Week 18

At Nava Tehilah dozens of arms swayed toward the ceiling.  We had begun to sing a pasuk related to the week's Torah portion, in which as long as Moses's arms are raised, his army defeats the mythical eternal persecutor of the Jewish people (and if you rub the text with bits of Hasidut, the internal voice of doubt).  As soon as they begin to grow weary and sink, Amalek, the voice of doubt, begins to win: "No, you won't go to Mt. Sinai...nothing important awaits you there, anyway".  It's hard to imagine the pain Moses must have endured: in Israel everything feels more painful, exhilarating and pregnant with meaning than anywhere else I've been, and in this heavy place, doubt grows strong.

I slid my feet around on the floor and let my arms expel energy from my core in gentle waves, while another rabbinical student jumped up and down with all his might.  Eric and Eduardo sat behind the Nava Tehila band, and as I glimpsed up at them, my gaze slid past them and landed on two friends who I hadn't seen in over five years - one of whom I started an intentional community with at Elat Chayyim.  I walked over and squatted behind their chairs to get their attention: "Adam?!" "Oh my God!" "You look older, but it's been a while." "I don't think he has.  Do I look younger?"...

Back in gray Tel Aviv, my adventures with E & E continued at a hole in wall restaurant in the Yemenite Quarter.  The waitress translated our menu: "belly button soup...you know, insides...liver soup, leg soup, bean soup and meat soup".  Eric ordered bean soup, and the waitress responded, "that's boring!".  We all got the meat soup.  After we finished and paid, Eduardo filmed cats taking shelter from the rain as we meandered through the streets toward the Tel Aviv Art Museum.  When we finally arrived, though disappointed to find that the art museum was closed, we delighted in the slick, smooth granite tiles outside: we kicked one foot up and spun ourselves in full circles over and over again.

On their last day here, I made my first real circuit through Jerusalem in five years.  We paid a guy under Jaffa gate to walk past some construction workers and onto the ramparts so we could overlook the city and schoolyards and garbage on our way to the Tower of David.  When we were done there, we entered cocoons of visual splendor, every inch demanding our utmost attention, especially the displays of the shuk and the holy vaulted pilgrimage caverns in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  As we found our way out of the old city and back into the new, we came upon the chain restaurants in the Jewish quarter and watched a cat catch a mouse once and again, grabbing it by the tail every time it was about to get out of reach...and cuddling with it.  He never attempted to kill it, but never let it go.

That was also the day I began to get sick, and eventually joined the symphony of hacking I'd been hearing in the alley outside my window for the past week: flu season is in full swing.  Though I've spent hours prone, sifting through Hulu's slim pickings and browsing Facebook, I've managed to release myself from this place bit by bit, feeling both excitement and fear at each task I complete since it draws me closer to what looks from this end like a jarring transition back: selling my leftover yoga classes, teaching a friend a few hooping tricks in the hopes she'll buy my hoop from me, checking my mailbox and returning my post office key.  Today, I'm using my leftover food, and when I opened my chicken to marinate it in my soy sauce the rest of my ginger root, and the rest of my sesame oil, the release felt so strong that I almost started crying.