Travel – Page 11 – Don't Gel Too Soon

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY FOUR – THE SOTAH AND MEA SHEARIM

Thursday morning I sent myself an email that said this: We are just leaving Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood and I am so freaked out. Maybe the SOTAH story had more impact than I realized. I told my husband that I was close to tears, that my chest was tight and I was someplace between scared and angry and he said – "You mean you felt like the Sotah, huh?" Well.

She does haunt me. Even now, when I have learned so much that mitigates the horrors of her treatment, I can see her, standing there, as they pull off her hair covering and stand her before God (and the priests), forced to drink the waters full of dirt and ashes. And what does that have to do with Mea Shearim? I’m the intruder there; the very Orthodox residents who choose to remain largely on the outskirts of the rest of the world and live a highly structured and mostly literal interpretation of every law and passage in the Torah – didn’t invite me to go wandering around looking at them while my husband bought a new Tallit (prayer shawl.) Even so, for some reason every time I go there I get so sad.

My husband once accused me of "overidentification with the oppressed." Maybe that’s it. The men are so clearly the ones with the power here, walking by in 2’s and 3’s while harried mothers and kids run errands and see to 3 or 4 children under 5. I have no right to consider them opressed. Or unhappy. Or anything else. What happens is that I imagine myself – stubborn, curious, eager to see and know everything – growing up here and wonder what would have become of me. Maybe I would have had a peaceful and loving life, but my projections won’t let me think about that. I just struggle with the stories I write in my mind about these families (these women) and their lives.

I have always loved The Chosen, and I have great respect for Chassidic Jews, for the most part. But there is something about this infinitely old, infinitely tired part of Jerusalem that just breaks my heart. As I write this, I suddenly wonder if perhaps it has more to do with me and my issues — that their lives are their own and I’m not sure that’s true of mine.

I’m writing this Thursday night in case I can’t finish it before Shabbat tomorrow — so Shabbat Shalom.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0: DAY THREE EMERGENCY CORRECTION SOTAH AND PUNISHMENT***

In yesterday’s post I wrote, about the trial and punishment mandated for the wife suspected of adultery, "Basically,it seems that asking a woman accused of adultery to stand before God to be judged (the only time God concerned Himself in this way with the laws of men), to drink water mixed with dirt from the Temple floor and the ashes of the burned paper accusing her, and then to wait to see if her belly swelled up or not (yes was a sign of guilt) seems to subjecte her to something both terrifying and humiliating. But once past that, even if she was guilty, there was no physical punishment, only a mandated divorce – and her lover was also punished."

My wonderful teacher, Tovah Leah Nachmani, read my blog(!!!) and noted gently that:
you wrote that no harm befalls her if she is guilty, after drinking the waters. but that isn’t the case.

1. if she confesses guilt before drinking the waters, then no harm befalls her and her partner in crime, but she and her husband divorce. and she can’t marry the partner.

2. but if she drinks the waters and is found guilty, she suffers the deforming of her body, or- according to other commentators -death, and so does her partner suffer either deforming or death.
in addition (if she doesn’t die) she is divorced from her husband.

3. one last point: if her husband is also guilty of any sexual offenses, even if the wife is guilty, the waters do not harm her.

So. I stand corrected and apologize. I was so tired; she had indeed taught us about the deformity but I just plain forgot. I’m grateful for the chance to fix it – it’s important.

Oh and here are your security photos for today:
At the place where we had lunch, and

the place where we had dinner.

I hope you’re getting the idea; it’s a part of life here to guard against terrorism in a way that affects every person, every minute, every day. It’s a brave place.

More trip diary tomorrow before Shabbat. Erev Tov.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY TWO (CORRECTED): THE SOTAH, THE HEBREW AND THE MEANDERINGS OF THE DAY

Isn’t this funny? We passed it walking home from dinner tonight and I just thought I’d share it. We’ve had quite a day, one that I’ve already written about once and then, somehow, allowed the post to be devoured by the ethers of the Internet. I’m going to try again but far more briefly as it’s getting late.

First, here’s my daily security photo – from outside the coffee shop where we had breakfast. And yes, this young man is patrolling THE MALL with a machine gun.

After that well-guarded breakfast we went to our first class of this trip at Pardes, a wonderful educational entity that’s tough to describe and even tougher not to love. Our teacher today, as she was last year, was Tovah Leah Nachmani (she’s on the left.) She’s an inspired and inspiring teacher and we had a blast discussing the laws of the Sotah (a woman accused of adultery) and, according to the Book of Numbers (Bamidbar), what should happen to her. You can read it here – beginning with verse 11. It’s fairly horrifying on first (or second or third) reading but this time we ended up with an unusual perspective.

Tovah sent us out with our Chevruta (study partner – mine was my husband) to try to figure out what the commentators were asking themselves as they wrote about this passage -and how they answered. As we did so, a strange perspective emerged. SEE DAY THREE POST FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THIS: Basically,it seems that asking a woman accused of adultery to stand before God to be judged (the only time God concerned Himself in this way with the laws of men), to drink water mixed with dirt from the Temple floor and the ashes of the burned paper accusing her, and then to wait to see if her belly swelled up or not (yes was a sign of guilt) seems to subjecte her to something both terrifying and humiliating. But once past that, even if she was guilty, there was no physical punishment, only a mandated divorce – and her lover was also punished. SEE DAY THREE POST FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTION TO THIS

There’s more to it though: if his possibly adulterous wife stands before God to be judged, no husband however outraged is going to play God and punish her himself -by killing her ashe could in so many other cultures or even by beating her. The ordeal in fact protects her from worse. In addition, it’s clear to all that the preservation of the family was so important that only God could adjudicate when it was so jeopardized.

There’s lots more to it but it’s really late. Suffice it to say that it was exciting to learn how much more lay behind this disturbing ritual. Even so, it’s all of a piece. )Our hair is dangerous, our voices are dangerous, even the potential for adulterous behavior is dangerous. WE are dangerous. And it’s not, mostly, for what we might do but for what we might cause to be done that is the big issue. Granted, the Sotah has to have been formally warned in advance by her husband that she shouldn’t hang around alone with a specific man he suspects of having designs on her – and she can only be tried if she has done just that, but even so, these rules don’t apply equally to husbands.

One of the most valuable things I’ve learned in the couple of years since I began studying this stuff, however, is that you can’t read it only from the perspective of the present. The culture of the times is a critical variable in the mission and outcome of divine commandments and their enforcement. And of what we can allow ourselves to learn as we read.

Enough already. We also had an amazing walk around the city, bought me an orange hat and had a three hour Hebrew lesson. But that’s for another day. Goodnight for now… and, as I learned today – erev tov.

JERUSALEM DIARY 2.0 – DAY ONE: LIVING WITH SECURITY -EVERY MINUTE, EVERY DAY

This is the Jerusalem we all love to imagine, and there’s plenty of it that’s just like that. Usually, that’s where we spend most of our time — biblical Jerusalem. It’s thrilling.

This time, though, we’re here to study, and for the first time, instead of staying in a hotel, we’re in an apartment in a real neighborhood (Bak’ah for those of you who know it). We arrived this afternoon after flying from 5 PM Monday DC time through to 2:30 PM Tuesday Jerusalem time. That’s a total of 14.5 hours with the layover in Frankfurt. So, exhausted and eager to get to bed, we spent the evening wandering around the neighborhood instead of going immediately to the Old City as we have in the past.

We needed coffee, milk and some other things so we stopped first at the supermarket just blocks from our "house." But guess what? Before we could get inside, we were stopped at the door, my bag was searched and we were sort of assessed before entering. Nicely, matter-of-factly, but for real. I took this photo of the security guys on the sly, that’s why it’s so blurry. But there you are. Need apple juice? Prepare to have the diaper bag searched.

Bags in tow, we went on to dinner at a wonderful grill/salad place. There are photos of both the salads and the place on the left, but guess what? Before we could go in we had to check in with the guard at the entrance. He asked me not to take his picture, but he was there. Hungry? Meeting friends for coffee? Prepare to be checked out not by the cuties at the next table, but by the guard at the door.

Wandering around after dinner, we found a sweet coffee place. Everyone was sitting outside; the traffic was buzzing by beyond the sidewalk, the coffee was great and we were in a great place – living a neighborhood life in another country — one of particular importance to us. But guess what? The coffee place is part of a local mall, along with a drugstore and some not-very-expensive (almost cheap) apparel stores. And guess who were sitting outside the doors, on stools, on the sidewalk? Yup – security guards. A quick check of our bags of coffee and bottled water, and of my back pack, and we were good to go. But there you are. Going for diapers or hand lotion? Prepare to be searched at the door.

I’m not writing this to complain. Today I just felt, in a different way, what it’s like to live here. Whatever your politics, the idea of a people so under siege that no grocery store or bowling alley or retail mall can exist without security guards checking everyone who enters, is creepy and sad. I know, I know, a grave portion of our globe is at some kind of risk. And I’d probably react the same way witnessing their struggles. But this is where I am, this is where I’ve come to study, this is where I look into the eyes of mothers in the baby food aisle and old ladies squeezing tomatoes and crews of students buying up unthinkable quantities of fast food. And as they move through their lives, relief from their sense of danger, of vulnerability, is possible, sustainable, only until the next time they walk out the front door. And that’s a hell of a way to live.

MASH NOTE TO MOM-101 – YET ANOTHER PERFECT POST

The woman in the picture just posted one of the loveliest meditations on family I’ve read. Since I write them frequently, I’m almost envious, but since it’s Liz that’s not possible. Read it. I promise my next post will NOT be about somebody else’s post. This was just too good to keep quiet about.

THOREAU, JOHN HARVARD AND WHO I WAS (OR…WHO WAS I?)

You have to love New England in the fall. This is Walden Pond, retreat of Henry David Thoreau, where I spent Friday morning. Morra Aarons of BlogHer and Women and Work and Joan Blades of Moms Rising let me tag along on their wanderings, including a walk all the way around the pond. It was a remarkably appropriate location, since Thoreau, pretty much a rebel in addition to his fame as a thinker, is an inspiration to so many. So are these two. I kept thinking about him as I listened to Morra and Joan talking about the future of women – and policy – and motherhood.

Joan has done something remarkable: she’s launched Mom’s Rising to obliterate policy inequities toward mothers. Much of what Moms Rising seeks is built upon an acknowledgment of the special requirements that working moms face: the freedom to stay home with a sick child, to have equal access to jobs whether parents or not, and to live integrated lives. According to Joan – in the past decade or so we Americans have added 500 hours a year to our working days. That makes it harder than ever to integrate being a decent mothers and with the responsibility to support our families.

My generation was often either skeptical about motherhood or terrified to advocate for these issues because they could give men reasons to deny us equality in work, salary, promotions and benefits. Now, through the vision of Moms Rising, these issues are moving toward unabashed prominence — no apologies necessary. It’s difficult to describe the gratitude I feel — both for what they’re doing and for the fact that they can. When my kids were little, asking for time off to care for a sick kid was scary; what would they say not only in the front offices but also around the water cooler? We had to be so circumspect. Today’s advocates are brave and skillful as they work to move policy forward; it’s a good feeling to know that the battles we fought then have advanced the argument and legitimized advocacy by moms for moms.

It was a day for thinking, I guess. I met Morra at the Harvard Square subway station. As I stood waiting for her there, I felt such a rush of nostalgia and — almost — sadness. Cambridge to a young student is a place full of promise — a chance to become excellent in a community of excellence. I used to come in from my own college in western Massachusetts and just revel in it all. Today I hit an ambush moment – I saw that young woman (me) running around in big scarves and wild hats and colored tights and antiwar buttons — making trouble and having a blast. I’m grateful for that. But I also know now that for everything we achieve – we miss something else. Part of growing up is coming to terms with what we’ve accomplished — and what we haven’t. And emerging from a subway station to a youthful landmark seldom visited can bring it all back at once.

That’s another reason for my gratitude about Moms Rising — another generation of activism pushing the boundaries my friends and I pushed out so far ourselves.

So thanks and hats off – to my sisters who came before, to Morra and to Joan for a wonderful morning, to Joan for launching this very inspiring crusade and to all the mothers who’ve joined the fight.

SHARING FRIENDS, BUILDING BRIDGES

These two little guys, Josiah (in the closet) and Noah (in the doorway) just met each other. That didn’t bother them, of course. Five minutes after they met, which was about ten after seven this morning, they had each grabbed a push toy and taken off down the hall, leaving their moms to get to know each other.

Josiah’s mom, Anna, is very dear to me. Once our neighbors, she and her husband moved back home to Atlanta once this sweet young man arrived. They’ve got great family and childhood connections here in the land of the peaches so it’s only fair, but we miss them like crazy. I’ve loved having this trip to see their new house and the life they’ve built here because seeing it and knowing it’s right for them makes it a little easier that it’s not near us.

Noah (now don’t get confused – I mean Noah in the picture though Josiah’s father is also named Noah) is the son of my friend Liza – also a blogger and good, good friend. I introduced the two moms; I don’t seem capable of not doing such “you two should REALLY know each other” matchmaking, and it made me so happy to be with them and their boys. Somehow it’s easier to be far from them if they’re near each other.

I’m supposed to be the wise older friend but I’ve mourned Anna, Noah and Josiah’s departure almost daily – happy for them and so so sad at their absence from our old movie weekends and quick last-minute meals. We’re wealthy in our friendships and deeply grateful for the families who have become part of ours, but loving one friend doesn’t mean you don’t miss another one. So it was a real joy to be with them and to know I’m leaving them richer for having met one another. See you soon my sisters.

DOWN THE SHORE EVERYTHING’S ALRIGHT

There’s a wedding just an hour from this beach (four hours from home) so we have a great excuse for a couple of days in my favorite place. It’s our second time this summer and an extra treat. Sadly, fall is almost here; just weeks after we return comes the onslaught of Big Jewish Holidays and lots of praying – and cooking! Good to have this first.

And this

The 50s, TV, The Company and The Hungarian Uprising

I was ten in 1956, when the people of Hungary rose up to end the Russian occupation. It was a rout – and they remained under Communist domination until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s difficult to explain now just how scary it was to hear of these heroic people crushed in the streets, and, for a child, difficult to place. Could it happen to me? To my family? How did the Russians get there? Why did they care what people did in Hungary?

A couple of years later a local church group sponsored a Hungarian family’s move to the US and their son, our age and pretty good at speaking English, came to dinner at the home of my friend Lois and spoke to a group of us – maybe it was our Girl Scout troop; maybe just a bunch of girlfriends – I’m not sure. He was dramatic and dignified and so happy to be there. Listening to him and the stories of those he’d left behind was a haunting experience – especially in the mind of a romantic politicized 13 year old mad for JFK.

I hadn’t thought about any of this in years, but this summer TNT brings us The Company – a history of the CIA — and of the Hungarian tragedy of 1956. From the perspective of 50 years it’s still so sad, even through the gauze of TV melodrama – and the freedom and prosperity of Hungary today doesn’t mitigate much.

I’ve kept my eye on what happened in the East since then. We took our kids through Czechoslovakia and East Germany while they were still behind the Iron Curtain. We couldn’t get the boys dry socks after a heavy rain because, as the storekeeper told us “we don’t have socks today.” We gave all our Bruce Springsteen tapes to our guide; each one would have cost him a month’s pay on the black market.

I’ve even been to Pottsdam. That photo on the left is the bridge where spies were exchanged during the days of the Cold War. So it’s not like I don’t know what happened historically. Once in a while though the recreation of reality, even with Hollywood gloss, slams me back where I was for a little while.

That’s all – I’ve been sitting here trying to think of a real ending for this – and I can’t — no massive summary available. Good night.

DC RESTAURANTS: BEFORE AND AFTER

So Foodmomiac, whose writing, recipes and self I hold in high regard, asks for five top restaurants in one’s hometown. I have to do 10 — 5 PRE-kosher life and 5 SINCE Kosher life.

Since Kosher is easiest since there are only around 10 in DC anyway

JCC Cafe – more nicely appointed than the others and nice, regular food.

Pita Plus – Shwarma and lots of other Middle Eastern meat stuff

Max’s – Great matzo ball soup, schwarma, so-so fried chicken, good fries (according to my husband) etc.

Eli’s – a NY coffee shop type menu – salads with sliced steak, burgers (zillions of types) plus some real "entrees."

Ben Yehuda Pizza – Great pizza w/spinach and tomato and lots more.

NOW – before we began our Kosher life – there were several we loved. Here are 5 of them:

Bistro Bis – cool, beautiful and delicious — American/French cuisine – light.

Neyla – Spectacular Middle Eastern food in an elegant setting (expensive)

Cafe Milano – The Clintons eat here and so do a lot of other "cool folks" on the patio and inside… but celebrity haven or not it’s great Italian food (expensive)

Bombay Club – A fabulous Indian restaurant with a great outdoor area for dinner near the White House at dusk.