D'var Bo 5770: Kick My People Out

Kick My People Out: The Challenge of Choosing Freedom
Dvar on Parshat Bo 5770, Rich Furman
Delivered at Beth Jacob Congregation 23 January 2010


Whenever I read the story of the Exodus in the Torah, I think about the phrase “let my people go.” We’ve grown up hearing it, we watched Charlton Heston deliver it to Yul Brynner in that film whose storyboard was received by Moses at Sinai and transmitted by the chain of tradition to Cecil B. DeMille - The Ten Commandments. Many of us sing it in the spiritual “Go Down Moses” around the Seder Table each year. It conjures up images of a people yearning to be free, held back only by the hard heart of Pharaoh. There’s only one problem: It’s not completely clear that this is what the text says, even if the JPS translation in our pew Chumash would have us believe otherwise. “Let my people go” is not the only possible rendering of ".שלח את עמי" The word שלח here is the pi’el imperative of the root ש'ל'ח' which means “send.” However, in the pi’el binyan, it does not merely mean send, but rather, “dismiss,” “send away,” or even “cast out”(BDB 1018-1019). The words that Moses brings from God to Pharaoh thus may be a bit more forceful than “Let my people go;” perhaps more on the order of “kick my people out.”

Back in Parshat Shemot God responds to Moshe’s complaint that his first attempt to get Pharaoh to release the Israelites was rebuffed by telling Moshe “עתה תראה אשר אעשה לפרעה כי ביד חזקה ישלחם וביד חזקה יגרשם מארצו:” “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh so with a strong hand he will dismiss them and with a strong hand he will expel them from his land”(Ex. 6:1). Rashi comments on this verse saying “He will drive them out against their will so that they will not have a chance to prepare provisions [for the journey]. And so it is said: ‘The Egyptians pressed the people - to hurry and send them away.’(Ex. 12:33)”(Rashi on Ex. 6:1). The miracle of the Exodus is not that God persuaded Pharaoh to release a people that was longing for freedom, but rather that God compelled Pharaoh to expel the Israelites from Egypt. One would think that given the oppression the Israelites were experiencing at the hands of the Egyptians, such that their groans rose before the heavenly throne, they would be chomping at the bit to get out, but this was not the case.

On the phrase “סבלת מצרים, the burdens of Egypt” at Ex. 6:6, Simchah Bunem of Przysucha comments:

Even though the slavery was hard and crushing, nevertheless they became accustomed to the bitterness and bore the burden and the distress patiently [punning on the similarity of the words for patience (סבלנות) and burdens (סבלות)]. They regarded their situation as natural. Said the Holy One, “Since already they are not healthy, nor do they sense the bitterness of their lot, the danger would be great to detain the redemption any longer.” (Kushner and Olitzky, 71)

What Rav Bunem is noting here is that the Israelites have come to regard as acceptable, as par for the course, conditions to which no human being should be subject. How one arrives at such an acceptance of such conditions we can learn by examining how learned helplessness is acquired.

Andrew Solomon, in his book on Depression, The Noonday Demon, writes that:

Learned helplessness, studied in the animal world, occurs when an animal is subjected to a painful stimulus in a situation in which neither fight nor flight is possible. The animal will enter a docile state that greatly resembles human depression. The same thing happens to people with little volition. . .(Solomon, 348)

The harsh labors of Egypt, and the fact that the first attempt at getting Pharaoh to release them ended disastrously, shows that the Israelites are in precisely a position where they are subjected to painful stimulus and can neither fight nor flee. In such a position, strength of will to just get from day to day is all that is left, and Solomon goes on to describe how this plays out among the depressed poor in America, using language that is startlingly similar to Rav Bunem’s:

Strength of will is often the best bulwark against depression and in this population the will to go on, the tolerance of trauma, is often quite extraordinary. Many among the indigent depressed have personalities so passive that they are free of aspirations, and such people may be difficult to help.(ibid, 355)

The Israelites’ passivity is, in some ways, the biggest obstacle God must address to effect the Exodus. If there is no intrinsic motivation among the Israelites to leave, if there is no perception among them that a better life is available to them, then an extrinsic motivation must be applied. This is why God said to Moses at the beginning of Parshat Va’era “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh so with a strong hand he will dismiss them and with a strong hand he will expel them from his land,” because with the progression of the ten plagues, God has been goading Pharaoh into action. The plagues have been getting progressively more intense, and here in Parshat Bo, God makes good on the promise that Pharaoh will expel them. I want, in particular to focus on the last two plagues, darkness and the slaying of the firstborn and what happens between them.

The plague of darkness is described thus:

לא־ראו איש את־אחיו ולא־קמו איש מתחתיו שלשת ימים ולכל־בני ישראל היה אור במושבתם

I’m going to render this a bit colloquially as

a man could not see his brother and a man could not get up off his tuchus for three days, but all the children of Israel had light in their settlements. (Ex 10:23).

The first thing to notice here in the Hebrew is that the verbs “ראו” and “קמו” are in the plural while the subject, in each case, is singular. This comes to teach us that in all the households of Egypt (hence the plural verb), each individual member was subject to personal isolation and paralysis of the will (hence the singular subject). Rabbi Michael Gold, understands this to be symptomatic of depression:

The darkness was not simply a lack of light. That could be solved by lighting lamps. Rather it was an inability for anyone to see or interact with any fellow human being for three days. It was as if a thick depression fell on everybody, leaving them entirely alone. People were cut off from people, as if they were in some kind of solitary confinement. There was a blackness of despair, of being entirely alone in the world (Gold).

That the Egyptians would be subject to depression can be easily understood as a middah-k’neged-middah, measure for measure, punishment. As the labors imposed by the Egyptians reduced the Israelites to a state of depression, so too the plagues inflicted by the Blessed Holy One upon the Egyptians, have likewise depressed them. But there is a crucial difference: The Egyptians have the luxury of the depressive breakdown. The Israelite who had succumbed to his depression so as not to get off his tuchus would have been killed for slacking, but the Egyptian who finds himself too despairing to move is free to not move.

The second half of the verse “but all of the children of Israel had light in their settlements” shows us a significant contrast: The Israelites are beginning to have hope, and with the Egyptians incapacitated, are enjoying a freedom of movement and a connection with one another that they had not been able to. We find a similar verse in Esther - appearing also in the Havdallah ceremony - ליהודים היתה אורה ושמחה וששן ויקר - the Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor. It is in this light that we need to understand what happens between the plagues of Darkness and Slaying of the first born.

After the plague of darkness, but before the slaying of the first born, God instructs Moses to gather the elders of the children of Israel together and give them some instructions: to sacrifice a lamb, to paint the lintel and the doorposts, left and right, with its blood, to eat it with matzah and maror while packed and ready to leave, and to mark the occasion eternally with an annual festival commemorating the event: that God would see the blood on the doorposts and protect the Israelites.

This is one of those “what’s bothering Rashi” moments in the Passover story: why would God need to see blood on the doorposts to discern between the Israelite and the Egyptian? Rashi answers this question thus:

הכל גלוי לפניו, אלא אמר הקב"ה נותן אני את עיני לראות שאתם עסוקים במצותי, ופוסח אני עליכם

All is revealed before Him, however the Holy Blessed One said “I am letting my eyes see that you are engaging in my commandments, and so I pass over you.” (Rashi on ex. 12:13, my translation).

In other words, although God can discern between Israelites and Egyptians, the Israelites need to be taking action of some kind in order to effect their redemption. God commands the Israelites to put the blood on the doorposts because doing so demonstrates to the Israelites their willingness to take action on their own behalf. This is an essential exercise in the restoration of their crushed spirits, as David Burns notes in his book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy:

In my practice I find that the great majority of the depressed patients referred to me improve substantially if they try to help themselves. Sometimes it hardly seems to matter what you do as long as you do something with the attitude of self-help. . . . And yet many depressed individuals will go through a phase in which they stubbornly refuse to do anything to help themselves. The moment this crucial motivational problem has been solved, the depression typically begins to diminish. You can therefore understand why much of our research has been directed to locating the cause of this paralysis of the will. (Burns, 82).

Over the course of the nine plagues so far, we have seen a reversal between the Israelites and the Egyptians. The paralysis of the will which was at first present among the Israelites is now present among the Egyptians; one “painful stimulus” after another, which they could neither fight nor flee has taught them the helplessness with which the Israelites contended back at the start of Va’era.

The Israelites, on the other hand, are being invited into a world where volition matters, where actions have results. With the commandments concerning the passover offering including the marking of the door posts and lintels, God is not merely giving the Israelites busy work to do “with an attitude of self help,” but is going further, giving them an invitation to enter into a covenantal relationship, that is, a relationship in which each party does something for the other and gets something back in exchange. Whereas with Pharaoh they would work and work and their reward was drowned sons and pogroms, God is offering a relationship where if the Israelites perform a particular act, God will protect them from the Destroyer.

As the tenth plague comes upon the land, the slaying of the firstborn, the Israelites have the opportunity to see this play out, to hear the cries as the firstborn of Egypt died while their own lived. The Israelites, by following the instructions given to them are able to save themselves. The lesson here is that whereas the life of a slave in Egypt was a life of completely arbitrary punishments by a capricious ruler, there is another mode of relationship - a covenantal relationship in which actions matter, and that by commanding the Israelites, God is inviting them into that kind of relationship, and that by following those commandments, the Israelites are accepting that invitation.

And yet, it is one thing to accept the invitation and another to show up at the event. With the tenth plague, the slaying of the first-born, God pushes Pharaoh to the breaking point. At verse 11:1, God has told Moses:

עוד נגע אחד אביא על־פרעה ועל־מצרים אחרי־כן ישלח אתכם מזה כשלחו כלה גרש יגרש אתכם מזה

One more plague (touch) I will bring upon Egypt after which he will dismiss you from here; when he finally kicks you out, he will utterly expel (גרש יגרש) you from here.

When the Israelites are out, and camping at Sukkot, the first station on their way, it is written:

ויאפו את־הבצק אשר הוציאו ממצרים עגת מצות כי לא חמץ כי־גרשו ממצרים ולא יכלו להתמהמה וגם־צדה לא־עשו להם

They baked the dough they brought from Egypt: cakes of Matzah because it was unleavened, for they were expelled (גרשו) from Egypt and could not tarry or make preparations for themselves (Ex. 12:39)

From God’s declaration to Moses in verse 6:1 at the beginning of Va’era to this moment after Pharaoh has expelled the Israelites we see another word besides ש'ל'ח, and that is ג'ר'ש'. This is the same word used to describe mankind’s expulsion from Eden. That they occur in tandem at both moments when God speaks to Moses regarding what He will drive Pharaoh to do, suggests very strongly that God is not merely giving freedom to “huddled masses yearning to be free.” God, understanding the fragility of the Israelites volition, is seeking to do this in a way that prevents the Israelites from going back to Egypt. This becomes perfectly apparent at the start of next weeks parsha, when God avoids leading the Israelites by the Philistine road “lest they stop when they see war and return to Egypt”(13:17).

It takes God, Pharaoh, Moses, the Egyptians and the Israelites themselves to collectively muster the force it takes to overcome the Israelite’s collective depression, learned helplessness and inertia. When Rabbi Bunem notes that the Israelites “regarded their situation as natural,” he is noting that there is a learned helplessness among the Israelites. In Eden, Adam and Eve were helpless because all their needs were met; only with their expulsion could human history begin; likewise, in Egypt the Israelites helpless because nothing they could do could improve their state, and only with their expulsion could the history of the Jewish people - our history - begin.

---

Works Cited

Brown, Francis et.al. The Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999.

Burns, David. Feeling Good. New York: Avon books, 1992.

Davis, Avrohom. Metsudah Chumash/Rashi. Ktav Pub Inc, 1999.

Gold, Rabbi Michael. Parshat Bo (5764): Darkness. http://www.rabbigold.com/bo.htm viewed on 10 Jan 2010.

Kushner, Lawrence and Kerry Olitzky. Sparks beneath the Surface. Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1993.

Solomon, Andrew. The Noonday Demon. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.

Sent to Ambassador Michael Oren

Dear Ambassador Oren:

I am writing to you regarding the situation at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The arrest of Nofrat Frenkel and the interrogation of Anat Hoffman, while alarming, are merely a symptom of a far deeper problem: namely that Israel is a country which offers freedom of religion to everyone but the Jew, and that the religion that the Jew is free to practice is increasingly a bizarre aberration from the Judaism that most American Jews, from Reform to Right Wing Modern Orthodox, would recognize as the faith of their fathers. It is a Judaism which, by reversing conversions violates the Torah's injunction not to wrong the stranger; it is a Judaism which wrongs the widow, telling her she is an agunah even after when she had been told she was free to marry. It is a Judaism that commits the idolatry of offering prayers to dead "g'dolim" to intercede on their behalf with the heavenly court. It is a Judaism that cleaves to the sorcery of segulot. And with each of these sins, it creates a chillul HaShem that distances American Jews from Israel, and Israeli Jews from any sort of Judaism at all - one yored I know refuses on principle to wear a kippah.

So, I am not going to simply ask that the Women of the Wall be allowed to pray and read Torah at the wall unharrassed, nice as that would be. I am going to ask that the Ministry of Antiquities give serious reconsideration to any sort of religious oversight of the wall. I am going to ask that the site which has been the longing of all Jews since the days of Bar Kochba be redeemed from the captivity of an Israeli Rabbinate that increasingly claims it as the exclusive heritage of a heretical minority and restored to all klal Yisrael as their eternal inheritance.

B'vrachah,

Rich Furman

Challah

I like to make home baked challah for Erev Shabbat whenever feasible. The use of a bread machine for creating the dough has been a tremendous boon in this, because it means that once I get the ingredients in and the doughball to the right consistency, I can pay attention to other things. This recipe has been working pretty well for me, though I find the crumb can be a bit dry the day after it comes out of the oven. I wonder if more oil can fix that. Advice would be appreciated.

Anyway, here is the Recipe as it stands:

Challah

1: Sponge

1C Warm Water
2tbsp Sugar
2tbsp Flour

2.5tsp Yeast

Combine and let floof for ~20min

2: The Bread Machine.

Put in the sponge, three eggs, 1.25tsp Salt, 2tbsp Honey, 1/3C Olive or Grapeseed Oil

Measure out 3.25C, including 2tbsp. gluten, flour by pouring the flour into the cup to avoid packing. (One day I will weigh this out so that this won't be a worry, but now I don't have a scale.) Add to Bread machine. Run the dough cycle. Add flour/water as necessary for proper dough ball consistency.

3: Shape and proof.

Set a skillet with water on the stove to boil while you shape the dough

Remove completed dough and punch down. Divide into however many strands you want and braid. Put on a floured baking sheet.

Remove skillet of steaming water to bottom of oven. I have an oven with a pilot light which keeps the water steaming. Put the loaf on the middle rack and let proof in the humid ofen for ~40 minutes.

4: Brush and bake

Remove loaf and water-pan from oven. Preheat to 450 Degrees.

Brush with an egg wash comprising a half cup water and an egg. Sprinkle with sesame or poppy seed.

Bake for 20 Minutes.

It comes out looking very much like this:



And it goes quite nicely with my Simple Shakshuka, shown here garnished with asparagus and chiffonade of basil.

Thoughts onToldot 5770, in Haiku

Isaac, Rebekah
Embittered by foreign wives
Had the same idea:

Send Esau afield
Bless Jacob while he's away
Bupkis for Esau.

Isaac was deceived:
He was expecting Jacob
Thought he got Esau

Isaac was relieved:
The voice, the voice of Jacob
Ears did not deceive.

Isaac was afraid:
Conflict was not his strong suit
Esau had returned.

Could not tell the truth
To Esau, the son who hunts
"We don't like your wives."

Esau overheard:
"Take no foreign wives, my son."
Then he understood.

Had Esau been told?
Was the expectation set?
What if he had known

Not to marry out
If only they had told him
Leah might be his.

Simple Shakshuka

The shakshuka at Cafe Hillel leaves one feeling nostalgic, so I've been tinkering with the concept and after a couple of tries came up with this. It doesn't have much in the way of exotic spicing, but goes from kitchen to table with about 5 minute's knifework and 30 minutes stovetop.

Simple Shakshuka

One medium onion, medium dice.
1C Bell Peppers, medium dice.
One Can (28 oz/800g) diced or crushed tomatoes.
A splosh of lemon juice (probably two Tbsp)
Four eggs.
One clove garlic, minced
One half tsp Salt
One half tsp Black Pepper
Olive or Grapeseed oil sufficient to saute in a 10" pan

Heat a 10" pan (I prefer cast iron for this) and add oil.
Saute the onions with the salt and black pepper.
As they become translucent, and the garlic, then the peppers.
Deglaze with the lemon juice, then add the tomatoes.
Simmer uncovered to reduce the liquid by about half.
Break the 4 eggs over the sauce and cover until eggs reach desired doneness (tradition dictates a set white with a runny yolk-about 4 minutes).

Serve with Pita or Challah. A garnish of steamed spinach creates a nice contrast on the plate

Serves 2. Parve.

Life as a Jew in Minnesota in Haiku

מזג האוויר
קר, אפור, ויש גשם
זמן לבנות סוכה

Weather conditions:
It's cold, it's gray, and there's rain
Succah building time.

Post by Morgan: Stuck at Ben Gurion

Ben Gurion Airport, August 28,2009 1:50 AM

We are STUCK. Tonight’s attempt to arrange ground transportation to the airport was a comedy of small errors, which, compounded by mishegaas at Ben Gurion, resulted in our suffering what I had always thought was my worst traveling nightmare: we missed our flight. It all started innocently enough. Rich checked Egged’s web site, and learned that from the central bus station in Jerusalem, there were busses running direct to Ben Gurion every half hour until at least 9:30. The 9:30 bus would get us to Ben Gurion around ten, just right for the three hour window that El Al’s website had recommended as a pre-flight arrival time. Pretty much any bus from the area of our hotel would go to the central bus station, and we calculated that we had to leave around nine for everything to work. When we checked out of our hotel, the woman at the desk offered to call a sherut for us--much nicer than bus way to travel--but Nesher wasn’t answering their phone any more, so we returned to our well-laid bus plans.

We had a lovely last dinner at the Cafe Hillel near our hotel. I even managed to ask, in Hebrew, that my dish be made without walnuts. I must have even been comprehensible, as I am still alive. After dinner, we walked to the bus stop and waited only a short time for a random bus to take us to the station. Unlike busses in the US--or at least the Twin Cities--Egged busses can make CHANGE, meaning you don’t have to worry about having the exact fare, or even about knowing what it is. Moreover, you can pay for two people and get a single ticket that indicates that it’s for two. And you can do this RIGHT ON THE BUS. I was impressed. The ride wasn’t hugely fun, but a bus ride with a backpack never is: you can take it off and it becomes the most awkward thing on earth to schlepp around, or you can leave it on and sit really uncomfortably and have the thing take up a whole seat by itself. I elected to do the latter.

When we arrived at the central bus station, I was awed. The thing is basically a multi-story shopping mall--worthy of being a destination in itself. Awkwardness ensued as I had to take off my pack and send it through an x-ray. By the time I got through the metal detector and reclaimed my stuff, my husband, who had been right behind me, was nowhere to be seen. Not knowing if he was behind or ahead of me, I put on my pack and stared around stupidly until I sighted him on the other side of the metal detector. Once we were reunited, we decided to check out the nearby book store, since it was just after nine and we had time to kill until our connecting bus. Or so we thought.

When we finally made our way up to the ticket station, the woman there told us that she thought the busses to Ben Gurion were no longer running, but sold us a ticket to Tel-Aviv anyway. We figured that from there we could get a cab or something if she was right, and it turned out that she was. We had just sorted out the process of getting on the Tel Aviv bus, when what should arrive but the bus that we thought we could take to BG. We jumped off, thinking that we would be saved the inconvenience of arranging yet another leg to this trip, only to be told that no, this bus really wasn’t making any more trips. So we got back on the TA bus, and ended up sitting right in front of some young men who proceeded to talk loudly the entire trip. Loudly enough that at one point the driver yelled at them. It was a comfortable bus, and Rich and I both took off our packs and held them on our laps. I might have enjoyed the ride if I hadn’t been so worried about time. I think it was almost eleven when we finally got there.

The TA bus station doesn’t have as sophisticated security as J’lem. There was just this table and a couple of guys with portable wands looking in people’s bags. I think I was pretty fried by then--he had to ask me several times to open my bag, using vocab that I usually understand, and when I finally got it (after he asked in English), I exasperated him further by assuming that I had to open every little compartment on my VERY many-compartmented backpack, when all he was interested in was the main one. He must have thought I was a complete idiot. I started to get really worried when we got inside and saw how dead the place was. Most of the information counters--make that all--were closed. We finally found a ticket counter that was staffed by a helpful guy who told Rich the number of the bus to catch to get to the airport. When we got to the platform we found out that there were two left that night, one at 11:00 and one at 11:40. We caught the 11:00, but I was getting increasingly worried. We were well outside our three-hour window, and edging into the two-hour window that I usually leave for domestic flights. Moreover, this was a local bus route with lots of stops and people getting on and off. I began to contemplate the possibility that the evening might become grueling and expensive.

When we arrived at BG, we wandered around until some helpful airline staff told us where to go. An innocent further ‘where do we go’ question lead to us being ushered through the start of the security process BEFORE I had a chance to use the bathroom and this was NOT A GOOD THING. The security interview was brief and pretty much the same as the one at JFK. They weren’t even interested in x-raying our carry-on luggage at that point. We were shown where to go for check-in, and made the mistake of grabbing the nearest line, which proceeded not to move for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. It was around 12:15 now and I was seriously nervous. Moreover, my feet were hurting, I still needed to use the bathroom, standing around with a heavy pack on my back in a hot muggy atmosphere was making me want to puke, and my left knee was starting to act up. The knee was the bit that I was really worried about. It can be fine and then pop suddenly and be real painful, and tonight was seriously provoking it.

At one point Rich asked if he should try to find a faster line while I stayed there. I lost it and informed him that I was in pain and couldn’t stand much longer. He went to talk to someone or see what was going on or something. The party of women ahead of us was also doing the same thing. Yelling ensued. I had no idea what was going on. I had kind of hoped he was going to find a place where I could sit, but it didn’t sound like that was what was happening. I heard the word “supervisor” a couple of times. When he came back, I learned that 1) the flight was already boarding and therefore we had missed it and 2) the clog seemed to have been caused by a party that didn’t even have tickets trying to get onto the flight. He went back to the counter and there was more yelling. Finally, I had had it. I stepped out of the line intending to just sit down on a clear space of floor, because I really needed to sit. But I lost control of things and belongings and body parts when flying. A very kind family retrieved my water bottle and asked if I was OK, and I felt like a complete dork having to explain that actually, I was better off on the floor.

Right after that, stuff did start happening. A supervisor or something came and we learned that we’d have to go someplace else for re-ticketing. That took a long time, but fortunately didn’t cost any more money. Our new itinerary is: depart BG at 4:30 am (OY!), arrive not at JFK but at Newark (not sure whether this is an OY! or not--never been to Newark but JFK was pretty bad), spend most of the day in Newark (OY!), get on plane for MSP at 6:00, arrive MSP after 8pm Friday night (OY!). And BTW the only seats they had were on two separate aisles, but we can try to fix that at the gate (right). This is a bit of a grrr.... but all things considered, it could have been worse, and at least it wasn’t expected. Also, one of the things I most fear about the logistics of air travel, missing the flight, has happened, and the sky did not fall. It didn’t even cost us extra money, just time and aggravation.

[Rich Adds:]
When we checked in at Newark for our Northwest Flight, Morgan found she could book us on a flight that left at 1:30. We booked it and got to the gate to find that another plane headed to MSP was boarding. I asked if we could get on that flight, and we could, so we got home at 2pm instead of 8pm.

Post by Morgan: Another View of the Kotel

I had not been sure that I wanted to go to the Kotel. Gender-segregated spaces are things that I avoid like the plague. On the other hand, it’s an important site, and I’m pretty certain that for a pair of Jews to go to J’lem and NOT see the Kotel constitutes “doing it wrong”.

It had been a grueling day in many respects. We had, at my insistence, paid a second visit to Yad Vashem, and then had ended up paying way too much for the cab ride home. I was physically tired and emotionally exhausted, badly in need of catharsis for the roiling feelings left me by the day’s events. Rich had suggested earlier that we go to the Kotel in the evening, when it would be cooler and the shops mostly closed. I wasn’t sure though, after Yad Vashem, that I wanted to visit the remnant of the Temple, the site of another of our great disasters, on the same day.

I don’t know how we started discussing coffee, but the mention of it shook me out of my blah-ness, and we agreed to get coffee at Cafe Hillel and then head to the Kotel. I had read somewhere that women pretty much have to wear a skirt when visiting the Kotel, so I dressed accordingly, and in doing so learned an interesting lesson about how things work in Jerusalem: an ankle-length black skirt will get you tons of space on the sidewalk. It was Rich who first pointed it out to me: “People are giving us a wide berth” he said--and it was true. Usually all you get is enough space to squeeze by each other--no one really steps exaggeratedly out of someone else’s way like they do in MN. But we were getting plenty of passing room that night.

The walk down to the old city was pleasant, and there were places where I wished I could have lingered over beautiful vistas or beautiful architecture. It was a cool but muggy evening--one of those where you can be chilled and sweaty at pretty much the same time. Part of the time we were walking on a road where you shared the space with cars--sometimes with the benefit of metal or concrete posts protecting the pedestrian area and sometimes not. We only had to fend off one guy who really wanted to sell us stuff.

There are separate entrances to the plaza for men and women. This is something that Rich had warned me about. When we arrived, there were a lot more women than men waiting. I was somewhat uncomfortable as I broke away from him to join the women’s line. He and I are seldom apart. The men’s line moved quickly. The women’s line crawled. Bags were being opened, and of course everyone in the women’s line had a purse or something that needed inspected. Suddenly the men’s line was completely empty, everybody had gone through. After a few seconds, the bunch of women immediately behind me charged the men’s entrance. More women who had just arrived joined them. My line still wasn’t moving, so I said “lamah lo?” and joined the other line. The last woman in line and I exchanged giggles. This was pretty much the last thing I had expected to happen.

From the security checkpoint it’s just a little walk to the plaza, but nevertheless, the space seemed to open up really suddenly, and there was the Kotel right in front of me. It was, honestly, a smaller space than I had expected it to be, and the ancient wall itself seemed to be hemmed in by the stuff around it. But the thing that struck me most on seeing it in person was the same thing that always strikes me in photographs: those plants. Those big, humongous plants that grow in the spaces of the wall. They really are huge. I think some of them are longer than a person is tall.

I took some photographs, and then stood there for a while just looking through the metal screen that tops the wall that separates the plaza from the area in front of the Kotel. I could see where the mechitzah was, and for a long time I stood right there, right on the border between the men’s and women’s sections, just watching. I couldn’t help noticing that the women’s side is much smaller than the men’s, and it made me angry. The whole thing made me both angry and sad--very, very sad. Here, in that wall that divides the prayer area in two, is a tangible articulation of how far we have not come in bringing justice to the world, how far we have yet to go, how impossible it is that my own eyes will live to see justice here or anywhere else. The heartbreak that I found at the Kotel was not the heartbreak that I had been expecting: it’s hard to feel the national loss that the Temple’s destruction must have been when the plaza is crawling with live Jews, when this site is so obviously ours again. I contemplated a couple of times just swallowing my objections and going down to the women’s side, to daven or to just touch the stone, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I thought about it, my stomach turned over, and I realized at last that I would be happier, and have more respect for myself, if I did not make this particular compromise. Instead, I took out my sketchbook and did several sketches of the site, focusing on the things that delighted me most: those beautiful huge plants.

At some point, Rich had sat down in a chair behind me--there are plastic chairs available all over the place, in case one needs to sit down. When I been standing long enough that my feet started to hurt, he gave me his seat and went to get another chair for himself. I realized that I had ended up sitting right behind the men’s section. Rich pulled up a chair and sat beside me but a little way away. I had an inkling of what he was doing before he said anything. He had positioned himself just behind the women’s section. No one cared of course; we were still on the plaza, separated from the segregated area by a wall that I had to stand on tiptoes to really see over, and plenty of other people were observing what was going on on the opposite gender’s side. We took out Paths of Faith and davened Ma’ariv from it. It was a symbolic protest of course, meaningful, perhaps, only to us. But nevertheless there was a certain power in having found a way to pray together as a couple, here in this place where we were so vehemently NOT supposed to do so. It was a cool, peaceful night, relatively quiet despite the number of people there. It was satisfying to be able to pray. As we reached the end of the service, there was no question but that we would say Kaddish for those of our people who were killed in the Shoah. Here, in the peace of the cool night, in the ancient words of the Kaddish Yatom and its familiar rhythms, I found the catharsis that I had needed since our visit to Yad Vashem earlier that day. I experienced once again the power of Jewish ritual to heal the soul, and experienced also the powerful truth that ours is a religion where what you do matters. I had been unsettled by a welter of emotion all day because of a need to do something--a need to do what there was for me, as a Jew, to do in order to honor the memory of those whom we all have lost.

I left the Kotel feeling both at peace and uplifted. I had found a way to pray there, and to do it in my own way, without making any compromises.

The Food in Jerusalem

Point the first: if anyone tells you that Starbucks pulled out of Israel because of politics; they are wrong. ארומה - Aroma is the local corporate coffee behemoth, and, well, Starbucks falls so completely short of what they deliver in both food and drink that Starbucks must have seen itself a grasshopper in comparison. The smaller chain, Hillel, is a full service restaurant which serves Shakshukah, and a wide variety of pastas, salads and sandwiches made fresh in its own kitchen. During our stay, the manager came to know our habits. She called us "Chocolate Junkies."


The Falafel, from a stall on Ben Yehudah, of course was grand; 50nis got us both a full sized falafel with everyhing and two beers. The falafel was beautifully balanced in its seasoning, not overpowered by cumin as our American falafels tend to be, and it was crisp outside without being hard, and tender inside without being gloppy. And "everything" really was, even fries were used as toppings.

The next evening, after our feet had time to recover from our Shrine of the Book adventure, we found a place near Independence Park called The River Noodle Bar, where we had a lovely beef noodle soup with a hard cooked, deep fried egg. No, not pho - the stock held the spicing characteristic of Korean food, with strong hints of sesame.

The following evening we dined at a place called New Deli, a bit like Subway, but even here, the chicken for Morgan's sub was grilled to order and the pastrami tasted like top-flight Chicago pastrami.

Also, the fleishig cafeteria at Yad VaShem does an awesome beef stew.

Final Verdict: the food is better here.

The Shrine of the book.

Morgan and I are staying at the Jerusalem Inn, on 7 Horcanos, about a a block from Yaffo and Heleni Hamalka. Those of you familiar with Jerusalem's geography and topography will probably raise an eyebrow when I tell you that we decided, on Tuesday to walk to the Shrine of the book to see Dead Sea Scrolls and (drum roll please . . .) the Aleppo Codex! We started out early walked Yaffa to HaMelech George to Ramban. After about 3/4mi on Ramban we crossed a really big street and followed a street whose name I can't recall to the Israel Museum Complex. Once in, we looked for a while at the model of Late Second Temple Period Jerusalem. I turned on the Audio Guide and a British voice gushed lovingly in my ear about the sheep pools. I turned off the Audio Guide. Morgan took this picture of the model Temple:

There is an amazing amount of care and detail that went into the model, but it is unpeopled, empty; even architectural models place people in their landscapes to suggest a place in use. This model, however, suggests a place in disuse.

After ascending the stairs to a plaza we came across this lovely fountain:


The "fountain," of course, is the Shrine of the Book. It is designed to look like the lid of one of the pots that contain the Dead Sea Scrolls; appropriate since it itself contains them. The fountain is a very effective cooling system, keeping the interior in the 60's or so, even when the exterior is in the 100's. Jerusalem's dry climate is part of its effectiveness - evaporating water cools the dome.

Inside one steps down through a series of small displays concerning the material culture of the Qumran community, and then one enters the rotunda which has displayed the scrolls, or copies thereof depending on their condition. We saw part of the rule of the community, and the battle of the sons of the darkness and the sons of the light. A copy of the Isaiah Scroll was displayed at the center. One is struck first by the legibility of the texts - the letter forms, penned more than 2000 years ago, are not strikingly different than those we use today. The English alphabet has undergone more changes in about a quarter of that time. Most of the scrolls are in Hebrew, so to the reader of Hebrew they are comprehensible as well as legible. To read a scroll written that long ago is to stand in direct communication with its scribe across millenia.

Downstairs a special treat awaited us. The Aleppo Codex, edited, according to Maimonides, by no less than David Ben Asher himself is the crowning achievement of the Masoretic Tradition. It's not much to look at - penned in a plain hand with nikkud, cantillation marks, and Masoretic notes it is a text whose writer clearly valued function over form. This was the text that Maimonides used as his exemplar when he wrote his own Sefer Torah, and provided the basis for his Hilchot Sefer Torah which remains to this day an essential body of Halachah for the scribe writing a Sefer Torah for Synagogue use. The text remained in tact until 1948 when parts of it were lost in a pogrom.

Another item on display was called the "Small Codex." It is a small codex penned by an Ashkenazic scribe using the Aleppo Codex as its exemplar. It was opened to a spread containing the last page of Eichah and the first page of Esther. It was stunningly beautiful, rich with creative formatting of the text. In some ways I found this text more remarkable than the Aleppo Codex itself - it testified to what a scribe can do to wed form and function when presented with a reliable exemplar and a kavannah for hiddur mitzvah.

Other things we learned that day - the Art Garden is torture at midday. Israeli Feta and Watermelon are a fantastic pairing. And one side of Agron St. is closed to Pedestrian Traffic between the Conservative Center and HUC Jerusalem. The following morning we found a very nice apothecary who provided just the thing for our blisters. It was a transaction conducted entirely in Hebrew, though that entailed me showing her the blister because I have no idea what the generic name is for Moleskine, let alone how to say it in Hebrew.