Aleph, Bet, Vet...A moment of memory

http://tiny.cc/DebbieFriedman

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

earth, wind, FIRE, water

Image
"Things sound like they are really heating up in Israel. Glad no one was hurt in the great inferno of 2007." -- a loyal fan. All my life I've been terrified of disaster. Earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes, fires, storms and floods - if it made national news, I feared it would happen to me. It should be known that I also feared more rational things such as what was inside my closet or under my bed. There was a time as a child that I was even afraid of the shower. (My sorority sisters will tell you that this also occurred during sophomore year of college.) Watching psycho too many times will do that to you or the fact that in our sorority house showers - it was common to have cold water thrown into your shower. (OK, so it is possible I was the one who carried out such shenanigans...) While being terrified of natural disasters may not be a healthiest way to live, it did cause me to lead a cautious life - a safe life. I refrained from using matches because I feared ...
Read more

Officially a Rabbinical student...Holy Cow!

Today I finally reached my lifelong goal - or dream - if you will. I officially became a Rabbinical student - a true-blue card carrying member of the Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. It should be noted that an HUC ID card has little value in Israeli society, will hardly hold court at a student travel agency and could be easily mass produced by merely drawing a smiley face on an index card (best wishes if you are looking to start a business to assist Rabbinical student imposters...) It's wild to see myself joining in the long line of Rabbinic tradition of the Jewish people. At the end of morning services, we sang Shechiyanu to commemorate the beginning of the five year journey at HUC. I was surprisingly touched. Who am I to stand in this line of tradition? I'm 24 years old. I still call my mom every morning before school in order to eliminate the pit in my stomach. I occasionally fight with my brother and sister and really hate unloading the dishwasher. ...
Read more

Bonjour, Czech Please. Todah.

These days, I can't speak any language I may have once known. My English vocabulary is rapidly diminishing as my Hebrew vocabulary slowly grows. I remember the days of the week and a few songs in Spanish from elementary school and maybe a few Czech words on occasion. The only language that seems to come out with any coherence, is oddly enough, high school French. Although as I sit here writing, looking for a funny French phrase to tell you - I can only think in Hebrew. C'est la vie. When I lived in Prague in 2004, I faced daily challenges with the language and culture of the city. In the Slavic language family, Czech was unlike any language I had ever studied before - the grammar so unique, that my own name had to be conjugated in certain tenses. Instead of Jen, I was Jene. My friends David and Nina became Davide and Nino. We slowly shivered our way through the Czech winter, building new identities with the additional letter at the end of our names. Another significan...
Read more