think even God could have crafted, and it made realize, in that strange way that unrelated events inspire worlds of difference, in the way that butterflies in Africa incite hurricanes in America, that I is well worth so much more than all of this.

Scents and Sensibilities

“Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you,” sings Alanis Morissette in her hit song Ironic, “when you think everything’s okay and everything’s going right.” Had I remembered this lovely little factoid, I might have decided to start my weekly reading of the Pirkey Avot next week instead of last.

See, it started with a tiny little thing. An ant. But since there’s never just one, there had to be hundreds. (On the bright side, they definitely are not termites, so that’s a small blessing amidst this whole thing.) And since normal cleaning and trails of cinnamon (a panacea of past problems) failed to feature vibrant successes, we knew we were in for a deeper clean. Who knew deeper would also mean darker.

Ten Reasons to be Me

Humorous
I don’t always try to be funny, but I do tend to bring a little life to the party. Which is odd, seeing as how introverted I am inside, but I think in a way that’s the logic life demands: Those who don’t fight nor flee, resort to humor. My comedy isn’t always your cup of tea, but I’m bound to make everyone smile once in a while–even if you’re just smiling cause you proved me wrong when you didn’t smile. Oh, wait. You’re smiling now, aren’t you?

Kind
One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received was now the summer before last on my trip to Israel. One of the other guys in my group was a little uncomfortable, being around the first real gay guy he ever knew, but the night before we all left, he told me he was really glad he’d gotten to know me because I was one of the nicest guys he’d ever met. That made my trip even more memorable than before.

Friendly
I’m horrible to keep in touch with, but it seems everyone wants me too–in only a little more than a year in school, I’ve met more people and made more connections than I thought were possible. Perhaps there are those who have more friends than I do, but it truly is quality over quantity here.

Israel vs. the US

Class: SOC 210 Intro. to Sociology

Topic: Society and Culture

Grade: 125/125

Date: September, 2009

Cultural Differences in the United States and Israel

This past summer I spent six week studying abroad in Israel. Although I had not foreseen this assignment then, three weeks of Sociology classes have given me the ability to look back upon my conversations in Israel and evaluate them not merely in the context of students and counselors but also in the context of people from different cultures meeting for the first time. Early in my trip it was hard to distinguish different cultures on the campus where I stayed, surrounded mostly by other Americans in my predominantly Jewish group, but as the program went on and I interacted with more Israelis and observed their customs, I came to discover many viewpoints commonly held by Israelis that are not as commonly held by Americans.

One of the first differences I came across was the fact that the Jewish subculture in Israel is not subcultural at all, but on the contrary quite mainstream. Judaic shops lined the streets in every city I visited, Hasidic Jews in heavy suits and dresses were no uncommon sight even in temperatures above ninety degrees Fahrenheit, and most restaurants had signs proclaiming that they served only kosher food. At the same time, however, the breadth of Judaism in Israel also surprised me. Here in North Carolina, I belong to a Conservative synagogue where most people practice Judaism in similar ways, observing the same Jewish holidays and rituals and generally dressing up to attend services. In Israel, however, many people viewed Judaism much more casually, and one woman I spoke with even went so far as to say she only kept Jewish by living in Israel. Additionally, I was quite surprised when I attended Orthodox services in Jerusalem wearing jeans and a collared t-shirt—and wasn’t the only one dressed so casually! Of the few times I experienced culture shock in Israel, that was among the most memorable.

Another difference between American and Israeli cultures is their respective views on the environment. Americans generally disregard the environment and its needs, often using disposable household goods without considering the consequences. Israelis, on the other hand, tend to be much more environmentally conscious. My counselor Yigal was especially active in promoting recycling on our campus, helping us to sort all of our recyclable goods into appropriate bins and then emptying them frequently. Once one of my classmates told him that she had never recycled batteries before, and his surprise was clearly evident when his eyes widened and he was taken aback for a moment. Yigal explained to us that he was not the only Israeli concerned with the environment, that due to Israel’s small size and limited land resources, the threat of trash piling up and taking over usable land space is on every Israeli’s mind.

Judaism and environmentalism are both examples of material and non-material elements of culture, from the physical (tallit and tefillin; recycling bins) to the immaterial (religious values and respect for the environment), but they are certainly not the only examples of differences between American and Israeli cultures: Israel’s predominant language is Hebrew, which differs from English not only in non-material ways (the words we speak) but also in material ways (Hebrew has its own alphabet and is even written from right to left, the opposite of English).

Israeli food also differs greatly from American food and is a prime example of Israel’s material culture: Instead of macaroni and cheese and pizza, Israel has falafel (crushed chick peas seasoned and fried) and shawarma (meat, usually lamb, cooked on a rotisserie and shaved off to be served), both of which are eaten in pitas like many Middle Eastern dishes, and instead of cakes and pies, Israel has baklava (a layered pastry filled with nuts and syrup or honey) and knaffe (vermicelli-like pastry over sweetened cream cheese covered in syrup) for desserts.

Because Israeli culture is so ingrained with Jewish culture, it was often difficult for me to distinguish between the two. This leant me a more culturally relativistic viewpoint than I might have had in other parts of the world as I was able to look at certain aspects of Israeli culture (such as most shops closing on Shabbat, or the public celebration of Jewish holidays) without being unaware of why such practices are observed (you’re not supposed to work on the Sabbath, for example). There were still times, however, when I did feel especially ethnocentric, such as when teenagers were freely able to buy cigarettes or when, while going through airport security on our way home, we neither had to remove our shoes or have liquids over three ounces confiscated. My being so accustomed to the opposite of such practices in America, I couldn’t help but be taken aback when I saw the norms of my culture completely ignored in theirs. Of course, there were also elements of our culture that some Israelis found odd: Yigal, for example, could not understand the pairing of chocolate and peanut butter that is so popular in the United States.

Perhaps one of the biggest differences between Israeli and American cultures is also a perfect example of how social context shapes our personal decisions. For example, it was my decision to begin college after finishing High School; however, if I were living in Israel, I would not have had the option of going to college after High School but would have joined the army instead, as is mandatory for most citizens in Israel. Yigal, like my three other Israeli counselors, had gone through his army service before our trip and had only just been accepted to college near the time our program ended. What would surprise most Americans even more is that Yigal is already twenty-four, six years older than the expected age of eighteen to start college in the US.

In conclusion, it is now clear to see how two cultures, even when united by common factors, such as religion, can differ extensively in both the material and non-material ways that define them as cultures not just locally, but also globally.

The Other Olympics

This was one of the first essays I had to write for my my first semester in college. Therefore, I find it’s only fitting that it’s the first essay I post here. The topics of my essays vary widely, from personal to political to special interest and beyond, but I’m sure there’ll be something that’ll interest almost anyone in most of my essays. This first one happens to center around sports and patriotism/nationalism, but to make things simpler for casual readers leisurely perusing the blog, I’ll organise all essays written for school according to class, assignment, and grade, as well as date and topic (ordered by tags).

Class: ENG 111 Expository Writing

Assignment: Write a narrative essay about a remembered event.

Grade: 95/100 (A)

Date: September, 2009

The Other Olympics

The stands are packed with waiting fans, men and women forced to the edges of their seats poised with cameras and waving flags in their hands. People from seventy countries have converged for the start of a sporting event that occurs only once every four years. The athletes will come to the field, the President and Prime Minister will speak, the torch will be lit, and the games will begin.

Not in Turin, Italy. Not in Beijing, China. But in Ramat Gan, Israel.

 

Our buses left campus after dinner. A group of more than eighty teenagers from around the US attending a six-week High School program in Israel, we occupied ourselves by playing truth or dare and listening to music, all the while the fact that we were headed to a once-in-a-lifetime experience seeming to elude us, floating just overhead while we talked and laughed.

When we arrived, none of us had quite expected to be there. We’d come to Israel to study its history and to experience its culture, to learn about Judaism and our own history, but none of us had foreseen this. None of us had known we’d be attending the opening ceremonies of the eighteenth Maccabiah, the Maccabbi Games, the Jewish equivalent of the Olympics.

We wound our way through the parking lot towards the gate, all of us wearing matching t-shirts to not lose ourselves in the crowd. Gate seventeen greeted us with a grin, opening its mouth wide as we passed through security one-by-one, our counselors handing us our tickets as we waited to go in. Just inside the gates, smiling ushers passed out programs and miniature Israeli flags to wave in the stands. We climbed the stairs towards our seats and at the top, I staggered forward in surprise, awed by the crater I’d come upon, rows upon rows of chairs carved into its sides and filled with hundreds, if not thousands of people in the stadium. A mile away, a massive stage had been erected, surrounded by colossal video screens broadcasting the entire show. I shook myself from my stupor and found my seat, next to Carrie and Logan, two of my classmates on the trip. While the dusk deepened and we waited for the show to begin, we talked about anything that came to mind and waited less and less patiently for nightfall to come.

At last a hush fell over the stadium and our conversation was cut short. A cheer broke the air as white lights rolled out of the darkness and a parade of bicycles pedaled around the field below, their wheels alight and dazzling as their performance started the show. A dozen camera flashes sparked in the stands like the fluttering stars in the sky above. When the bicycles had wheeled their way off the field, the announcers found their place on the stage and began speaking, first in Hebrew, then in English, then in languages I didn’t even recognize, as they welcomed everyone to the eighteenth Maccabiah. Moments later, the screens behind them came alive as they called the first country’s name and their athletes began to enter the stadium. Everyone clapped, more stars came alive and died in the darkness as people took pictures of their approach, and the first country was joined by a second, and a third, and by the time the fourth one came, Carrie was asking how much longer till it would end. I laughed and told her it goes by faster on TV. Logan agreed and said at least while watching TV we could do other things.

Canada, Columbia, France—Macedonia, Lithuania, Estonia—we cheered for all the countries as their athletes entered, sometimes surprised that there were enough Jews in these unheard of lands that they could be represented here. Argentina, Uruguay, Greece—Jewish athletes from all over the world, and they kept coming and coming.

Once more the stadium fell silent and the announcers called out, “The United States of America.” We leapt up from our seats, jumping and cheering and snapping pictures like crazed paparazzi. We pounded our fists in the air and hollered, “USA! USA!” Even after the thousand athletes had found their place on the field, even after the next country and the next after that had been introduced, we continued to cheer. We cheered until our throats were sore, and as we collapsed back into our seats, I felt a sudden change in myself. I thought back to my home in North Carolina and realized that I had never felt more a part of the US than I did right then. I’d always been a part of a smaller faction, my family, my synagogue, my town, my state, but not until then had I seen myself as a part of my country, loving my country as a whole.

Carrie complained again how long it was taking, and I yawned in my seat next to her, thinking the same thing. Then we saw a white and blue-striped flag enter from the far left of the field and a rush of static ran through the stadium. Before the announcers even had a chance to speak, everyone jumped up and cheered, clapping for our homeland as Israel’s flag marched across the field. Not just the eighty of us from America, or the small group from Spain sitting behind us, or the Australians a few rows down, but all of us, the entire stadium cheering not just for the homeland of native Israelis, but the promised land for all of us, Jews from seventy countries come home to share solidarity through sportsmanship. My connection to Israel grew deeper as the cheering went on, my love of the land grew stronger as the flags waved in the air and thousands of people shared a single moment of connection, a single moment that transcended language and culture and history, and brought us together as a unified people.

Carrie asked, “Is it over yet?” and even before I could answer, the first torch-runner was introduced and began dashing around the field. The torch changed hands twice, a third time to a man in a wheelchair, and then once more to a man at the base of the stairs. He dashed upwards and we turned to watch, lifting our heads as he touched the flame to the altar and the offering burst upward toward heaven, the eighteenth Maccabiah underway, the games begun.

On the bus ride back to our campus in Hod HaSharon, we were quiet and withdrawn. The darkness didn’t lend itself to gameplay, and our voices were still hoarse from all our cheering, our bodies exhausted just the same. Inside, though, I was discovering myself again, going over the scenes once more, reliving that feeling I’d never felt before, that connection not just to a community, but to a kingdom, a new connection to both my homeland and my home.

The End of the Decade

In this final look at the last decade, everything comes full circle and my tale is finally told.

2008: The year my life ended (and simultaneously began)

I graduated from high school in May. I’d been homeschooled my entire life, and ergo I was the valedictorian by default. I had to write my speech five times before I settled upon something worthwhile that I actually liked. I had a small ceremony, only my family and a couple of friends. That’s not to say my schooling was finished, however; on the contrary, I continued to study mathematics and now also Hebrew. My love of the latter kept me interested in the language of God, but it was my love of physics and my intention to major in the field upon starting college that made me know I had to understand mathematics to a degree I never had before. Unintentionally along the way, I began to enjoy applied mathematics, but decided I could never be a physicist: although I’d come to like math, I could never make it through calculus.

The day before my graduation ceremony, I had my confirmation, during which I read Torah and gave a speech about what being Jewish meant to me. It took five rewrites to find something that was personal enough to be meaningful but general enough to be understood by the masses. In the end, I said being Jewish meant teaching and learning from everyone. In a way, that’s still what it means to me, but it now means so much more than just that. Perhaps I’ll elaborate some day.

I participated in NaNoWriMo again this November, reaching conclusions I could only draw through my characters, but it was in October that my life ended and a new soul was born: I’d been torn in two for years, one half Jewish, the other half gay, and this year at Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement, the holiest day for all Jews—that chasm inside me was crushed and my two halves became whole in the most inharmonious collision at all possible. A gay Jew? It was unheard of—it simply could not exist! I stared toward the ark as the Torah was read, standing there, torn from God and sent asunder, and upon the parchment in my mind wrote the words of the day:

An abhorrence, you called it, this thing I call love
but you gave it to me, my creator
I stare at the gates as they swing shut above
I’ll repent for this sooner or later

I cried to sleep that night, when finally I was able to calm myself for sleep. But at the same time, the pain showed me the path to healing. I found people I could talk with, and I talked, and I researched, and I found patches to cover my wounds and strings with which to sew them shut. Not all the time could they keep the blood in, but no longer was the spiritual bleeding profuse. I could breathe again, and with every breath, I became closer the ultimate truth I now sought.

2009: The year that changed everything (for the last time)

I spent the early months of the year studying faith and facts, and through this I gained confidence in myself not only as a student of the sciences, but also as a budding scholar of Judaism. I became comfortable being gay and Jewish; I began coming out to more people, something I had never had the courage or the confidence to do beforehand. I was a new person, and would only continue to become newer as the year went on.

In April, for the first time in my life, I considered the prospect of becoming a rabbi. It had been suggested to me by both family and members of my congregation for as long as I could remember, but there was always something holding me back. Now that the chains had fallen, a doorway opened up to me, and a new path began. At the same time, in May, I wrote my first drash (commentary on the Torah) since my Bar Mitzvah seven years sooner.

In the summer I went to Israel on the Alexander Muss High School in Israel program. It helped me break out of my shell, become even more confident in myself; it taught my new ways to see the world, and for six short weeks I saw the glory of a world once only imagined. One of the scenes that stands out most: lying under the stars of the Negev, staring into the Milky Way, stuffy-nosed and sick from a newly discovered allergy to camels. Go figure. My luck.

I came back a better person, and no number of words will do it justice how much that trip changed me for the better and affected and influenced every second of my life thereafter.

Two weeks thereafter, in fact, I started college. I had great teachers, and I learned to appreciate history and sociology like never before, and I came to love math in ways I had never imagined possible. My love of math beforehand had been friendship at best; now it was intimacy. I changed my major from history and education to math and science education and Jewish studies. That defines me pretty well: the convergence of science and faith, teaching and learning.

That’s the definition of wolves, too: They’re savage in the face of danger, but similarly familial animals that teach their young with more love and compassion than some humans that I know of. They’re harbingers of dreams, guides in the astral plane. Likewise, I’m kindred to them. I’m a teacher, a guide, and family often means more to me than anything else in the world.

And I write. That’s altogether why I’m the Writingwolf. It’s in my blood. It’s who I am.