I'm in Budapest! Dorot flew all the fellows here to do some learning around Diaspora Jewry (and give us a chance to recharge and refresh). Then afterwards Sam and I are extending our vacation to Vienna and Prague :)
I'm loving it so far! Here's a little of what we've done...
Kiyomi, Sam, and Louisa! We went to a Christmas market. Well, we tried to go. It turns out that there's the huge Christmas market, and there's a spillover into a smaller christmas market, and then there's the spillover of THAT, and THAT is where we went! Jews failed at the Christmas market. We're going to the real one tonight :). But even the #3 market was cute and fun! We got hot mulled wine, which you can see in this giant vat here.
And there were PILES of MEAT, which we ate. Not kosher WHATSOEVER. But 100% delicious.
I'd just been saying how I escaped the Christmas craziness, living in Israel and all, but it's in full swing here in Central Europe.
Cuties strolling down the beautiful boulevard!
We did a lot of linked-arm walking and generally annoying poor bicyclists.
Hero's Square
I think this looks like Hogwarts, with the ice skaters on the lake and all.
AND THEN, we went to the Hungarian baths! They were crazy. It was in this HUGE palace-like building. The inside looks like a 1940's insane asylum... long, white tiled hallways with sturdy Hungarian women dressed as nurses guiding people about. And in the bath area there was room after room after room of different kinds of baths, with the various temperatures and contents (mineral water, sulfur, etc) labeled on the wall. There was one pool with lots of people with weights doing some kind of aerobics. And there were tons of sauna rooms, too.
And outside...
Holy shit whoooooa! Gorgeous. There were three outdoor pools, with beautiful statues all around. It was terribly romantic. I highly recommend Budapest as a honey moon destination. And I'm pretty sure we saw one couple making full use of the privacy the steam semi-afforded.
Gorgeous!
In one of the pools there were concentric circles of pools within pools, and on one side there were very strong jets coming from below that gave a kind of massage, and in the inner pool there were these crazy side-jets that whirled people around in circles and everybody was bonking into each other and laughing, it was really fun.
More gorgeousness.
And THEN I got a massage. The first part was just a nice, simple oil massage with very little pressure. More relaxation than medicinal.
And THEN she flipped me over. And the massage became a full frontal massage. And by full frontal, I mean, above the waist, FULL frontal. It's like my chest was play dough. She just went for it. I'm a little speechless about it still.
And then she moved my arms all around and sat me up and pushed my back this way while pulling my arm that way and I didn't know my limbs bent like that, but apparently... THEY DO!
Just learning tons of new things about myself in Hungary :D.
Tomorrow the seminars start and things will turn grim, but for now, sausage and invasive massages for the win!
Life in Israel is extremely eventful. You just never know what's going to happen to you. You could...
1) Meet a Cult Leader
2) Caption your own photography exhibit
3) See incredible Israeli dance
4) Have deep conversations with Charedi people
5) Have a panic attack and then practice radical acceptance
1) Meet a Cult Leader
Last Thursday we had a Dorot seminar in Dimona. Dimona is a periphery town in the Negev desert. It sprouted up to strengthen Israeli's territorial borders and for not really any other reason. There are no natural resources nearby, there's nothing to do, nowhere to go... it's very Tatooine-y. It was settled mostly by people who didn't particularly want to be there, such as Indian Jews who were placed there after immigration, Russian Jews, and Moroccoan French Jews, all of whom had a very different idea of what life would be like in Israel than Dimona. The only industries that can work there due to the conditions are factories, which is pretty miserable work, and the Nuclear Research Facility (which doesn't exist... *cough*, and neither does the fact that cancer rates in Dimona are twice the national average...).
If you've seen or read the hunger games, basically, Tel Aviv is the capital, where everybody is extravagant and drinking and partying and shopping and living crazily, and Dimona is District 12.
First we met with the Deputy Mayor of Dimona (not a cult leader).
She was really amazing. She's so determined and optimistic about her community. She's working on getting employment rates up and has already made some progress, and is finally connecting Dimona to the Israeli train system (currently it's a real pain in the ass to get to Dimona from anywhere at all.) And she's helped to vastly improve Dimona's education system. And she has a really 'picked myself up by my bootstraps' backstory.
So then we went to another of Dimona's minority groups, the African Hebrew Israelites. So... the AHIs think that first of all, most Israelite Jews were basically black, and that after the fall of the second temple, some Jews fled south into Africa, and gradually migrated to West Africa, and were taken as slaves to the Americas, and are basically black people in America today. We heard all of this from Ahmadiel, who grew up in DC and is now the minister of information for the AHI community. Here he is:
He kind of looked like a black version of my dad o_O. I would have loved to see them in a debate.
Doroters listening. Note the MLK poster.
A painting of the Princes Council, their leadership... board?
He explained this history, and about how they came to Israel because they feel it is also their homeland. Most of them are here illegally because Israel doesn't recognize their Jewishness, but after a generation of kids were born here, Israeli, and they served in the army, they just kind of naturalized. The kids don't really speak Hebrew though...
They all live on this compound, all 3,000 of them or so, and have their own schools and housing and gardens, and they all wear this very peculiar getup (I couldn't get a picture but I bet if you google you can find out...) and it's a very insular community. They speak English with a sort of Chicago accent for the most part, but they identify as Israeli. Sometimes Israel deports some of them but they seem to find a way back.
They practice the Torah as they see it, which means they're all strictly vegan and they have fringes on their clothes and they observe Shabbat and the men have multiple wives, amongst many other things. Israel said they need to stop practicing plural marriage, but Ahmadiel said that doesn't make much sense since in any given generation there are more available women than men, so if men don't take multiple wives we'll have all these poor spinsters on our hands.
But we also left the compound and met a social worker named Sarah...
Sarah was raised in the AHI community, on the compound. She never went to primary or high school, she never learned Hebrew. She married young and she said girls in the community are raised to treat their husband like a king and serve him. And she had four children very quickly. She used to take a folding table and chair on the bus to nearby malls to braid hair for extra money. And she always wanted more for herself so she started taking classes at the community center. A very long and harrowing story short, she ended up getting all the way through college and getting a degree in social work. When her husband chose to take an additional wife, she objected and they fought publicly, and she was punished with social exile, essentially, an outcast in the community. Eventually she moved out and got her own apartment, though her kids are still on the compound. She didn't tell us too much about her personal experience, but she did mention that sexual and domestic abuse are rampant on the compound, as is corporal punishment and child abuse. And not much is done because people are basically brainwashed to be suspicious of outside influence. It was all pretty intensely horrifying to hear about.
We ended the day going to an Indian Jewish home and having a delicious meal and talking about the day. Dimona over all creeped me the hell out. It was a big relief for me to get out of there.
2) Caption your own photo exhibit
On Saturday I went to the Eretz Israel Museum ("Land of Israel" Museum) to see a photo exhibit my advisor thought was relevant to my research project. Since my Hebrew reading skills are still very basic, I didn't get too much out of it historically, but it was cool to see a new museum and it was nice to go for a long walk there, since there's no public transport on Shabbat.
Hayarkon River during my walk
The exhibit was in a building dedicated to Israeli Postal history, which is very serious business. It was a collection of photos from mostly kibbutzim in the galilee by Oppenheimer, and it was a really nice exhibit. I enjoyed it.
And since I couldn't really read the captions of the photo, I've decided to caption some of them myself.
"Jews CAN swim!"
"Zion and summer camp are synonyms"
"Man carrying bananas. For Zion."
"Gone are the days of turning swords into plowshares. Zionists turn trees into beat-sticks."
"Boy holding goose."
"Early acro-yoga."
"Couple takes photo to use as facebook cover in 90 years."
Elsewhere on museum grounds, they had a ceramic flower display.
A wooooooooorld of pure imagination
I also went to an exhibit about Baron Rothschild, since I live on his boulevard and all. I learned a lot. Like that he was opposed to early zionism, and felt Israel was important only as a safe haven for distressed Eastern European Jews. But eventually he came around.
And there was a "folklore pavilion" which I was disappointed to find had nothing to do with folklore whatsoever. This is a mistake made the world over. People... "lore" is storytelling. Crafts, rebuilt synagogues, jewelry making, textiles, etc... are not "lore." Folk culture maybe, folk art, folk crafts... but not "lore." It was still pretty interesting though.
Misty view of Tel Aviv from the museum patio.
3) See amazing Israeli dance
In addition to all the other amazing opportunities Dorot provides, we do this thing called cultural hevrutah (study pair). Where we're given money to go see something cultural and then send a review out to the group. Kiyomi and I chose to see a performance called "The Hole" at the Batsheva dance company here in Tel Aviv.
WOW. Have a look at the trailer alone...
Kim I think you'd have died for it. You'd have LOVED it!
It was super intense. What stuck out about this show for me was the division between the genders. For most of the show, the men were on the inside circular stage and the women were around the perimeter of the room, with the two meeting somewhat at the end. Most meetings of the genders were fraught with tension and conflict, until a duet at the end which seemed to describe romance for the beautiful melancholy that it is, with movements expressing tenderness and shifting power dynamics and pain. What fascinates me even more is I saw a video online of this performance with the same choreography except the genders switched - with the women in the center and the men on the outside. Imagining the show that way has an extremely different message to me and I wonder about the choreographer's thinking... creating a show with clear gender duality but that can be performed interchangeably...
And of course, as others have reflected, these people are amazing technicians of their own bodies! (I think technician was your word, Sam). I was especially impressed by the synchronization and precision. The music was very indistinct so the timing must have come from some intense internal counting and link between dancers, which always amazes me.
In any case, it was beautiful and disturbing and powerful and I'm eager to return for another Bat Sheva show.
On another note, my little Zionist heart was really excited to hear the opening announcements (turn off your cell phones) in Hebrew, and to think about this Israeli dance company in this gorgeous dance theater built in this amazing Israeli city. We started our own country! And in it our own metropolis! And in it our own art! Yes everything seems to come down to that for me here, even this :).
The really pretty courtyard of the dance theater. Luminarium needs its own dance theater stat, I say!
4) Have deep conversations with charedi people
Then yesterday I returned to Jerusalem to meet with more charedi people.
Will I ever get tired of Jerusalem architecture? All signs point to no.
It's almost Channukah, which in Israel means DONUT TIME!
Did I eat one? Is that a real question? IT WAS DELICIOUS, HOLY SHIT.
So I put out a feeler on a Jerusalem facebook group to see if anyone knew anyone I should be talking to about charedim. To clarify, charedim is a general term for Ultra-Orthodox Jews. You know... suits/black hats/hair covered/long skirts, etc. I'm just starting my research so definitely don't use me as a scholarly source. Anyway there are lots of sects within the charedim. So I got some messages back on facebook and I reached out to these people, and for the most part people were really helpful and responsive!
For example, I met this one Rabbi who said he wasn't charedi but he was definitely ultra-orthodox, and he was very linked into the charedi world. I'm going to leave him anonymous for now since people are super sensitive in and around this community. Anyway, this rabbi is pretty well known, because when we met up at a yeshiva (place of religious study) in the Old City, I saw the coordinator that I knew, and he said "I thought that was you! Back again? Who are you meeting?" And I said, "Rabbi ______" and he said ".... how did you get him to meet you???" and I said "Uh... I e-mailed him."
I will say this for Israel... people here are just generally much more willing to meet than in the States. Sure, they're busy and there are plenty of self-important people, but generally if you want to meet someone, even someone who's kind of a big deal, if you reach out to them there's a decent chance they'll respond and agree.
So I met up with this Rabbi who was secular and atheist until his 20s or so when he became religious, moved to Israel, became a rabbi, etc. We didn't talk too much about his personal history, more about the charedi lifestyle and his current life. It was a really fascinating conversation.
First, he was talking about going into Mea Shearim, which is the most intense ultra-ultra-ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in the world, basically, and it's right here in Jerusalem of course. So I was dressed basically as I was in the photo at the beginning of this post, and he said "I bet you think you're dressed appropriately, don't you?" And I said, "Aren't I? Chest/elbows/knees covered? Skirt?" And I stood up for him to see.
UO (Ultra Orthodox in this post) people are not supposed to really look at people of the opposite gender who are not their spouse. This is why, if you come to Israel, you will find them steadfastly ignoring you in the street. It's not that they're trying to be rude, they're just trying to preserve a world in which their spouse is the only man or woman who exists to them. Some people, like this Rabbi, are willing to speak to the opposite gender for specific reasons, but it's still a different sort of interaction than I'd have with other men. Like we didn't shake hands. And he kept strict eye contact with me throughout the conversation. Even when he observed my outfit, he only looked in my eye and basically used his periphery vision to say, "Well, your collar bone isn't completely covered, and you need to wear loose-fitting clothes, and your hair should be pulled back. It's acceptable, if you went into Mea Shearim you'd be okay, but they'd know you weren't from there. You look like a seminary girl who went into the neighborhood, just coming through, to buy a mezuzah for her father back in New York." And this made me laugh. Dad, do you want a mezuzah?
Since he used to be secular, he had a really fascinating perspective on the UO Community. He said, "Theirs is a Torah lifestyle at all costs. And the costs are getting bigger. The costs are getting too dear to keep paying, but they will keep paying, and they're totally united on that."
And he said, "Charedim aren't trying to be lame. They're not all thinking 'how can I be the most lame today?' It's important to understand why they're lame." This made me laugh because the truth is most secular Israelis find charedim very lame indeed... they wear super heavy clothing in summer in the desert, they generally don't serve in the army, they generally are on welfare, they generally don't work but study in seminary all day, they generally have 10+ kids, they generally do not interact with other citizens of the country, on and on... and later on I'll tell you some of what I found out about the roots of this 'lameness.'
Anyway, the thing I found most interesting that the rabbi told me was about his family dynamic and marriage. He described how when UO couples get married at 17 or 18, they can be totally open and vulnerable to each other because they haven't known anyone or anything else. They're not jaded. They're not damaged. They're fresh slates. He sees in these couples a closeness that no other kind of marriage can achieve, that he said he and his wife hope to achieve after another 30 or so years of marriage, he already sees his 18 year old newly-wed daughter has that.
Whereas, he said, in the secular world, people wait to get married until their 30s, at which point the dating pool is like a "used car lot, and every car is totally bashed in." People are jaded and heartbroken and scarred and unable to ever be totally vulnerable and close to someone the way they could when they were younger.
He said his daughter is totally happy, and he's so glad he chose this life for his family. "My eyes," he said, "Were always focused on that their hearts should never break. My daughter went from the love of her nuclear family right to the love of her own new nuclear family. And her heart will never be broken."
She's already pregnant with her first child. And I said, "Isn't that intense, for a girl to become a mother when she's 17?" And he said, "At 17? Girls become mothers in our community at 10 or 11, when they're in charge of their little siblings. There are often 19 or 20 kids in a family, and the kids look at their siblings as parents often more than their parents. It's a conveyer belt of children growing up."
And I said, "Okay, but then what do you make of the fact that they are never independent adults? If they become mothers and fathers at 11, of their siblings, and then at 17 mothers and fathers of their own children, and the cycle continues ad infinitum, they are never ever independent people."
And he was kind of quiet and then he said, "Huh... their single adulthood doesn't exist, does it? Did I rob them of that?"
And I said, "I don't know. It sounds like from your perspective, it wasn't robbery at all, it was a gift they don't have to suffer through that."
And he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "I never really thought about that. You kind of blew my mind here."
He also blew my mind. Under no circumstances would I become Ultra Orthodox, and it's too late for me to be anything other than a super banged up mustang anyway. But I think of my breakups, and the breakups of my friends, and it's basically always because of some scar or history someone has, some bullet that their flesh closed around that's still keeping them up at night. (In Israel sometimes that is even true in a literal sense.) And I always figured marriage would be stronger between developed people who know themselves, but is that true?
Anyway, later Mati and I went INTO Mea Shearim to meet with a woman who's very prominent, the daughter of a great rabbi and the wife of another great rabbi, and I'll also leave her anonymous.
This sign greets you on entering the neighborhood
I always kind of gulp when I pass it, but basically all that's inside is a really enclosed, rather low income neighborhood with tons of litter, tons of laundry, and tons of kids running around every which way.
So we went to this woman's house and it was really something. She has 9 children so far. We sat in her dining room which looks like the dining room of every one of the Jewish homes I went to in Worcester growing up... floor to ceiling books, dark furniture, huge glass cabinet of Judaica, a clock set with the Jewish date. They don't have a TV or internet or cell phones, although the cordless landline kept ringing. The kids, of all shapes and sizes, kept running in and out and screaming and crying and laughing and playing and being generally endearing.
She had SO much to say. I really liked her. I didn't take notes because I didn't want to make her uncomfortable, but she fed us cake and said some very interesting things, such as...
Her: What is your book about?
Me: Oh, a Jewish girl in Boston. It's a love story.
Her: And what happens in the love story?
Me: What do you mean?
Her: Do they get married?
Me: No... it's complicated. It doesn't quite work out between them.
Her: ...I don't understand.
"Ultra Orthodox love... this is real love. When my father introduced me to my husband, we only spoke for half an hour and didn't see each other again until the wedding, but I knew he was the one for me. By the time we met at the chuppa I was so excited, I was so high. He's everything to me and I'm everything to him, we're each other's first priority. I know he doesn't even look at other women, and he knows I don't look at other men. He would do anything for me, anything. And because we can only touch two weeks a month, in the time apart I miss him and crave him more each day until we're allowed to each other again and it is the most blissful feeling, every month. We could never tire of each other."
And she said, "Every Jewish child is such a blessing. All of my children, they are my joy. They are not a burden, they are a joy. They're not just children, they're Jewish souls. You don't know what they will turn out to be or do. They are each such a treasure. A woman's womb is like a Torah scroll, so sacred, kept inside an arc. And each soul she brings into the world is such a miracle. You know I hate to say this, but I think we should be like the nazis in this way... the nazis would turn an entire town upside down looking for just one Jewish soul. That's the importance they placed on it. We need to do that, too, we need to always know the value of it."
And she talked about her Grandmother, whom she aspires to be like, who had about 500 great grand children clamoring around and pouring into the hospital hallways when she died. She had no money, no material possessions to leave, but 500 people who'd give a kidney if it meant she'd live for one more week, and thousands of people bawling at her funeral. And she said she also met a woman who had a huge house in Rehavia and a son who was a famous doctor in the States, but he was too busy being a doctor to marry or visit her, and she died alone. "Who was successful?" She said to us. "Who was successful?"
I have no idea, but she seemed legitimately, deeply happy. Her husband came home and her daughters closed the door to the dining room and we never saw him even for a second, though I heard his voice.
We left and met with another contact, Erica, who is rather secular and works with job placements for Charedim who DO want to work, and she taught us some FASCINATING things:
-> Of all Western economies, Israel has the highest poverty rate and is right behind the US in terms of an extremely large gap between the wealthiest and most impoverished people.
-> Although Israel has a 6% unemployment rate, which is quite low, that does not count "workforce non-participants", that is, people who have never entered the workforce and aren't actively looking for work, which in Israel is mostly charedim, arabs, ethiopians, young adults at risk, and people with disabilities.
-> Over 50% of Arab and Charedi families live below the poverty line
-> Roughly 1 OUT OF EVERY 2 Kindergarten students today are Charedi or Arab, so if it's not a huge problem now (and it is), imagine Israel in 15 years...
I nearly spit out my coffee at that. In 15 years Israel is going be...
HOoooooOOoooly Shit.
-> 42% of Charedi men work, and most of the others study full time, some with government stipends and some without.
-> 67% of Charedi women work, which is not so far from the national average, except in the case of Charedi women, most of them are religious school teachers within their communities, which pays minimum wage and only part time.
-> Because so many Jewish scholars and theologians, mostly Charedi, were killed in the Holocaust, David Ben Gurion (Israeli founding father) agreed with the Charedi community that the best of the best of their scholars would be exempt from army service and would get government stipends to study full time, in order to revive Jewish thought and make up for that extreme loss in WW2. AND SO, there became an idea in the Israeli Charedi community that if you're not studying, it means you're not that smart, you're not the best of the best, you must be a loser. People wanted their daughters to marry scholars. To this day there is a stigma against men who don't study because of this tradition. Most secular Israelis interpret the study-not-work behavior as laziness or selfishness but actually it's source is here.
WHICH FASCINATED ME. I had no idea.
-> Nowadays you have swathes of kids who grew up in poverty and have had enough, so you're starting to see more charedim interested in working. You're also seeing a few rabbis of different sects saying, "Hey, it's also a commandment to provide for your family, so you can work, it's not a dishonor to work." There's also a new army unit just for charedi men, which teaches them practical skills with which they can get a job after, like mechanics and stuff like that. But since these army stipends need to be higher than most (stipends for married men are always higher, and they're all married) it's an expensive unit to maintain and there's a lot more demand for spots than the army can provide.
5) Have a panic attack and practice radical acceptance
The other day I had a pretty impressive panic attack. I think the combo of lack of sleep, illness, and stress over the amount of stuff I have to do before Europe just snapped my resolve. I actually haven't really panicked much in Israel, other than when my housing situation kind of dissolved last month. But yesterday I panicked. I called my parents crying and freaking out because I was overwhelmed by this sensation that I don't know what I'm doing. Do I want to live in Israel? Do I want to live in the States? Where do I want to live? What do I want to do? Do I want to be a writer? Do i want to be a lawyer? Do I want to be a therapist? Do I want to be a journalist? What do I want to do? Who do I want to do it with? How am I going to do any of it? What am I doing here? Why did I come here? Should I stay? Why should I stay? Should I go home? Why should I go home? I mean classic, first-world existential angst. And my parents basically told me to chill out and live each day.
And today I had a great day meeting charedim and learning new things and having great conversations, and I was in a really good mood at the end of the day. A really fabulous mood, actually. And I was talking to my Dad...
Dad: Sounds like a great day! So what are your plans now? Ariane: Well, right now I'm in Jerusalem walking to the bus station so I can go back to TLV. And tonight I have a lot of Hebrew homework to do. Tomorrow I have Hebrew early in Jaffa, and then I have my first tutoring volunteering at the Jewish/Arab school, and then I'm maybe having coffee with Rabbi Scott, from that spring program I did? And then I'm going to see the IDF Chief of Staff speak, which should be cool. And then Tuesday I'm coming back to Jerusalem for hopefully more Charedi meetings... I think I'm meeting a Charedi psychiatrist and then I'm getting a tour of a Charedi branch of Magen David Adom (like 911), and then I'm meeting the soldier who spoke to us about Lebanon to give him some feedback about his presentation. And then I think I'm having dinner with Deeds, and then staying over with Ilona. And Wednesday I'm still in Jerusalem because I have Hebrew and then I have yoga, and then I'm coming back to Tel Aviv and having a drink with someone and then prepping because Thursday I have community day all day with Dorot and I need to prepare stuff. And then Thursday night I'm packing because we leave 3 am Friday for Budapest! Dad:... JESUS, ARIANE. You complain about not knowing what you're doing but you have plans every second of every day! Ariane: I know... I guess I just feel like I don't have a big picture. I'm just doing a lot of random stuff. Dad: So you don't see the forest for the trees yet! Life is a Seurat painting. Pointilism! Enjoy it! Enjoy each dot! And then after, look back and see the tapestry. You're still such a chess player... you look at the board and want to see the end game. But even Fischer acknowledged that sometimes the other guy makes a move you don't expect. You can only control your moves, and then life will do what it does.
Bobby Fischer: I mean, it seems to me in chess... you have to have the talent, but, the guys who reach the top keep at it and have the character. They don't get distracted by other things in life until they got the title, or whatever they wanted out of chess.
Reporter: Can you have any other life and be a great chess player?
Fischer: Not at the moment, no. First thing's first, right? Get the title, and um... you know...
Also I just got home totally beat and Ido greeted me and said, "Ariane?? Do you want some hotdogs????" and I said "I would LOVE some hotdogs!" and he said "ON THE WAY!"
I texted Matat that I was bummed, and she called me, and in a very thick fake Israeli accent (she doesn't normally have much of an accent when she speaks English, but she puts one on when she's making particular points), she said,
"SHALOM! Listen, I just woke up, I looked out the window, I see the sun, the birds, the trees, it's a beautiful day. You need to get up and go out and go all around. Take a long walk, rent a bike, go to a museum, meet all the people on the streets. You're in Tel Aviv, and you're alive, you're a person who is living. Go do this and then at the end of the day send me pictures. I wish I were there with you but you are going to do this. You took a risk and that's very brave and I'm very proud of you but now we don't care anymore, right? Life goes on because we're living people. Now go take a super hot shower, dress cute and put your makeup on and GO!"
So I WENT!
And here's what I saw...
I was walking along in the water and these guys asked me to take a picture of them flexing their muscles. I said okay, if I could take one with my camera, too.
The seaaaaaaaaa! Lots of sailboats out.
This guy was walking ahead of me for most of the afternoon. It was pleasant.
Seems a bit wishful thinking in these parts, but I'll take it :)
Okay the reason for this photo is there is this guy you can kind of see between the umbrellas. I watched him doing running-stretches for a little while on the cement, and then he got up, put in his earbuds, and said to himself, "Yalla ballagan!" ("Let's make a mess!") before dashing off to start his run. I liked it. Maybe I'll start my runs with that from now on.
Tel Aviv has these free outdoor gym things. And people use them.
You really call this winter, Aroma??? I actually missed Boston winter for a heartbeat. Half a heartbeat.
Some strange little park behind a bunch of apartment buildings.
And then I went to Shabbat and it was lovely and delicious! There was a great new prayer I'm going to try to track down, it was very apt. I couldn't stay too long after because I am still fighting some sickness and I need to rest.
Tomorrow I'm having brunch with Sam and then I'm going to a museum I've been meaning to go to for ages, and then I'm going to a dance show with Kiyomi :).
Today my yoga teacher said if you're trying to combat negative self narrative, the best thing to do is work on positive affirmations.
So I thought, rather than write a blog post about what's making me sad, I would write a blog post about happiness.
I attended a lecture the other day in which the rabbi said that people are truly happy when they are doing what they know they should be doing.
I wondered if that was true for me, and I thought the best way to figure it out is to think about the moments in my life I was happiest, and see what they were about. I made a list on the bus back to Tel Aviv, and now I'm putting it in chronological order and expounding.
This feels kind of super arrogant writing. It's about like... all good things I've done and how much people love me. But that's the exercise, so whatever.
Some observations... 8/10 moments feature friends and/or family. 2 are alone, and 1 is special because it was alone. 4/10 involve creative production or performance in some way 0/10 involve romance, which is interesting to me because it's such a treasured thing for me and most people. And it's not because I'm censoring myself, and it's not because I haven't had profound romantic experiences. But when I think of those moments "happiness" is not the term that comes to mind. "Poignant" might be better. The rabbi said "Don't confuse happiness with pleasure" and I think that's pretty key. 5/10 involve parties in some way, which is interesting because I usually think I'm not so into parties, but 50% of my happiest memories contain parties
Do I feel these moments involve things I should be doing?
I'm too exhausted to analyze this right now. What do you think? Do you think the Rabbi is right?
What are our happiest memories?
1) Driving with friends in Nashua and listening to the Postal Service
I just have this distinct memory of driving with Bryant, Cball, and Cassie I think, and it was late summer and sticky during the day but cool at night, and the windows were rolled down and we were listening to Clark Gable and sticking our hands out into the air, except for the end when we all did the claps together, synchronized. And I just remember thinking how much I loved the people in the car, and how perfectly content I was when I was with them. 2) The Vagina Monologues and the After Party
When I was a senior in undergrad I got to be the Moaner in the Vagina Monologues, which is apparently not a thing in Israel? For the Israelis reading this, it's a play which is a set of monologues generally around women's sexual empowerment. And this was a dream role of mine, as I got to fake about a million orgasms on stage, which is not something you get to do every day. It was great to perform the role, but the best part was that my family came to the final show to support me. A family that works for women's sexual empowerment together stays together, am I right? And they participated in all of the audience participation segment, and they were the loudest, as Mandells always are, so I could hear them back stage and it just made me so happy. I felt so loved and supported. And afterward my friends and I got drunk with my parents and we told family stories and it was the best.
3) My Brother's Wedding
This was a great night. My entire family was there, even the Frenchies, and there was so much dancing and delicious food. I had the feeling my family was expanding, that the future was being enhanced, that more love and happiness was entering our lives, that stronger bonds were being built. I especially remember the after party in my parents' hotel room with the screwdrivers. And I just felt so secure and optimistic and surrounded by love.
4) EF Farewell Party
I loved working at EF, both times. And both of the farewell parties were amazing, but the first one was on a BOAT, so that's why I chose this photo. On both occasions I was overwhelmed by how lucky I was to work in such a cool place, doing such interesting work, with such fabulous, loving, fun people. And I felt supported by all of them that was moving on, but also like I would be missed. It's really rare that people are genuinely happy for you and still sad you're leaving at the same time, but they all were, and it was such an amazing way to start the next chapter of my life, in both cases.
5) Finishing ETHER
Actually, when I finished writing ETHER, my first book, I cried my eyes out. But afterward, really forever afterward, it's been a big happiness for me. I wrote a book! Beginning, middle, end! I wrote a book. I feel accomplished. I set out to do it and I did it, from scratch, through discipline and a lot of love and sweat.
6) Giving my Talk about Tears and My Friends Showing Up
Before I left grad school, I gave a talk about Weeping in Grimm, and it was a great experience. I got to present work I'd been developing for a long time, something I was really passionate about, in front of scholars I had admired for years, and I'm really proud of how I did. And on top of most of the folklore field being in attendance, most of my friends were in attendance, too. They just kept coming in and coming in until a lot had to stand in the back, and after my panel was over I couldn't count the hugs. It takes a true friend to show up for a talk on an esoteric subject. And it made me really emotional to see how many of my friends would do that. And my family, of course <3.
Angel and Me and Lily at the party Mitch and Angel threw for me after! They ever had tear-shaped ice cubes!
Here is a link, queued up to the Q&A, because it's funny and frankly, I think I was a BAMF. Also I love how my friend who was a biologist came in there at the end to back me up. A little help from your friends <3. 7) My Bat Mitzvah On Masada With Birthright
Birthright as a whole was a highlight of my life for sure, and my Bat Mitzvah was the highlight of birthright. The hike was really hard and I felt accomplished at the top, and the view was so gorgeous I felt so lucky to be there, and I felt connected to history through the site. And then on top of that I got to participate in Jewish ritual, which linked me to peoplehood, and I got to give a little Torah analysis and a little speech, and thank all of my new friends, and then they all hugged me and threw candy and I just felt surrounded by kin. And I felt so much hope for the future and so much intrigue about where my life was about to go.
8) Jordan Solo
I wanted to go to Jordan last summer and all of my friends couldn't go so I just went. And it was amazing. Took my breath away. But the best part was that I did it by myself. I felt so alive the entire time, and I felt so much trust in myself, I felt so close to myself and so... I don't know, I think it's the time in my life that I felt most a friend to myself. An ally. And I just felt so at peace after the trip... basically at one with myself and the universe. :) 9) Being in North Carolina
One of my best friends, Molly, lives in North Carolina with her amazing husband Chris, her baby son Flynn, and her two amazing french bulldogs bella and luna. I love visiting them. I'm pretty much totally content the entire time I'm there, from airport gate to airport gate. All we do is watch movies, eat delicious food (pub cheese... fried mushrooms... friend chicken... hush puppies... amazing mexican...), go to my favorite jewelry store on earth, and play with the dogs. For days. And it is pure bliss.
I pass out when I'm in NC basically every 5 mins. I'm just so at ease. I feel so loved and I'm so content and there's always a puppy to snuggle.
10) Walking Forever with Lily
Lily's basically my soulmate. She just gets me. She just hears me. Always. Last year we got together every Thursday, and it was always a highlight of my week. One Thursday, near the end, before she moved to LA and I moved to Israel, we ate at our favorite vegan place and I remember telling her things that made her cry for me, and how it was the first time, I think the only time, I'd ever seen someone cry because of some pain that *I* had. It's a really profound feeling.
And afterwards I walked her home, but we weren't done talking, so she walked me to the T station, but we weren't done talking, so I walked her home, and then she walked me to the T, and then... and we walked each other, back and forth, until 1 in the morning or so. Maybe 10 or 12 times. And we could have kept going forever. Sometimes I like to think we never stopped. And we're just walking each other through life. Or maybe there's another universe somewhere where Ariane and Lily are walking always.
BONUS
I doubt these memories will someday end up on top ten memories of my LIFE, but it's important to recognize happiness in the present moment, too :)
My roomies knew I was down and they each responded promptly. I was holed up in my room listening to music and writing this post, and Ido sends me a text from his basketball game declaring "I'm giving away your phone number to boys that may interest you." At the same time as Yahli sends me a text, from the next room over:
Yahli: Want to go to benedicts?
Me: Yesssss#!!!!$#
Yahli: Pick you up from your room in five?
Is there anything a friend Hollandaise sauce can't fix? Okay, yes. Is there anything a friend and Hollandaise sauce can't vastly improve? No.
One thing I notice, looking back at these, is that most of them are rather unplanned. Even events... did I know that giving that talk and being with my friends that day would be THAT happy? No way. But looking back, it really stuck out in my mind. It makes me think about each day's potential for being really fully of love for friends and family and really intense joy. Maybe even just listening to music in the car. Happiness/God in the mundane is not an original thought, of course :P
And I do feel better having written this.
Count your blessings lovelies <3. If you're reading this, I love you. There's one!
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