Israel 7.1.08

Today was one of those powerful days where you feel like something is really happening inside yourself. For me, this happened in Tzfat.

Before Tzfat, we took a cable car up to the top of a mountain for a scenic overlook adn to learn more about th earea. We saw an IDF outpost and a ridge that was Lebanon. I found out that the two Israeli soldiers who were kidnapped two years ago are being returned next Wednesday. They are most likely dead, but Israel is committed to returning all Israeli soldiers, dead or alive, to Israeli soil. The soldiers are being exchanged for a Hezballah terrorist who murdered civilians and has been in an Israeli prison for something like 20 years. I wonder how all of this will play out while I am here. What will it be like to have them home at last? Will their families feel comfort? Would the soldiers have wanted their bodies to be traded for at terrorist's freedom?

I don't know quite how to describe what is at Tzfat, but ther eis definitely something there. I felt puzzle pieces strongly there, floating and starting to coalesce. It started with a visit to Avraham. He is originally from Michigan, and was on a spiritual journey in college, trying yoga, meditation, and lots of Eastern philosophies. Then he read a book called Jewish Meditation and it changed his life. He ended up reading more and more about Kabbalah and 13 years ago he moved to Tzfat to study there and to make art inpsired by what he was discovering.

I have never read anything about Kabbalah and when he spoke to us, he expressed almost the exact thoughts and philosophies that I have been thinking and writing about: that we ar eall working to resolve th econflict between our yetzer hara (selfish inclination) and our yetzer tov (loving, giving inclination). Both are important, but our goal in achieving our whole selves is, as much as possible, to dedicate ourselves to giving as much good to others as we possibly can.

Avraham spoke of a perfect happiness that is waiting for each of us, a perfect goodness that will make us "hysterical with laughter" when we experience it, because we wil not know how to express all of that joy. I have had that experience and I described it as perfect love, perfect happiness, perfect joy. It was a mystical, warm, and welcoming experience with something much bigger than myself.

So, if our goal is to experience this eternally, I assume this means after we die, which means that death will be wonderful. But there is also in Judaism the idea of reincarnation, according to Avraham, that th ebody is just like clothing that we wear over our eternal souls. Our soul is reborn over and over again, until we have achieved the level of goodness to others and have resolved this conflict between our yetzer hara and our yetzer tov. Then we achieve that state of perfect happiness.

So there is this theme in my own life of finding and repairing (re-collecting) my whole self, and it reinforces my belief that we achieve this through giving goodness and love to the world. Maybe it's in one life, and maybe it's in many lives, but in any case, this work means everything, and it's very difficult.

Avraham definitely had a gentleness to him, and such a warm and loving energy. It's clear that there is something deep and magical that is going on with him. I met other young men all with payes, kippot, and street clothes, and almost all of them seem to have ended up in Tzfat because they felt something in this city. None were religious when they came. All seemed to want to give goodness. One guy was from Montreal, and had been travelling with friends. When he got to Tzfat, he knew that he needed to be there. He's been there for 5 years now, and has become religious and is clearly a warm, loving, and very happy person with a generous heart, lots of loving spiritual energy. I know how that sounds. But you know that you can meet someone, and by their manner, their expressions, their body language, they give off something that makes you feel good, and makes you feel cared for, somehow. You can tell that they are happy people, or giving people. It was like that.

When I told this guy that I was only in Tzfat for the day, eh said, "Oh, one day is not enough. You have to stay longer to soak up some of the light of Tzfat." And I really do feel like I soaked up some light. There really is something magical and holy about this place. It as been a center of holiness for almost 2000 years. I felt it walking around the city, in the people, in theland. It's a place I want to understand better. I also feel a need to study, and to learn more about myself from this Jewish perspective.

One thing that Avraham said that was interesting was that a person can keep kosher, but can cheat people in business. Another person can be completely ethical in business dealings, but not keep kosher. Both are mitzvot, adn both can lead us to being more of ourselves. So why not try to do both? This is why so many of the men who come here become more observant. I still questino where women fit into this spiritual work. Are they permitted to study this in tradition Hassidism? Are they seen as capable of achieving this? Are women "allowed" to feel a fulfilled sense of self?

The rest of my day was full of conversations with different people about what we thougth about the ideas we heard about, and how it tied in with our own experiences and ideas about life. What I loved was that every person on the trip that I spoke to had a different perspective, ranging from skeptical to fully embracing, but each person had done a lot of thinking about it, and working to fit it into their own schema, either to accept or reject. We all had big questions that had no answers, but the important part isn't the answers. I would say that the answers are the least important part. Asking the questions is much more important, which is a very Jewish idea. And the sort of journey you take as you try to answer the questions. Whether it's conversation or study, or become more observant, or exploring weird sexual practices, it isn't really imporant HOW you do that. Just that you do it. It isn't the how. It's just that you're doing it.

The rest of the day, the kayak trip with Keith down the Jordan River, and the other sites we visited, were fun and peaceful and interesting. I loved being on th eJordan, and just doing something physical, like paddling, which we had to do often, becaus ethe water level was so low tha twe would often get stuck. Israel is experiencing a drought, no really good rainfall for four years. Even here in the Upper Galilee, which is supposed to be the greenest part of the country. The fields are still being irrigated, of course. Today we passed mroe fields of sunflowers, endless orchards of olive and fruit trees, carrots, bananas, avocados. I cannot believe how much food Israel produces. Kefar Gidaldi, the kibbutz where we are staying, as a dairy, along with an eyeglass factory, and each morning we have fresh milk, cheeses, cream, and cottage cheese. The fruit and the salads are beautiful. It may be important to point out that there are at least 5 different salads at every Israeli meal, of all types and descriptions.

Right now it just feels really good to be here. I am interested to see if I will continue to feel that way, or if that feeling will increase or decrease over time. I do think that this trip is changing me. (As any major experience would, I know that.) But how, how much, or into what, I don't know. I definitely feel a stronger connection to my Jewish identity and a desire to pursue and study and follow that more. I feel like I have been stuck in where I was Jewishly. I had hit a wall and needed to be rejuvenated and moved forward. So I think that one way that I am changing is being moved forward on that path.

One question that I have is how to move forward Jewishly with a partner who doesn't feel that and maybe doesn't support that. Is it possible to do that? If being Jewish is so important to me, as it has been since choosing to become Jewish, what does it mean to me to be with someone who doesn't share that with me? Would we be able to move forward together in some way?