Week 15

There's so much I can hear from the merpesset of my building.  Over the past few weeks, someone in the electric guitar shop next door played the same five notes over and over again, with a vibrato here and a staccato there.  Then over the last week, I could begin to feel his fingers reaching out through the shape of the sounds articulated by their contact with each string.  The other day I think I saw him, in his 50s with a ponytail...pretty much what you'd expect: he was playing around again, weaving those five notes into song.  But on Shabbat, his song was replaced by a woman's voice, quivering loudly and full of tears.  In trying to ground myself against the cascade of fury next door, I used my small vocabulary to enter the language of her cries and could only understood enough to know she felt alone.

To have a social life on Shabbat in Tel Aviv, I often need to go out for meals.  Last Saturday, yet another unseasonably warm winter day, I met Rafi at a beach-front cafe on for lunch.  We ate sandwiches, and agreed we couldn't resist the gigantic desert that passed by us on the way to another table, with its pile of whipped cream, scoop of vanilla and warm chocolate cake.  After our meal, we walked on a dock that reached out into the Mediterranean Sea, and gazed at an island we

Week 14

I walked home from the gym and reentered the chaos of shuk Levinski.  The glare of street lamps revealed traces of the day freshly past: sidewalks slick with greasy water, the unpredictable traipsing of late night spice hunters - and to my excitement, mountains of boxes.  I was on a hunt for the perfect container, since over the last few months I've realized how many belongings I won't need in the time remaining here (or have never used) - my bike gear, camelback, sport coat, red boots, dress shoes, menorah and candles, cookbook - and have decided to mail them back to Boston.  When I spotted one that seemed the right size, I carried it down the street...until I found what I truly sought.  It was sitting on the corner, alone, and was stuffed with other crushed boxes, banana peels, bottles of beer and pistachio shells.  This was my box, full of shuk, filled to the brim with my experience.

I'm still aching from a combination of lifting people with my back for hours during the Contact Improvisation Festival last week, and now from carrying the now-full box several hundred meters to the Post Office today to ship it.  As I slid its seventy pounds across my shoulders as if I were dancing with another body, then placed it on my belly and grabbed it by the corners - I whistled breathlessly to the only song of Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes I felt worth buying, "Home", on repeat:

Week 13

Last weekend my classmates came to Tel Aviv for a program organized through Hebrew College.  After an enormous dairy dinner on Thursday night that could make anyone lactose intolerant, they all had this immense thirst for the normal.  Since I don't go out, I called a friend.  He took us to a bar that looked suspiciously like a house.  When I went to the bathroom, bath towels hung on hooks, and toothbrushes and toothpaste were crammed in the little shelf above the sink.  In the back room of the bar stood a glass shower stall.

This week was the second week of the International Contact Improv Festival, and I had signed up for two intensive workshops that took place in Tel Aviv.  But I managed to get a cruel cold over the weekend, so skipped the opening jam of the Festival on Monday, which gave me a full day to sit at home and worry that my roommate was pissed off at me: it seems like since I've come I've broken the refrigerator and the water heating switch...and the previous night the shower attachment stopped working when I went to use it.  I decided she was going to kick me out.  I decided she was avoiding me.

Week 12

As I reentered the dance hall, I watched about sixty dancers from all over the world speaking dozens of different "languages" - some lifting one another, others finding rest and support in one another's weight, yet others using mime to make visible and traverse their inner world.  As dozens of bodies adorned the space in momentary and unrepeatable tapestries of stillness and motion, two women stood in the middle of the wood floor with their arms around each other, solid as an ancient oak tree.  Now, with them as my reference point, all the other dancers suddenly became as inconsequential as autumn leaves, drifting around the rooted stillness of these women's bodies.  One woman leaned in for a kiss, her mop of hair covering both of their faces, and the other kissed her back on the cheek.  This was the opening jam of the international Israeli Contact Improv Festival.

As I relaxed back into my native language at the Contact jam (since it's officially an "international" language), I gained more perspective on a hunch I had that speaking Hebrew (or any language for that matter) is a constant act of midrash (an often imaginative commentary on, and fleshing out of, a "text").  All the words in this blog, and your internal dialogue as you read is always commentary, a risky

Week 11

On Friday night, as I meandered toward the beach to listen to the white feet of the sea paw at the rocks near Jaffa's old city, and savored one of my last days living alone, I passed a band warming up at the end of Rothschild Street.  A few blocks later, my feet left the concrete and breathed into the sand.  A cluster of people sat on a stone wall nearby, smoking hookahs and grilling meat, and I savored the unregulated chaos that sometimes leaks into the seams of this place.  A beach shower behind a cafe splattered the dark sands with water hours after someone had used it to rinse off their sandy feet.  I walked up from my wordless conversation with the sea, and tugged the chain into silence.  In the distance, Jaffa's Old City pulsed above its blinking blue and white footlights, like a stage set for some childhood dream - a dream of stone alleys, clock-towers and bats.

The endlessly searching sea knocked at the shore's rocky threshold, reached its fingers between the rocks, leaned in and whispered through a chink in the invisible walls of my solitude - and its soft roar began to echo into this sprawling concrete and glass city, the pulse of the street, the endless particularities of Mystery.  The water sung to me of softening, of slowing into a point of contact with the Other - of rededicating myself to paths of light and connection in this week of Hannukah (literally,

Week 10

My hoop wobbled on my right shoulder and rocked back and forth against my thigh as I biked back down Rothschild Boulevard from my weekly hoop dance class.  Weaving between pedestrians and bikers, I slowed down at the busy sushi kiosk.  Bats dropped out from the trees on either side of the pedestrian path, snatching invisible insects from the air, and merging seamlessly back into the treetop foliage as I blinked.  Nearing the apartment I will have lived in for almost 11 weeks come Tuesday, I passed through the hovering mist of fountain as it tumbled and rose in the freshly autumnal air.

Over the next few days, I'm packing to leave this apartment and move.  I sit here, shuffling through a pile of papers: the tel (archeological mound) of my aviv (spring - though it's actually fall semester, it feels like my personal spring, my time of growth).  I go through layer after layer of this tel and sort out what I discover: handouts from different classes I've attended - my weekly beit midrash session on Eros at Alma, Aviva Zornberg's shiurim on Bamidbar... ; receipts from items I've purchased during my time here - a bike helmet, groceries, a camelback... ; schedules - from the dance studio, gym, and yeshivot I've joined... ; maps the person I'm renting from made for me - with her favorite cafes, bars, and dance venues marked on them... ; name tags from conferences and objects that remind me that magic exists -

Week 9

The Thai woman sitting next to me on the sheirut today from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv intermittently broke into song, or perhaps it was one long half-uttered prayer triggered by the driver's heart-stopping halts.  Occasionally, I could hear the synthesized sound-byte of a mechanical camera, and eventually located its source - in the front seat, every two seconds during our departure from Jerusalem, someone was taking indiscriminate snapshots out his window: highway - click, hill of apartment buildings - click, prefabricated macolet - click....

A week ago, I brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to Hevron.  Knowing it was in my bag - perhaps a bit smashed, warmed by the heat of the day - provided some comfort as I gazed at spray painted Stars of David on sealed front doors of Palestinian households, leading to an empty street and an empty market place.  My mind turned these images over and over, trying to fit them into previous categories of experience, into more comfortable memories - but instead historical photographs of Jewish stores on kristallnacht came to mind...a mind, mind you, careful about not conflating other narratives because of how sticky and problematic that becomes.  Much like my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Week 8

As the tiny strip of land between Egypt, Jordan, Syria and the sea began to lose the sun in its myriad mountains, hundreds upon hundreds of cranes began to call to each other even more loudly and urgently.  My parents and I were in Hulu Valley to watch the fall migration.  I reached up, plucked a eucalyptus leaf, rubbed it between my thumb and forefinger to release its scent, and handed it to my mom.  She breathed its cleansing perfume and it disappeared into her hand.  When we finally arrived at the best observation area in the valley, I saw three birds walking on water: each time their legs touched it, their bodies hovered fully above it.  "Those birds are walking on water!"
My dad didn't believe me.
"Some birds can do that!", I stated, impatiently - though I was mostly trying to convince myself.

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The ways I've gotten to know people here have been mostly incidental: on Tuesday, I went to my landlady's parents to drop of the rent.  Though I've never met Noa, I've now slept in her bed, used her olive oil, read her dispatches from India...and had tea and cake with her parents.  I listened to their

Week 7

As I lifted my hands to my eyes with two tea lights flickering in front of me and began to recite the blessing over the candles, my voice broke.  Alone in my apartment, the soothing, earthy smell of tears uncurled inside my nose, and a wet, blurry heat into my eyes.  Crying isn't easy for me, and my voice sounds so strange when it happens, like it's coming from a hidden chamber beneath my diaphragm.  I keep choosing to reenter this cellar in the roots of my soul, rather than stand on the rooftop and listen: though I was about to meet Assaf to go to Shabbat services, I stood in the darkness of my cupped hands, doing my best to listen to these malachim, these divine messengers, as they explored my cheekbones and settled for my beard.

The next evening, I biked along stretches of highway to Petach Tikva, where I met Dafna, a friend of many friends, and an organic farmer.  She showed me the park she grew up with, a refuge on days she ditched classes as a child, now a place to rest from working the land.  And as we walked through its rose garden, I actually heard the sound of silence.  A wild new sense of presence pushed through the white, delicate shell of absence: ma nora ha makom hazeh!

Last night, the roving headlights of motorists lanced the night with uncharacteristic violence.  I

Week 6

On Monday, I finished my bike ride and entered Eilat (here are some visual snapshots to accompany the verbal ones, if you'd like): My thighs strained delightfully against the many ascents, and I hooted and yelled my way down the many descents; I found myself at the front of the ride a few times, and often took the opportunity to fall to the back as I became absorbed in the brilliant beauty of the desert; at moments I paced myself to ride alongside others and talk about becoming a rabbi, and at others I allowed myself to bike alone for long stretches - the exact unknown coming into being that I am.

On the ride, there was only forward.  During stretches when no other riders were in sight, I began to sense the expansiveness within which my solitude was gently held and, at moments, started to dissolve: the desert, the sound of drums and tambourines that often guided us to our next rest stop, the birds, the smell of manure, the honking of greeting and surprise and anger from cars, the noisy activity of Bedouin villages and firing ranges and fighter jets, the camels, the clusters and points of other riders, the mountains and the endless sky.

Week 5

Here are a few moments from the 287 mile bike ride I did from Jerusalem to Eilat over the course of 5 days in support of the Arava Institute, which thanks to all my sponsors, received over $3200 from my fundraising!

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Today I rode about 50 miles from Jerusalem to Ashkelon, on a rented hybrid bike.

Using my body gives my mind some time to be caressed by waves of thought - during moments when I'm not concentrating on traffic, or socializing with other people.

At one point today, I was biking alone and anxious I had lost the rest of the riders, until we regrouped at a rest stop.  As we biked in 105 degree heat and compensated in balance for extremely strong winds, one of the lead bikers said to Lev, "If you bike close behind him, he'll block the wind, and I'll bike behind you."

Week 4

My first few weeks in Tel Aviv have been razor thin like mountain air. The warmth and nourishment of expected social contact - a dear roommate, a real "neighborhood", too much class-time - is gone. In an effort to pace myself on this hike, I've begun to learn how to move both more slowly, and without resting for too long so my blood can drink from the atmosphere without crystallizing into microscopic ice clumps that would otherwise slide slowly and painfully through my heart.  In order to scale this mountain, I need equipment and the presence of mind to shatter any illusion that I'm walking on terrain I know. This is a new place for me - a new place in my life and in the life of this place; only with this patient awareness might this experience reveal its True Name to me. Therefore, I've learned to equip myself with items to survive my trek into unknowing:

1) Sound: To protect my heart's hearing from the urban discord that races through the streets, throwing trash and scattering spices as it howls along the cement and ricochets off metal and brick with no grass to tenderly gather and soften it into itself. My soul needs songs it can belt out or a subliminal hiss that lets it coast into the shapeless place before dreams: white noise during the nights and early mornings when trucks grunt below and shuk doors yawn open

Week 3

As the shops of the spice market open, their alarmed doors create the sense that an army of tiny mismatched ambulances are wailing through the alleyways and sidewalks outside of my apartment.

Then the garage of each shop screeches and rattles open, and dawn dips back into silence for a moment - and I back into my slumber. Each time my eyes open, the sky is brighter, and the day pacing more hungrily beside my bed.

This morning one of the three once-glossy leaves of the orchid plant on the counter collapsed from the stem that bore it into the world, and from which it continued to imbibe its personal share of the green elixir of sun, water, earth.

It was a picture of my heart a matter of days ago, quietly starved of its native language, sense of community, familiar routine - and unable to find anything to replace these nutrients. Sometimes my breath still wants to be back in Boston. I regularly notice my lungs filling only half way with air, carrying me through the day like flat tires.

Week 2

First sight, the wonderous maladjustment to the newness of a place, is beginning to smooth itself into a new normal. Once radically independent of me - only absorbed by my senses, the blare of horns pressing through this narrow market street, the sunlight hotly panting at the windows, the staccato yelp of cats, are all slowly moving from sensed to remembered.

The city of Tel Aviv is a thinly and hastily applied cement mascara that manages to trick the eyes into seeing nothing of the suggestive, sensuous stir of dunes under her outer garments. You get the sense that beneath all her strange stacks of cement and brick, she can really move - but she's afraid that if she does, they'll get thrown askew. What's worse is, she seems to have pieced together her outfit from items that have no perceivable relationship with one another: the buildings here don't talk to one another, nor to the quiet dunes, and certainly not to the whispering sea.

I'm trying to listen through the cottony, unraveling, yet often suffocating solitude of life alone in a new place. In the occasional moments I trust the wisdom of the me that chose these circumstances, my body begins to sense when it needs to breath with awareness, or talk to Spirit. I can hear my dreams

Week 1

I'm living above a spice market where cumin and turmeric are piled in neat foot-tall pyramids. Mannequins are everywhere: staring into my bedroom, cuddling in a silver pile on a rooftop visible from my kitchen.

I've seen the sun sink like a dying ember into the Mediterrannean, spun my poi near one of the apparently abundant drum circles on the beach, and watched hundreds of bats flap and screech in one of the converted Arab buildings in the old city of Jaffo from whose ceiling hung 3 elks' pelvic bones tied with rope, and on whose floor stood life size sculptures of people made out of bark.

I've ridden my bike along a river in the north of Tel Aviv, lost the path and ended up in the suburbs. But I always find my way back.

Each day, sometimes multiple times a day, I've come home with a visible line where my socks were protecting my legs from the sand of the beach, or the dry dirt of the biking paths. The tile floor here is gritty with it, already.