Day Two of HUC’s Mid-year Colloquium:

The title sums it up.  We spent the hours between 8:30 AM this morning until 3:30 PM this afternoon being immersed in Heschel’s life and works.  Instead of delving into his plethora of written works we’ll just give you some tasty tidbits about his life.

Top Five Fun Facts About Abraham Joshua Heschel (courtesy of Michael Marmur)

1. He lived in five different cities in his lifetime: Warsaw, Vilna, Berlin, Cincinnati, and New York (He was brought to the US in 1937 by our very own institution of high learning - The Hebrew Union College)

2. He wrote in five different languages: Yiddish, Hebrew, German, English and Heschelish

3. He was raised in a prominent Hasidic family and despite pursuing a secular education he managed to achieve the unachievable by not being ostracized from his Hasidic community.

4. When asked how he identified himself Jewishly he replied, “I do not regard myself as a noun in search of an adjective”. ZING!

5. His American street cred was increased because of his close friendship with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (King is rumored to have carried Heschel’s The Prophets with him.  Further, they both referred to the other as a modern day prophet - BFFLs!)

No one ever said rabbis are good at math (although we know one future rabbi that loves a good logic puzzle). Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback and Sara Lee put together a fabulous three-day program entitled, “Visions for Jewish Life in the 21st Century: Perspectives and Issues” and today’s session was on a Reform vision for Jewish life.

Here is our Top 5 of the first day:

1. The 1999 Pittsburgh Principles for Reform Judaism. ooh, ahh…it sounds so official. Rabbi Daniel Schiff started out the day with an analysis of the 1999 Pittsburgh Principles, which he was positive we were all familiar with. Obviously we keep a copy posted on the living room wall of our apartment.

2. O.M.G. - have you ever actually read the 1999 Pittsburgh Principles?! Here is just a sampling of the so-called principles of Reform Judaism: “We affirm the unique qualities of living in Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and encourage aliyah, immigration to Israel.”…we do?

3. If we are making statements that we know to be untrue, it begs the question, are we serious about these aspirations? If we aren’t, why write them down, and if we are, we need to take them much more seriously. Rabbi Schiff relayed a story about how when Franz Rosenzweig was asked if he wears tefillin, his answer was, “not yet.” Rabbi Schiff asked if we are appropriately spending our time writing the platforms and principles of Reform Judaism instead of spending our time living and being Jewish. We do believe, here on Moshe Hess, that there is value in creating a vision and renewing that vision to define each generation as new leadership develops.

4. After pointing out all of the discrepancies of this masterpiece document (we still love you, Richard Levy) we were then challenged to identify three of the principles that we would be willing to affirm as personal Jewish commitments, and flesh out how we would make those principles a reality in our future congregations and/or Jewish Day Schools. This is more challenging than it sounds.

5. At the beginning of the session, 1 out of 5 people in Molly’s small group were open to sending their future children to a Jewish Day School. At the end of the session, after developing the perfect Reform Jewish Day School, 5 out of 5 people were excited about the possibility of sending their future children to a Jewish Day School (still making no promises though). Sneak peek - our ideal Reform Jewish Day School will be part of an interfaith campus with a vegetarian cafeteria.

For the truly bored, you can check out the YII Midyear Colloquium blog (Yoshi loves blogs more than we do).

So, funny story.  Remember that time that we put three months of hard work into getting the student discount on our Jerusalem property tax?  Well, apparently our hard work only ended up helping our landlord’s mother.  Somehow in the mix up we paid Hanna’s taxes instead of our own…we know, we were surprised too.

The point is, because of all of this and needing to pay the 2010 tax (and fix the 2009 before getting an ‘Execution Order’), we were blessed with another day at the Jerusalem Municipality.   We apologize in advance for forgetting a camera on this memorable day…On to the Top 5!

1. Finding the ‘archives’ where our 2009 paperwork is allegedly being stored.  Don’t worry, they were easy to find as they were stuffed in cardboard boxes stacked three high and ten wide against a wall.

2.  We learned that for 44 shekels you can officially declare something (new vocab word: התציר means declaration) - in this case we had to declare that we were students and reiterate the fact that despite being American Jewish girls that no, we are not supported by our parents. Also, this office uses the advanced filing system called “throw all papers together into a cabinet”.

3. Waiting for our number (G70) to be called.  When we walked in they were only on G30.  Contrary to popular belief numbers do not need to be called in order and in fact can be called in reverse order for a few moments as well as having the numbers disappear all together on the screens informing you of the progress (or lack there of).  Also, someone with less time and a better number had to leave so lucky for your favorite girls of Moshe Hess moved up to G55.  FYI: This waiting process only took 90 minutes.

4. Being lucky to encounter 3+ Israelis working at the municipality that helped make this process possible and trying to hold it together when we were told that we successfully received the discount!

5. Because nothing can go completely smoothly (clearly) we were told that we had to pay the tax for the entire 2010 year instead of for the six months that we will be in the apartment this year.  You’re welcome Allie and Sarah

Process from start to finish: 4.5 hours