Journey Into Judaism My trip to Israel in July, 1992 was my first journey to the Holy Land.  My inner life over the past years had focused on my search for spiritual and religious truth; I had studied and explored many traditions and teachings.  Although Judaism was becoming alive to me, I was still open to destiny’s guidance.  So when I wrote about the Holy Land, I described it as the place of three major religions.  Which would attract me?

My trip to Israel began in July, 1992.  I boarded the plane in Newark and immediately took out my journal.  I was scared and lonely and missing Alon: this is how the journal begins!  But soon I began to write about my journey to the Holy Land.  My inner life over the past years had focused on my search for spiritual and religious truth; I had studied and explored many traditions and teachings.  Although Judaism was becoming alive to me, I was still open to destiny’s guidance.  So when I wrote about the Holy Land, I described it as the place of three major religions.  Which would attract me?     My travels and friendships in Israel reflect this openness.  I spent my three Israeli Shabbats with Jewish friends and teachers.  I celebrated the weekly festival in synagogues, homes, Israeli dance circles, study groups, and at the Western Wall.  I also met and befriended an Arab man who took me to the mosque and to Jericho and all around the Arab quarter of Jerusalem; later Denise and I saw him in his hometown of Nablus, in the West Bank.  I walked the Christian Via Delarosa with Christian pilgrims; later I met a Christian monk whose story of transformation from life as a lawyer to life as a monk remains with me today.  I climbed the Mount of Olives with an Australian girl and Masada with a British guy, each friendship teaching me about the adventerous, secular life of the traveler.     I had plenty of time to dwell upon the question of my spiritual path.  Although I spent a lot of good times with friends old and new, I was traveling alone.  This was the first time I had been this lonely and I discovered that I could not escape the loneliness:  I had to be with it.  I remember saying goodbye to the Christian monk at the base of Masada and then sitting for hours in the heat of the afternoon, overlooking salt flats and desert.  I was silent and listening for a voice to tell me, what is my path?  At dusk I met the British fellow and felt an immediate connection.  He rescued me from the empty sounds in my head and protected me through the night (we were sleeping on concrete with dozens of fellow travelers) and into the next afternoon.  His advice was to let my travels unwind me over time.  I watched him climb down the other side of Masada and head toward Egypt.  Alone again, I headed for the cold waterfalls of Ein Gedi.     My return to Jerusalem was the low point of my journey.  I was so lonely that I began to panic.  Yet as I sat and stared at the crowds of strangers, an answer suddenly came—I saw a Jewish friend from Penn, Margie, walking by!  I ran over to her and asked her if I could perhaps stay with her for a few days.  She said yes!  She waited for me to collect my bags from the hostel and took me by bus to her apartment, where another friend, Beth, was already crashing.  When Shabbat arrived later that week, I met Beth (and Denise) for Israeli dancing and a walk to a liberal synagogue and then returned alone through the streets of suburban Jerusalem to cook dinner for Margie.  I can still hear the sounds accompanying me on that walk—sounds of quiet because no one was driving; sounds of dinner being prepared and eaten, in house after house after house.  Shabbat in Jerusalem:  this was a world I was inhabiting, as naturally as any other world I’ve ever inhabited.     I was beginning to unwind and relax.  Beth and I decided to travel north to Casaerea together.  We spent a couple of days on the beach and in the groves of Pardes Hanna.  I went on to Tiberias alone and actually enjoyed my loneliness.  Sitting and watching the Yom Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) for hours, I was soothed.  From a place of calm, I decided to head to Tsfat for my final Shabbat in the Holy Land.     I found myself at Ascent, a center for mystical Jewish study and Shabbat hospitality in Tsfat.  They had been advertising a weekend of classes and I wanted to attend.  When I arrived in the office, they asked me to fill in a form that included the question, “What is your mother’s Hebrew name?”  Obviously they were trying to check out the authenticity of my Jewish roots (which in Orthodox circles come from a Jewish mother); I was not able to fudge my way past this question.  Instead, I approached the woman at the desk and told her that I was not Jewish but I was considering a conversion because my fiancé was Jewish.  (This in itself was not true!  Alon and I had just met!  Yet my subconscious decision to make this statement had a powerful effect on me that weekend.)  She immediately went to the director who asked to see me.  The director (Marty?) was blunt:  I could attend the classes but not the meals; he did not want me socializing with the Jewish boys.  He softened my shock, though, by asking me to his home for Shabbat dinner.  I said yes, and we agreed to meet at his shul (small synagogue) for services.      I don’t remember much else about the center, his home, the classes, the teachers, or the other young people at Ascent that Shabbat.  But my memory of Shabbat in Tsfat paints a picture I will never forget.     I found a small room in a lady’s home that I shared with a young woman, let’s call her Sara.  She was bouncing off the walls with excitement about Judaism.  Our room had a window onto a street that was cobblestone and European.  As sunset approached, I headed to the shul to meet Marty.  There were few people there, so I found a prayer book and a spot in the women’s section.  I didn’t care what pages the others were reading: I wasn’t even sure if I held the book upside down or not!  At first I was nervous and jumpy but then I settled into the moment.  I became aware of the descent of Shabbat; I felt the dusky streets of Tsfat and myself on top of the mountain.  My prayers were flowing, again questions about my place in Judaism.  Staring only at the book in my hands, I began to feel my body moving slowly, swaying on its own accord.  I watched the movement in confused amazement, knowing nothing yet of shuckling, the rhythmic swaying typical during traditional Jewish davenen, or praying.  Somehow this movement had found me, here in Tsfat, at erev Shabbat.  As I watched and allowed the swaying, it grew in intensity until I felt possessed, unable to stop it.     The moment passed and my body grew still but my mind and heart remained on fire.  The power of this experience was my answer!  My Jewish soul, my own Neshama, had found its worldly destiny in the tradition of Judaism.     After dinner with Marty’s family, I walked alone through Tsfat.  It was late and the moon was out; I remember that I flew a few inches above the cobblestones.  Back in my room, Sara had not returned, late as it was.  As I lay waiting, she climbed through the window!  She had been dancing and praying and also flying through the night on the wings of her excitement.  I fell asleep to her chattering. The next afternoon I was sitting alone in the hot sun, waiting for the evening.  I had decided to observe Shabbat for the first time in my life by purchasing all my food before sundown on Friday and by not writing in my journal.  The intensity of my thoughts and experiences had drained me but I continued to sit with my observance.  I remember wondering if Alon and I would some day begin to observe Shabbat together.  It seemed imperative to me on that day that we move together toward such a life.  The evening found me back in my room.  The lady of the house called us for Havdalah.  What a mysterious moment that was for me, my first Havdalah!  She had been sitting in the growing darkness and her candle lit the space around her as she sang the ancient melodies and prayers.     I spent the remainder of my evening downtown amongst modern Israelis, eating falafel and writing in my journal.  I felt grounded by a return to secular society and knew then that I needed both elements, spiritual community and modern secular life, to fulfill my needs.  As much as I longed for intense spiritual connection, I could not exist in the clouds of Tsfat.  The next day I fled south and found my friends and returned to my life as I had known it.  I would examine my journal and my experiences later.