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One of the awesome things about being in Israel is the saladness: there is such a variety of different people. Depending on where you walk, you’ll hear any of tens of languages spoken, in varying levels of adeptness. And just to look at people’s faces, you can see their variety of origin, custom, and mentality…

One of my neighbours is a cool-looking dark-skinned French Oleh, who has this massive afro, wears Bob Marley shirts, always wears a kippa, and who led the tfilot in fluent Nusach Sfarad the other day.

Another person I’ve met recently is a very sweet man who just made Aliyah from Georgia. He speaks a basic Hebrew, so we can communicate a bit.

My room-mate is an American Israeli, who often goes off to a yeshiva to learn, and who’s big into online gaming.

The security guards at the Central Bus Station in Yerushalayim are Ethiopian Israelis, who chat to each other in Hebrew, and who have the coolest hairstyles (seriously).

I had an in-depth conversation on Jewish philosophy, education, and politics a few days ago with a Torah-observant guy from Germany…

I’ve made friends with some wonderful kids from Iran, and with an earnest, pleasant man from South America.

I saw a French Israeli woman selecting a French Parasha-sheet from a stand, and we shared some remarks about finding Torah sheets in your own language…

I was sitting next to a young man on a bus a few weeks back. He was poring intensely over a Gemara he had with him. I asked him what he was learning, and we launched into a discussion about the sugya he was currently involved in, and the distinction between the opinions there of Rashi and Tosafot. This also led to another general discussion about life and philosophies…

It’s such a pleasure to be exposed to, and to interact with, Jews from such different backgrounds, Jews with such different souls, but Jews who are all a part of this wonderful nation; here, in this wonderful Land.

Have any examples of some different Jews you’ve encountered here in Israel? Or a story about an encounter? Share it in the comments section!

One of the Zionist leaders, Duvdevani, after the holocaust, wrote a letter to Rav Charlop, one of the top students of Rav Kook, with a very painful question. He asked him: “Now that the holocaust is over, so many people come to me, after making aliyah, completely devastated, completely depressed. They lost their whole family. They lost all hope, all faith. They don’t know how to move on. How am I supposed to react to that? What should I tell them? ”

Rav Charlop answered with a very short letter: “Tell them Nachamu Nachamu Ami”.

Duvdevani was puzzled. How would that console people after the holocaust? He wrote back to Rav Charlop: “Your answer is puzzling! How will that make people who lost their whole family feel better? On top of that, this passouk tells us that God wants to prophets to consoles us, but not how they consoles us! I need to know how to console those people from Klal Israel that need it right now!”

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I found one of my favourite places in Israel today: a beautiful, massive, well-tended park. The park is liberally gifted with fruit trees, including some of the Shiv’at HaMinim, the Seven Species of produce with which the Land of Israel is notably blessed.* But besides the trees, the grass, the tranquility and the rolling masses of space dedicated to peaceful recreation and relaxation, I was most enthralled with the children.

Children are special. Or at least, children are people whose specialness easily shines outwards, whose specialness is not yet clouded by the deadening habits and ways of a society of norms, convenient character-boxing, and dismally low self-image. Children don’t care what the world thinks of them. Children see the world without self-deception; they believe what they see, and they engage in it with totality. If a child is sad, he cries. If a child is happy, he dances and sings and smiles. Contrast with the world of ‘grown-ups’: if an adult cries, we assume there is some mortifying tragedy whose grief has caused this person to lose control. If an adult would start singing and dancing and smiling and laughing, most people would assume that he had lost his mind. (more…)

A short anecdote and a short observation:

Anyone who has ever visited Jerusalem’s City Hall knows that they are serious about their hours. The Arnona Department, specifically, is inundated by swarms of residents eager to file for property tax discounts. Similar to many of Israel’s bureaucratic offices, it is a place no one really wants to be. And, truthfully, it doesn’t seem that they are too eager to keep anyone there. The one o’clock closing time is strictly enforced and as closing time approaches the gate abruptly closes, locking out a crowd of unhappy Jerusalemites.

Last week I was one of those unhappy Jerusalemites—on the other side of that closed gate: I wasn’t locked out; I was stuck in. The hour was after one and I was sitting on a chair waiting for my roommate to return with a document that needed to be urgently signed. The kind secretary assured me that if I remained she would allow my roommate to reenter with the necessary paperwork.

So I sat there and waited. For an hour. Alone. With nothing to do.

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The ‘Three Weeks’ is one of the most difficult times in the year for me. Ashkenazi custom is not to listen to music, among other joyous activities, during the days between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av. This is because these three weeks are a period of mourning; the Talmud describes many national tragedies that happened on both of these days, which are designated as fast days, including critical stages of the destruction of the Temple, the Beit HaMikdash. The entire period is one of sadness, and one that has been reincarnated again and again over the generations as a time of Jewish tragedy — may there be no more! I, as a musician, find it very hard to leave my instrument aside and to minimize my music listening during these weeks.

I’m now living in Israel, and I must say that the Land is alive; there is a feeling of aliveness that is tangible in everything, and that pervades everything and every person. This sadness of mourning, too, is definitely tangible to me. While there are not many more things as joyful to me as to walk down Ben Yehuda street in central Yerushalayim, and to see Jewish men and women, boys and girls, rejoicing and celebrating life in Israel with Jewish music, my joy and pride is overshadowed with sadness and discomfort during these three weeks.

Have we forgotten that we need to be sad in this time? Have we forgotten what we need to be sad about, what we need to remember? Is the fact that the Beit HaMikdash is still in ruins, more than 2000 years after its destruction, a fact of life to be accepted as a given? What is a healthy balance between rejoicing in life, especially life as a Jew in Israel, and grieving for the destruction of G-d’s House on earth, and for our continued distancing from Him?

A living contradiction; a junction of opposites. How can you laugh and cry at the same time? How can you pray for the rebuilding of Yerushalayim, while thanking G-d for its continual rebuilding in our days? And… must we resolve these existential difficulties, or is it okay to live with them?