Learning to feel the distance

Yesterday, my class went on a day-long tiyul to Haifa, Tsfat, and Tiberias. We were all over the Galilee. The day was a truncated version of a typical 3-day tiyul to the north, which included a visit to Ceasaria and Tzippori; both of which we’ll be doing as part of our Rabbinic literature class in the spring, and so in the interest of making budget cuts – spurred by HUC’s 3-5 million budget shortfall this year (thank you sinking stock market), the trip was condensed into a very, very long day.

But all in all it was a good day. A very interesting and exciting day. We started the morning off in Haifa, at the Leo Baeck School, a complex named for Leo Baeck, a charismatic German Reform Rabbi who lived and worked in the first part of the 20th century. The school is a bizarre place, but a really wonderful place. It’s a "public" Junior High and High School, an Israeli Reform community center, an educational initiative center affiliated with the Israeli Reform movement, and a fairly new "Private" Reform Day School. I still don't really understand how the whole, mammoth, beautiful complex and institutions therein fit in with both the Israeli secular school system as well as the Israeli Reform movement, but it was really a special place.

A lot of money and energy went into building this institution and it seems like it’s on the cutting edge of both Israeli public schooling (which is infamously, notoriously sucky) and the role of “private” Reform-affiliated schooling (which is very akin to private Jewish day schools in the US). We took a tour, sat in on Thursday services with the elementary school (they were totally adorable), had a panel session with four high school students, talked with the Rabbi who started the elementary school, and then had a tasty falafel lunch.

Off to Tsfat!

Our next stop in the mid afternoon was in Tsfat, one of the 4 holy cities in Israel (the other three are Hebron, Jerusalem, and Tiberias). We divided into two groups, and each group met with a different local American-born artisit who moved to Tsfat in order to 1) practice Kabbalah, and 2) make art about it. Our guy, Avram, was really cruts (=crazy nuts). He grew up in Detroit and after reading two of Aryeh Kaplan’s books on Jewish mysticism in college, found his mind blown, and started to understand the “true bliss” of Judaism, and moved to Tsfat where he and his wife make Kabbalistic art. He was very kabbalisitc-hippieish, chill but totally operating on a different level than we were. He spouted a lot of aphorisms about using Kabbalah as wway to relate to life, like "learning to feel the distance," and "becoming brings of complete goodness" and "making all of our energy into output instead of input." His art was kinda cool, kinda bizarre. I didn’t buy anything, although a fair amount of my classmates did.

The day before the tiyul, Wednesday, we had an intro to Kabbalah session with an Israeli Rabbinic student, Or, who just completed a MA on the Zohar, a central text of Kabbalah. The session with Or, combined with the session with Avram, was enough discussion on Kabbalah from practicing mystics. However, we did ANOTHER study session with our “trip scholar” who took our group to three central synagogues in Tsfat, each associated with a different 16th century halakhic or kabbalistic scholar. It was interesting, but way too long, and by the end my energy and attention was shot.

When we finally got our “free time,” I raced off to Tsfat Cheesemakers, who, as I remembered from my visit to Tsfat with David Cushman and Jon Grinspan back in the early spring of 2005, makes great cheese and Halva. And my memory was correct. As we returned to the bus, and everyone compared with purchases, I had a funny realization. Some people viswit Tsfat and buy kabbalistic art. Other visit Tsfat and buy Tallitot or Jewish jewelry. I visit Tsfat and buy gourmet, locally made food.

Off to Tiberias!

Our visit to Tiberias, one of the jankiest cities in Israel (ironic because it’s the birthplace of the Jerusalem Talmud and one of the holy cities in Israel), consisted of dinner: a delicious, scrumptious Chinese food feast at Pagoda, a kosher Chinese restaurant on the bank of Lake Kinnert. Jason, Sarah K, RVT, and I shared a smattering of “classic” Chinese dishes: eggrolls, crispy duck, beef with cashews, and sweet and sour chicken. It was amazing. In reality, not the best Chinese food I’ve ever had, certainly not, but after 4+ months of no Chinese food at all (it’s funny; it’s easier to find decent and tasty sushi in Jerusalem than tasty and decent Chinese food), it was really, really wonderful. A little taste of home.