Distractions During Services

As a teenager, I can not and should not be expected to sit for an exceeding amount of time. During Shabbat services, we were obligated to bring our Tanakh. Casually flipping through that little book, I remembered the assigned pages that I was supposed to read. It took me a while to read those tiny words on those tiny pages to fully understand what it was getting at. The readings started in Genesis 6.17 and on those pages, they were specifically talking about Noah's Ark. While scanning over the story, I realized that the story kept repeating itself. Over and over, the storyline was repetitive and not making much sense. Recalling the information that was taught in Jewish History class a few days prior about documentary analysis, I could see redactor taking bits and pieces from different sources and shoving them into that tiny little book. The exact definition is form of qualitative research in which documents are interpreted by the researcher to give their voice.  That one person who has interpreted the stories of the torah and other sources are changing the original direction. Over this long period of time when I was reading the Tanakh, I started to connect it to me and my Jewish identity.

Since I was little, I have always been involved in the Jewish community near me. I went to a Jewish preschool and was enrolled at a Jewish Day School for 5 years. At that school, I was taught only their outlook on life and Judaism. After I started going to a public school, I was enrolled in Sunday school at Chabbad. It took me a while to realize how there are more than just the opinions that I was taught. I was being taught very contradicting things that most of the time did not make sense. Putting all of those different views together for me, would make my own Tanakh. In the Tanakh, there are different views that are cut and pasted to form a book, and if I were to do the same, I would have my own personal book that probably would not make much sense either. Throughout my life, I have been influenced by many different Jewish perspectives and it is up to me to bring those together (at least try) and give my personal view just as the Tanakh does.

Flying, Sitting, Observing.

During my long day of waiting at JFK on Jan 25, one of the few perks I got to experience was seeing many different types of people. While sitting and waiting for more students from my program to arrive,  I was extremely bored. I got to see a variety of people walking past me, and I thought "what do I have in common with them?". The only thing that truly stuck out in my mind was the similarities between the orthodox jews and me. I became a person who observes everything around me that day; I got to see orthodox families walking past me while I spent all of my time witnessing their actions. My perception of those families was swayed by their outer image and not by their inner beliefs that tie back to the same beliefs that I follow. When the time came to sit for 10 hours on the plane, I became more observant because that was my only option present. I noticed early in the morning, all of the orthodox men got up from their seats and migrated towards the bathrooms to put on their tefillin and pray. Even though their actions that come to play because of their beliefs are extreme, I can see a correlation between my lifestyle and theirs. All of the different types of Judaism that are available for a person nowadays, one would never guess to make the connection between orthodox and reformed. I think that we do have the same core beliefs, we do follow the teachings of the torah, and we do celebrate the same holidays. I am confident that my time in Israel will not only allow me to become more observant but it will also strengthen the parallels between reformed Judaism and other parts of Judaism.