Tag Archives: the senses

Amazing day at the Hadassah Medical Centre Ein Kerem!

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Hello Pardes!

If anyone has not yet visited the Hadassah Medical Centre at Ein Kerem it is an absolute must!

I had a personal reason to visit the hospital this morning. In 2006 I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a genetic blindness disorder, during a routine visit to the Optometrist’s office. Since that time, doctors have scoured my DNA genome for the presence of a mutation that might be responsible for my genetic disorder. Today, I received new hope that I might soon know where the mutation in my genome lies. At noon today, I gave three blood samples for mutation testing to a lab that has achieved a 33% success rate in the identification of mutations among RP patients of Ashkenazi descent. 33%!!!! None of my previous testing has come even within the same stratosphere as that kind of success rate! Here’s hoping that something will come of it!

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The other major reason to visit Hadassah Ein Kerem is for the Chagall Windows. I had seen the windows in pictures many times before, but trust me, it is something completely different to see them in person. The Chagall windows are all present as the walls of Hadassah Ein Kerem synagogue, where they actually have services every week for Friday night and Shabbat (it would be so amazing to doven in that space). The windows have so much detail, the longer you look at them the more you see!

So you really do need to visit the Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem!

Have a good evening everybody!

Stuart

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The Magic Touch

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From my blog:

Sometimes, a simple touch can make all the difference.

Hugging one of my best friends.

Hugging one of my best friends.

In the Jewish world, some girls don’t touch boys. Some girls touch some boys. Some girls touch only one boy, and everyone hugs their mother. As a part of this world, I have become especially attuned to the presence and absence of human touch.

In high school, I thought nothing of it. I hugged my friends (girls and guys) and high-fived with abandon. The one time I was asked to go out of my comfort zone was when playing Anne in The Diary of Anne Frank. Every knows about Anne and Peter, and my director had the specific idea that the kiss had to be long – very long. Continue reading →

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The trees are alive with the sound of silence

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By Shoshana Rosen

How do I even begin to put into words, an experience that in its essence has no words?

Just recently coming back from a silent meditation shabbaton, up north at Kibbutz Hannaton I realize only how much it impacted me by the stark reality of coming back home. Like many have said before me, sometimes you only realize how much you have changed, until you go back home.

Well for me, home is Jerusalem and Machon Pardes, particularly the Beit Midrash.

As I sit in Hummash class, all of these powerful images of the last couple of days flood my mind. What I would have done the last couple of days was sit on the floor, hands open, resting on my thighs, breathing in and out and letting the thoughts flow and ‘gently but firmly’ returning to my breath. But doing that would have been a little weird, considering I was wearing my black long boots sitting in Rabbi Meir’s hummash class while looking at Rashi. In fact, the only dress code Pardes has is to wear shoes, and for the first time, it felt super constraining, wishing I could feel the grass through my toes. Continue reading →

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Tuesday!

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From my blog:

After months of putting it off, I finally made it down to Ein Gedi last Friday. I went with some friends from college park, and we left at 4:30 am to drive down to the hike. As we were passing the dead sea on the drive down, I looked out the car window and watched the sun rise over the mountains of Jordan with the rays reflecting in the water; definitely one of my better sunrises. The hike itself was great…we went for about 7 hours and climbed 600 meters, from the 200 meters below sea level to 400 above, and got to see some incredible views. We then made it back to Jerusalem just in time for Shabbat, with about 20 minutes to spare. Definitely a great way to spend a Friday.

Then this week, last night I attended the MASA opening event with thousands of post-high school and post-college Jews from all over the world, here on over a hundred different programs. It was really an amazing sight to see all of these people just like me who had made the decision, for any of a zillion reasons, to come here for an extended period of time, and being in the same room with all of them was definitely special. And another highlight was that the Idan Raichel Project performed, and they were aaamazing. So good live and such great music. And tonight, I went to the auditions of a local showing of Hairspray. I should clarify…I didn’t actually audition, but for my community service project for Pardes, I will be working 1:1 with an 18-year old Ethiopian fellow, Rafael, in order to help him learn the songs (in english) for Hairspray, and the auditions were tonight so I came to help him fill out forms and provide moral support. Definitely a nice break from learning all day, and also a good way to rep my Baltimore pride (Since I think Hairspray is based there?).

And then to the learning – in my meditation class this week, we are focusing on seeing the Divine in everything, and one way to do this is through the experience of eating, since it contains a lot of our pleasures and desires, and we all have feelings on the matter. So the key to meditating on food is essentially to become very present and aware of every single step of the process, and go very slowly. More practically, this involves really honing in on the texture, feel, smell, and appearance of the food/bite, and then eventually putting it in your mouth and just letting it sit on your tongue without chewing, just feeling its texture with your mouth, and then eventually starting to very slowly chew, possibly with taking breaths in between, and then eventually swallowing. Needless to say, I had the most dramatic peanut butter banana experience of my life earlier tonight, which turned into a 30 minute sensory bonanza.

And one more thing, an idea I picked up on from a teacher recently and I’m still working on, is taking an hour (ideally, less if you can’t) every day that is dedicated to being unplanned, and then seeing what you decide to do during that time and analyzing it afterwards. My unplanned hour today became cleaning out/exploring a cabinet in my apartment that hadn’t been touched since we moved in 3 months ago and had a lot of stuff left over from the former residents…including a guitar case, a bag of coals, and a bunch of pretty intriguing recipes on index cards. Ima head out now but hope all is well and if you’re reading from the northeast, stay inside! It’s hurricaning out there!

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[Self / Soul & Text] Mindful Eating II

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This is an additional thought I had about ‘mindful eating’.

I’ve been running my tongue along whatever food items I’ve been using during my practices, pausing to enjoy their shapes and textures, and I’ve noticed that my mouth automatically reacts to food by filling with saliva and pushing the bits with my tongue against the roof and sides of my mouth. It’s difficult to not grind the food with my teeth – it’s difficult to be still once my mouth is stimulated.

This “mindful eating” practice is very sensual; it struck me yesterday in class when I opened my eyes and looked at the faces of my classmates. Licking, sucking, swallowing, smelling… I’ve only seen facial expressions like those during intimate, sexual interactions. This makes me wonder about the relationship between sexuality and physical sensations of other kinds; are there hints of sexuality in our interactions with all physical stimuli? Have we desensitized ourselves to this? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.

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The Fow Ti’s special practice

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First posted on my blog:

Every morning the Fow Ti would go out to a near by lake, and sit down with his feet in the water. In the winter the water would be cold, but still, he would stick his feet in the water. He would sit this way for some time before getting up and walking back to begin the rest of his day. He said that his feet were like fish, they needed to breathe in the water. He said that when one allows his feet to immerse themselves in water every day such a person will grow up thirsty for knowledge. He said that one who wears shoes all day and do not let one’s feet breathe will never be thirsty, and will never drink.

I wonder sometimes.

When I stand to pray my feet are united into one foot – like the angels. My feet are rooted in the ground, and even when I get lost in prayer my feet are always there to guide me back to where I am standing. I find this spiritual practice to be very helpful. It expands me. I can, at a single moment be in more than one place. My feet are on the ground as my head soars above – out of this world. And into places unknown. Or places known.

My feet are wet.

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[Self / Soul & Text] Dancing as a Spiritual Exercise

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The dancing activity brought up some interesting issues for me, which I haven’t entirely sorted through. I was dancing alone in a corner for the duration of three dances, and I felt very free to move about as I wanted to. I had my eyes closed for much of the time, and I was focused on my own movements for most of the time – there were moments of distraction, but these were brief.

During the fourth song, I noticed others dancing around the room, and I found that I didn’t want to move from my corner – so I Continue reading →

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[Self / Soul & Text] Practice of Visualizing G-d

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The practice of visualizing Hashem is not very powerful for me; I strongly prefer to have no image of the Divine.

When I focused upon visualizing a particular character trait, I saw an image of a woman that I have romantic feelings for. I believe this has something to do with being motivated to be the best ‘me’ that I can be – not only for myself, but also for her. Regardless, (I think) this had nothing to do with Hashem – my visualization was a reflection of my physical reality, rather than a reflection of my imagined spiritual reality.

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[Self / Soul & Text] Storytelling

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My mother tells me that when I was a child, I would stand on the perimeter of the playground, mouth agape, watching the children play with one another. She’d have to nudge me towards them before I’d move.

In retrospect, I think I went through my childhood feeling overwhelmed by sensory and emotional inputs. Every experience, every interaction would stimulate my imagination. It’s difficult to interact with the universe when every incident becomes a different adventure on another world in one’s mind.

Today, I still live a story – I see no distinction between life and a story, and I’m not sure I’ve ever interacted with life in any other way. I remain fascinated with people and their stories, and I often find myself moved to tears by other’s emotions because I have a tendency to imagine myself in their shoes.

I read this story just now… It’s a short, Chassidic tale.

I quickly empathized with the Rebbe in this story. I admit that I often have to choke back judgmental thoughts, and remind myself that the truths of others are no less legitimate than my own. Happily, I am increasingly becoming less close-minded =)

The most beautiful stories for me are the ones with the simplest messages. Often, I have a strong sense of the story’s moral long before its end, but this doesn’t ruin the experience for me. The world is only complicated because we make it so in our minds… simple, beautiful characters with simple, beautiful hearts often have lessons of tremendous profundity to share with me.

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[Self / Soul & Text] Mindful Eating

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He sighed inwardly.

It was Monday morning, and he hadn’t done his “mindful eating practice” yet. He’d been busy. Long days, full of Jewish study and prayer, were keeping him busy… but he knew also that he’d been procrastinating – he didn’t like the idea of this practice. It made him uncomfortable.

He put 3 NIS in the tin and selected a low fat Quaker honey nut granola bar.

Sitting alone in room 4, he removed it from the wrapper, and looked at it.

“Baruch ata AdHashem, Elokeinu Melech HaOlam, Borei Minei Mizonot.”

A quarter of the granola bar had broken off, and he popped it into his mouth without chewing. He lifted the remainder of the bar to his nose and inhaled its scent. Nothing unexpected, but the smell was familiar and comforting. He liked granola bars.

Emotionally, he still wasn’t feeling this, but physically he rather enjoyed the rough sensation on his tongue as the granola bar gradually broke apart under its pressure and the effects of his saliva. Interesting – he’d never had wet granola chunks floating around in his mouth before.

He chewed the second chunk quickly, as he normally would have, appreciating the dryness of the granola in the back of his mouth, along the sides. This was very different than the previous bite.

Okay, so perhaps this was interesting… but it was challenging for him to appreciate it, although he understood how somebody might, and he understood why he should. He had never been one to “stop and smell the roses,” as he’d always been wrapped up in his thoughts. He wouldn’t say that appreciating the little things in life wasn’t important, but the the real world was overwhelming to him… any experience could spark his imagination and consume his thoughts. Granola didn’t seem important enough to dwell upon.

So there he was, eating his 3 NIS Quaker granola bar; it wasn’t a bad experience, per se, and he did enjoy taking a few moments to consider the physical sensations that it created, but it wasn’t a practice that he expected to continue regularly – speaking to Hashem and searching his feelings (alone and with others) felt to him a more valuable use of his time. Granola bars were for dessert.

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