Friday evening we were having people over for dinner and each of us had taken on part of the meal to prepare. I got my prep work out of the way early, grating massive amounts of potatoes and onions for the latkes, or pancakes, and buying the challah at a delicious-smelling hidden bakery off of Emek Refaim. As Kenneth and Eva were setting up shop in the kitchen to make the lasagnas I bundled up and headed out for the rainy 45-minute walk across town to Kol Ha Neshamah, the Progressive synagogue in Baka.
Now you are about to witness a secret, feels-like-cheating writing technique of bloggers and diarists everywhere: plagiarizing oneself. Below is the edited text of an email I sent to San Francisco later in the evening once I got back from services, before our guests came over and we sat down to dinner. It seems to represent the elements of spirituality and memory with which the night began.
the sky is dark over Jerusalem tonight but in
California the day is only beginning. as i made the
long walk home in the rain just now from kabbalat
shabbat at the progressive synagogue on the other side
of town, i saw windows all along the streets filled
with chanukiot, lit against the night sky to remind us
that in this darkest time of year there are still
miracles of light around and inside us.
nes
gadol
hayah
po
this year i am really here, the dreidel's "po"
reminding me that it was really here, not in some far
away place there years ago across the sea that a
miracle happened. as i walked i remembered another
shabbat chanukah, one year ago now, another rainy
night not in Jerusalem but in San Francisco. on that
night there was a different miracle: two very different
people exchanging identical chanukah gifts, two people
reading and sharing the same text...elizabeth gilbert's
book _eat, pray, love_. i am rereading it here in
israel where i read it the first time, where i read
that old worn copy i got as a present and then gave
away as a gift a year ago tonight.
and in this past year my travels have taken
me not only far away on the outside but to new places
on the inside as well. in unique ways i have, as
t.s. eliot writes, arrived to old destinations and
seen them with new eyes. i have also journeyed to
completely new places as of yet unknown until these
past twelve months. anachnu nosaot, we are still and
always on our own journeys and i am quite certainly
on mine--last year, this year, next year, yes.
so as the seven candles--four plus one for the holiday
and two for the end of the week--glow in our window
this israeli evening, as my very international
housemates and i prepare lasagna and latkes, salad and
sufganiot for the party we are having tonight, i am
reminded of not elizabeth gilbert's book but another
narrative. for shabbat chanukah this year i am thinking
of a text that i have read many times during my current
journey, a poem about traveling of course:
the journey
one day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do.,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.
--mary oliver
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