The Western Wall Tunnel Tour

Hi everyone!

We hope that this message finds everyone well and happy.  As Rabbi Larry posted, we visited the Western Wall and the Old City on Sunday.  We were fortunate to take part in the Western Wall Tunnel Tour...it was fantastic and very informative.

At the appointed time, our tour guide, Batya (an American ex-pat with four kids, 12 grandchildren, and, God willing, one more soon) took us to the mouth of the tunnels where she first explained the history and topography of the construction of the Temple Mount by Herod, the Temple having fallen into disrepair during the turmoil at the time of the Roman conquest.

She then led us down into the tunnels, where we had the opportunity to see, touch, speak to and pray in the presence of the stones from the original construction.  Unlike those stones of the Wall on the "surface", these stones, are truly massive, perfectly measured, and intricately carved; each is offset 2 cm from the next to add to their extraordinary stability as a platform for Herod's Temple mount expansion.

It took 10,000 stonemasons ten years to construct the Wall -- of which only a tiny portion is visible today above-ground.  In the photo to the right, you can see the original stone masonry in detail.  In the photo below, the original stones set during the Herodian era looked chipped at the top...that's because they are.  When the Roman Legionnaires attacked Jerusalem in 67 CE, they were ordered to destroy the walls of Jerusalem -- only they were not able to move the blocks (the foundation walls being 15 feet thick and each stone being dozens of feet long, wide, and high).  In desperation to follow orders, the soldiers resorted to chipping away at the stone blocks.  Needless to say, they were not entirely successful!  The smaller stones laid on top represent later stone masonry of inferior quality building up the wall.

Most of the larger Wall is not visible, Jerusalem having been built over it in successive layers over the centuries.  It took Israeli teams twenty years to extend the tunnel all the way to its northern end, where they found a quarry from which the stones are cut, as well as the two thousand year-old street paralleling the wall (which our guide kept calling "the original Wall Street").

Our tour emerged in the Muslim quarter, . Once on the street, we were escorted back to the plaza by guards.  Here is a photo of Larry, Keithen our tour guide, Batya.  You can see how narrow the tunnel is.  While we walked it, we were able to gaze down shafts plunging 45 feet lower, revealing an ancient mikvah, a quarry, and portions of the wall remaining from the First Temple built 3000 years ago!  We also were able to view how stone arches were plastered over and used as water cisterns by later inhabitants of Jerusalem.

The tunnels are open for people to walk through at their leisure several days a week without having to take a tour. We also encountered groups of women praying underground at the spot directly opposite the traditional site where Abraham brought Isaac as his offering to God, which also is, according to our tradition, the place from which the entire world was brought into existence by God. We also passed  workers continuing the business of uncovering even more of the secrets of the Temple mount.

More to come.

Love,

Laurelle

Surfaces

Sunday, first day of the week, we travelled by bus to the Old City. It didn't work out quite as we had planned, so we walked from our stop down the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall to Rehov Yaffo (Jaffa Street) and then east to the walled city.

Besieged by professionals offering us guided walking tours, we instead followed the thin early-morning crowd and made our way through the maze of shops to the Western Wall. Ever organized, we first picked up two sets of tickets for the two wall-related tours, then stepped back onto the vast plaza and parted, Laurelle bound for the women's section and Keithen and I into the more extensive men's section. In three languages we were asked whether we had laid tefillin that morning, whether we wanted guidance in saying the appropriate prayers upon visiting the Wall, whether we understood the meaning of this sacred place.

The wall is of course overwhelming and yet comforting in the way that it connects people. (How deeply these are linked I would learn later in the morning.) The people standing at the wall or seated near it, bodies swaying, included representatives of a dozen religious movements, secular Israelis, a group of university instructors chattering away in mixed Hebrew and English about the archaeological and historical, and geopolitical ramifications of the Wall, soldiers in uniform wearing paper kippot plucked from baskets, at least a half-dozen Ethiopian Jews, and a cluster of boys in shirts embroidered with the name of an unfamiliar youth movementm -- they have all converged on the wall, and in the meeting of hot sun, stone, and air, we were becoming entangled even though we approached the wall each in our separate ways.

Keithen found an area empty of people. Here and there, a few yeshiva students lingered like lovers whispering to their Beloved across a garden fence, their right arms resting against the massive cool stones, their foreheads pressed against their exposed forearms. The staff were removing chairs, benches, reading tables, and rolling library carts full of siddurim. Three men from the Former Soviet Union took turns taking pictures as they leaned their backs against the Kotel, struggling to keep their flimsy pick-up kippot (yarmulkes) on their heads as they joked with each other in Russian about whose turn it was to snap the photo. ("Please, Alphonse, it's your turn!" ... "No, after you, Gaston!")  I watched as Keithen focused with his camera at the wall and then, to my astonishment, he zipped it up in its protective pouch, returned it to his pocket, and stretched his arms wide, wider, widest -- in a vain to span the ancient rock face. Arms still outstretched, he leaned his head onto the rock.

I'd forgotten I was carrying a camera. If I hadn't, I likely wouldn't have experienced the moment as powerfully and instead concentrated on taking pictures. But instead I turned to the Kotel and recited snippets of prayers I remembered having learned for this occasion. Not wanting the formal structure I let my words drift into more private territory as my heart was overwhelmed by the presence of the Wall. I was also concerned about attending to Keithen, but the old conversation with God started inside me, and it was good not to treat it as a long distance call subject to roaming charges (old joke, but one that is really about the blessings of intimacy, whether with God, one's beloved family, or the world).

It was then that I pulled out a slip of paper and wrote down several names and a brief prayer for the healing of the people I listed. For the nth time I failed to include myself in the prayer I wrote, feeling, as I always do when I am praying, that I am God's fortunate child blessed with the companionship and love of others.

Something happened to me yesterday, the Rolling Stones sang, but the greatest revelation is not private -- it's the recognition of how everything is -- as the quantum physicists say -- deeply entangled. (See the most recent issue of Scientific American about this!) Every moment overflows with new connections. Every prayer is about feeling connected and wanting to do something with this. Even the pain we momentarily inflict or receive requires us not to disentangle or to disengage out of fear, misunderstanding, or confusion.

There's that familiar Spanish proverb "We make the road by walking", rendered immediate and urgent when Avram and Sarai move forward onto the road suddenly before them and when Moses urges the Israelites to move forward and not look back. Perhaps there is a "quantum proverb" as well: Don't lose your connections: look carefully at what they reveal to you about yourself before you break them. We are always learning; we are all "in-formation". In formation -- out of knowing another, I become more myself and I disclose to the other something about him- or herself.

Keithen turned, he said, "There's Mom," and we walked to rejoin Laurelle.

In the blazing sunlight beneath the great blue sky I did not feel I was walking only toward Laurelle but also toward all the lives that have touched mine with joy and heartbreak, hopes fulfilled and dreams deferred.

Ah, there I go again -- back into the metaphysics and mystery when I am, like Chaim Potok z'l [of blessed memory],  a believer in provisional absolutes and encounters with God that teach me to be reborn again and again.

Tomorrow -- some words about the tunnel under the world, and praying with mallet and wedge, some words about Greenbay Packer kippot, halvah, and fresh pita.

Rabbi Larry Pinsker  (& Rebbetzin 'Relle)

(And when will you write, friends?  We miss you!)

From the other side of the mechitzah

Hello, friends!

It has been busy the past few days, wonderfully so.  As you've read from Rabbi Larry's post, davenning at Shira Hadasha was an amazing new experience and I share his perspectives.  As I davenned on the other side of the mechitzah, I too was struck at how quickly I was able to fall into the rhythm around me and be carried on the tide of collective kavannah.

My first Amidah recited in Israel brought tears to my eyes, and as I looked around the women's section from what began as the back row (by the end it wasn't as many more women arrived and chairs added), I saw other women, (a few, like me, wearing tallitot), who also were moved to tears at various points in the service.  The expressions of faith were not self conscious, and though myself immersed in prayer, aware of the safety of the collective there.

The mechitzah fulfilled the need to daven without the distractions of others, and although children were welcome (and had another space to play and cavort), the women in the sanctuary were not consumed with caring for others in those moments, just with being present.  This past Shabbat was a rare gift, to be sure.

Slow Sculpture

Shavua tov -- a good week to everyone!

The sun has set and our first Shabbat in Jerusalem is over, but it has left some beautiful memories.

Where to start? Each element reshapes the way we view the course of our own way of "doing Judaism." With what can we compare a morning walk to synagogue down streets emptied of vehicular traffic? How shall we speak about the ebb and flow of crowds strolling through the park across the street on a hot afternoon, or the families fortunate who have settled into the shade with their picnic baskets and are at play, spinning stories, and teaching elegant simple lessons? Where are the cellphones and the portable electronic gaming devices that isolate and distract so effectively?  What's so right about these people that they can enjoy each other's company in this way?

How shall we describe what it feels like when a service consists of hundred of people singing the prayers, filling the sanctuary with their voices?  Instead, the shaliach tzibbur -- whose task it is to set the pace and tone of the service and "dispatches" the community's prayers -- invites everyone to the task, and they respond with waves of prayer pour out into the surrounding courtyard.  This is Congregation Shira Hadasha ("A New Song") on Emek Refaim, where we davvened in the midst of four hundred observant men and women who have pioneered a fresh approach to Orthodoxy. No one is an audience, no one is performing. Instead, everyone is praying to God, and the warmth directed to each Torah honouree -- especially to the young couple who are to be married the next day -- is itself a song. This is what prayer is like when each person "serves God" -- works at being his or her own voice, complementing and entwining with the voices of Torah and haftarah readers, those who serve as shaliach tzibbur -- and the person designated to teach something -- intimately, confessionally, personally -- about the meaning of the Torah text.

Forgive me, but I'm trying to write about something not particularly in my head. Trust me to try to make words define something that exists in the spaces between human souls when they are gathered to share in a common purpose.

But I don't really experience this as something intellectual. Fumbling with an unfamiliar siddur [prayerbook] -- as it turns out, the binding has deteriorating and it's missing lots of pages, making my search for the right page futile -- I realize that I am singing the prayers without skipping a beat. The words and music rise from my throat -- and everyone else's prayers are an invitation not to miss out on this serene and yet undeniably majestic sea of prayers. You can't drown, you can't disappear beneath or into these waves that are forming from you and others like you as you pray.


It's something happening between us -- between the tourists visiting God's neighbourhood and discovering it just may be possible to catch a  glimpse of the Shocheyn Ad -- "the One Who Dwells in Eternity" -- or, more intimately, our divine Neighbour in eternity -- and the people who are the core of the community that is Shira Hadasha and who each week share what they have discovered with visitors. 

This is surely why the term for worship (or service to God) is avodah -- the same word that means "work" and can slide into "involuntary servitude" or "slavery".  The kind of prayer we Jews idealize requires preparation -- hone your tools and learn to use them properly, gather your materials, gather yourself to pick up your part of the task.

Prayer isn't entertainment, nor a consumable marketed by our culture of instantaneous enlightenment. Prayer is a kind of work where the product is at once yourself becoming more the kind of being God imagined you might be and also an environment -- a place in this world where compassion, forgiveness, and inspiration move everyone forward toward that goal.

It's almost midnight in Jerusalem -- but we are still lingering over the other sights and sounds now faded into the darkness and noise of restored traffic. Some of the people in the park hasten to daven at the yeshivot and synagogues that dot these streets. We can hear some of them praying the mincha/ma'riv [afternoon and evening prayers] services are being prayed. We can hear the sounds of lessons being taught but the teachers aren't lecturing:  they are singing their insights to mark the end of Shabbat afternoon prayer and prepare the way for the ma'riv [evening] service and havdalah that separates Shabbat from the ordinary days of the week.

I am mindful of the last 48 hours being a little like the Japanese art form known as bonsai. Seedling trees are trained to develop not in their full-sized form, but rather in miniature. Every space occupied by a person or people is like the ancient Temple. Raised lovingly, tenderly, and with the proper direction, each person becomes the centre of a holy space in which he or she contributes to others' well-being, so that others are a little less alone, a little less frightened, a little less deprived of the holiness flowing from God into the world.

Our time here is reshaping who we are, and we are feeling some old patterns falling away and new growth finding its proper form.

My God, it's good to be here, and wonderful to be sharing this with you!  

Shavua tov! A good week to you all.


Rabbi Larry Pinsker (and Rebbetzin 'Relle)

Awake and ready

Hi everyone,

I am awake now, back to the business of caring for my family on our first full day here.  Rabbi Larry has succumbed to the call of the oh-so-very comfortable bed I was napping in earlier. :)

For the more mundane: it's really hard finding food with English labels -- not a total surprise, but it makes me glad that I packed a "starter kit" of foods safe for Keithen to eat.  We have what we need, and for me, this is a lesson in "enough" -- and Rabbi Larry and I are delighting in the prospect of a simple Shabbes with much joy if a smaller spread than is often prepared at home.

This morning, on our way to Machane Yehuda, Keithen and I were chatting in the backseat of a cab about how different everything is here.  The solar panels and hot water tanks on the rooftops of buildings draw the eye as much as did the Knesset and the Great Synagogue viewed from a distance. These edifices are testaments to the perseverance of the Jewish people in the form of apartments built from Jerusalem stone.

Keithen was full of comparisons to the way things are in Canada -- comparisons any stranger in a new land would make.  After we spoke for a while about these comparisons, from the number of cats roaming free to a discussion of whether it was wasteful for Canadians to use energy to keep their water hot at all times,  I finally said, for his benefit as well as mine, that it is best to leave behind the comparisons and simply discover -- then accept -- things are you find them, as they are.

Late afternoon light filters in as I type, and I can't help but reflect that one of the first blessings of this place is the utter silence in our building.  The hush is a reverent juxtaposition to the wonderful sights and sounds just outside the door.

Shabbat shalom, everyone.

Laurelle aka "Rebbetzin 'Relle

Shopping for Shabbat in Machaneh Yehudah

A second helping of the feast that is Jerusalem:

Yes, we went, accompanied by jet lag (apparently suffering jet lag is, ahem, inversely proportional to one's age), and survived the Shabbes-shopping crowd for almost forty minutes, after which we retreated back to the apartment and I went to the local supermarket to shop for the many things we didn't get in Machaneh Yehudah. The overwhelming sensory experience is almost too much for anyone accustomed to the formalism of North American supermarkets, restaurants, fast-food establishments and vending machines. In Machaneh Yehudah everything is so personal and so entwined with the lives, sounds, and presence of the people who sell, stock the shelves, and pull customers from the "street".  It personalizes the exchange between the hungry and those who sell the food, makes the experience an intimate exchange. But it is really overwhelming with its noise, its crowds, and its scents.

Needless to say, the area surrounding the market is now remarkably more urban than it was on my first visit forty years ago. The signage  for the return of the Messiah (courtesy of our friends in Lubavitch) is everywhere, and there are tzedakah collections taking place everywhere (how can you start Shabbat without performing the mitzvah of tzedakah?), including at least three clusters of high school students whose accompanied singing is a sweet invitation to help them collect for their high school's class visit to the US next fall.

I asked one when they would be in New York City -- and the dates overlapped the Post-Bar Mitzvah class trip that is tentatively scheduled for late October or early November.  I doubt we actually will meet in the balcony of B'nai Jeshurun for Kabbalat Shabbat services, but wouldn't that be an amazing shidduch (match) made for the class.

My solo venture to the supermarket in the height of the afternoon heat --- before everything shuts down for Shabbat -- is quick, and the purchases modest. I haul three shopping bags uphill on the return trip, kicking myself for not bringing that bottle of water that Laurelle urged me to carry. At the peak of the hill in the park, I sit down and watch the urban cats and birds play at surviving each other.  The scent of the city is here, and its silence (though there is a man yelling at his child for an unmentioned act of shtuyot -- and the child's escalating response, "Ani mitzta'er m'od. M'od.  Mitzta'er m'od m'od." "I'm very sorry. Very.  Very very sorry."

I say a little prayer for the relief of both parent and child to permit them both to enter Shabbat. Then I resume the return to the apartment, having secretly facilitated a moment of reconciliation. Maybe it will be a more peaceful Sabbath for them both.

So now we're readying for Shabbat -- sunshine pouring through the windows, the air conditioning making like Winnipeg, and Laurelle and Keithen sleeping away the afternoon.

I wish you all a beautiful Shabbat!

Rabbi Larry Pinsker

All Life in Israel is a Way of Worshipping God

Being in Israel is like seeing a garden through a series of gates you have passed on a long walk. Each time you pass them, you wonder, “What lies beyond?” but if you do not make the effort to open them, the interior mystery remains hidden.

The gates are opening:

We’re in Jerusalem and the sunlight is pouring through the windows of our apartment in Katamon. Our flight – as blissfully comfortable as Air Canada can make a ten-hour cross-Atlantic seating in front of a TV set  (remember, no one forces you to watch all those movies and TV shows they’ve stocked) – was pleasant and as busy as such confinement can be. 


Travelers in neighbouring seats included families returning to Israel after visits to family in Toronto, a cluster of relatives bound for a beach wedding in the shade of Roman ruins in Caesarea (talk about a romantic setting!), and yeshiva students returning to limmudei kodesh ("sacred studies") in the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Looking at our passports, the Immigration officer at Ben Gurion Airport beams and says, “Ah, you are from Winnipeg! Your mayor, he is an Israeli! And your city makes such a tempting invitation for people to come and live there! But the winter is hard but beautiful?” 

The taxi driver is a new oleh from Moscow, his Hebrew passable, but whenever his cellular phone rings, he speaks Russian to the callers.  Laurelle and Keithen, exhausted, sleep in the back seat while I stare out the windows on the ride to Jerusalem. 

Unexpectedly a passage from Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev comes to mind and later in the day, after we have taken the long route to nearby shopping and restaurants, the words fairly blaze in the sky and across facades of buildings. The streets are filled with people strolling, shopping, or simply watching the passing parade.  This is the place they have made out of two-thousand-year-old dream stuff. 


The Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev passage:

“By the acts that people had to do – to plant and to sow, to raise cattle and to sacrifice -- the Creator, Who is Blessed, caused the flow of blessing to descend upon them. For Israel, because of their good deeds is made worthy of the blessings that the Creator sends down upon them. When Israel was in the desert, however, they were in the state that the Holy One showered blessing upon them because of God's great grace, as shown in the case of the manna and the well of water, for in these there was no human action at all. In the land of Israel, by contrast, the flow of blessings that they received was a function of their deeds. This flow, which comes to a person as a function of his or her own acts, is the source of true happiness and joy for that person.”

The teacher who introduced us to this unexpectedly pragmatic expression of Hasidic wisdom explained that in life all true blessing is a function of our labor: we must work for it. In this way of thinking and experiencing religious life, this way of understanding the meaning of “blessing” is preferable to the idea of “blessing” being something given as a gift. It transforms the idea of sacrifice – which ceases to be “giving up something” and instead becomes all the work and labor of which we are capable for the sake of something greater than ourselves.

I can live with and practice a spiritual life that asks something of me and that proposes that "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch". Want to serve God and know God?  First roll up your sleeves and start working. God will be there alongside you. The work will seem to take half as long, and you'll have such a feeling of satisfaction because of all you've done with and for others. Here, as the pioneers said, you stand for something in your labours, and you stand with God as you work.

That is why life in Israel is itself a form of worship.  That is what I remember about life here from long ago.

Our driver’s GPS unerringly brings us to our Katamon residence. The neighbourhood is not the Katamon I remember from my days at Machon Greenberg/Hebrew University. The streets are filled with yeshiva students, every other building seems to be a kollel or high school or drisha for teenage girls in school uniforms whose common features are white blouses and black skirts. Is the school year ending for them shortly?

It’s now Friday morning and I have so much more to share with you, but for the moment we must head into Mircaz ha’Ir and shop for Shabbat. 

On behalf of Laurelle and Keithen, I wish you all a beautiful Shabbat. 

More to come… and please write to us so that we can post you and respond!

With love,

Rabbi Larry Pinsker

As promised, more for (Shabbat) reflection:

(1)   There are two types of people: those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" —  and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are."   -- Frederick L. Collins

(2)  It is not enough to simply love another; I must learn to love as that other needs to be loved. If I do not, my love is merely an emotional generalization, suitable for all and mattering to none.         – Julius Lester, Lovesong: Becoming a Jew, p. 213

Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean and...packing

I am in the middle of reading Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean.  I am finding this book utterly fascinating.  The author describes the conditions of Jews and the overall political climate immediately after the expulsion from Spain and goes from there.  I didn't realize that the Inquisition travelled to Spanish territories.  The Spanish were not content to expel the Jews, they also retained claim to those expelled citizens so that they could continue to persecute them (particularly Conversos who later left Spain in search of better conditions).  Oy.

I am currently reading the chapter on Jamaica.  Originally, Jamaica was held entirely by the descendants of Columbus (who knew? -- I mean, besides Rabbi Larry???) and they were friendly to Conversos on the Island.  When a new governor tried to bring Jamaica back into the Spanish fold so as to bring the Inquisition to its shores, the Jews of Jamaica secretly corresponded with the English to encourage an invasion.  I am not finished the chapter yet, but am having fun!

On another note, in my typical type A fashion, the bags are all packed and ready to go -- we only need to pack on carry on luggage.  I tried to get it all into three big suitcases, but I am bringing food for Keithen and so needed to succumb to the need to pack a fourth with the food I am bringing along to get us started.  I can't believe that, G-d willing, my feet will finally touch Eretz Israel for the first time in 8 more days!

We'll be in touch again soon,

Laurelle

Another Door Opens

Hi, everyone, and welcome to my sabbatical!  


It's June 2nd, and it's once again rain, thunder and lightning in  Winnipeg, but I am immersed in light as I catch up on reading and sleep, and get back into an exercise routine. 


I am thrilled that you will be joining us for these three months. And thank you, Laurelle, for making this work for us.  There are, of course, many more reasons for gratitude, but they will have their public moment in time. You've made this dance possible for all of us, so remember this moment as we circle in joy. 


I'm already busy reading books, scholarly articles, and essays on the pre-institute reading list. These are materials about Israel and the Diaspora, the nature and future of Jewish community, and how to reimagine Jewish life. 


I know many of you are very busy, and summer is time to catch up on easy livin'. Enjoy every minute of it!  And if you have an idle moment and your curiosity moves you, please take some time to look at what I'll be studying at the Hartman. I'll be posting links or copies of materials to you so that you can stay in touch and let me know your thoughts and questions about them. 


I believe you can access the pre-programme reading list  and either read online or print them by going to:


http://www.hartman.org.il/Resorce_Center_View.asp?Article_Id=709&Cat_Id=332&Cat_Type=Resorce_Center


(You may have to cut and paste the link to connect to the site, but it's there and the link does permit access to anyone, at least for now.)

Of late we've received invitations to several conferences and public events occurring in Israel during our stay. I'm not sure how they can be squeezed into an already rich schedule, but Laurelle and I will try. For example, we've discovered that the Israeli equivalent of the Toronto Film Festival will take place during our visit and have inquired about festival tickets.

Ah, sweet now! Right now I'm listening to a recording of Louis Armstrong singing one of my favourites: "What a Wonderful World".  Many of you already know this song is one of the themes of the "Alternative" High Holy Day services Leslie Emery and I have lovingly and organically grown for the edification, pleasure, and spiritual delight of those who attend. It's already turning steely skies and a downpour into a hymn of glory to the Creator. I hope it's somewhere in the soundtrack of your life, too, whatever comes your way.


We're just getting our feet wet (at this moment, quite literally) -- and the water's fine.  Let's stay in touch!


Looking forward to hearing from you,




Rabbi Larry


P.S.   I thought it might be fun to share with you brief teachings I've found inspiring. Please let me know whether these resonate with you.  


This is one that's often been paraphrased or cited, but only in part. 


#1


"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." -- Alexander Graham Bell