Days so full I can't adequately describe them, but some vignettes:
A morning visit with Sara Ben Yosef, gifted potter and long-ago teacher of mine, at Cadim, her ceramics cooperative in Yoel Solomon (downtown Jerusalem) - we talk of her new work, our children, her fascinating visit to China for a month-long pottery residency last fall - her ceramics are so special, so beautiful...
Then, just across the cobblestone street to restaurant/bookstore Tmol Shilshom, a first meeting with its founder/owner Daveed Ehrlich. He invites me to rest in a comfortable handsome old woodframe chair just back from the reupholsterer while he finishes some business; he joins me and says, "This chair was the habitual favorite of an old dear friend whose picture is on the wall just behind you" - I turn to see a loving candid photo of Yehuda Amichai. As this first conversation with Daveed unfolds, we discover some deep and surprising connections. I inscribe copies of A Spiritual Life and Finding Words - I will be interested to hear his thoughts about my work...
An ongoing search for just the right gifts for special loved ones when I return home; finding my way is challenging, walking for hours in the heat is challenging. I am on my way home finally when a call comes from an old friend I have been trying to reconnect with for weeks, a therapist whose office is only a few blocks from where the taxi is about to turn - "no - yashar, yashar" - go straight! "I work constantly," he apologizes for not getting back to me sooner - "Oh, I know that reality!" I respond. And then a delicious two hours of catching up on intense work he and I each do - he's fascinated by my approach to rabbinical student development through spiritual writing, I listen carefully as he describes Brandon Bays and her approach to therapy, "The Journey"...
Next stop, Emek Refayim, the Adam School where I have been invited to the final concert of the year for an amazing music program, Hassadnah. With scholarships from local private donors, about 30 Ethiopian children have been working hard alongside children living in Baka to learn a variety of musical instruments and now perform together at an end-of-year concert for parents, siblings, friends. The power of this program is evident to me even before any explanation - it is evident in their shining faces, in the notes which soar, in the bodies of these 8 year olds and 11 year olds and 16 year olds as they perform classical, popular, and jazz offerings - they are nervous, yes, but clearly filled with joy at making good music, and pride in themselves and their hard work. The families have learned as well - how musicians need support from home in order to succeed. Pride all around, and I am silently in tears, overwhelmed - as I say to my friend Bella, one of the Board members who fought to create and sustain this program, "These children are our future, we have to do better by them." And Hassadnah is one of the ways to do better by them.
Shabbat is coming in, unbelievable privilege to spend Shabbat in Jerusalem, I must stop now... Suddenly thinking of Jerusalem scholar Yisroel Knohl whose lecture this week at Hartman was a thrilling inspiration - his views on the deep ancient meanings of Shabbat. More to share here soon I hope - his lecture, and a visit to a second bookstore...
A morning visit with Sara Ben Yosef, gifted potter and long-ago teacher of mine, at Cadim, her ceramics cooperative in Yoel Solomon (downtown Jerusalem) - we talk of her new work, our children, her fascinating visit to China for a month-long pottery residency last fall - her ceramics are so special, so beautiful...
Then, just across the cobblestone street to restaurant/bookstore Tmol Shilshom, a first meeting with its founder/owner Daveed Ehrlich. He invites me to rest in a comfortable handsome old woodframe chair just back from the reupholsterer while he finishes some business; he joins me and says, "This chair was the habitual favorite of an old dear friend whose picture is on the wall just behind you" - I turn to see a loving candid photo of Yehuda Amichai. As this first conversation with Daveed unfolds, we discover some deep and surprising connections. I inscribe copies of A Spiritual Life and Finding Words - I will be interested to hear his thoughts about my work...
An ongoing search for just the right gifts for special loved ones when I return home; finding my way is challenging, walking for hours in the heat is challenging. I am on my way home finally when a call comes from an old friend I have been trying to reconnect with for weeks, a therapist whose office is only a few blocks from where the taxi is about to turn - "no - yashar, yashar" - go straight! "I work constantly," he apologizes for not getting back to me sooner - "Oh, I know that reality!" I respond. And then a delicious two hours of catching up on intense work he and I each do - he's fascinated by my approach to rabbinical student development through spiritual writing, I listen carefully as he describes Brandon Bays and her approach to therapy, "The Journey"...
Next stop, Emek Refayim, the Adam School where I have been invited to the final concert of the year for an amazing music program, Hassadnah. With scholarships from local private donors, about 30 Ethiopian children have been working hard alongside children living in Baka to learn a variety of musical instruments and now perform together at an end-of-year concert for parents, siblings, friends. The power of this program is evident to me even before any explanation - it is evident in their shining faces, in the notes which soar, in the bodies of these 8 year olds and 11 year olds and 16 year olds as they perform classical, popular, and jazz offerings - they are nervous, yes, but clearly filled with joy at making good music, and pride in themselves and their hard work. The families have learned as well - how musicians need support from home in order to succeed. Pride all around, and I am silently in tears, overwhelmed - as I say to my friend Bella, one of the Board members who fought to create and sustain this program, "These children are our future, we have to do better by them." And Hassadnah is one of the ways to do better by them.
Shabbat is coming in, unbelievable privilege to spend Shabbat in Jerusalem, I must stop now... Suddenly thinking of Jerusalem scholar Yisroel Knohl whose lecture this week at Hartman was a thrilling inspiration - his views on the deep ancient meanings of Shabbat. More to share here soon I hope - his lecture, and a visit to a second bookstore...
