Passover, and Judaism, on Workshop
One of the reasons I decided to go to Israel for a year was because over the course of my senior year of high school I started to suspect that I wanted Judaism to play a bigger role in my life. Many of the customs and practices I learned in Yeshiva interested me, and I wanted to look closer at them in order to better understand how the reasoning behind could still be relevant in modern life. All the sources for the inspiration I just spoke said that if I wanted to do that I should go to Yeshiva in Israel.
For various reasons that didn't end up happening, some in my control and some not. And so I ended up on Workshop, a program that was not designed to encourage people to investigate Jewish practice.
Looking back now I'm kinda glad that it did. If I had been given a traditional Yeshiva education before high school I would never have discovered the meaning that I did behind so many of the Jewish customs and forms of thought. Surely a program that gave me the tools to analyze Judaism in such a way had something to offer me.
This was about as far as I got for most of the program. To be sure on Boneh (the first portion of Workshop which took place on kibbutz Netiv Halamed Hei then) we took many hours of seminars on Jewish History. Most of what I learned there though I either already knew or didn't find terribly relevant to my life at the time or that which I had left behind back in the states. I don't truly understand why at least 10 hours a week were dedicated to a course that those who designed the tochnit should have known would not interest most of the participants. We simply didn't have the background to dedicate ourself to the course. Time dragged on, and I became less and less of the Jew that I was before Workshop.
Even though seminars got more interesting towards the end of Boneh as I began to learn about the history of Habonim (which I and enough other people felt was relevant to us that we could have peulot instead of lectures) it was in Poland that I began to have truly powerful experiences connected to my Judaism. It's ironic to me that although everyone disagreed with me whenever I brought up the Holocaust as a justification for Israel's existence Dror (the ancestor of Habonim Dror) found its legs in the Holocaust, and that was also how the program tried the hardest to connect us to our Judaism.
Winter chofesh and Habo History passed, and finally we were on Kaveret in Akko. Any plans I might have had of finding a chevruta and learning had long since vanished, my Jewish self dried out from months in the desert. All I had left at that point were the random Yiddish and Aramaic sayings that I had learned that kept popping into my head and reminding me of who I was and why I had came on Workshop. It was here that for the first time Habonim taught me on how to live my day to day life in connection to Judaism. This connection came in the form of Jez Aron; member of Kvutzat Yovel, terror of MBI ט'ז, and all around asshole who despite it all seems to me to be the closest thing Habo has to a rabbi. His Cultural Judaism course was the first acknowledgment that I had gotten that Habo realized that the way most of us on the program practiced Judaism was not one that would be able to survive for generations to come. He advocated an approach to Judaism of learning about and questioning Jewish laws and traditions and finding ways to make them relevant to your life. Finally, something aside from the "just do what feels good" approach that I saw in most of the other habos to one degree or another!
Nothing, however, could overwhelm the overpowering effect that Workshop culture was still having on me. My attempts at creating a Shabbat culture on Kaveret failed, mostly because I didn't see anyone who were willing to be my allies in it. Which brings me to the title story of this essay - Passover.
When we first started planning our Passover seder I had high hopes. I thought that perhaps everybody would work together to create a passover seder that was meaningful to all of us - unfortunately I somehow forgot how little meaning most Workshoppers found in Judaism. Followed the traditional seder format up to the meal, but most of the parts weren't interesting to most of the people and those parts that were weren't really meaningful to me. The seder was just as aimless as anything we had ever done. As a chevrati event it succeeded, but it did nothing to investigate what the Passover Seder means, either to any of us or to any of the Jews that had lived for the past 2000 years.
So now here I sit with 4 weeks of workshop (including one of chofesh) left ahead of me. I look at the task of teaching the people here to value Judaism, and I realize that if I can teach a single person that Judaism is valuable enough for them to invest more into fitting it into their daily lives it would be an incredible achievement. And so I begin to plan, not to work towards this goal which I would say now is beyond me but rather to try and work with an atmosphere more suited to such a task - Machaneh. Perhaps I can try and shape the teaching apparatus we use and the madrichim who run it that Judaism is actually something they need to teach, and help them to figure out how to do it. I say them only because if there's one thing that Workshop has taught me it's that I can't bring Judaism to Habonim alone. Until the time when Judaism becomes a part of a habo life, I leave you with this song.
When in Rome, by Nickel Creek
Where can a sick man go
When he can’t choke down the medicine,
The old Doc knows.
A specialist came to town, but he stays at home,
saying no one knows, so I don’t, Honey, when in Rome.
Where can a teacher go?
Wherever she thinks people need the things she knows.
Hey, those books you gave us look good on the shelves at home,
And they’ll burn warm in the fireplace, Teacher, when in Rome.
Grab a blanket, sister, we’ll make smoke signals.
Bring in some new blood
It feels like we’re alone.
Grab a blanket, brother,
so we don’t catch cold from one another
Oh, I wonder if we’re stuck in Rome.
Where can a dead man go?
A question with an answer only dead men know.
But I’m gonna bet they never really feel at home,
If they spend a lifetime learning how to live in Rome.
For various reasons that didn't end up happening, some in my control and some not. And so I ended up on Workshop, a program that was not designed to encourage people to investigate Jewish practice.
Looking back now I'm kinda glad that it did. If I had been given a traditional Yeshiva education before high school I would never have discovered the meaning that I did behind so many of the Jewish customs and forms of thought. Surely a program that gave me the tools to analyze Judaism in such a way had something to offer me.
This was about as far as I got for most of the program. To be sure on Boneh (the first portion of Workshop which took place on kibbutz Netiv Halamed Hei then) we took many hours of seminars on Jewish History. Most of what I learned there though I either already knew or didn't find terribly relevant to my life at the time or that which I had left behind back in the states. I don't truly understand why at least 10 hours a week were dedicated to a course that those who designed the tochnit should have known would not interest most of the participants. We simply didn't have the background to dedicate ourself to the course. Time dragged on, and I became less and less of the Jew that I was before Workshop.
Even though seminars got more interesting towards the end of Boneh as I began to learn about the history of Habonim (which I and enough other people felt was relevant to us that we could have peulot instead of lectures) it was in Poland that I began to have truly powerful experiences connected to my Judaism. It's ironic to me that although everyone disagreed with me whenever I brought up the Holocaust as a justification for Israel's existence Dror (the ancestor of Habonim Dror) found its legs in the Holocaust, and that was also how the program tried the hardest to connect us to our Judaism.
Winter chofesh and Habo History passed, and finally we were on Kaveret in Akko. Any plans I might have had of finding a chevruta and learning had long since vanished, my Jewish self dried out from months in the desert. All I had left at that point were the random Yiddish and Aramaic sayings that I had learned that kept popping into my head and reminding me of who I was and why I had came on Workshop. It was here that for the first time Habonim taught me on how to live my day to day life in connection to Judaism. This connection came in the form of Jez Aron; member of Kvutzat Yovel, terror of MBI ט'ז, and all around asshole who despite it all seems to me to be the closest thing Habo has to a rabbi. His Cultural Judaism course was the first acknowledgment that I had gotten that Habo realized that the way most of us on the program practiced Judaism was not one that would be able to survive for generations to come. He advocated an approach to Judaism of learning about and questioning Jewish laws and traditions and finding ways to make them relevant to your life. Finally, something aside from the "just do what feels good" approach that I saw in most of the other habos to one degree or another!
Nothing, however, could overwhelm the overpowering effect that Workshop culture was still having on me. My attempts at creating a Shabbat culture on Kaveret failed, mostly because I didn't see anyone who were willing to be my allies in it. Which brings me to the title story of this essay - Passover.
When we first started planning our Passover seder I had high hopes. I thought that perhaps everybody would work together to create a passover seder that was meaningful to all of us - unfortunately I somehow forgot how little meaning most Workshoppers found in Judaism. Followed the traditional seder format up to the meal, but most of the parts weren't interesting to most of the people and those parts that were weren't really meaningful to me. The seder was just as aimless as anything we had ever done. As a chevrati event it succeeded, but it did nothing to investigate what the Passover Seder means, either to any of us or to any of the Jews that had lived for the past 2000 years.
So now here I sit with 4 weeks of workshop (including one of chofesh) left ahead of me. I look at the task of teaching the people here to value Judaism, and I realize that if I can teach a single person that Judaism is valuable enough for them to invest more into fitting it into their daily lives it would be an incredible achievement. And so I begin to plan, not to work towards this goal which I would say now is beyond me but rather to try and work with an atmosphere more suited to such a task - Machaneh. Perhaps I can try and shape the teaching apparatus we use and the madrichim who run it that Judaism is actually something they need to teach, and help them to figure out how to do it. I say them only because if there's one thing that Workshop has taught me it's that I can't bring Judaism to Habonim alone. Until the time when Judaism becomes a part of a habo life, I leave you with this song.
When in Rome, by Nickel Creek
Where can a sick man go
When he can’t choke down the medicine,
The old Doc knows.
A specialist came to town, but he stays at home,
saying no one knows, so I don’t, Honey, when in Rome.
Where can a teacher go?
Wherever she thinks people need the things she knows.
Hey, those books you gave us look good on the shelves at home,
And they’ll burn warm in the fireplace, Teacher, when in Rome.
Grab a blanket, sister, we’ll make smoke signals.
Bring in some new blood
It feels like we’re alone.
Grab a blanket, brother,
so we don’t catch cold from one another
Oh, I wonder if we’re stuck in Rome.
Where can a dead man go?
A question with an answer only dead men know.
But I’m gonna bet they never really feel at home,
If they spend a lifetime learning how to live in Rome.
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