Friday 5/9/14
Those of us who woke up early due to jet lag were treated to
a magnificent Haifa sunrise. The boys definitely beat the girls down to
breakfast and every room heard (and heeded) their wake up call except for one.
I’ll let y’all guess!
We had a traditional Israel breakfast and boarded the busses
to begin our journey to Tzfat—one of the four holy cities of Israel. Tzfat is
the birthplace of Kabbalah—Jewish mysticism. To help us understand Kabbalah a
little better our tour guide explained the tradition concept of “PARDES.”
PARDES means “paradise” and it is a Hebrew acronym for four
words. The “P” is for peshat which
the surface level. “R” is for remez
which means “hints.” “D” is for derash
which means to inquire and explain. “S” is for sod which means secret. When approaching a Jewish text like the
weekly Torah portion we might do so by focusing on the surface level meaning of
the words, or we might look for hints about deeper meanings, or we might question the text to make an
even deeper connection. Kabbalah is focused on the sod—the deeply hidden secrets in the text.
I share all this because the same methodology that we can
apply to Jewish texts can be applied to human beings and even to ourselves.
There’s much to be learned by getting to know someone at the surface level, but
digging deeper into what motivates and inspires a person, what their hopes and
dreams are, what keeps them up at night—these things can transform associations
into deep and lasting relationships. They can also transform an adolescent’s self
perception and self awareness. The ultimate challenge of Tzfat becomes less
about doing what Madonna might do and more about probing deeply into matters of
great significance.
Wandering the narrow ancient passageways of Tzfat, visiting
the beautiful adorned synagogues, and even shopping along the inspiring artists
alley helped all of us connect to our own spirituality. The kids really enjoyed
shopping, both for themselves and for family and friends. They savored their
first tastes of shwarma, falafel, and Yemenite vegetarian wraps. They embraced
the invitation to wrap tefillin, and some of us even ended up dancing the hora
with some of the locals in celebration of Jared H.’s first time wearing
tefillin. We won’t forget Tzfat!
We spent the rest of the day at the Menara Cliff- a
beautiful mountain in the Upper Galilee. There we rode a cable car to enjoy the
view and took the quick way down the mountain by zip lining. It was a perfect
day to connect with nature.
For Shabbat we checked into our rooms at Kibbutz Gonen. We
rested, got dressed for Shabbat, had a Kabbalat Shabbat service where we did
some singing and some sharing, and then sat down to a Shabbat feast. The chaperones
blessed the children on your behalf and we thank you for the opportunity. We
hope that as you sit down to Shabbat you are inspired by our journey and you
share some of our joy and excitement with the folks back home!
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi Micah
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