Say something personal. Say something from the heart. The Hebrew aleph bet shares the keys beneath my fingertips.

I am wearing jeans. I packed only skirts, and I am wearing jeans. … I am a Jew in pants or in shorts or in skirts or in denim overalls, beseder?

- journal entry from the first time I came to Israel, eight years ago

What strikes me here is the love for Hebrew. The way “beseder?”—“okay?”—fits so naturally, the reverence for the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph bet, beneath my fingers. This journal entry was written long before I ever knew Yiddish. To be honest, I would have laughed then if you told me I would speak Yiddish one day but not Hebrew. It’s not that I had any of that cynicism I hear so often towards Yiddish (“Why learn a dying language?”, “But you’re not Chassidic”, “How weird”, “How cute”, “How funny”); learning Yiddish was simply not in the picture; it would seem just as unlikely a language for me to learn as, say, Dutch or Hawaiian.

I am now in Israel again, the aleph bet sharing the keys beneath my fingertips again. I feel incredibly privileged and grateful to be traveling here for the third winter in a row through my work. Today as I walked off the plane and headed to passport control, I felt a new surge of affection for this wacky and lovely country, and for the language that I always felt I could almost, almost understand.

Because you know that feeling of being so absorbed in something, words around you register as being spoken, and you can’t quite catch them unless you switch your attention? That’s how I felt about Hebrew, particularly with songs: if only I paid closer attention, I would understand. I did take Hebrew classes in college and Biblical Hebrew classes afterwards, and I can follow (and even sing) along in services at shul. But I am not really much closer to understanding than I was before… which makes sense, as I haven’t really taken serious time to study and speak it.

Still… the yearning is back, which is a start. Listening but not hearing. Wanting to get inside the words. I know learning a language is not like focusing a lens, or switching my attention like a window on my computer. But I don’t want to be surprised for the rest of my life that I know Yiddish and not Hebrew; I want to know both.

לַיְלָה טוֹב, layla tov, good night.

(A Shabbos key, by the way, is for people who do not use electricity on Shabbos; participants were staying in rooms that typically are opened with electronic key cards. For Shabbos, those who requested it in advance were given a manual, metal key instead of the card.)

.

Who was the girl who asked for a Shabbos key—
and who was the girl who returned it?
“I don’t need this,” I said.
“I am not as observant as I was.”

A nullification of vows.
Once you give up the structure, you are in freefall.
And when you don’t believe in a god
who will catch you before you hit the bottom,
you might just lose it all.

This will be the end of the first full calendar year since relaunching the blog. Once again, in the spirit of accountability and follow-through, let’s take a look back at my everyday resolutions:

“I want to spend my 15 minutes a day getting my heart pumping [jump roping] and chipping away at that gnawing feeling that I’m not using my body nearly as effectively as I use my head.” - 15 Minutes

And while I’m still embarrassed [about liking country music], I’m trying to own it. - “I guess that’s just the cowboy in us all.”

I am going to try to work out regularly with a friend who has a gym in her building. - The One-Month Crunch

I know there is music inside these strings, but I haven’t found it yet. Still, I am learning, slowly. – One More Time, with Feeling

But to give passion to a lot of things? I think it’s better to pick a few at a time. And once you’ve got them—I’ve got mine—move your feet. – Passion, Action, and Being Seen

I cannot wait to see myself reflected in someone else’s eyes. I have to do, create, act. Be. The day I stop relying on how others see me is the day I begin relying on myself. – Crowdsourcing My Self

I recently gave myself a curfew. I try to unplug by 11pm, and be in bed by midnight. – I Dream of Sleeping

It’s a little overwhelming to think that one conversation with a friend and one two-minute video will probably change how I shop for, well, everything going forward. - Slave Labor for Dummies

Okay, let’s see. I didn’t once go to the gym with my friend. I did jump rope for a while, but after the weight came off I pretty much stopped (and I have to replace the batteries in my scale, so I don’t really know where I’m at right now). I took two ukulele lessons and then quit because I felt too overwhelmed to really take the time to practice. I do try to own liking country music—and, actually, writing that post was a big first step. I was very involved in helping to make the space and larger community where I work more LGBTQ inclusive; I’m very proud of that. The curfew was successful for a little while, and I definitely have been valuing my sleep more in general, but I need to get back to being strict about unplugging at 11pm (she says as she writes this at 1:06am). I purposefully have been thrifting more instead of buying new, in part thanks to some of the conversations I’ve been having about slave labor.

Not great, perhaps, in terms of follow-through. Not bad, though, either.

And—most importantly and all the while—I really have been working on being the person I want to be, and not simply waiting to be seen a certain way. I can’t say that this has always been easy or that I’ve always been successful; certainly I still care too much sometimes about what others think. But I am ready to be, to act, to do, to create, to write. And I am… bit by bit. As my blog promised, I am becoming the person I might have been.

Looking forward to all of the beautiful, dynamic, inspiring people we will be in 2012.

Watch it, watch it, watch it right now:

A new year is approaching, and winter is settling in. As we prepare to jump into 2012, and think about what sort of resolutions we will be making, I can’t help but reflect on how the Jewish year began a few months ago, and the specific blessings I sent to myself then—while underwater in a mikvah in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

From the second of a series of posts I’m writing for Lilith magazine’s blog.

Read the first.

I know there are terrible things going on in the world. My general method of interacting with this truth has been to avoid it. I was sure that if I were to take my fingers out of my ears, the following would occur:

1. Hear about some terrible thing happening in the world

2. Feel horrible

3. Do nothing about it

4. Feel horrible

5. Forget about it

6. Repeat

It may sound cold, but I don’t think it’s unusual, or that it means I’m a bad person. In fact, I think I’m a pretty good person: I work hard to be a good friend, employee, sister, daughter, roommate. I’m kind. I’m grappling with questions of spirituality and religious observance and identity. I am constantly engaged in growing and fulfilling my potential.

But when it comes to politics, to human rights, to world affairs—I shut down. I feel so guilty from the get-go of my own ignorance and inaction that I don’t even begin.

I tried explaining this to a friend last week, but he wasn’t buying it. We were both in DC, participating in a fellowship for an international cohort of early Hillel professionals. He works personally and professionally to fight human trafficking and slavery. Issues I knew existed, but had chosen to ignore.

So he told me stories.

He told me stories of women who were forced to do sex work, in America and abroad. He told me stories of immigrant workers who were beaten if they tried to leave. He told me a story about a murder. The stories included a megacompany at the top of the chain claiming they knew nothing about this dark underbelly, claiming that it wasn’t their fault; there were contracters hired and subcontracters and so the blood was not on their hands.

I am purposefully being vague.  I know I could research this more—follow up with my friend about the details. Appear on my soapbox as a newly minted person of political convictions, armed with figures and footnotes. But I think it’s more important to be who I am: a voice of a somewhat self-conscious, somewhat lazy citizen of the world who was deeply affected by these stories.

And by this, an incredible two-minute animated film that he showed me:

(It begins: “97% of human beings care about human beings. Which is why it may come as a surprise to many people that slavery still exists.”)

Then my friend told me stories of affecting change. Easy—and hard—things that people have done or could do to put a stop to the terrible systems that rely on slavery.

We also talked about my watch.

The watch is a recent purchase from Kmart, of all places, that I was especially proud of: it’s a metallic bracelet with swirling carvings and a delicate clock face set in the middle. I bought it for $14.99. When he saw that it was made in China, he explained and I quickly understood that there is no way I can buy it for a mere fifteen dollars and have the chain be equitable all the way through. Somewhere the costs must be cut.

And so it’s cut from the people working on the other side of the planet to make me this pretty, affordable piece of jewelry that tells time. Of course, it’s unfair to assume that slavery was involved in the making of this particular watch—but as a concrete example, it’s illustrative.

A slavefree version of my watch would be more expensive… and the watch would be exactly the same. Same materials, same quality. Because you’re not ever paying for the object alone—you’re paying for the entire system. You’re paying for justice… or not. It reminds me of buying kosher meat: the meat isn’t better. It’s not tastier. And it’s much more expensive! But people don’t keep kosher because they think the food tastes better (at least, I hope not). Many people keep kosher because they believe in the values behind it, and for that value system to be upheld in practice, there are more steps along the way to their plates. The extra steps must be paid for; the price goes up.

It’s a little overwhelming to think that one conversation with a friend and one two-minute video will probably change how I shop for, well, everything going forward. But if I am careful to look at the ingredients in a tomato sauce or salad dressing to see if it’s kosher, then how can I not look at the ingredients of a new pair of jeans? And if the ingredients include slave labor—how could I possibly buy it?

I will keep wearing my watch. It gets a lot of compliments. I’ve started to reply: “Thanks! It might have only cost fifteen dollars because of slave labor!”

And that’s how the conversation begins.

1.

EDDIE

I have this crazy story, from last semester. I wrote it for my creative writing class, and no one liked it. It was basically about a girl starving in the middle of a corn field, because the corn isn’t ripe yet. I didn’t explain how she got there, or who she was, or anything. Just, en medias res—corn field. And in the middle of writing the story, I remembered something from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I remembered how Joseph had a dream that he was a stalk of corn, and his brothers were all corn, and they bowed down to him. So I put that in the story, sort of. The girl was so hungry that she started hallucinating that all the corn in the field was bowing down to her.

So far, so good. But then—I imagined this young guy with a big black beard singing in the corn field, a few feet away. I don’t know why he popped into my story, but there he was—singing. He’s singing a song that I must have heard at Grandma’s, years ago, but I don’t know the words, so I can’t put them into the story.

And that’s where it ends. I don’t even say in the story whether or not the singing guy is a rabbi—only that he’s young, with a big black beard. She hears his voice, but they don’t meet. Isn’t that just crazy?

It got a B.

2.

EDDIE

I have another story with a rabbi in it. It’s the last one I wrote, right before I left. It was about me. It was in the first person. In the story, I am sitting on the floor in our living room. I am saying over and over, like a chant, I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you. But the words blur like in a dream, and now I am saying forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. My lips keep moving, but now I am making no sound. The walls crumble as I stand up. I walk outside and everything is still, except that I can’t control my hands any longer, and they are pulling out my hair, strand by strand.

An older man walks by, on the other side of the street, and I watch him. He is the only person outside besides me. He sees me pulling out my hair, strand by strand, and crosses the street. He takes my face in his hands, and kisses me on the lips. All my hairs fly up in the air and plant themselves back in my head. He pulls out one hair, though, and eats it. He smiles a huge smile, and walks away. And that’s the end of the story.

3.

EDDIE

Did you read the first rabbi story I wrote, when you were snooping for my parents?

 LAUREN

I don’t know… I don’t remember….

EDDIE

Oh, okay. Well let me tell you, it takes place in a kind of library. The library is empty except for two people: a young man, and a young woman. The young woman is naked, but she’s trying to cover herself with these huge books, and the man is saying, no, no, it’s okay, there’s no such thing as naked here. He says, here the books are folded into books which are folded into books, and folded in the middle of all these stories and pages are our hearts. So you don’t have to worry, he says, here, you are protected.

But the girl doesn’t believe him, and so she opens a book. And inside the book is another book, and inside that book is another book… and she’s getting a little upset, actually. Because now she believes him, but still, she can’t find the real inside. It’s too well-protected. And so she throws the book at the young man, and covers herself with her hands, and leaves.

To be honest, I don’t really understand how the male characters in these stories are rabbis, exactly—but what do I know? I’ll take Eddie’s word for it.

And I would never, ever nap. I couldn’t understand people who would nap. What if something incredible happened in the meantime? That was my nightmare—that I would take a nap or go to sleep early, and upon awaking, would realize that I had missed a great experience. Or even a bad one. I didn’t want a miss a thing, and I eventually learned the idiom for this anxiety: FOMO—fear of missing out. (“But what if the thing you’re missing out on is the nap?” once retorted a good friend.)

Shabbos and the rhythm of that delicious day turned me around on napping, but I remained a night owl in general—because of FOMO, because of compulsive internet surfing and chatting with people, because of my unnaturally high levels of energy, because I have a laptop that I took into bed with me.  There would be a dull sense of defeat every night when I finally unplugged and set my alarm… for seven, six, and often five hours of sleep. I would regularly stay up until 1, 2, 3, even 4 in the morning for no real reason at all. I felt that it didn’t matter too much, though, because I’m so good at operating without much sleep.

But I’m not. Not lately, anyway. I feel drained at the end of the day. One of my new mottos has been “be nice to yourself”—which has meant eating regular meals, including breakfast; not beating myself up mentally for various and sundry missteps; buying things; and now, finally, trying to get the sleep my body so desperately needs. I’m tired, and I’ve been tired for a long time. I’m tired of being tired. I’m over FOMO. Like my friend said years ago, the incredible thing I’ve been missing out on is the sleep itself.

I recently gave myself a curfew. I try to unplug by 11pm, and be in bed by midnight. Between 11 and 12, I can do whatever I like, as long as it’s not futz around online: take a shower, journal, listen to music. Two nights ago I fell asleep around 11:15. This is—as those who know me personally can attest—unheard of. This is the most boring, grown-up resolution I’ve taken on in a long time. I am so proud.

An appropriate question for a girl who just moved, whose summer has been one of major transitions. I’ve been blessed with a lot of breakthroughs, particularly this spring, and those came first to mind in response to my roommate’s prompt. And, culled further, one lesson stands out.

I am very sensitive to what other people think of me. Too sensitive. In fact, a lot of my identity has been wrapped up in how other people see me: do people think I’m funny? Cute? Interesting? Artsy? Smart? And if not… well, crap.

I’ve broken down crying because someone I loved didn’t see me as a writer. I’ve been addicted to being around certain people because of the way I felt they saw me. I have enthusiastically consumed others’ impressions of me, and—never satisfied—kept seeking out more. Basically, I’ve crowdsourced my sense of self.

It’s like that old chestnut about a tree falling in a forest: if no one is around to affirm a certain trait of mine, does it exist?

Yes. Yes it does. But only if I embody that trait. I cannot wait to see myself reflected in someone else’s eyes. I have to do, create, act. Be. The day I stop relying on how others see me is the day I begin relying on myself.

Which is perfect, really, because I’m the only person who can effect change in my life. (“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” -Mahatma Ghandi)

This is what I will take with me.