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First Shabbat

May 01, 2004

I never made it to the Negev on Friday. The tour was overbooked, and DJB assured me there would be another opportunity to visit the villages.

Instead, I gladly caught up on much needed sleep. International air travel is very intense. I think only today, after three full nights' sleep am I beginning to regain biological normalcy. I'm not certain I'm entirely here yet, but I'm working on it....

I lounged around, when I was awake, reading Gershon Winkler's "the Way of The Boundary Crosser." I've tried to by this book before, but I think it's out-of-print. Anyway, I'm incredibly glad to be reading it now, and I think it's a blessing to be beginning it now, during my first weeks in Jerusalem. There feels to be such polarization, and I'm struggling to keep my heart open, but it's good exercise.

When I stand three times a day for the Amidah, I'm so amazed that I'm orienting myself to a location inside the city I'm currently standing. I love the notion that G!d has a hometown. I think I was totally overloaded when I sat in the kotel hakatan (a tunnel immediately adjacent the Western Wall), but I keep thinking about it and will likely return to sit and study there tomorrow.

I sat, wide-eyed, for about half-an-hour, just soaking in the atmosphere last time I was there, and opened the book of Psalms in front of me to chapter 85. The poetics of the tehillim are still too ornate for me to translate, so I was happily stunned when I returned home to translate the second line:

HaShem, You Have shown favor to your land, You have returned the captivity of of Jacob.

Happily stunned, because, three times a day, one of the pasukim I insert, also from the book of Psalms, requests that the "captivity be returned." (Shuv HaShem et shivat tzion ka'afikim banegev. There is a tradition to insert, towards the end of the Amidah, a sentence that begins and ends with the same letters of one's first name.)

Friday afternoon, I braved machane yehuda (the open-market) and bought challah, nectarines, humous, salatim, wine and chocolate. I came back and recorded my musical midrash, and my first Jerusalem recording! Kodesh (Acharei Mot-Kedoshim) mp3 2.76MB

I went to a minyan in Nakhlaot last night called Kol Reena. It was Carlebach style, and overcrowded, and dis-unified. Nothing I couldn't have found on the Upper West Side. I was mildly disappointed, though I learned a few ways to put melodies and prayers together (The fast, second part of Lecha Dodi to the Carlebach "Tov Lehodot LaShem"; Psalm 93 to "Chaverim Kol Beit Israel").

I went up to the bima afterwards to find a meal and was matched up with three yeshiva bocharim. Short and sweet because it was short....

Kol Reena in the morning was much more stimulating, though, walking in at 9:30am, I arrived just in time for the beginning of the Torah service. Definitely more unified, more communal, less crowded, palpable kedusha during musaf.

Napped and lollygagged with DJB during the day, met another amazing artist friend, ma'ariv back at Kol Reena (it's less than a minute's walk away), a quick havdallah, then a stroll in the rain (!). Now here, working, about to check online for Pardes' number (I'm typing offline to avoid dial-up charges). Think I'll try to sit in on classes tomorrow or Monday; may go to Tsfat this week; looking Fwd to more exploring, museums.

Big Love.

Posted May 1, 2004 04:29 PM