In supervison

In my field, we call the person who does the kind of work that I do a "supervisor." That's kind of a confusing word because I'm really an educator -- I educate student clergy and others about how to be a chaplain or how to go about the task of providing spiritual care to hospital patients and others dealing with crisis, grief and loss.

And sometimes you really find me in front of a classroom, looking a lot like a teacher or a professor. But you'll also find me meeting with my students individually behind a closed door for 45 minutes or an hour and discussing with them in depth the struggles -- often deeply personal or spiritual -- they face in their work with hospital patients. The skill sets I use at those times look very much like that of the psychotherapist. Listening intently -- and helping the person I am listening to examine and understand their own thoughts, actions and feelings -- is most of what I do there.

Popular culture has tended to favor professions like police work or medicine for its television characters, but the pschotherapist is finding a place in a new hit HBO series called In Treatment.

It turns out this show is based -- quite closely from what I understand -- on a much-praised Israeli television show called בטיפול/Betipul. Minna and I have started watching it and are really loving it. It's a particularly appropriate show for me to watch now because I'm at a stage in my studies where I'm working to figure out how exactly the insights from the world of psychotherapy and psychology fit into how I think about the work that I do. And, I'm especially focused on figuring out how to integrate elements of Jewish and Hebrew culture and language into my thoughts. So, it's great to have this opportunity to see how the ideas and concepts of psychotherapy -- and the things that come up in psychotherapy sessions -- are expressed in Hebrew.

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The gift of being able to be here in Israel while I engage in this thought and study is just one of the many gifts that have come to me this past year. It is only about 11 months ago that I first met Minna. In March, I crossed a major hurdle in my pursuit of full certification as a CPE (clinical pastoral education) supervisor. I've been able to do some great learning in my career and have had some great students; I was really enriched by my encounters with those students. . . . Something really Holy happened there sometimes. . . It's just such an incredible thing to be there with people when they are really struggling to find their way to serve God and to grow into the most of what it is that God has granted them the possibility to become.

I was able to do some exciting bicycle rides this year, including three really interesting ones in and around Jerusalem so far (especially this one). The best ride of the year, was touring in Rhode Island with Minna, but it was also great to do a century. I also had a ton of fun this year building and experimenting with an Xtracycle.

There was some traveling to chaplaincy conferences that really led to some great thought, fellowship and growth. The best was having a chance to be a part of a meeting of the new ACPE Jewish supervisors group in Dallas, but I was also really to go to the Racial Ethnic Multicultural networks's conference in Memphis on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assasination.

May it be the will of the Blessed Holy One that you will have the sweetest of years ahead. A year of health and joy.

Shannah Tova.

[x-posted to abayye]

Geshem Yarad!

In my post earlier, today, I said I had missed the first rain Minna had experienced, today. But just a little bit ago we heard drops falling outside our apartment. I lept to the window to see it.

I actually felt it on my hand!

On the edge

The last time I lived in Jerusalem, I took a walk one hot day from the Old City back toward the south where I lived. I stopped in a little park on the top edge of a steep ridge not far south of the Old City, and sat down to look at the beautiful view of the valley and heights to the east. I took my computer out of my backpack to write. But, suddenly, I realized somebody was behind me. I looked up to see a young Arab boy with a donkey laden with goods. He spoke to me. I didn't understand his words, but after a bit I came to understand he wanted the soda I was drinking. I handed him the bottle. He drank what was left in it, threw it on the ground and then, with his donkey, disappeared over the steep lip into the valley and the village below.

That brief, almost surreal, encounter has stuck with me and often comes to mind. It's a reminder that Jerusalem is a place of edges -- a place where many different things meet. It is not just the most intimate and complex of borders between Palestinian and Jew. It is also, very much, a place where First World and Third World meet.

The heights around the Old City, and the stunning views from them, are a powerful visual reminder that this is indeed an edge space. Yesterday, I rode my bicycle up to one of those heights -- up to Mt. Scopus, the site of Hebrew University where Minna was having her last day of Ulpan . After spending some time with Minna, I rode the bike to the east side of Mt. Scopus and took in the views -- of desert, of Arab towns and even of the Jordan and the Dead Sea -- that one can see in the deep valley and the mountains beyond. Here's some of what I saw:



In the last picture, you see a monument that dedicates the area there on the east side of Mt. Scopus as a National Forest in the name of a Canadian donor. There are many such monuments and forests around Israel in beautiful spots like Mt. Scopus.

But, as you can see from the trash in the foreground of the below picture, you often find garbage and disarray in the same spots.

I understand this as another manifestation of how Israel is very much a place of edges and boundaries -- ones that are also very much still in flux. What might be a National Forest, today, may be a housing development or a place for a highway tomorrow. A Jewish settlement might become an Arab town, tomorrow and vice versa.

After leaving the area around Hebrew University, I headed south to where this hospital just north of the Mt. of Olives.


It turns out to be run by Lutherans, which is a reminder of home (where my boss and two of my co-workers are Lutheran Clergy).

After leaving the hospital, I descended from the heights of Mt. Scopus and the Mt. of Olives down to the deep valley that runs on the west side of the Old City. I was a bit confused when I got down to the bottom and took a wrong turn into the heart of an Arab town (Bab Ez' Zahara). I was conscious that tensions are fairly high right now. Ramadan is still going on (it ends this coming Monday, the same evening that the first of the Jewish High Holidays -- Rosh HaShannah -- begins). And just the other day there was an attack where a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a crowd of Israeli soldiers at the northwest corner of the Old City. I wasn't feeling frightened but I decided to turn around, nonetheless.

I then managed to get my bearings and ascended a steep and congested road to the very northeast corner of the Old City. The marketplace that iscentered around the Damascus gate spills out all along the road there. I had to get off the bike and walk through the crowds. Finally, I got past the crowds and took a little rest around the New Gate, where I entered the Old City briefly and headed for the Jaffa Gate. The picture at the top of this blog post was taken not far from the Jaffa Gate. That's the Tower of David on the right above the woman's head. A bit of my trusty bicycle is visible on the left.

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There was a 'border dispute' of another sort not far from our apartment last night as well. Someone -- presumably a right-wing Israeli extremist -- set off a pipe bomb outside the house of a left-wing Israeli historian. The historian Zeev Sternhell was, thankfully, only lightly wounded. So called Jew-on-Jew attacks are relatively uncommon here (and usually not fatal), but they are far from unknown. (Here is a New York Times story giving some of the background.)

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Another edge we are on here is the one between seasons. I did not see it (even though I was only a few blocks away!), but Minna saw rain, today (even if only the lightest of drops). It is a sure sign that the long (rainless) summer is over.

It is no accident that the High Holidays come at this time of the turn of the seasons. Rain -- or the lack of it -- was a life-or-death issue for the ancient farmers of this little land that, unlike great Egyptian empire to the West and the great Babylonian empire to the east, has no great rivers to irrigate the crops even when the rains fail. So, it is not surprising that the themes of life-and-death that characterize Rosh HaShannah and Yom Kippur found a place in those ancients' minds and hearts at this time of year.

Just being in Jerusalem -- just being in this place characterized by edges -- brings those themes to life for me. Life seems so much more precious to me here. More intense. It's the thing I love most about being here.

May it be the will of the Blessed Holy One that the journeys to the 'edges' that you make in this New Year be ones that bring you to the side of life. And to growth and joy.

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Here, by the way, is the approximate route of my ride:


Bigger map

Tripping over the Mishna

One of the joys of studying Jewish texts while in Israel is that the most ordinary of things can spark connections in your mind to the Holy texts you've been studying. Above is a plain, old hole in the ground at a gas station Minna went by this morning. But its seemingly prosaic warning sign -- סכנה, בור פחוח/Danger, open hole! -- made Minna think of the much-studied Mishnaic passages that concern the laws of damages, including what happens when something falls into a hole. . . . Don't think too much of the Mishna while you're walking, Minna -- don't fall in the hole!

A Phishy Avinu Malkeinu

Here's a little bit of non-traditional High Holidays liturgy (thanks to Gail for bringing my attention to this!):

Yummy Chicken and Last Week of Ulpan

Alan made this delicious chicken dish for shabbat (and also a meat stew and also a lentil soup). The chicken recipe was adapted from the latest recipe featured by the NY Times' "Minimalist" and featured lots of ginger. Its flavors and textures created a wonderful balance of comfort and excitement --a rare combo in a foodstuff. I'm looking forward to bringing some to school for lunch tomorrow.

I'm starting my last week of ulpan and I can definitely tell that this opportunity for intensive Hebrew learning has served me well. Several times almost every day I come across words, constructions, and turns of phrase that would have left me baffled six weeks ago. There is still an endless amount to learn, but this has definitely been a good jump start.

Tomorrow my friend and classmate Daniel and I will make a presentation (in Hebrew!) in our text class (a mini-course within the larger ulpan that has meets three times a week). The text course has focused on modern Israeli literature and helped solidify my sense that such literature --while usually marked with the designation "secular"/חילוני is in fact a site where "non-religious" authors are asking and wrestling with questions of ultimate meaning. As such it is, for me personally and in my rabbinate, a vital source of Torah that could too easily be overlooked. I'm hoping to spend a significant part of my learning energies this year focusing on acquiring the skills needed to continue tapping this resource.

Daniel and I are presenting on a book called "Tanach Achshav"/תנ"ך עכשיו (which badly but accurately translates to "The Hebrew Bible Currently") written by Meir Shalev. He's best known as a novelist, but he wrote תנ"ך עכשיו before having written any novels. It is described as פרשנות חילונית/"parshanut chilonit"/secular biblical interpretation (which in Hebrew sounds like an even stronger oxymoron). We're focusing on a chapter about how men are called up for army duty and Shalev moves between Deuteronomy's instructions for the draft, stories about King Saul at war, and what all of this means for soldiers and commanders today. Shalev's treatment of תנ"ך/Tanach/Hebrew Bible is different than anything I've ever read before. He treats the Hebrew Bible as a literary whole (jumping between Deuteronomy and Judges, for example, with no distinction in how each book is treated) and he clearly views it as being much more relevant to modern life than any rabbinic writings or interpretations. Both of these tendencies seem very in line with what little I've learned about the use of Hebrew Bible in "secular" Israeli culture. It's odd to be presenting (and blogging) about such a topic when I feel so very new to it (already anticipating that this post will feel like "juvenalia" if I look back at it at the end of the year), but here we are.

Shalev just came out with a new volume of פרשנות חילונית/"secular interpretation" --which I've already added to my growing collection of books in Modern Hebrew-- in which he takes as his topic Biblical "firsts." For example, the opening chapter (which I slogged through a bit of today) deals with the fact that the first appearance of the verb "love" in Tanakh is when Abraham is told to take the son he loves and offer him up as a burnt offering.

Cutest cat in Jerusalem?

I nominate this Rehavia resident.

Escape from Jerusalem

Anyone who has read any of this blog will have a sense of how much I love Jerusalem. But -- as it is with the other great city I love so much, New York -- part of staying in love with it is getting out of it, too. This past weekend, Minna and I got to finally spend a little time outside Jerusalem. We got a sense of the incredible diversity one can find in this tiny country on our little trip to Tel Aviv and then to the north.

An author who came to talk to one of Minna's ulpan classes said he sometimes describes Israel to foreigners by saying it's part Iran and part California. If Jerusalem is Israel's religion-obsessed Tehran then Tel Aviv is Israel's sun-worshiping Southern California. As we walked through Tel Aviv's central shopping district, a different image came to Minna's mind -- she said it reminded her of Blade Runner. Much of that comes through even in the daytime as these images attest:






One of the most "Runner-esque" images I saw (but, which, unfortunately, I did not get a pic of) was the sight of ultra-Orthodox Jews who had set up sidewalk tables in the midst of this materialistic scene where they were offering secular men the opportunity to wrap tefflilin.

Another thing that especially caught my eye in Tel Aviv was the bicycles. They seem to be everywhere on its fairly flat streets. And, not just the streets. If -- as I've commented before -- there is a stay-off-the-sidewalks ethic among many of Jerusalem's bike riders, this ethic has not found its way to Tel Aviv. Its riders snake their way though the most crowded of sidewalks, managing to stay upright with their feet on the pedals at even the slowest of speeds by exercising expert balance. Here is once such "sidewalk rider" snaking by Minna:

We also visited Kikar Dizengoff, which features a fountain that was brand-new when Minna did her kibbutz year here as a teenager. It's come to be a bit rundown, but was still a good place for Minna to pose.

Speaking of Minna's kibbutz year, we spent Shabbat with her kibbutz family who now live in a community called מנוף/Manof that's a bit south of their old kibbutz.

Just outside of Manof we found these critters by the roadside.





After we spent some time with the critters, Minna blew her (new!) shofar out over the hills (see pic at top of this blog post).

We also got to Nimrod's castle, a mountaintop medieval fortress built by Muslim rulers to defend against the Crusaders.


Here are a couple of pics of Minna and I there.


We had fun!

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Here, by the way, is the approximate route of the walk we took in Tel Aviv (the blue line):


Bigger map

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And here is the (very approximate!) driving route we took over the course of the trip:


Bigger map

Seven years

Seven years ago, today, I was newly returned to the United States from my rabbinical school Israel year. Watching the destruction of these towers -- towers where I worked for some 10 years of my life -- on a dorm lounge television screen in Los Angeles was a surreal and unspeakably painful experience for me. I felt so disconnected. I didn't understand why I was in Los Angeles. Why wasn't I there? In New York, my beloved city?

That feeling of disconnectedness stands in sharp contrast to the feelings of connectedness I have now . . . . now that I have finally been able to return to Israel after such a long time -- much longer than I would have imagined when I left here seven years ago.

One of the things I believed in the moments before that first tower fell was that the towers were indestructible. I knew, of course, that what was inside could be consumed by fire but -- in the wake of the buildings having survived that first bombing in 1993 -- I thought the steel frame could withstand anything short of a nuclear blast.

Jerusalem also gives a feeling of being indestructible. Especially, when you look out from a distance at some of the neighborhoods built on hilltops (like then ones you can look up to from around the mall). The state of Israel, as a whole, feels even more solid to me than it did seven years ago. It does not have the feeling of being a bold experiment, but of something solid and thriving.

But the World Trade Center reminds me of how tenuous even the most solid-feeling thing can be. . . . and of how important it is to be grateful for what we have while we have it.

May it be the will of the Blessed Holy One that all that is strong for you stays strong and that you should know safety and peace.

[X-posted to abayye]

Paying Bills

Sipping down to the muddy bottom of my glass of Turkish coffee, enjoying the cinnamon we have taken to adding automatically, I am feeling very well here.

A water bill came a few days ago and I didn't think it was really ours. The names on the envelope were not those of the most recent tenants nor the names of our friends who own the place. Mysterious names were not reason enough to assume the bill had been misdirected. Rather, it was the fact that the address itself was an address on the street perpendicular to ours. I kept putting the bill in the place next to the mailboxes that it for mail for folks not at this address. It kept showing up back in my mailbox. Finally yesterday it showed up in my mailbox with a note handwritten on the front of the envelope in red ink. The note was addressed to Naomi and I couldn't make all that much sense of the handwriting.

I was in quite a tizzy over all of this last night. There was the mysterious water bill and, even if it was ours, what kind of strange maneuvers was I going to have to go through to pay it? And there was also a piece of paper from the post office saying that I have a package. But I didn't know where the post office was and, wherever it is, it's only open until 1:30 on Wednesdays.

This morning I saw my helpful next door neighbors who said that the bill was indeed mine. The wrong address? It's because our building is on the corner and apparently mail also gets here if it's addressed to where the entrance would be if it had an entrance around the corner. Then just now I called the previous tenant and he was very congenial about paying his part of the bill and also told me that he always paid the water bill online.

So, despite my fears of standing in endless lines in mysterious places to pay bills --which I may yet have the opportunity to experience with some other utility-- I just paid the water bill painlessly through the wonders of modern technology.

Paying the water bill, drinking Turkish coffee, half-hearing Alan in the next room on the phone for his weekly phone meeting with his supervisor. All of these contribute to this feeling that the things I am most enjoying here thus far are the everyday details. These are the tiny interactions through which I am getting to know this country, getting to know Alan, continually getting to know myself.

One detail I am definitely enjoying: the amazing variety of bourekas, croissants, and other tasty baked goods-

Beyond Ein Kerem

This beautiful terraced hillside is the Sataf Nature Preserve on the outskirts of Jerusalem just west of Ein Kerem. I rode my bike there yesterday and then got off to go hiking up to a spring where I did some of my reading work for a while.

My reading was interrupted by the arrival of these energetic teenagers arriving on a tiyul (school trip)

I was really touched by how much they seemed to love their trip leader. He's the guy sitting with the white hat and his water bottle, which he appears to carry in an athletic sock.

Here he is, again, preparing to lead his charges into the cave at the spring. Note that he was having a little trouble with his headlamp, which is pointing straight down.

This is the pool at the spring with the cave entrance in the background.

Here's a map of the spring complex.

Up above a bit, there was another spring with a little pool you could dip your feet in. Here another one of the tiyul leaders has just chased a bunch of the kids out of the pool where they were loudly splashing.

Although it's a nature preserve, some of Sataf's terraced hillsides are still being worked for agriculture. It must have taken a lot of labor to terrace these hillsides. I would be interested to know how ancient that work was.


Here's a map of the preserve.

Here's my bike patiently waiting for me to return (and I was glad to get back to the four liters of cold water that were waiting for me in that saddlebag!)


And here's the route (in green, with the hiking portion in red):


View Larger Map

The route took me past Shaarei Tzedek hospital and Har Hezrel. While I was sitting on the ground resting just a bit shy of Har Herzel on the way back, a Russian speaker came up to me and asked me in English for directions to Ein Kerem. . . I was impressed that he was walking so far!

The ride was another challenging one for me. It took me only about an hour to get to Sataf, but it took me nearly three hours to get back! As I'm sure you can guess, it was predominently uphill the way back -- the lowest point (the parking lot at Sataf) is at an elevation of around 500 meters and the highest point was around 820 meters (around Har Herzel). That makes for a climb on the way back of about 1000 feet.

I was glad, however, to find a nice dirt road (=no cars) for a good piece of the return. It led me from the Sataf parking lot to the Ein Kerem traffic circle.

It was another great ride!

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Yesterday, by the way, was my two-week anniversary in Israel. . . . I still haven't gotten around to going to the Old City or any museums, but I finally got around to a couple of other things this week. Last night, me and Minna went out to a sit-down restaurant for the first time since I've gotten here (I got some Yemenite meat soup and some kuba). And, on Sunday, we met in a cafe for a "study date" where I got my first double espresso since arriving:

Here's Minna enjoying the last of the yummy sandwich she got there!



I practically lived in these cafes the last time I was here, but I've been more of a homebody this trip.

The 24

I am in love. I mean, of course I'm in love with Alan (who made me whole wheat pancakes for breakfast this morning...not that I love him only for feeding me), but my other new love is the 24. Alan has been making fun of me for repeatedly singing the praises of this bus line (yes, my new love is a bus line) last week as well. Here's the story of our courtship:

First, the briefest version of my Jerusalem bus relationship history. These days I usually share a cab to school and then take a bus back. The expense of the cab (shared three ways) feels justified because it's so very much quicker (and because it gives one the comforting feeling, perhaps illusory, that one's vehicle is less at risk of being blown up). But I do take the bus back and both the 4a and the 19 --my two best options from Mt. Scopus-- go through the center of the city and take a very long time doing so. Both let me off significantly downhill from my house and involve either a short but very steep walk uphill or a longer slightly less steep walk uphill.

The 24 on the other hand goes right past my house. I have wondered where it goes before my house and where it goes after, but it was only last Friday that I had my first experience actually riding it. Alan and I walked to the mall. A long walk, but it's all downhill. I bought some clothing (having found at least one plus-size clothing store), we ate at Burger King (see Alan's post on this) and did our last bits of shopping for Shabbat. Then we took the bus back. The 24 goes right from the mall to my house. It doesn't loop through out-of-the-way neighborhoods. It doesn't pass by major construction zones. It doesn't even seem to be anywhere that is prone to large amounts of traffic. It just drives right from the mall to my house. And one of the most special things about the ride last Friday was that when I asked the driver if we were riding the line in the correct direction, he printed out a numbered list of the stops the 24 makes in both directions!!! In a city with no actual bus-map and fabled-but-never-seen schedules that one can get at the Central Bus Station, this list of stops feels like a little treasure. I folded it and put it in my wallet.

Today I found myself with about 15 to 20 minutes left in my walk home. I was tired. I was carrying purchases from Super Pharm. I decided to hop on the 24. I only had to wait for a few minutes for the 24. The 4a came first and everyone else waiting at the stop got on board. Then the 24 pulled up. I got on board and immediately noticed that it was a brand new bus. The upholstery on the seats was shiny and completely unstained. It even had a lovely new-bus smell. Then I realized that I was in fact the only person riding the bus (see picture above displaying both newness and emptiness). With the exception of one woman who joined us for a few stops, I got a private ride home.

On top of these wonderful experiences, I also have something to look forward to: if I decide to take classes at Machon Schechter (one of my many learning options this year), the 24 will be able to take me door to door!

Shabbat: the sacred and the profane

Most of the talk about the state of the religious-secular divide in Jerusalem these days is about the increasing dominance of the ultra-Orthodox over the city. But, it appears to me that the secular elements have been asserting themselves as well. As Minna and I were walking from Shabbat services this morning to where we were having lunch, I was surprised to see a restuarant -- the "Meat Burger" -- open on Emek Refaiam. This non-kosher establishment, from what I understand, opened up since the last time I was in Jerusalem back in 2001. Here is an excerpt from a glowing review I found on the Internet:

As a Jerusalem citizen, I can tell you for sure, visiting in Jerusalem and not eating Evo Meat Burger, is like visiting Paris and not climbing the Eifel Tower

Despite this reviewer's opinion, I will not be visiting the Meat Burger, alas -- it's not kosher.

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The services we went to were themselves an expression of some of the push-back against the ultra-Orthodox that has been going on. In the Orthodox world, itself, there have been a series of efforts to try and stretch practice to allow woman to participate more.

Me and Minna haven't gotten to any of those minyanim in Jerusalem, yet, but this morning we went to a traditional-egalitarian minyan that is being held in a local school here. The egalitarian part of traditional-egalitarian means that men and woman can sit together and share equally in things like leading prayer and reading Torah. The traditional part means that the service is otherwise more or less the same thing you would find in an Orthodox minyan. This is pretty much what I prefer in prayer services and is very much in line with the Conservative Movement of which I am a part.

The minyan is called Kehilat Kedem and its email address is kedem@kehilatkedem.org. I think we'll be going there, again. It's a great thing that this kind of alternative is starting to become available here.

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Besides finding an open restaurant on Emek Refaim another thing that has suprised me is how many cars are on the street on Shabbat here now. It's still a very small amount, but it seems to me to be much more than it was back in 2000-2001. . . . It makes me sad that I cannot just walk down the middle of most of the streets on Shabbat without having to keep an eye out for a car coming by.

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After Shabbat, Minna introduced me to an Israeli television show that focuses on people struggling with their own personal secular-religious divides. It's a sort of "Sex in the City" kind of show where the characters are young, Orthodox Israelis who live -- and date -- in the neighborhood me and Minna live in. It's called סרוגים/srugim, which literally means "knitted" and refers to the kind of kippot the characters wear (srugim identify one as religious, but not among the ultra-Orthodox). Here are two of the characters meeting at a speed-dating session:

The web site for Srugim also has this hillarious "man-on-the-street" feature called "Kosher or not Kosher":


Here, the reporter is asking a woman whether it is alright -- "kosher" -- for women to wear pants! (Some Orthodox Jews believe that only men are permitted to wear pants, and that women should wear dresses.)

I really enjoyed watching this show.

Shavua tov!