Luriantics

Update: As promised, here are some pics from the trip.
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For part of my trip, I went hiking around the woods near Mt. Meron and Zfat. The great Kabbalists often went into the woods to do some of their most important thinking, writing, and teaching. Many of those thinkers are actually buried in the forests between Mt. Meron and Zfat, those that are not buried in the Zfat cemetery anyway. One of the hikes we did was from Zfat to Mt. Meron. That’s where this story begins.

We set out, my friend Sam from Jerusalem and this new friend from the hostel named Alex, around 7:30am. We expected the hike to take about two and a half hours without breaks. We to the trail and hiked in this stunning, rocky valley for about an hour until we came to a good spot to do some Yoga and daven shacharit. We hooked those two activities up and then started to hike again, only to find that we had somehow completely lost the trail. But, since we knew what general direction Mt. Meron was, we walked in that direction.

Then, after about 20 minutes of tramping through the forest without a trail, we saw this teepee and a series of shoddy looking buildings in front of us. Curious of course, we tried to find someone there to talk with. Lo and behold, we had stumbled upon an encampment of about 15 young men who were out in the woods studying Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). In broken Hebrew, we introduced ourselves and they invited us in to have some tea and hookah and learn a little Kabbalah. Of course, we obliged.

We sat with them drinking tea and coffee, smoking hookah, and learning Torah for about two hours. They showed us around the camp, which consisted of three Teepees, a main building with a few beds, and a large study and eating room. They also had about 20 chickens, a pregnant dog, and a donkey. We learned more about their daily routine: they woke up at 3am to start studying and slept rarely. When asked how long they had been living there, one said in Hebrew, “Since before it was cold.” They couldn’t give exact dates, at all.

We asked how to get back on the trail and they volunteered to take us there themselves. So, we hitched up the donkey and set off with three guides from the camp, refilled water bottles, and a pregnant dog in tow.

Apparently, we were WAY off course, because walking to Meron took 3 more hours, though it may have been the donkey that slowed us down. Friends of mine on Facebook, stay tuned - I’ll have some pictures up soon enough.
I think I know how to get back there. If I didn’t have independent confirmation from friends who joined me for the hike, I might think that my mind was playing tricks on me. I’m going to try to get back there in the spring sometime and stay for a few days with those crazy guys.

That’s the story. A donkey, some kabbalah, and living the dream - ;).

Update: My dad has been working on a project having to do with education policy in the United States and he sent me the link to this incredibly depressing study on literacy rates in the United States. Looks like the situation is even worse than I had extrapolated from the basic literacy rate percentages. The data is particularly interesting when viewed through the lens of varying degrees of literacy here.

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I just met this guy in Safed in a cafe. He looked about 25 years old. He grew up in Los Angeles with a gypsy father and without his Israeli mother. He also walks with a limp and a cane because of scoliosis he had as a child. He lives in Safed and tries to study Torah here, even though he also claims to be completely unable to read or write in any language. I talked with him for a few minutes, and then begged off saying I had to finish an email or two before I left the cafe. Just as the words left my mouth, I realized how deeply sad this man’s story really is.

Imagine being unable to read signs, books, or bills? Wow. The internet, with literacy as a basic requirement, would be completely out of the realm of possibility. This man could never send look at a website, let alone write an email.

I got curious, so I thought I’d look up some literacy statistics, using my ability to read, write, and surf the web. Both the United States and Israel have high literacy rates, though both countries rank lower than I had expected: the US with 99.0% is 21st in the world and Israel with 96.9% is 54th in the world. The world literacy rate according to the CIA World Fact Book 2007 estimates is 82%.

Literacy is a terrible, horrifying thing to lack. Imagine being unable to engage with the written word, not to mention computers or the Internet. Wow. This man’s life is so limited. We absolutely must to do better for him, and the others in his situation.

For Shabbat, I came to Or Haganuz, a Kabbalist yishuv (settlement) at the foot of Mt. Meron. A wonderful man named Tal lead me around, inviting me into his home, and his mind, for the weekend. To pay the bills, the yishuv runs a number of businesses, a printing press, speaking tours, a large conference center facility that can hold up to 150 people, and get this, a Chinese Medicine School. Tal works at the Chinese Medicine School teaching a particular brand of psychology therapy called Imagery Therapy.

I asked him how the yishuv, which is Ultra Orthodox, is able to be live an Ultra Orthodox lifestyle of study and teach Chinese medicine. Many orthodox rabbis have forbidden the practice of Yoga because it has at its core a religious element based in Hinduism. I wondered if the same might be true about Chinese Medicine. His response was that, “The Chinese did excellent research into how the body energy is affected by food, stress, muscular problems, and the like. Their research was absolutely secular, much like the knowledge behind Western medicine. We apply that research with a Jewish angle. And, if you look deeply into the theories behind Chinese medicine, you see Kabbalah all around. Many of us at the school have come to Chinese medicine through Kabbalah, not from applied Kabbalah to Chinese medicine. It’s amazing. Everything fits into the Kabballistic system.”

The second of the apparent contradictions I asked him about was the Kibbutz tradition of collective living based on a socialist ideology and the yishuv’s Ultra Orthodox foundation. His answer pointed me towards the yishuv’s intellectual foundation in the discipline of Jewish Mysticism or Kabbalah, and specifically in the interpretative work of Rabbi Yehudah Lev Ashlag.

Some background: Rabbi Ashlag wrote interpretations to the Zohar, whom some attribute to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and others to later writers, and the Study of the Ten Sephirot, which was an interpretation of the Zohar written down by Rabbi Chaim Vital and inspired by the teachings of the Arizal, Isaac Luria. First the Zohar, then that is interpreted by Rabbi Isaac Luria and his disciple Chaim Vital, and then comes Rabbi Ashlag’s interpretations of both of these texts. Rabbi Ashlag is one of the first Kabbalists to write in as plain language as he could muster, which his followers see as cracking the code for them to live by the precepts of Kabbalah. Read the rest of this entry »

While my wife is in the states visiting family for a couple of weeks, I’ve taken some time to do a little personal exploration in the north of Israel, and specifically around the city of Zefat. Zefat is where my namesake (and this blog’s namesake), Rabbi Isaac Luria, taught his version of Jewish Mystical practice.

I got to Zefat on Thursday of last week and stayed all of Shabbat at Ascent for one of their mystical Shabbat tours. The senior teachers and rabbis all come from New York City, either Da Bronx, Brooklyn, or Long Island. I got sick halfway through and spent most of Shabbat in bed. The best part of the experience was going to a serious Hasidic Kabbalat Shabbat service. I had never davened with guys with stremels before. If you don’t know what they are, they are the hats in this photo.

The Kabbalat Shabbat service lasted two and a half hours, with some of the most feverish praying I’ve ever been in. It was nice to be able to get deep into a trance of prayer and let go. Lots of banging on the tables and jumping up and dancing and clapping. It’s clearly where these guys, who you see during the week decked out in their suits and hats hurrying this way and that with serious looks, actually let go and have an emotion or two.

Of course, the service was split between men and women. Men got to pray and the women were relegated to the upstairs. It has been hard for me, ever since I got to Israel, to pray with just the men and know that the women are elsewhere and out of sight. It runs totally contrary to how I feel about women’s role in general to separate when we pray. I grew up with strong female religious leadership in worship and having it lacking in orthodox prayer services in Israel has been alien to me. This was the first time I was able to suspend my belief in equality since I’ve been in Israel and actually pray in a single sex service. It was worth the experience, though I definitely will not make that my practice moving forward.

As for the classes at Ascent, they were fine for what they were trying to do. Ascent is a Chabad house (a evangelical strain of Ultra Orthodox Judaism), essentially, and they are trying to get you to become like them. They might feign an ability to let you practice in your own way, but it’s not really up for debate. Rabbi Mo, who I respect deeply but disagree with on some fundamental issues, said that there were two things that were still up for debate in Jewish law: (1) what kind of knife to use to properly slaughter kosher meat, and (2) how exactly to clean your house of leaven bread before Pesach. I would venture that he possesses a remarkably narrow view of the corpus of debate over Jewish law.

All in all, the Ascent folks were very generous and sweet, but their version of Judaism is a bit too narrow for me. More to come in part deux, with hikes through holy forests and unexpected meetings.

There has been plenty of good conversation in the last six months or so on how to fund new Jewish ideas. I’d like to add to that discussion.

An friend of mine has been trying to get an innovative new Jewish organization off the ground for three years now (I’m remaining vague about the organization’s name to respect her privacy). She has sunk a significant chunk of her life into making her vision a reality. She has moved through the proposal phase / the initial funding phase, and then the proving idea viability phase, and she is now looking for that big grant to move her into the organization with staff phase. Bikkurim, an organization focusing on helping new Jewish non-profits, would say that she’s finished Stage I (start-up), and now stuck between Stage II (developing) and Stage III (operational). Her idea is a fantastic one, but she’s thinking about throwing in the towel because she can’t get to that next stage where she can start to earn a reasonable salary and see the fruits of her labors.

The things holding her back are:

1. An extremely competitive funding environment for this stage (she’s looking for half a million bucks), and
2. Spending fully half of her time doing administrative work outside of her skill set and being unable to hire someone to take over the admin stuff to free her up to sell the organization to funders.

I’m saddened to hear that there is such a competitive environment for this stage of funding. Sure, the Jewish Community is attempting to show its commitment to finding new ideas, helping them through a start-up phase, and getting them to an operational stage. But we’re clearly not there yet on the third part of this cycle. Sure, I am a bit biased about her work since I am her friend, but I sincerely think she should have had this funding six months ago.

For the second bit, I think there’s a real problem here. We expect entrepreneurs to be creative and visionary souls, and also expect them to be able to crunch numbers and deal with legalese. It’s probably unproductive for an entrepreneur with their limited time to be an accountant and legal advisor to their own project, not to mention counter-productive. It might also be a significant risk to allow someone without adequate training to perform these important tasks.

What if funders who were interested in the success of Jewish entrepreneurs decided to pool their resources on an administrative consulting firm whose services would be given out through a ‘grant-making’ project? Lawyers, accountants, and other administrative professionals could consult at once for any number of organizations. This firm could do this work in less time, for less money (since time is money), and with higher quality than our valued entrepreneurs.

I think my friend would then be able to fully devote herself to locating that necessary funding. Her idea, with the right support, could be one of the Jewish community’s shining lights — if only we know how to help her out.

It’s finally upon us. Obama is winning the nomination.

He’s been my favorite for a long-time, and way before it become popular to join the Obama camp, I’ve been claiming he’ll win the nomination, hands down. Friends out there, I hope you’ll back me up as I make you sick by bragging about it on my personal blog - ;).

The moment when I realized Hillary couldn’t win the nomination was the Coretta Scott King Funeral on February 8, 2006. Her husband, clearly one of the best speakers of a generation gave a speech. He was interrupted by standing ovations, amen-ed, and welcomed back to Atlanta like a hero. At one point, while he thanked the various former and current Presidents, an audience member yelled that he was also joined by “our future President,” meaning Hillary. Watch it happen here around 2:35.

There are few moments like these. With an entire Democratic nation sitting on the edge of their seats, ready for a reason to believe that the legacy of the Civil Rights movement lives on in today’s Democratic leaders, and primed by the best speaker of a generation, Hillary Clinton struck out. No jokes. No bold statements. No turns of phrase. Nothing. By the end, I think most of the audience was asleep. (I’m having trouble finding footage online. If you find it, please put it in the comments and I’ll update this post.) I remember thinking to myself just after her speech that Hillary is not an inspiring campaigner. She’s not a barnstormer. She doesn’t persuade with public speaking. She persuades through boring political bullshit.

Enter Obama. He’s the one who should have been invited to the Coretta Scott King funeral. He’s a campaigner. The man can persuade. He’s the next great communicator. He’s a once-in-a-generation opportunity. He can convince you, even if you’re not a self-identifying Democrat, that the Democratic legacy still lives, that we’re still working on making the American values of freedom and opportunity available for each one of our citizens, and that we’ve got fresh ideas to make it happen in a new world.

That’s when I realized that Obama would win. That moment.

I have never before realized how important currency changes are until I moved abroad for the year. In Israel, the general rule of thumb is that 1 American Dollar can buy around 4 Israeli Shekels. Well, not anymore.

For the first time, 1 American Dollar buys less than 4 Shekels. Let’s just say I’m happy my rent is in dollars. Otherwise, I’d be looking at a rent increase just because of the currency of my home country.

Good rule of thumb when living abroad — pay for things in the devaluing currency (dollars) and receive payments in the appreciating currency (shekels). That way, you’ll maximize the real value of the payments you receive and minimize the real value of your bills. We’re fortunate to be paying our rent in dollars, but unfortunate to be receiving payments (student loans, paychecks, etc) in dollars. Oh well, at least we got one of the two.

Oh man, this really hurts.

These jokes used to be funny. Now they’re awkwardly repeated by a Republican Presidential candidate with an aptitude for eyebrow raising. It’s almost like Mike Huckabee can’t believe he’s actually doing the Chuck Norris ad his 15 year old son thought might be cool. I’ve never seen someone make such a good joke so bad. Those Republicans — they take everything from me!!!!!!!!

The holiest day of the Jewish calendar begins tonight. Jews all over the world will be praying in synagogue that they might be written in the book of life in the next year and that their sins of the past year might be forgiven. It’s a hardcore day, for sure. One song in particular is extremely intense. The words go… “Who will die by fire, and who by water. Who by sword…” etc.

Leonard Cohen did a version of this striking prayer to music and then asked Sonny Rollins to help him out with it. The result is absolutely amazing. Watch here:

I’m enrolled in a creative writing course here in Israel, and during a free write I was feeling a little punchy. Our prompt was this teaching contract from rural America in 1915. What do you think? Honest feedback appreciated!

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“Right angles. They’re the only way. Not one deviation from the norm, not 89 degrees or 91 degrees. Simply and exactly 90 degrees. Without these angles how can we possible make a square? Or a series of squares, which must, necessarily, fit together. Shapes must fit together, Ms. Cutter. Otherwise, there would be chaos.

“There could be obtuse and acute triangles! Not to mention these imbalanced ovals with no angles at all! Think about the jumble of shapes that could produce! You can see why, Ms. Cutter, that we just can’t have any angles but right ones. They are the correct sort of angles.

“Therefore, Ms. Cutter, we cannot have your consorting with any sort of incorrectly angled shapes. Yes, that means no circles, ovals, dodecahedrons, irregular cubes, non-normal rectangles, oblong cones, and, of course, under no circumstances, are you to commune with Rhomboids or tangential tetragons. You must set an example for the children, and this community.

“It might pain you to hear that there are quite a few suspect shapes in this district. We are under the strictest of orders from Commander Square to pass the children of these irregulars through our rigorous Correct Angle Curriculum, which you may refer to colloquially as “The CAC.” This is how we can ensure that we all fit into the grander scheme of squares.

“It would be good of you to learn from some of the more experienced of our shapers here, Ms. Cutter. I have just the man in mind. This veteran, this angle among angles, this shaper of shapes, his name is Mr. Bill Ding. He takes his work with “The CAC” very seriously. And during the war with the circles, Mr. Ding risked his life for The Order we too often take for granted.

“Mr. Ding even reflects the curriculum’s goals in his outward appearance, which is formidable. He has a square jaw, a flat top, the sharpest of elbows, and ears that look like squares on the side of his blockhead. His arms with perfect right angles to his shoulders and his calves bulge with an exact 90 degree bend. And if I didn’t have Jim at home, I’d want to try on what other right angles Mr. Ding might have… But let’s keep that between us, Ms. Cutter… Now, where were we…?”