Both, At Once

The Reservoir at dusk

My Hebrew teacher is telling me about a friend of hers - a guy she went to college with - who has been battling cancer for nearly 10 years. She just found out that he's coming home soon from the NYU hospital, hospice has been called, the battle is ending.

She is shaken up about it, as one would expect. I know that feeling - the sadness coupled with helplessness. I have no words of wisdom, but we sit and shake our heads and frown about it for awhile.

Then she asks if I read the Sunday Style section (and I have to admit that I'm a spotty Times reader at best), because there was a big announcement recently for a wedding she will be attending. She shows me the invitation that arrived in the mail: it's the fanciest, poshest one I've ever seen.  Etchings, embossing - the thing is a work of art.

As I pick up each piece of it, feeling the weight of expensive paper between my fingers, she points out the list of wedding events. The rehearsal dinner at Per Se (say what!? holy canape!), the morning ceremony, the evening dinner downtown, the next morning's good-bye brunch. The dress code is listed below each event, and it is not casual.

"I'll have to buy a new cocktail dress for this thing," she says. "My friend is dying of cancer, and I have to go dress shopping. I mean...you know?"

I do. I tell her how, when a friend was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, it was about this time of year. I had needed to buy some seasonally-appropriate shoes for work, so I stopped at a shoe store on the way home from work that evening.  But I couldn't shop.  I just stood there, staring at the displays, thinking, "This is dumb. This is so dumb. I need to buy shoes, but Bridget will never need to buy shoes again. How can I be buying shoes at a time like this?  But I need to buy shoes. This is dumb."

The thing about death is that life doesn't stop for it. It often feels like it should, but it doesn't. There are still happy weddings to attend, there are new seasons that won't be held up. It's a weird disconnect, a troubling tension to navigate.

"Joy and tears," my teacher sighs, "Well, what are we gonna do?  Let's read the bible."

And so we do, as that's our purpose for gathering each week. We pick through two chapters of Isaiah, teasing out the English meaning from the Hebrew letters on the page. We start with Isaiah 55 (a personal fave) and end with chapter 56. We read beautiful imagery about renewal, and it's mixed in with stark prophecy about the sorry state of things. Good and bad, hope and destruction, flip-flopping within chapters.  And though we look for it - there's no easy resolution to be found.  Sometimes it's just both, at once.

To Yourself, Again

Looking down W. 44th Street

Back in December, a friend and I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at Discovery - Times Square.  "More than a museum" is their tag-line, and the first part of the exhibit was definitely more of an experience than your typical museum set-up.

We arrived at the time appointed on our tickets and were ushered into a small black room.  The door closed behind us; the lights dimmed.  Written on the surrounding black walls in white lettering was a quote from the Book of Genesis - in Hebrew on one wall and in English on another.  The quotes were alternatively lit by a spotlight as a recording of a woman's voice read first the Hebrew and then the English translation.  The verse was Genesis 12:1:

"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.'"

That word "go" in the Hebrew is "lech lecha" which I've talked about before.  "Lech" is the command - go!  And "lecha" means "to yourself."  Go to yourself.  It's a funny construction, and not used very often in the Bible.  I know of only two occasions - here, when Abraham is called to leave behind the known for the unknown.  And later in the book of Genesis, when Abraham is called to - essentially - sacrifice his earthly hope for the future and trust in God instead.

Go to yourself.  What does that mean?  I've been wondering ever since I learned the Hebrew.  Go to yourself.  And why does this phrase keep cropping up in my life?  I've been wondering that, too.

After a few minutes in the small black room, a different set of doors opened and we were herded into a space that was supposed to invoke Qumran and the Dead Sea: stones on the floor, large clay pots on pedestals, screens showing video footage of Israel, and an actor (dressed like every archaeologist I've ever seen in the movies) posed upon a big rock, ready to tell us more.

From there we moved into a third space, a long gallery filled with objects on loan from the Israel Antiquities Authority.  Beyond that lay the star of the show - small shards of the Dead Sea Scrolls, displayed under magnifying glass.

As we wandered through the exhibit, we got farther and farther from the small black room where we started.  But for a long time, over the muffled conversations of my fellow exhibit-goers, I could still hear that recorded voice reading the Genesis quote.  "Lech lecha"...."lech lecha"..."lech lecha."

And I thought, "I hear you.  I promise I hear you."

* * *

Except I then promptly forgot about it, until recently.  Until Tuesday evening, actually, when - after our regularly-scheduled Hebrew class - my teacher asked her semi-regular questions: "When are you going back to school?  And when are you going to Israel?"

This time, though, it wasn't a passing comment, it wasn't idly or teasingly spoken.  "No seriously, when are you going?"  She followed it up with kind words about what she see's in me, offered to reach out to her contacts in Israel, wanted to press me on the issue.  "Think about it."

So I'm thinking about it.  I'm thinking about how it felt to leave an inter-faith service a few weeks ago - walking slowly out into the drizzly evening, knowing (deep in my knower) that there was something there, something about engaging in that subject, in that dialogue, that runs my motor.  I'm thinking about grad school - it didn't seem "right" five years ago, but maybe something's changed?  I'm thinking about how this dialogue - Jews & Christians learning together, studying shared texts together, drawing parallels and finding commonalities while not glossing over differences - always strikes me as the most beautiful sort of poetry.  I'm thinking about how often I've thought about this, how I can't seem to escape it (and I have tried).

I'm thinking about all that, and the driving conundrum behind it: lech lecha - what it means to go to myself and how then shall I do it?

Class Notes

Shepard Hall, City College

My weeknights are filled with extracurricular activities right now.  Here's what kept me busy this past week:

1) Hebrew - We're reading through 2 Kings; this week we got up to King Josiah and his sweeping reforms. Very exciting stuff. If you find biblical history to be exciting. And I do.

After 2 Kings, we'll move to Isaiah.  I'm SO excited to dig into this book: although the Hebrew will be harder to translate (prophecy being filled with idioms & poetic imagery), there are so many familiar, oft-quoted texts in Isaiah.  So many we recently heard or sung during the Christmas season.  Looking forward to reading them in their original context.

At the end of class this week, as my teacher and I were chatting, she started to ask, "So when are you..." - her standard preamble to one of two questions. Always the same two questions, lovingly asked and sometimes preceded with the disclaimer, "Now, I don't want to "Jewish mother" you, but..."   So I readied myself to hear either (a) ...when are you going to Israel? or (b) ...when are you going to seminary?  

It was the latter, this time around. I answered as I always do, "I don't know.  Maybe some day."  Maybe some day.

2) Improv - I've been in an Improv slump lately, of Pauline proportions.  Meaning, when I get on stage, I don't do the things I want to do, and I do do the things I don't want to do.

I can't seem to break old habits (reverting to playing the same types of characters, making the same types of choices in scenes) and though I can picture where I'd like to take things (being bolder, playing freer) I don't see myself making much progress in that direction.  It's frustrating.

I read something somewhere once (I'm not 100% that it was even in relation to Improv) that said when you feel like you're hitting a wall, the answer isn't to quit.  It's: keep butting your head against that wall until you break through it.

I don't think that advice works for every situation, but I'm willing to try it for this current wall, which I suspect is made of fear, and thus worth shattering.  Onwards, again, into the wall...

3) Voice lessons -  We'd been working on Christmas music before the break, so at my first voice lesson of the new year, a new song was in order.  My teacher suggested Stars and the Moon from Jason Robert Brown's "Songs for a New World."  I wasn't familiar with it, but now I kinda love it!  The first chorus actually reminds me of my relationship with God, sometimes: 

"He said..."I'll give you stars and the moon and a soul to guide you
And a promise I'll never go
I'll give you hope to bring out all the life inside you
And the strength that will help you grow.
I'll give you truth and a future that's twenty times better
Than any Hollywood plot."
And I thought, "You know,
I'd rather have a yacht."

I don't want an actual yacht, but my metaphorical yacht is all the dreams I'm clinging to with closed fists, convinced that This. Is. What. I. Really. Want.  Unable to trust that God might have something twenty times better.

Oh, life.  So much to learn.

Let Me Start By Saying

Today was Monday, and felt like it.

Everyone and everything at my job drove me nuts.  I wanted to quit eighteen times before lunch.  But I didn't.  Because, you know, health insurance.

Also, boots.  My Cyber-Monday/Happy-Early-Birthday-to-Me purchase arrived in the last mail-drop of the day.  Oh, folks, these boots are so beautiful.  I want to dedicate a Lionel Richie song to them.  It doesn't even matter which one.

Does it make me a terribly ridiculous, materialistic girl to admit that the arrival of the boots completely altered the trajectory of my Monday mood?  Oh well.  Shallow or not, all of a sudden - things were looking up.

After escaping the beige cubicle for the day, I headed uptown to Hebrew class.  My teacher plied me with apple-cranberry-crumble and bourbon-soaked, chocolate-covered raisins.  You read that right.  And good gravy.  (I'm eating nothing but sugar in December.  In January, I will eat nothing but carrots.  It's all about balance.)

During class, we struggled to make sense of some of the stories in 2 Kings.  How were they understood by their original readers?  What's my take-away, today?  What can we learn about God's character through these stories? Why are there two simultaneous kings named Joram?  Lots of questions.  Few answers.  But it's good to puzzle through things, together.

As I was leaving class, I asked my teacher if she'd heard about the recent shootings. She hadn't, and was extremely nervous about me walking the ten blocks home. In fact, she made me call her when I reached my apartment (safely). It was sweet of her to be so concerned.

In fact, this day ended a whole lot sweeter than it began. 

Lech Lecha

Grant's Tomb

My Hebrew teacher invited me to attend a class last night at a local study center, where a rabbi was leading a course on the parashat ha’shavua (weekly Torah portion). My teacher couldn’t stop raving about this rabbi’s skills, his ‘encyclopedic knowledge,’ and both the literary and spiritual approaches he took to the texts. I decided to check it out.

He was indeed impressive – speaking for an hour and a half on one chapter of Genesis, without notes or supporting documents. He casually threw out inter-textual references, midrash correlations, and the Ramban’s commentary as easily as one might recall what they had for lunch that day. (Me? Turkey sandwich. You?)

It just so happens that the parsha for this week was Lech Lecha, the story of how God calls Abram to “Go forth from your land…to the land that I will show you.” After the class ended, I told my teacher how this passage keeps popping up in my life lately.

The idea of Lech Lecha (literally translated: go to yourself) was one that I had chosen to meditate on while doing my pilgrimage walk in Spain last month. When my walk ended in Santiago, I attended a pilgrim’s vigil at the cathedral there. The officiating priest, Padre Ricardo, asked participants to read parts of the liturgy aloud and he called on me to read the Old Testament scripture. Which passage? Lech Lecha.

Riverside Church

My teacher responded, as she does every couple of months, “Ok, now, I don’t want to “Jewish Mother” you, but…when are you going to go to seminary?” She knows I was considering it, way back when, and she knows I’ve left the issue tabled for the last several years, wrapped in indecision and a vague sense of of “well, maybe, some day.”

What she doesn’t know, though, is that lately the consideration has cropped up again. Last week I visited a church that meets in the chapel of a nearby theological school. And as I walked through those halls, I was struck by a loud, persistent wondering – “Why??” Why am I not in school? Why am I not studying this subject matter in a more structured way? Why am I not pursuing this?

(Unfortch I heard no answers. Just the questions.)

As we left the study center last night and headed towards Broadway, my Hebrew teacher said, “Well, think about it. Because I think you have a teacher inside of you. Maybe that’s part of your lech lecha.”

I could have cried (because I’m a girl; it’s what we do) but instead I said, “Well, maybe, some day.”

Maybe. Some day.

One Beautiful Evening

Riverside Drive at Dusk

In light of yesterday's post, here is what felt beautiful to me about life last night...

After work, I sat in a 9th floor apartment on Riverside Drive, eating blueberries and trying not to provoke an irritable Shar Pei who doesn’t like me very much (Note: Most dogs love me. This one has issues. It’s her, not me, I swear.) Outside the west-facing windows, the sun was fading across the Hudson River.

Inside, my Hebrew teacher and I studied the book of Judges – full of weird and amazing stories – and tried to tease out new insights from the old, old language. An angel of the Lord ascends to the heavens amidst flames from a sacrificial fire? Just what the what is going on there? Hmm. Whenever I think of ascension, I think of YouKnowWho.

Back outside again, the air felt cooler. Not cool, but cooler. In my war against summer, it’s all about these minor victories. I walked the few blocks home, chatted with my roommate about Café Lalo’s cake selection, and ate some leftover Lemon-Mint Edamame salad, which tasted even better today than when I made it the day before.

Then it was off to meet CJL for a quick walk and talk.  On my way down Broadway, I noticed a family that seemed to be from out of town. A dad (wearing a backpack) and a mom (wearing culottes) and their young daughter stood on the sidewalk outside a salon – studiously watching the threading demonstration video playing in the salon’s window.  I have never stood and watched that threading video; the tourist family's rapt attention to it made me smile, and reminded me that some things in life are just funny.  Like threading.  And culottes.

CJL and I walked a bit, then sat on a stoop, catching up on some other life-is-funny things. I got to pet a dog (much less irritable than the Shar Pei), which made both me and the dog pretty happy.  Jesus said we should have faith like a child; I'd also like to have happiness like a dog.  They're just so excited to be outside, seeing things, smelling things, meeting strangers, never worrying about what to wear.  I bet that dog doesn't worry about tomorrow.  He is my new hero.

Later I went home and went to bed.  Sleep: it's a beautiful thing.

Much More

Liliana Porter's mosaic in the 50th Street subway station

Question: Have you seen the latest “Alice In Wonderland” movie?

If ‘yes,’ good. Because I’m going to make a few references to it.

If ‘no,’ feel free to keep reading anyways. I won’t give anything important away.

But if you’d rather not hear about the movie before you've seen it, please stop reading and watch Zach Galifianakis’ recent SNL monologue instead.

Now for the rest of you's, let's continue...

Two-Faced Tuesday

Ok, just as I was getting all cuddly with Tuesday and patting myself on the back for being able to focus on the little things, the good things, the blessings of just being in the present moment - Tuesday decides to trip me up.

A last-minute end-of-day work request delays my departure a few minutes, which means I need to make a mad dash down to TriBeCa to get to Hebrew class on time. Outside, the snow is still falling. What had looked so pretty from inside my office a few minutes ago is now a hindrance - wet and slippery and slowing up my "mad dash" attempts.

I arrive at class only 5 minutes late - not too, too bad, considering. However, my classmates and teacher are nowhere to be found! I ask the building security guard, and he thinks my class was cancelled. He checks his records, makes a quick phone call - yup, cancelled. Didn't you get the message?

So there I am in TriBeCa. You can't tell, but when I typed "TriBeCa" just then I was using the same tone of voice one might use to exclaim "Timbuktu!" I mean, it just seems that far away from my own neighborhood. It's cross-town, for crying out loud! ("Cross-town" can be a dirty word for New Yorkers. As most subway lines run north-south, going cross-town gets complicated. Sometimes I get the melodramatic feeling that I'd just rather stay home than go cross-town.) So there I am, in Timbuktu, frustrated but...still trying to cling to that positivity I had felt earlier.

Ok, focus on the positive. Deep breaths. The snow - while wet & slippery, yes - has a certain charm. It's falling softly & the city looks pretty. Store owners are starting to scrape and salt the sidewalks outside their shops; people are getting to feeling a little communal and exchanging smiles as they slip past one another on the streets. Ok, this is nice. I decide to go home (cross-town!) change out of my work clothes and heels into something more weather-appropriate and go for a little winter wonderland walk.

One long subway ride and a crowded cross-town! bus trip later, I arrive on the Upper East Side, where I discover...the soft snow has turned to freezing rain! That kind of sleety stuff that stings your skin with unforgiving pings as it falls. Not good winter wonderland walking material.

There goes Plan B. Time for Plan C ("C" is for "Complain!") - I go home and vent a bit to my roommate. She is very sympathetic ("You had to go all the way to TriBeCa for nothing!? That's cross-town!"). I change into dry clothes and decide to watch a movie - SherryBaby, the story of a young mother who gets out of jail and gets her life back together. I figure it will be nice and uplifting. Nope. While wonderfully acted, the story is sad and a bit depressing. That's it - enough of Tuesday - good night!

Granted, nothing particularly bad happened to me. So I wasted an hour+ of time going a little out of my way, so I got cold & wet, so I watched a disheartening movie. No big deal, in the grand scheme of things. Certainly no famine, disease or disaster befell me. I just fully felt the irony of making a quick-turnaround from a mental place of positivity and thanksgiving to one of whiny irritability.

"Counting your blessings" isn't always easy - even when you are completely blessed with sympathetic friends and a dry, warm place to rest. "Counting your blessings" requires discipline, 'cause my mind naturally focuses on what's wrong instead of what's right. Yes, I suffered a little negativity relapse last night - but changing your perspective is an ongoing, long-term process.

So, blessing #1 on Wednesday morning: forgiveness and grace to try again.

Getting Schooled

“A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.” -Michael Garrett Marino

“Say whhhaattt?” -Kristywes

Autumn is the “back-to-school” season, and as of this week, I am officially back to school! I resumed my Hebrew classes this Tuesday. New school, new teacher, (some) new classmates; same 3,000+ year-old language. I’m excited about the direction we’re heading this semester – hopefully a little less grammar instruction and fewer goofy practice readings (if you’d ever like to hear Rumpelstiltskin or Cinderella recited in Hebrew, just let me know) and more reading right from the actual bible and other significant texts. Good stuff.

I’ve also become a bona fide graduate student and enrolled in my first graduate class (a survey of Old Testament Theology). I’ve been happily ordering my books, organizing binders and papers, and otherwise behaving like the big dork that I am when school is involved. Such eagerness will extend right up until when I actually have to do some work, then – watch me lose interest. :) But no, I (hopefully) jest. I have the best intentions to be a good student, this time around.

There’s more to life than book-learnin’, though, so I’ve got a couple other things brewing for autumn. Firstly, I plan to Get Aggressive with Culture. This is the name I’ve bestowed on my efforts to take advantage of New York’s cultural offerings, while I’m still living here and able to do so. I’m off to a good start (been to 3 plays in 3 weeks) and have a couple more events lined up. So much quality music, theater, and literature are being presented around the city – I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to take it in, AND be inspired by it to create my own.

Secondly, I’m off and running with the goal of Getting in Touch with My Heritage. I’m Polish (with the last name to prove it), but I don’t know very much about being Polish. What do Poles (and Polish-Americans) think, feel, like, dislike? What defines Polish literature, humor, cinema, world-view? How does one dance the Polka, play the accordion, celebrate national holidays? There’s a pretty large Polish community in and around NYC, so I’m going to tap into that resource and find out, culminating with a foray into Greenpoint, Brooklyn in search of the “Perfect Pierogie.” Stay tuned.