Week 16 | December 15-December 21, 2014

Hello everyone! Happy Chanukah/Holidays from Jerusalem :) This week was a short and sweet week in which I spent most of my time with friends and family, relaxing and enjoying the holiday spirit, indulging in too many sufganiot (tradition donuts with a variety of fillings eaten on Chanukah). I feel the need right now to thank God and publicly recognize how peaceful and calm things have been in Israel in the past two weeks. There was one attack in the West Bank (a terrorist through acid on a family of 5, no one was critically or fatally injured), and many more plans were foiled (including a big suicide bombing in which a Palestinian women planned to disguise herself as a pregnant religious Jew and explode herself in a big crowd over Chanukah). I feel like when things are bad, we dedicate a lot of time to thinking about and reflecting upon tragedy, but when things are good, no one ever stops to say "wow, we are so lucky right now!" In a book my cousin Rachel lent me this week by Chief Lord Rabbi (did I get that right?) Jonathan Saks, he talks about how the fact that we focus on the bad stuff isn't bad, but good. Humans always focus on the outliers, on what does not fit, so the fact that we focus on the bad means that the world is primarily a good, moral, upstanding place. He gave an example of showing a room full of people a big white piece of paper with a single black dot and asking them what they see. The vast majority see a black dot, not the huge white paper, because ultimately, we see what doesn't fit, what isn't right. The fact that murder, theft, and corruption shocks us is because we are so accustomed to honesty and kindness. I thought that was an excellent point.  During this holiday season, a holiday which represent hope in the darkest of times (both literally and figuratively, as today is the winter solstice, as well as a time of great tension here in Israel), it is comforting and inspiring to see the country come alive and light up for Chanukah.

A man lighting his menorah outside his house. It is ideal to light the menorah in a place where it is visible in order to publicize the miracle, and therefore, most Israelis light in small glass boxes outside their homes. The streets are alight with candle light for 8 nights. 

Israel, and Jews in general, never cease to amaze me. I remember staring ahead at a huge expanse of grass in Poland, realizing I was standing on the graves of 900,000 of my fellow Jews, and feeling humbled by our great loss, but in contrast, inspired by how far we've come since. I remember standing in that field (the former death camp Treblinka), wondering how a people that endured what is arguably the greatest tragedy in history could bounce back from that, establish their own state, and become the thriving, upward-bound, ever-improving people we are today. What other people can say that they survived the greatest mass genocide in human history and, in 70 years, have already achieved so much? I don't know why it is that we're able to do that, when so many other nations, religions, and countries have faltered and fallen over so much less. Our strong communities, held together by strong values and an eternal set of ethics and behaviors? Our commitment to upholding the word of God? Our emphasis on education? Our love and respect for one another? The grace of God? I wish I knew. But I'm so impressed and grateful to be part of a people that is capable of so much, that can transform tragedy into beauty and accomplishment, that can make light of the hardest situations, make jokes at the most trying times, and continue to improve and grow in spite of the world around them.

A couple of days ago we lit the first candle of Chanukah. At 4:15pm that day, I got on a bus home, as it is a commandment to light the menorah in one's own home or sleeping place. The bus was packed, and in typical Israeli fashion, everyone was yelling at each other, pushing each other hostilely, and elbowing for more room. Still, all the elderly people were given seats, and the atmosphere was cheery and light. I couldn't help but wonder why the bus was so packed-and yet so jolly at this time of day. Then it occurred to me that everyone, religious or not, secular or Ultra-Orthodox, was going home to light their menorahs. What an amazing feeling it was to be pushed around on that sweaty bus as we all rushed home to light our menorahs as soon as we could. What a great feeling it is to be a part of a people that is all united by one code of common practice. When I think about my greatest fears for Israel-it's not the Arabs or the UN or our public opinion in the secular world-we have always had enemies and always will, and non have successfully destroyed us. It's our treatment of one another, Jew to Jew, that I worry most about, a point my aunt Lori brought up that rings so true to me. When I hear about Jews wronging other Jews-the Ultra-Orthodox throwing stones at cars on Shabbat, Jews cheating in business, our inability to agree on so many things when we share so much more than we don't, that's when the real worry sets in. Our temple 2,000 years ago was destroyed because of "free hate", the fact that the Jewish people could not get along. I hope and pray we never face the same problem again. And when I think about that bus ride, despite all the Middle Eastern hostility and petty anger, I think we can move past that, we can get along, and instead of free hate, we can practice free love (not in the 60s way). Love you all a lot lot lot. Rebecca

Week 15 | December 6- December 14, 2014

Happy Sunday! Here's a look back at the last week here in Israel:

 

 

^we made menorahs for Hanukah on Sunday night. It was so fun (and the first time I've done this since like second grade!)

 

^we went away for the weekend to a random city in the Negev (desert). It was a very interesting and different way to live life than is lived in central Israel. 

 

^Hanukah presents I made for everyone in my school and teachers. Can't wait to give all 85 out!

 

^^successfully crocheted my first Kippa :) This one's for you, Daddy 

So it's the holiday season, which in Israel means it's just Hanukah season, and I feel the impending holiday so closely. The lights, the donuts, and the general cheer in spite of the darkness and the cold (okay, it's not actually cold, it's Israel cold, ya know?) It's getting to that point in the year where I need to start, in some way, thinking about next year. It's weird to be 19-this is the first year in my entire life where I feel like it's actually my life. In a lot of ways it's amazing. I decide what I want to do to a large extent-where to go, what to eat, how to behave and act without my parents around. If I want coffee, I drink coffee. If I want to sleep in, I can sleep in. If I want to buy myself something, I buy it. In a lot of other ways it's so stressful-it's hard to realize that I am now in a position where I can make real decisions about the course of my life. I know this is only the beginning of many, many big decisions, and I know I'm so young, but it's definitely a weird feeling. In other news-when I look back at the last 3.5 months, I realize how much I've learned, both in and out of the classroom-how to crochet, how to take buses, how to say curse in hebrew, how to take buses in Israel, how to be independent and take care of myself, how to clean a duvet cover, how to be a good roommate. I'm not even halfway done here and I feel like even if I went home now, I'd have learned and gained so much. Right now I'm looking forward to Hanukah-I can't wait to give out the presents that I made for everyone and spend time celebrating the first Jewish holiday in two months. I have so many exciting things on the calendar, and I can't wait to share them all with you guys. So much love---Rebecca

Weeks 13-14 | November 24-December 5, 2014

Hi all! I am so sorry for my absence in the last week, things have been very busy, and for some reason I couldn't get it together to blog about last week. So here's what's been happening in the last 10 or so days:

 

^^^our Thanksgiving meal-my friend's mom was here so she hosted us all for a delicious and fun Thanksgiving in her apartment in Modiin. 

^^^FaceTiming with the family back home because Thanksgiving wasn't the same without them :(

 

^^^and some more Thanksgiving pictures 

 

^^^at a high school reunion on Saturday night

 

^^^happy birthday to me! I turned 19 on Monday  

^^^ Random moments throughout the week-learning how to crochet kippas (my second one is way better, that was my first!!!), learning Torah with my special needs girls, and visiting Kever Rachel, the burial site of our matriarch Rachel. 

If I had to sum up the past two weeks, I can only think of gratitude. In the two weeks since the Har Nof synagogue attack, the country has recovered and bounced back so amazingly. I am in awe of the way Israel works and feel so lucky to be a part of it. Yesterday we visited the site of the place where the matriarch Rachel is buried. Hanging in her grave is the wedding dress of Nava Apfelbaum, who went out for a pre-wedding coffee with her father and died alongside him in a suicide bombing that night. Her story feels especially prescient right now, and for some reason, I found myself crying beside her unused dress. I feel closer to Israel than I have ever felt before-a part of me is scared to go home for Passover because I have this strange and unexplainable feeling that Israel needs me. When I got home from Poland, I remember having lots of different feelings, cheifly among them, a confusion about why I had found it so meaningful and thought it was so important. I knew I had those feelings but didn't know why. But now I think I get it. Despite what has been happening in Israel, I know this is the only place in the world Jews belong. When I think about what happened to the Jews of Europe (and what is still happening-if you heard about the Jewish woman who was raped in front of her husband in what has been labeled a hate crime then you know what I mean) and all the Jews who lived before them and were persecuted and killed, I know without a doubt that we belong in Israel. This place is the home of our people and no matter how safe and secure we may feel in America or Australia or England or anywhere, all those countries will turn on us too, just like they always have. I think it took seeing the camps and the barbed wire and the decimation of an entire way of life for Jews in Poland, in contrast to the unity and beauty of Jews in Israel, in order to truly underhand that. Yes, life is not perfect for Jews in Israel, but at least we have each other and are in the land where we belong and are meant to be. Here , we don't need to be victims, here we can fight for our people and our land. XXOO RTS

Week 12 | November 15-November 23, 2014

Me and Naomi in Tzfat

I told myself that this week would be different. I told myself that no matter what, this week, I would not talk about terrorism. It seems like my blog has becoming a running commentary on Jewish tragedies, and that's the last thing I want. Judaism is not a religion of suffering, it is not a cross we must bear, we are not eternal victims pushing through constant persecution in hopes of something better in some other life. Judaism is a religion of love, laughter, truth, and wisdom. It is a religion of kindness, unity, empathy, and togetherness. When I think of what it means for me to be a committed Orthodox Jew, the hatred and ruthless murders I have seen in the last few weeks between Poland and my return to Israel are the last things I think of. I think of children running through the streets of Jerusalem, screaming and causing a general ruckus, and of the sun setting over the hills as shabbat comes in, and of my friends and family and everything good in my life. So I don't want you to think I see Judaism in any other way. Still, it would be ridiculous to talk about the past week and not talk about the massacre in a synagogue in Jerusalem.

Doubtless, you have all seen the pictures and read the harrowing news reports. The images are hard to shake-bloodied sefarim and siddurs (holy books), dead arms wrapped in tefillin (phylacteries), devastated widows sobbing and clutching their children for support. For me, it's more than the pictures. I'll never forget where I was on Tuesday morning when I found out about the attack. We were rushing downstairs to load the buses to go to a "human chain" event in support of the previous week's terror victims in Gush Etzion. The plan was to gather as many people as possible and hold hands in a chain that would wrap around the area, a show of unity and love in contrast to the violence and hatred of the terrorists. It was 7:30AM, and as I bounded down to the lobby (excited, clad in my usual skirt and sweater combo with a big Israeli flag wrapped around my back like a cape), I saw a group of my friends huddled around their phones, and heard something a synagogue. I don't know how, but I knew right away, from the looks on their faces and the way their shoulders had tensed up, that something horrible had happened. We've had enough horrible that I've gotten used to the look of it.  I ran over to the crowd, and we sat around, waiting for news to unfold. Girls with family in the neighborhood of the attack were crying and frantically texting relatives. Everyone else was texting parents and friends to reassure them of their safety. It soon become clear that we wouldn't be going to any rally-in fact, we wouldn't be going anywhere, so we said a schoolwide Tehillim (Psalms), and went to class.

The rest of the day was heavy. The names of the victims were released, among them Rabbi Moshe Twersky (grandson of Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik) and many other people with whom I share one degree of seperation (friend of a cousin, cousin of a friend, you know how it goes) That night, we learned from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik's teachings in memory of his grandson and went to bed with heavy hearts. The next morning, a Druze (non-Jewish) police officer, Zidan Sif, who was crucial in ending the attack succumbed to injuries sustained the day before and passed away. The community bounced into action. The generally insulated and segregated Hareidi (ultra-Orthodox) community of Har Nof rallied around this police officer, and thousands of Hareidi men decided to attend his funeral. An ex-IDF soldier, who was Jewish but secular, heard about this effort and decided to donate buses to transport the Hareidim to the funeral. An Orthodozx Zionist woman heard about this man's generosity and split the bill with him. It was a moment of such profound unity between so many different sects and groups of people in Israel, in contrast to the usual tension and disagreement we see. And imagine the shock of Zidan Sif's family when thousands of black-hatters arrived at the modest funeral they planned in their small Druze village. On the streets, the security level was upped to the second to highest alert level, meaning that the streets were teeming with hardworking soldiers who stood on street corners and all over town for 18 hour shifts. Communities mobilized to support them-women baked for them, schools (like mine, which bought 200 pieces of pizza to give out between 10 and 11PM) bought pizza pies and drinks and drove around handing them out, families made coffee and tea at 2AM to keep soldiers alert and warm and everyone now says thank you when they see a soldier-the amount that they are doing to protect us is unthinkable. For every attack, hundreds are stopped, and the soldiers are constantly on alert.

By the end of the week, we were exhausted. The whole country, really. We needed a break, and shabbos is that perfect time to step back from the world and all the badness and spend time with the best people doing the things we love most. For shabbat, my program, along with the program in our school for girls with special needs, and many of our teachers and their families, went to Tzfat (Safed). It was such a beautiful, uplifting, interesting and meaningful shabbat spent in a city rich with culture, history and spirituality. Now I'm home, curled up in my bed with a cup of tea, eating a jelly donut in honor of the new month (and the impending holiday of Hanukkah!). Every week, it seems, there's at least one attack, and a part of me is just wondering when this week's attack will occur. I know that sounds so horrible, but after 6 attacks like this, it's hard not to think that way. Human beings are the most adaptable beings on the planet, which is a necessary component to our survival. If it gets too hot, our bodies send blood to our extremities, if we have no food, our bodies conserve energy and calories, if we lose one of our senses, the others are strengthened, and if it gets too dark, our pupils dilate and our eyes adjust to the darkness. One of my teachers used this metaphor of eyes and darkness to illustrate how easy it is to get used to this-and the importance of never letting that happen. I cannot let my eyes adjustment to the darkness. I won't let this become something I anticipate and something that no longer shocks me. This cannot become the new normal. We cannot accept terrorism as a part of life-we need to fight it in all ways, militarily, diplomatically, politically, religiously, communally and emotionally. When I think about the funeral of Zadin Sif, I cannot think of a better way to fight this evil force off. I hope you all will keep Israel in your prayers, so that at this time on Friday, when I summarize the week, I don't need to talk about terrorism or murder, because it doesn't have to be that way. Love you, RTS

Week 11 | November 8-November 14, 2014

Good (almost) shabbos everyone! I am so happy the weekend has come, and I think that sentiment is shared by most right now. The feelings of relief and gratitude for the impending arrival of shabbat are unmissable. Shabbat signifies relaxing, retreating from the world with all of its ups and downs and scariness and into the safety and unconditional love and appreciation of family and friends. It means good food, lots of laughs, and long naps. And after the week the Jewish people and the state of Israel have had, shabbat is exactly what we need right now. In case you don't know what I am referring to, this past Monday, two successful terrorist attacks were carried out and two more were attempted. There were two victims-both in their 20s, and many others injured. Throughout the week, terrorist have been throwing "scare grenades" into heavily populated areas-grenades that explode and make a loud noise, but have no gunpowder, and thus, no ability to hurt or kill anyone. Until they fully explode, it is impossible to detect whether or not they are real, so they send all nearby people, police, and soldiers into a frenzy. Although harmless, they just add more terror to the tension radiating throughout the country. They reveal just how truly corrupt our enemies are-even without the proper ammunition, equipment and infrastructure to carry out as many deadly attacks at they would like, they will spend time and money to simply infuse the Jewish population with fear. Their motives are so impure are so evil. Their cruelty, however, can be matched and exceeded by all the great things that happened this week.  

 

^ with friends on Saturday night 

 

^^on a school trip to Chevron, the ancient city in which our matriarchs and patriarchs resided and are buried

^^^selfies with my special needs students, Lauren and Deena. Every week I teach them the weekly Torah portion. In this week's Torah portion, we learn about the death of Sarah, the matriarch, and the quest for Abraham to find Isaac a wife (my namesake, Rebecca)

 

^^^at the color run on Friday in Tel Aviv. You can see which pictures were pre-run (the ones where we look clean and put-together) and which are post-run (those colorful, fun ones)

On Monday, I began writing this week's post after a somber schoolwide meeting about the current security standards (i.e. we were put on lockdown) and a mournful recitation of Psalms in memory of the day's victims. The atmosphere was so heavy it was hard to bear, and sadness and anxiety feeds off itself, so everyone was in a state of gloom and stress. Things just looked bleak-two stabbings in one day, along with the events of prior weeks, suggested to many people that a third intifada was upon us, something Israelis live in constant fear of. Even the word intifada sends chills down my spine. I called my daddy (he's my rock- my logical, fact-bound, stoic and unflustered papa who never falls victim to crowd panic or exaggerated claims) who calmed me down, but I still fell asleep feeling unsettled and down (only to be woken up at 4:30am by the Muslims's call to prayer, a reminder to never again sleep with the windows open). In my original post on Monday, I talked about how hard it was, how stressed I was, how bad I felt for the victims and their families and how much suffering our people seem to endure. But then life went on-I had classes, I did laundry, I laughed and learned, I watched The Mindy Project, I ate a chocolate bar every day, I puzzled through pages of Talmud. I felt uplifted by my Torah learning with my special needs students and reveled in an amazing talk I had with one of my favorite teachers over lunch. I complained about the fact that skim milk isn't a thing in Israel as I made my coffee, I walked 6 kilometers, I vacuumed, I tweezed my eyebrows, I chewed too much gum and exacerbated my TMJ, I took money out of the ATM, and I sang to myself as I painted my nails. I lived my life.

I concluded the week with the annual Color Run in Tel Aviv, run by an organization that supports victims of terror and their families. I ran for team Yachad (special needs children and adults), along with over 450 American students learning for a year in Israel, and most of my friends. It was a 5k run in which you run through 7 colorful balloon arches and colored paint and chalk is thrown at you-yes, you come out dirtier than you can imagine, but it is so fun, unifying, and happiness-inducing. I just got back to school and am spending shabbat here, eating at teacher's houses but sleeping in my own bed. Friday always makes me feel hopeful and reflective, and I realize now that the mindset I had on Monday, while understandable, is wrong. Yes, it can be hard and scary, and yes, it sometimes feels like the Jewish people have it rough, but we are also strong, smart, and doing amazing things every day. There is so much light all around us-it may be the darkness that gets the headlines, it may be the stabbings and murders and riots that catch the eye, but if you look a little deeper, you can see infinitely more light. No matter what, I am so grateful to be here, to have the opportunities I have and to be Rebecca Siegel. I am so grateful to be a Jew (shoutout to you, Mom, for making this all possible) and so grateful for the many gifts I have that others don't. I hope everyone has a blessed weekend. Please pray for Israel and the Jewish people. XXOO Rebecca