Shavuot study – a lesson in perseverance

One day, I will do all of this properly, but this year, my Shavuot celebration began by me literally running from the train station to the synagogue, assuming I would sneak in just before the start of the service, only to find that everything was running a few minutes late (Note to self: get used to this phenomenon.  There’s the time dictated by the clock which I am a little fanatical about, and time as observed by Jews.  Generally, about 10 minutes adrift!).

The service was beautiful.  The cheesecake and coffee afterwards was so tasty (cheesecake is my favourite dessert!) and then, fortified by both the words, the song and the food, we launched into study.  We decided to discuss, analyse as a group and in chavruta, the signs of the covenant and what they mean today.  We discussed the importance of blood rituals (we also had a moment when it became clear that only a select few of us did the ‘blood brothers’ pact when we were kids.  Perish the thought now, what with the knowledge of AIDS and other similar devastating diseases! PS. Don’t tell my mom!) and why there is an irreversible sign of the covenant for boys, but not for girls, and how this can be interpreted today.  It was interesting to take part in this kind of interactive study outside of the normal Shabbat study classes and to hear what other members of the congregation had to say.

So, why the lesson in perseverance?  Well, I was dog-tired before I got to the synagogue.  I am doing a lot of things now – serious training for my charity bike ride, which this time next month, will all be over, trying to write up a piece for another blog (that is really draining me, to be honest), normal fitness training, Hebrew, other Judaic study, oh, and work – that thing that makes me get up at 5.30am every weekday!  My body was aching from a particularly hefty training session from the day before and I was mentally and physically exhausted.  It took every ounce of my concentration to enter into the study, which went on longer than I had anticipated.  By the time we had all said our good nights and ‘chag sameachs’, it was almost 11pm!  But it was worth it, to do this, to celebrate Shavuot.

I may write up on my frustrations in a future post.  It depends if they were fuelled by my over-tired state, or if they were valid ones….

Anyway, that was Erev Shabbat.  My first and not my last.  This morning would be perfect to have a service on the beach – it is glorious!

Chag sameach to you all, once more.

Chag Sameach!

[This image can be found at the Greetings.ca website here].

Shavuot

This week sees the arrival of Shavuot, which of course we studied at our class on Saturday.  I was lucky enough to be able to read the story from the Book of Ruth to the class and it was so powerful.  Ruth, being the first convert through her commitment to her mother-in-law Naomi and her chesed-like approach truly serves as a role model to me, a convert in the making!  I have this habit of not reading ahead – by this I mean not reading farther ahead than the weekly parashah.  This has its benefits and also some negative points, but it’s what I prefer to do.  This week, it was definitely a benefit, because the beautiful words of the Book of Ruth truly spoke ot my heart as I read them out loud to my friends.

Our Rabbi is really enthusiastic about making the Erev Shavuot service a proper, all-night study period.  We can’t do it this year, but next year is a definite possibility – but as she rightly said, it has to come from us – she is only one employee of the Synagogue!  She suggested we could study the first and last verse of each Torah portion and then go down to the beach at sunrise, to have a service by the sea.  I think that would be beautiful – although of course in my mind’s eye I see a blue sky with no clouds and gentle waves lapping at the shingle… in reality it is just as likely to be lashing rain, howling winds and mountainous waves throwing flotsam and jetsam at us as we stand beaten and battered in our winter gear!

Whatever happens, I think there is something to be said for being out in nature, praying.  I believe it certainly brings you closer to G-d, doesn’t it?

Erev Shabbat

Well, here we are again, Erev Shabbat.

Due to some non-Jewish related business tomorrow morning, I am instead hot-footing it to our Erev Shabbat service tonight (my feet probably will be hot, walking at a fast pace from the train station, straight from work!).  I think this will be my first – I have been to other evening services, but they were for special occasions.  This will be my first for-no-other-reason-than-it is-Erev-Shabbat service – so it will be very interesting.  This will also probably open my eyes to how far I have to go before I am Hebrew-for-services-fluent.  You know how a tune helps you remember the words to something, unlocking the memory banks in your mind? Well, I do remember when we sang the kiddush to a different tune one week and it absolutely threw me. Oh the confusion!

I will be a touch disappointed if that happens to me tonight.  I am looking forward to it though.  One of my friends who is converting will definitely be there.  She attends everything!  But then, I am in full health and she cannot work due to ill-health.  I know in whose shoes I would rather be walking, I am sure of that!

[The above image found on the Congregation Ohab Zedek website - you can see it here].

Ma shlomech? Ani b’seder!

I’m immersing myself in Hebrew at the moment.

As those of you who read me regularly will know, I bought the Rosetta Stone software to bring myslef up to scratch and hopefully, get a decent Israeli accent into the bargain.  The beauty of this software is that it analyses your voice patterns when you repeat the words and lets you know if it’s good, bad or just ok.  You can also dig in to the pattern of the recorded words to see the inflections on a graph – and then see how bad yours are in comparision.

Additionally, the package provides you with an audio companion to put on your mp3 (OK, iPod for me!) so that you can listen to it on your travels.  I’ve gone way past where I am in the actual lessons, in order to get used to the pronunciation and generally hear more Hebrew (which is a language I now love).  And it’s quite interesting to note that there are words that I can pick out of the conversations that I have learned from the services each week!

I love learning new things and I love different languages, seeing how they work in slightly different ways.  I was re-reading a book called ‘Stasiland’ (by Anna Funder) last week, which is about her investigations into the operation of the Stasi (secret police) in East Berlin and wider East Germany.  She is not German, but was fascinated by what she called it’s ’sticklebrick’ ability to add existing words together to create new words.  (If you don’t know what sticklebricks are, go to this link from the Skool Days blog!  Then ask the nearest small child about them!).  And talking of books, we have now had our new floor to ceiling bookshelves installed and put all of our library in their rightful place.  My Jewish/Hebrew books have an entire shelf to themselves, and room to expand (luckily!).

So here I find myself expanding my mind in all sorts of different ways, through Judaism.  If I knew last year that I would find myself in this challenging place, busier than ever, constantly reviewing my approach to the world, would I still have approached my Rabbi to see how to convert?

You betcha!

(PS – more news to come on being ‘roped in’ to yet more activities….).

Getting to know you…

… getting to know all about you

And if you know The Sound of Music, you’ll know that this is a line from the song from that classic musical!

The weekend just past, we had dinner at a friend’s home – a new friend of mine from the Synagogue.  He’s been trying to get us to visit for a long time, but things got in the way and it has taken us a while to actually get something ‘in the diary’.

I am so pleased we did.

The evening flew by.  His home is beautifully furnished, he has lovely art, gorgeous furniture and fantastic old family photographs on the wall.  Of course, the best thing was actually getting to know him a bit more.  Seeing each other at the Synagogue every week, spending time chatting before class and on the way home, but actually sitting down and talking properly over wonderful food and wine - there’s no substitute.  We stayed until the early hours – the time flew so fast! 

It would probably be easier to write down what we didn’t talk about, to tell the truth.  But I shall try to give you a flavour of the evening’s conversation… Of course we talked about Judaism – his return to Synagogue and including Judaism in his life in a more meaningful manner, my conversion (in progress!), our respective families and history, food, music, our home town, the Synagogue, the politics that goes with it (to which I was previously oblivious, given that I’m not a full member yet), fundraising, religion in a more general sense, relationships….

To be honest, it was a very emotional evening for me.  This is the first proper friendship I have developed with a Jewish person since I was about 7 years old!  He is a lovely, lovely man and he welcomed us into his home so generously.  I am so looking forward to inviting him into our home.

Plus, he makes a wicked, very dry Martini.  Shaken, not stirred.   But that is a completely different story…

Good Shabbos

Well, that up there isn’t what I normally write at this point in the week – Erev Shabbat.  Why the change?

Well, over the past few weeks, I have become more friendly with an older gentleman at our synagogue (and gentleman he certainly is, always dressed in a smart suit and tie, polished shoes, combed hair and neatly trimmed beard).  He wishes me a Good Shabbos rather than Shabbat Shalom – it’s different and I like it.  Of course, I have done enough reading and mixing by now to realise that this is part of where your roots are.  More generally the difference between Askenazi and Sephardi and then down to the more detailed issue of where your family came from originally, where they may have moved to (from choice or otherwise) and so on.

So, here’s to variety.  It enriches all of our lives, helps break down barriers and the fear of the unknown.  I saw a clip from a BBC series that’s on at the moment about the South Pacific.  In it, boys and men were doing only what I can describe as bungee jumping to a pit of earth and making contact at the bottom with their head.  They weren’t using all the high tech equipment us westerners would use on an adventure holiday.  No, it was a wooden plank platform and vine or creepers woven together to make the rope.  This was all part of a harvest ritual and the belief was that the closer to the ground you got, the better the harvest – almost as if they were fertilising the earth with their bodies.  It was amazing to watch.

Some people may scoff and say that this ritual is a backward practice.  But you know what, many will say the same about any belief or religion – Judaism included.  Up until not so long ago, I wouldn’t have actually ridiculed any religion, but would have walked in the general direction of ‘away’ as quickly as possible.  Now, I am of course in a very different place.  I can’t really explain the root of the change that happened, only how it manifested itself.  But it makes sense to me and has enriched my life immensely.

So, let’s embrace differences in our cultures around the world.  Discover what makes other people tick.  And whilst we’re about it, it probably wouldn’t hurt to do that a little closer to home.

Good Shabbos to you all.

[This image can be found at the Jewish World Review website].

Spring has… sprung!

Never one to stand still, I thought I’d go with the new WordPress theme to celebrate spring.

It kind of fits with the beautiful weather we’ve had at the seaside over the last few days.  Over the weekend, I managed to get in some more practice for my 60 mile charity bike ride which is happening on 28th June – and that isn’t so very far away now!  Eek!

I’ve found a lovely route along the Undercliff Walk from Brighton to Saltdean – it’s flat, has marvellous views of the sea, the cliffs and the unusual chalk/sand/pebble beaches (yes, all at the same time, it’s like a moonscape) and the air is so fresh.  If I do the whole length between Portslade and Saltdean several times over one morning, I’ll know I’ve done the distance. And you can’t ask for a better place to cycle, for the most part!

[This image of the beach at Ovingdean - see the chalk, sand, pebbles and boulders! - was taken by Simon Carey and whilst copyrighted, is licensed for further reuse, as I have done here.  It can be found at Geograph].

That warm feeling…

Last Shabbat, we had a new attendee at services.  A very nervous, but very smiley guy (let’s call him NJ – ‘New Jew’)who had been to one of our post-service classes and then disappeared.

What was supposed to happen was that he was to sit next to a friend of mine who would look after him throughout the service, show him what to do, which pages to turn to and generally help him not to feel alone. However, this friend was also opening and shutting the gates of the Ark during the service and would be spending a fair chunk of it up on the bimah.  So, here’s me, showing a new person what to do!

And it all came back to me – my first service, how nervous I felt walking to the synagogue, how grateful I was to be taken under someone’s wing and how lost I got, shuffling backwards and forwards in the Siddur, not knowing what on earth was happening!  It was really exciting, seeing someone new do this for the first time.

After the service, as is customary, we shook hands or hugged/kissed and wished our neighbours a Shabbat Shalom.  The look on NJ’s face was a sight to see.  He was so emotional, so overwhelmed, so excited to have made it through in one piece.  This Shabbat, we had one of our Beit Midrash services where we discussed the parshah and he was stunned (so he said) to hear people questioning the rabbi, let alone speaking at all!  It soon became clear that his background was in Catholicism and finally had had enough of being told he had sinned at 8am on a Sunday, when he’d only been out of bed for an hour!  He (like me) said he felt that he had come home, when he came into the synagogue.  He loved it for its simplicity and its warmth.

What made this Shabbat for me though, was that lovely warm feeling I got when we were leaving.  I was just walking away when he touched me on the shoulder and said, very simply ‘Thank You’.

What more do you need?

A quiet week

It’s been a quiet week so far, here on Shavua Tov.

Monday was the May Day holiday here in England, so I was out and about and also moving and sorting in preparation for some installation of some cupboards and bookshelves in our home.  That is almost finished, and the clever carpenter made the cupboard doors to match all our existing doors, so they look as if they were always there.  We are very, very excited to have all this new storage – our little home will be tidy for the first time, very, very soon! No clutter, no piles of ’stuff’ everywhere.  And my not inconsiderable Jewish library can have a proper home at last (instead of in a precarious pile on my side of the bed!).

The rest of the week, I’ve been a little side-tracked.  The reason is a good one, but I do feel as if I’m being torn in many directions for all the things I am doing right now!  I’m taking part in a 60 mile charity bike ride at the end of June, so am in serious training for it! (Here’s the website - I’m doing the circular route, Hove to Hove as the start is just down the road from where we live!).  So, as well as normal gym training, I’m doing A LOT of cycling.  I know I can finish the ride, but I want to not be in bits at the end!  Also fitting in my Hebrew learning and trying not to forget family birthdays, friend birthdays etc etc.  It’s a busy old time!

Still, all this cycling has given me a real mental boost.  On Monday morning, I was up with the larks, cycling along the seafront in the most beautiful weather.  The only people around were other cyclists, skateboarders and dogwalkers.  Bliss.