Posts tagged writing
You are watching a film in a dark theater. You can tell that something is wrong. The scenery unfurls in abnormal ways, the actors moving unnaturally, actions avoiding the definition usually mandated by gravity, relativity, logic. The film, you realize, is backwards. Backwards. You get it. Metaphors. You look around. You are all alone - not another soul in the room. You peer into the empty white light emanating from the projection booth. “Hello?” you stammer, knowing full well that no answer will be forthcoming. You have no recompense, no course of action. It’s just you and the darkness and the flawed artistry of a film in reverse. You get it. Metaphors.
Downright proud of the writing I did on this post over at jewbauchery. I reblogged it here, but check them (us?) out for more snarky jewry.
OR: How We Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Kiddush
You might be surprised to learn — we shouldn’t assume. Rather, we were surprised to learn — that Shabbat is the most important ritual in Judaism. Derived from the root Shin-Beit-Tav, the Sabbath (an anagram, for Hashem’s sake!) is the only Jewish ritual that’s actually name-dropped in the Ten Commandments, and we’re not just talking about our boy Charlton’s star turn. The commandment to remember the sabbath is so important, in fact, that it appears even before the commandment to honor thy mother and father - a commandment so natural, so simple, so undeniably human one wonders why it isn’t top of the list, a place held instead by G-d’s almost neurotic insistence that he is indeed the Lord, our G-d. But, pray tell: Was G-d not the father of all of us? (Or mother, if you’re going to be like that.)
We digress - but only slightly, and with a distinct lack of digression.
So what the fuck, then. What’s up with this Shabbat business? Ma Nish Ta Na Ha Laila, huh? What makes it so important that, in native Hebrew, it’s not just a thing you do, it’s the whole damn day - there’s no other word for Saturday besides Shabbat. Well, even the most ignorant among us certainly know the traditional trappings - no handling of money, no using electricity, no working, a quick trip to the temple (or four.) Maybe it’s just G-d’s version of Family Games Night.
We should preface this business by admitting that we here at Jewbauchery do not keep the sabbath. With all due respect to friends who do, we think our lives would be considerably less interesting (though arguably, considerably more spiritually engaging) if we did. And since our relationship with G-d is our personal matter, we won’t really touch on the religious aspects but rather, the heart of it all, the thing we Jews love to tout:
Welcome to a new feature here at Jewbauchery: Tales From The Vault. Effectively, it’s story-telling time down at the Jewbauchery campfire.
Jay here, with a personal story bound to tickle your fancy (Or your ivories. Or your ovaries. Welp. I’m sure I’ll tickle something.)
Source jewbauchery
We are to have a late start the next day, which is outrageously appreciated; we laze in our beds and in our rooms - freely wasting time, time which is suddenly at a premium. We shrug it off. WHATEVER. We rise at long last, we eat, we walk the cobbled streets of old Jerusalem and once more take far too many photographs of nothing in particular - the same hugs, the same smiles, the sun splashing over ancient brick work behind us. WE WERE HERE. We were! Honest!
Well.
The arms were opened and the hugs were had. Information was exchanged. Promises made to keep in touch, and oh, we’ll be at your show, and hey, there’s this bar you’d love, let’s grab a drink some time, and this isn’t goodbye, for most of us at least, it’s see you later, if we both have time, and hopefully it won’t be as strange as it feels like it’s going to be. The airplanes have taken off and landed. The pictures have been downloaded, uploaded, tagged, liked, commented. The slow trickle of normal life has returned to an onslaught of never-ending flow. Birthright has come and gone and now we’re back, just as if it never even happened in the first place.
It’s 9:18 PM in Israel and I’m running blind with no destination in particular in the staggering darkness of the Negev desert. We have been here now six days. I would call it a lifetime. The stars - dear god, so many stars, I could never do them justice - are my only company as my feet pound the cracked earth and my lungs burn and still I keep running. When - and only when - I truly begin to fear for my ability to find my way back, I stop, my breath heavy, my brow soaked, my heart beating strong and true in my chest. I spin, dizzy and dazed by the cosmic awesomeness of this moment, and here, alone, alone, all all alone, a speck of dust on a speck of dust under an endless starry night, I let myself fall hard on my back, my favorite jacket (now dirty with the earth of this beautiful country) spreading out beneath me. In the distance, from the east, or maybe it’s south, fuck me I’m really far out —- I hear the sound of shuffling rocks as a figure approaches.
Oh boy oh boy oh BOY. Last night was almost assuredly the best night so far, for reasons I’ll have to elaborate on later. Unfortunately I owe it to myself and to the experience to start off on a more somber beat.
We began the day at independence hall, sitting before the very stage where 63 years ago (today! No. That’s a lie. But that’s how I really wanted to write that sentence. Ok. Back at it then:) the state of Israel held a private press conference to officially declare its independence. Broadcast on radio station Tzlil, it was a moment of utter joy for Jews everywhere, who closely followed, their hearts beating in tune to Tikva, which, played by an orchestra present on the second floor mezzanine, would immediately and unanimously become Israel’s national anthem.
Our tour was led by a delightful woman whose name escapes me but whose practiced remarks and joyous delivery never will. Once we’d learned all the trivia - three versions of the parchment! The stage built the very night before! 350 secret invitations only! Fuck I wish I’d taken better notes - they played the original radio broadcast for us, ending with the aforementioned orchestra breaking into a song that was not yet the anthem but within minutes would undoubtedly be.
Happy new years, Stateside. Weak wifi at our small hotel in a hillside town outside Jerusalem means I get to wish you all well in person (via text?) and tell you some stories.
I suppose I’ll start at the beginning, which is as good a place as any.
Bedraggled and beleaguered from an impromptu going-away party the night before at La Descarga (a Cuban speakeasy halfway towards Downtown with a swanky dress-code, smoky music and a smokier cigar lounge) I picked up my good friend Zach – myself, through luck and chance, still wearing last night’s rumpled suit, and the two of us wound our way down Los Angeles’s bright streets and back to my apartment, where I hurriedly changed into jeans and my favorite button up. The two of us were shortly joined by Becky, our third musketeer if you will on this adventure, whose roommate Vanessa had (fantastically!) agreed to drag our luggage and ourselves to LAX on this chilly Los Angeles morning. Zach, Becky and I have purposely applied to Birthright together, and on our second attempt, all of us were accepted. We were set to leave on Dec. 30th at 9 AM, to arrive in Jerusalem at 3 PM, Israel time.
And so off to the airport we go.
Small talk and nervous chatter and Jewish geography and what part of town are you from and Oh, that’s my favorite bar too and we’re poured, still gibbering, onto an enormous El Al airplane for a fifteen hour odyssey into the soul.
