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Music was my first introduction to spirituality. Chassidic philosophy was my second.

I choose music like I choose friends: I stay close to good vibed, good hearted and truth telling artists, inevitably dipped in the blues, rock, jazz and grit. My inner soundtrack has riffs of all of the above influences and more. My soul’s DJ is an edgy, rockin’, folky, R&B, touch of Rasta-pop-Jewess-Chassid and that works for me.

The Ba’al Shem Tov taught that there is something to learn about the service of G-d from everything we encounter. He and his disciples were known to draw holy instruction from thieves, inn-keepers and beggars alike… culling lessons from the simple and the imperfect, they encourage us to use the raw material of this world to help us connect to places of spirit and divine service. 

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This morning found me at the hospital with one of my kids waiting to check in for a small, out-patient procedure. The number 699 flashed in red above the reception desk, I pulled number 714 and looked for a seat.

I scanned the chairs and noticed four men in matching orange jump suits scattered throughout the room. Sanitation workers? Prisoners? Nonchalant, I scanned the orange-suited men and saw that indeed they were prisoners, each of their wrists cuffed, their ankles bound in chains.

We took our seats just in front of one of the incarcerated. I offered a thick “excuse me” as I side-stepped his big, black shoes; noting the chain on his foot shackle hanging just over the turquoise blue Nike swoosh on his crossed feet. I thought to myself: that’s a powerful image.

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I learned early on that prayer is primarily about communication. l learned this first from watching Harold and Maude, then years later in a Torah class. For the most part, my M.O. as far as prayer is concerned has been to simply talk to G-d, kind of like I would to a girlfriend – only slightly more reverent. Also, with a bunch of tots in tow, it has been way more convenient to dial up wireless than to show up in a house of prayer for a word.

I’m big on the shoot-from-the-hip, “G-d, please let them make the bus,” “Bring her fever down now,” and “Wow, thanks for that” kind of prayer. Kind of Rabbi Nachman-style, only shorter and not in a forest.

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We recently moved away from a neighborhood where virtually everyone wears their Judaism on their long sleeves. Black hats, headscarves, yarmulkes of every size, color and texture; long, flowing skirts; straight, kick-pleated skirts, stockings in the summertime; and of course, the ever-present tzitzit a-flying.

If there is a piece of Jewish regalia that exists, you can find it there.

When the sun sets on Friday evenings in the small city where we used to live, it’s like someone pushed a communal Sabbath button. Presto! The cars disappear, and the streets fill with men and boys in clean white shirts, and women and girls dressed to the nines in their Shabbat finery. There is even a loudspeaker that blasts a very upbeat “Oy, yoy, yoy, yoy, yoy Shabbes!” tune 18 minutes before candle-lighting, just to help get us fired up.

It helped a little. 

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G-d communicates with us all the time. The Ba’al Shem Tov brought this simple truth to life with his famous teaching: “There is not one leaf that falls from a tree that is not divinely ordained.” The idea that G-d is constantly engaged with our world is a not new concept; but sometimes it feels that way to me.

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I know how hard it is to be away from the land that you love- especially when that land is under attack. I am so grateful for the genuine concern that has been expressed to our family from our friends and family abroad. Thank you for caring about us.  I thought I’d share a bit of the local feeling-on-the-ground for those of you who are looking in from the side-lines.

The truth is I feel a bit on the semi-sidelines myself here in the Golan Heights where, blessedly it has been very quiet.

Well, sort of…

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I’m not the best pray-er in town (as I’ve mentioned elsewhere), but these past few days I’ve been saying psalms with more intention and intensity than I have in a long time.Tough times have me leaning a little harder on G-d, ain’t no two ways about it. The news of the kidnappings of Eyal Yifrach 19, Naftali Frankel 16 and Gil-ad Shaar 16 has this whole country on the top of their prayer game, because what else can we do?

I’ll tell you the truth; I have an on-off relationship with psalms. With nothing but love and respect for King David, I find his collection a little heavy-handed and melodramatic and not a little difficult to follow emotionally. The drama of his life’s story told in song is super intense and not always readily relatable to me. There are simply days where I am not in an “I have sunk in muddy depths without foothold; and the current sweeps me away” kind of a headspace.

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I’m a doer by nature. I make bread and cake and babies. I work, I clean things, I push hard. I often see myself on a journey for the dimmer switch in my life, trying to find the balance between the side of me that approaches life with the energy and productivity of a coked up CEO, and the part of me that crashes like a junkie because of all that movement. As much as I crave stillness and quiet in my days, they rarely stay overnight.

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It’s been several months since my first attempt at running and finally, I don’t feel as if I’m going to die each time.

That’s progress people. Major progress.

I am currently running 3.25 K (or 25 mins straight), a bit past the half way mark to my goal of “couch to  5 K.”

For the first 7/8 weeks or so, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was running on an outdoor treadmill. My pounding heart and limited lung capacity felt wholly incommensurate with the nominal ground I was covering. Every run was hard, like really hard – and I seriously doubted that would ever change.

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My family and I made a blessed move to the Golan Heights two and half years ago. We live in a small agricultural community – just shy of 100 families, there is not a day that the magic of this place is lost on me.  Especially at this time of year – when the wild flowers have lost patience for the “peek-a-boo” they’ve played all winter and turned into full blown exhibitionists. Spring has sprung in the Golan and I am hooked on its charm.

There is a quiet pulse and rhythm in this part of the country that suits my soul and calms my head in ways I didn’t know was possible for me.  The words “G-d’s Land” come to mind.

That and rehab.

We live in a quiet, out-of the-way, low-stimulation place that feels like somewhere people should come when they need to pull themselves together.

There is so much about living here that fills and calms and aligns me. But there is one aspect of life here in the Golan that hovers on the periphery of each of my days –tugs at my soul and inspires me deeply.

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