thinking jewish

Valley of the Ghosts

Atonement Day came and went this year. The Jews pled their case before their Creator, begging for a line in the Book of Life. I am still breathing. I count my blessings, and move on.

Take a second, and zoom in on Yom Kippur afternoon. Walking the streets, one cannot help but notice the glaring absence. It comes in the form of an unsettled feeling in one's stomach.

No, it isn't the fast speaking. It may seem that the lack of food is playing tricks on the mind, but it is not.

In the middle of the day, in the center of the Israeli capital, there is not a moving car in sight. The silence is unsettling. Nothing. Literally, nothing, to be heard.

In place of cars are people, having taken over the roads entirely.

It feels like the end of the world. In the aftermath of some cataclysmic event, the people slowly come outside to see what has become of their planet. It is that odd to the eye. It just does not happen anywhere.

Nowhere but here.

And so, as I stepped down the main street of this German Colony that I call home, reveling in the serenity of peace and quiet, I wanted to grab onto the experience and never let go.

Because it made Emek Refaim feel so normal, so real.

It is anything but.

This street is first mentioned in the Book of Joshua. It is here that the Philistines took position, having been attacked by King David, many centuries later. It is here that, legend holds, a race of giants once dwelled.

Hence it's name, Emek Refaim, "Valley of the Ghosts".

I see these ghosts every morning when I board the bus. The stare at me every afternoon, as I pass shops and cafes on my walk home. They surround me every Friday as I buy groceries for Shabbat.

Look over there! That's where the German Templars first settled this area.

Psst. Just past that cafe, an evil man once murdered innocents, as part of some political game.

Get this: a little beyond that hill, look to the left of that big church. There your ancestors built a home for God.

Every inch of this place is seeped in these stories, history just waiting to be remembered. Like a soaked-through sponge, ready to be wrung out, every step feels full of the past.

The ghosts reach out to grab you; the giants want to catch your attention.

What is the meaning of this place? I ask the same question every day.

I want to pretend it has no meaning.

This is just a place. A place where Jews live. And I am one of them. I have an apartment, I wake up in the morning, and go about my business. I study, I pray, and try to save the world in the process. I watch some television. I go to bed.

But no!

Those Jews, over there, are speaking the language of my ancestors. Were it not for Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the dream would not have come true. That lintel, it has Arabic, because this neighborhood, after the Germans, was settled by Arabs, who fled in '48, the year my people was redeemed, just over there, around that corner.

Every morning, the sun rises over the Jordanian hills to my east. And if I squint just enough, I can make out the profile of Moses, looking here, into the Land of Israel, just before his death.

History comes alive at every moment, the ghosts grab at me continuously.

I tried to use Yom Kippur to shake myself of it all. Let it be. It is what it is. You can't figure it all out in one instant.

Another day passes. Still no answers. Lots more questions.

Not like it's actually a bad thing. We all strive for a life of meaning, infusing each moment with rich ideas and rituals and history. Sometimes, here, it can feel like too much though.

And so I let it be.

In the silent moments, the times no cars are passing, when there is no yelling or shoving or sirens or gunfire, I try to pause. To take in the beauty and love it all. To appreciate it for what it is, all that it has been, and all it strives to be.

Here in the Valley. The Land of the Giants.

High Holiday Appeal

Dear readers of Thinking Jewish,

It has been a pleasure having an audience with whom I can share my thoughts over the years. Some of you have been avid readers since the early days. Others of you have started following my ideas more recently. Some just happen upon this site through various Google searches. One of you is my room mate's father.

This morning, at 9:04 AM, as I was starting my day at the Yeshiva, a large bottle of water spilled onto my laptop. The computer shorted, and died. It was a quick, painless death. Painless for the Macbook, that is. Very painful for me.

Don't let the light go out! Let this tragedy not end our aspirations for the future!

As readers of my work, I now turn to you to help me continue thinking Jewish in the year ahead. I promise that if you help me out, I'll let your synagogue president know he or she should lay back on this year's high holiday appeal. I'll even see what I can do about getting Monday's Yom Kippur fast shortened on your behalf.

To ensure that this holy work continues and that we all can keep on thinking Jewish, click here:

I look forward to new opportunities to share thoughts, explore Judaism, our world, and Jewish thoughts more fully, and promise never to drink anything ever again.

G'mar chatimah tovah and shanah tovah,
David

What This Place is Not

For two weeks now I have woken each morning in the hills of Jerusalem. I breath the mountain air as I step outside on my way to learn for the day. I sit on a bus filled with Jews from every corner of the earth, passing the Old City to my right, and the New City to my left.

I can't help but think often about that line from the liturgy, the oft-referenced source for the religious meaning of the Third Jewish Commonwealth.

May the Merciful One bless the State of Israel, the beginning of the flowering of our redemption.

Amen.

But really? Can this state, this political national interest on a piece of land, truly be the beginning of a new age for the Jewish people? Is this what redemption looks like?

A man gives a d'var Torah while packing a gun in his back pocket. People nearly fall over each other at every speeding turn that the city bus takes. Every business interaction is something close to world war. The coffee shop on my street is filled with bugs swarming around the delicious baked goods. Nothing works. The days are hot, long and filled with ceaseless frustrations.

Sometimes I wonder: We built a state so that we could be in a perpetual state of war? My ancestors died so that I could buy a carton of milk with Hebrew writing instead of English? Is that man over there, buying pornography in shekels, fulfilling the Zionist dream?

The sweat rolls down my back when I try and walk three blocks down the street. Trash is scattered in the streets. Millions of people who want me dead are only miles away, and those are the ones who live in Mea Shearim.

Los Angeles sure feels a lot more redeemed these days.

Waiting in an endless line at the grocery store in the middle of an industrial wasteland, trying to bag my own groceries, while playing bumper cars with my hip and the person behind me's shopping cart as others push their way in front of me, I want to yell out and scream "No!"

This is just a place. A place with lots of Jews. And they smell, and are obnoxious, and rude. It is a country, nothing more, stop imagining differently. It is as flawed as anywhere else.

This is surely no redemption.

And then, as luck would have it, I'm thinking through these very words as I sit in the seat of a taxi cab, winding my way through the streets of Katamon on my way home.

Make a right on Tel Chai, I say, and then a left on David Elro'i. To prove me wrong, the driver makes a right on Bustanai, one street early, and then gets stuck in a traffic jam. This isn't Tel Chai, I remind him.

And then, a few minutes later, when we pull up to my building, my cabbie demands a surcharge for the detour. He blames me for not knowing where I live. You're the driver!, I yell back, pay, and storm off.

I lug my groceries into my apartment, set them on the kitchen counter, and sit down at the table to check my email. I type up some thoughts, and try to put my frustrations behind me.

And then I look up. Up at the large window which is the wall of my apartment. I look out at the view in front of me: the red tile roofs of the German Colony; the neighborhoods of families filled with children, playing in the late-afternoon sun; the Dormittion Abbey atop Mount Zion, itself next to the Old City.

And there, there, far in the distance, I can barely make out the Mount of Olives, filled with its graves and churches and tourist sites. That hill in the distance, the site of the coming of the Messiah, Ben David. There, just over there, is the spot from which redemption will one day come!

I can feel it. The excitement engulfs me.

I take it all in, and sigh a breath of relief, wanting never ever to have to leave this mess.

May 5770 Be the Year We End Hunger

Friends,

As you may know, this summer I had the opportunity to travel to Senegal with twenty three fellow rabbinical students from all walks of Jewish life under the auspices of the American Jewish World Service.

The experience was nothing short of life-altering.

For two weeks, we worked with the villages of Darou Mouride and Keur Songo in the Thies region of Senegal. We spent time learning about the fabulous work of AJWS' grantee, Tostan, in community-led development throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We saw first-hand the devastating effects of extreme poverty in the Developing South.

Most importantly, we spent two weeks getting to know individual people who live in a world so very different and yet so very similar to our own.

I became friends with Tidiane Geye, a ten year old boy who lives in Keur Songo. He is bright, good looking, and always has a smile on his face. He and his family live in a hut made out of straw and mud. They have no access to running water or electricity; they share the sole latrine to which they have access with many other families of their village. He has an open sore on his leg which is infected, and will never receive medical attention. For the three days I was with him, he wore the same, dirty clothes; he has no shoes.

But there is reason to be optimistic about Tidiane Geye and his village. The work of AJWS is having a tangible effect in his life and that of millions of others in situations just like his. As I fumbled over his name (you try speaking Wolof!) he reached down to the sand that is his bedroom floor and wrote out his name in Roman letters - he has been given the blessing of literacy.

Thanks to the work of AJWS, none of Tidiane Geye's sisters will be subjected to female genital cutting. AJWS' grantee, Tostan, has succeeded in organizing more than 3,000 villages like Keur Songo in declaring an end to the devastating practice. Yet there is still so much work to be done to help those like Tidiane Geye living in the Developing World.

My delegation of rabbinical students has committed to raising $15,000 this holiday season to support the work of AJWS in places like Senegal. Every dollar we raise will support AJWS' newest campaign: Fighting Hunger from the Ground Up, working to alleviate the causes of extreme hunger around the world.

As we prepare to celebrate the new year, I ask you to please consider starting 5770 with an added commitment to support poverty alleviation in the Developing World. As an added bonus, an anonymous donor will match each dollar we raise, up to $250,000, doubling the reach of any contribution you are able to make, no matter the size.

So, please, help the American Jewish World Service in its fight against global poverty and hunger. Help send a message that the Judaism you know and love is a Judaism of love for the whole world, a Judaism offering hope to the whole world, a Judaism that demands of us to stand up and fight against the injustices of poverty.

To make a donation,visit my personal AJWS fundraising site here.

Thanks in advance for your support. I look forward to being able to share more stories of my experience in Senegal with you in the months ahead.

I wish you all a sweet new year of health and love, as well as food security, financial security, and peace.

Shanah tovah umetukah,

David

Regarding Health Care Reform

President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

September 2, 2009

Dear President Obama,

I have been meaning to write you for some time now.

Since the days of your inauguration and last year’s campaign, I have wanted so much to share with you my congratulations and thanks for all that you have done for our country already; for the inspirational being that is your persona and all your ideas.

I’ve wanted to share with you my experiences recently, on a delegation of fellow Jewish rabbinical students to Senegal under the auspices of the American Jewish World Service: what I witnessed in West Africa, the dire effects of abject poverty contrasted with the deep admiration and excitement felt towards you, and by extension, the United States, by villagers who have never so much as picked up a newspaper or turned on a light bulb.

I’ve also wanted to share with you my thoughts following many weeks this summer in Israel, where skepticism towards you and your peace efforts are so very disconnected from the sincere promise that your work brings to the region and its hopes for the future. My prayer is that you will not confuse Israeli recalcitrance with a lack of support for your policies amongst American Jews, and that you will continue to push forward in your policies of peace.

But all those thoughts must now wait for another opportunity. Because now is the time for more pressings matters: I am writing this letter to support your struggle for Health Care Reform.

As a twenty-six year old, mostly healthy man from an upper middle class suburb of San Diego, I have never had to worry much about the costs of health care. I have been privileged with the freedom to choose from amongst this country’s best doctors for any ailment which has afflicted me. The prohibitive costs of health insurance have been shielded from my eyes for most of my life thanks to the generosity of my parents. The promise of the American dream has given me more than I could ever want in my life, including access to top quality health care. I may currently be a poor graduate student, but I am surrounded by a safety net of giving family members.

Our system is unfair, unjust, and broken to its very roots.

The fact of the matter is that health care, just as much as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is a fundamental human right. In the wealthiest country on the planet, it is abhorrent that millions of Americans are unable to afford health insurance. It scares me to death that so many of my fellow citizens - those even with health insurance - have been driven into bankruptcy and debt because of sky-high medical bills following an illness. It saddens me that it has taken this long for a serious debate about health care to even begin.

So I thank you for all that you have done so far in this effort. I know just how serious the political risks involved are. I know how very complicated it may be to effectively reform health care. I understand just how difficult it may be to include a public option.

Yet I am writing you today having just witnessed first hand the brokenness of our health system.

You see, three weeks ago I came down with a stomach flu. Within a day of contracting the bug, I was severely dehydrated and unable to retain fluids. I had no choice but to go to the Emergency Room to seek treatment. I was admitted for a little over two hours, during which time I saw a doctor for less than ten minutes, received an IV of fluids and antibiotics, and was given two glasses of apple juice. I left the ER still sick, but saved from more serious complications.

The bill for this short visit to the hospital was $9,575.27. Even after my insurance coverage kicked in, I have been billed the staggering amount of $2,547.38. Let me be clear: for basic health services resulting from a common flu, despite my health insurance, I, a graduate student living off of Federal Stafford Loans, have been charged two and a half thousand dollars.

I am blown away that our country’s health system exists in a way that I must question whether I can afford emergency medical attention. I am astounded that, because our system is so backwards, such a routine and simple health service costs such extreme amounts.

I am saddened that, while I, either through further loans, or the generosity of my family, or both, will find a safety net to help me pay these bills and avoid more serious financial complications, I know that this is a luxury that most Americans are without.

President Obama, your leadership, your vision, and your work has been beyond inspirational to date. The tasks ahead of you are more than anyone could wish upon their self. Yet I beg of you to not stand down when it comes to Health Care Reform.

This issue goes to the very core of who we are as Americans. Are we a country that takes care of our fellow, or would we rather leave those most sick and poor to wallow in their pain and debt on the streets of our cities? Can we really achieve the dream of liberty and justice for all? I pray that the answer is yes. And I know that you are our greatest hope for success.

Thank you for all you do, and for trudging ahead the long, difficult road ahead,

David Singer
521 Avenida Primavera
Del Mar, CA 92014

Bamba in Dakar

On my final day in Senegal, I left the comfort of Thies, the friendship of my friends in Darou Mouride and Keur Songo, the routine of waking up each morning and spending the subsequent hours confronting the horrors of abject poverty. I left all these things and more and headed back towards the nation's capital, Dakar.

The drive was long and arduous. The forty mile trek should be a straight shot, but can take as long as five hours, depending on things like traffic, police checkpoints, and donkeys stopping along the road.

And so it was, that, on the outskirts of Dakar, still an hour from our destination, our van made a pit stop so people could do their business. I joined the parade of tubobs (Wolof for "white person") towards the gas station's latrines. Yet, after nearly two weeks without touching money, two weeks without even a hint of capitalism, I could not help but enter into the snack shop and walk around.

The refrigerator filled with neatly stacked bottles of Coke Light beamed with angelic light as a heavenly chorus filled my ears with song. I grabbed one from behind the glass. My mouth began to water, my heart beat a little faster. But there, just as I turned around, my eyes gazed to my left and were met dead on with the comforting stare of a large blue and white bag of Bamba.

Bamba, if you did not already know, is a favorite snack of Israelis. Something only conceivable in this land of Milk and Honey, Bamba is like cheese puffs, only with peanut butter instead of orange cheese powder. Sounds gross. Tastes delicious.

I bought a few bags and triumphantly returned to my van, providing gastronomic solace to twenty five future rabbis removed from civilization for far too long.

We all enjoyed the snack, taking little time to think about the experience. But, in retrospect, most surprising about finding the Israeli national snack at a gas station in the capital of this West African Muslim nation was the fact that it wasn't all that surprising at all.

A week prior, we had met with the Israeli ambassador to the country. The tall man - a walking caricature of himself - spoke proudly of the work his home country is doing throughout the Western Coast of Africa.

Not prone to believing others' hyperbole and an eternal sceptic at heart, I was adept at taking everything he said with a grain of salt. Could the massive amounts of development work that he is describing really be possible? Is it true that the Israeli embassy in Senegal is behind a giant tolerance program taking place soon in Dakar. What are the ulterior motives? What is behind his message? How could such a small country be responsible for so much good?

Not that I wouldn't want Israel to be such an or lagoyim - light unto the nations - in this hell on earth. It just seemed too good to be true. Could the country really be funding tzedakah to help non-Jews merely because it is the right thing to be doing?

Surely, Israel has much to gain from such work. A heavily tolerant, Suffi, non-Arab country has much to offer the Jewish State. But the support is real. Is real. Israel?

Low and behold, NGO after NGO that we met with described the great support they receive from the Israeli government. Not the American government with its gag rule and bureaucratic stipulations. No, the Israeli government.

In a country without stable sources of water and an agricultural system stuck in the Iron Age, Israel's drip irrigation technology has giant potential. In a country forgotten by most of the world, that small Jewish state, so embroiled in its own quagmires, is not forgetting.

The Jewish state's embassy is doing the hard groundwork to help this underdeveloped nation and its neighbors realize their potential. All Israel gains is the love of an unknown people ignored by modernity and a market to sell its national treat.

Let's remember after all: most Senegalese have never met a Jew. In fact, most don't even know that such a thing exists. For two weeks, I found it easiest to describe myself as an Israelite. And the Senegalese know what that is only because they read about them in the Koran.

Stellar.

This is the ultimate form of tzedakah, is it not: giving to a people who do not even know you.

In the age of Lieberman and Netenyahu, of showdowns with the US, and ultimate fears of annihilation from Iran, of violent protests against parking lots and never ending hate-mongering, as I chewed on my delicious bites of peanut-coated puff, I felt good, very good.

Surely, the Diet Coke helped.

But each bite of Bamba seemed to carry in it a morsel of redemption. The food was symbolic of everything that I had learned to work for during my time in Africa. This is what giving is supposed to be about. This is human beings helping fellow humans alleviate their most dire problems. This is the work ahead. This is what it means to be a Jew, to be a human, to be privileged and ready to give back.

ברוך אתה ה' הזן את הכל.

Yiddishkeit in Darou Mouride

Fiddler on the Roof

Amidst the dew
And soup-thick humidity,
The sounds of roosters and people waking.
The muezin calls his people to prayer,
In a land devoid of color.

There, in the distance, is a yellow house;
The only color among miles of brown.

A woman comes out.
She cleans a mat and tends to her chores,
In poverty,
In filth.
She is so unlike me.

But there!
On the roof
Of the small yellow house.
Is a fiddler.

A man and his fiddle, sitting on the roof.

He fiddles away the morning,
With the tune of donkeys and cattle, goats and hens,
As the people come and go,
Doing their things,
Waiting for a better life.

He fiddles, she cleans.
The rooster welcomes the morning.

In an instant,
The fiddler dissapears.
But she is still there.

And so is her yellow house,
Surrounded by dirt,
In a land devoid of color.

A Week Ago, In Africa

Standing on a rooftop, I looked around, and felt anywhere but home. As far as the eye could see was a morass of concrete and dirt. The thick humid air smelt of smoke. The sounds of donkeys, and horses, and a muezzin filled the air.

I was surrounded by twenty four colleagues - fellow rabbinical students from throughout the United States - as we prayed the morning service from atop a building in downtown Dakar, the capital of the West African nation of Senegal.

For two weeks, our delegation joined the American Jewish Service to work with its grantee, Tostan, aiding in community-led development in rural villages facing extreme poverty throughout Africa.

No prior experience could have prepared me for what I saw in Senegal: children with flies in their eyes; distended bellies; open sores; bare feet; hunger; sickness; a land parched by drought. At first glance, the place seemed like hell. How could God allow such a place to exist?

For ten days we worked with locals in the villages of Darou Mouride and Keur Songo, building latrines and helping them in their daily chores. I swept, I tilled soil, I brought forth water from wells. All the while, I built bonds with people so different from me, and yet so similar. They love, they cry, they laugh, they play.

I played with many kids. Two in particular I will never forget, Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop showed me firsthand the power of the AJWS and its grantees to bring positive change to the world.

As I butchered their names time and time again, the two kids laughed in a way that any would at a blubbering foreigner standing before them. "Tubob" they called me - white man.

Finally, Tidiane Geye crouched down and spelled out his name in the sand below him. In a country with almost no literacy, this defiant act writing was nothing short of miraculous.

But my new friends need far more than an education. They need food. They need mosquito nets. They need basic health services and access to a world which has left them behind. They need shoes.

They need an American Jewish community that remembers them, and does all we can to help the billions of people like them who live in abject poverty, trying to make ends meet on as little as a dollar a day in conditions more horrific than most of us could imagine.

I returned from Africa inspired by the work of the AJWS. I returned motivated by my new cadre of rabbinical students dedicated to bringing our message of social justice to our home communities. I returned ready for the hard work ahead.

The Wolof word used in response to a greeting is "mangifee," which translates literally as "I am here." The Hebrew equivalent is "hineini", the response by Abraham when God first calls out to him in service.

To all my brothers and sisters in this world stricken by the disease of poverty - to Tidiane Geye and Popmusonjop - to all of the communities where AJWS works and those yet to be helped, I cry out Mangifee. I am ready to help you. I am here to work on your behalf. Hineini.

We Pause for These Messages

In a few days I'll head with a delegation of rabbinical students and the American Jewish World Service to the West African nation of Senegal. We will spend two weeks building latrines in villages outside the regional capital Thies, and learn about the work of the NGO Tostan. The trip will conclude with a visit to Goree Island.

From there, I travel back to the States and, then, four days later, to Israel. Come July 1 I will have the time and the commitment to return to my writing.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you then.

-David