Best Question of the Week: "How is your Heart?"

If a doctor had asked the question, I would be in a gown, spouting my symptoms from rise to sleep. But I'm 28. I go to the doctor for unexplained symptoms, stomach problems, and most recently, an ear infection. We haven't discussed my heart beyond Cheerios. That is, how to keep my cholesterol in check in order to keep me heart-healthy.

Instead, the question came from a Rabbi. Well, a mentor, confidant, and friend, who is a Rabbi, teacher and a spiritual guide. He asked, "How is your heart?" and the completely honest answer is "... still not quite ready." The answer I wanted to give, the place I want to be is someplace still far off. Though not as far as when he and I sat down just over a year ago for coffee. I'm closer to that answer I want to give - "My heart is open and available, it is ready, it is healed, it is waiting ..." So the answer I gave continued, and I'd like partial credit for it. "I'm working on it... I'm learning ... I'm still having difficulty opening it to the right person..." many disjointed thoughts. Much reason for pause.

Since the season for renewal hit (some people call it fall, I call it the high holidays), I can tell you that I have been hyper-aware of my heart. I know it is still so tightly wrapped, protected. I keep trying to open up, and I know I do it only slightly, and rarely. Usually to "safe" people. That's been going on nearly eight years this December. People who can't possibly stay in my life long, or people who have been here forever. I can't manage the in between.

If I imagine my heart - right now - it is as a diver. Certainly not Olympic grade - probably not even competitive. A leisurely diver, toes over the board wavering about whether to take the plunge. I think a year ago, when I met with this friend my heart and I were on a high board - hardly able to see the pool below. Now, I can smell it, see it - I'm resting on this regular diving board - but I don't know what the temperature will be and I know I'm scared to just dive in. I want it to be graceful, I want it to garner applause. This is when I hate the perfectionist in me. I can be an amateur in love. Isn't everyone at first? I have to remind myself, I'm the only one watching and I need to get past the fear to recognize the fun. It's really going to be worthwhile. And if I fail somehow, I can get back out and dive again.

But diving isn't a sport I know. I'm not confident here - and I am typically a fountain of confidence. I've gotten back on a horse who has thrown me into a fence. I am stubborn and strong just like the animal who spooked and reared and couldn't wait to be rid of me. If I can have faith that the horse will be there for me, why can I not have the same trust in man? The universe has a way of working things out. Trust it. Sit with it.

I'm ready to dive. I'm ready to ride. I'm ready to see what all this hype is about.

Now, if only my words could be as effective as action.

Ooooooooobama? Puzzling Prizes

Talk about the "American Dream!" Here's one that's international - The Nobel Prize. I'd like mine in literature one day. I've written some outlines and drafts, so can I pre-order it now so that it's ready when I make it big? Seriously, I know some literary figures who actually campaigned for it. That taints it a bit. One of them even won.

Nevertheless, I was celebrating the Nobel Prizes that were announced earlier in the week because whenever a woman earns one, I rejoice. I really do love female role models, especially when they're in a field I wouldn't dream of entering.

Hence, Israeli woman Ada Yonath made me dance for joy in my office - she rocked the ribosome in her chemistry research and made major waves. She's 70. She split the prize with two men who did similar research. They are also similar in age. It seems to me, this has been their life's work, celebrated for it's contribution to society, particularly medicine - as it relates to how antibiotics work in our bodies.

Brilliant. I can even understand the work that she did. In science. That's a big deal for my liberal arts brain.

Building diplomacy. That's a liberal arts topic if I've ever heard one. It's subjective and involves historical analysis. It happens over high tea, around a bonfire (no not really, I just like the image - and Hawaii is home of the luau) it does not happen in eight months of presidency. That's right folks. President Barak Obama was sworn in in January. I know we like him a lot, I know there's a lot of potential, but in what way has he changed the world for the better? What peace are we experiencing with troops in Iraq, in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

A friend posted that he couldn't imagine something that would turn his "liberal-loving friends" against Obama would be this ... but I think the rationale escapes us, and the evidence is shoddy at best. Yes, kind of like that birth certificate...

Maybe someone just wanted to give him the prize money - and this category was the best way to do it?

Sorry for my cynicism, if anyone would like to enlighten me, I'm all ears. Also, I'm not anti-American for questioning this. I may be anti the Nobel committee though. I feel some shivers coming from graves.

Finding Perfection: Sukkah hopping around NY

Sukkot, which occurs each fall, is a week when traditionally, Jews eat (and live!) in the out of doors. In Israel the air is crisp and the fruit harvest is coming to an end. In New York, it’s cold, usually rainy and the wind nips at you. Luckily we have space heaters and layers and warm soup.

This “nature” experience is tempered, of course, by the lovely huts (called sukkot) we build to recall ananei cavod, the clouds of Glory, which were a sign that God was following us in the desert during the Exodus from Egypt. In the past I have spent my sukkot in two or three different structures and usually enjoy them, a bit.

This year, I had meals in 7 different sukkot, each of them unique. I was hoping to come up with a rating system, but each one felt so special that only the few words of Torah given Saturday morning suffice. A rabbi asks, “How many walls are mandatory in a sukkah?” the answer is “two and some” or two and “ehh” as I shouted out. “Why?” the Rabbi asks. Dead Silence. “Because when you put your arm around someone to hug them, your arm makes an angle and you’ve got two and an ‘eh’ angles. God hugs us when we are inside the sukkah.

Thanks God. I thought I liked being in your glory, but I’m sure I like being in your arms. I tend to find personifying God distasteful, but if You want me to build a structure to symbolize a hug, then I’m happy to sit inside of it and feel loved. If I were waxing poetic I might even call the image beautiful. While some buildings had just the required walls and others had four, mostly it was the company in them that made me feel full on embraced.

Anyway, I resort to the questions children ask on Passover –How is this year different from all others? I usually say almost all my blessings in a synagogue sukkah. Not this year. Though having one meal in the smaller of two sukkot at a local synagogue found us the only guests there – which made the one synagogue sukkah experience I had seem just like it was in my own backyard! But of course, my parents’ backyard is already filled with a sukkah, and I spent Monday night out at their house and in their hut with them. Mom made chicken soup per my request with WHOLE WHEAT matzoh balls and some of the best roasted chicken I’ve encountered. It was a joy to see my parents and to join them in their sukkah – to bench lulav with my dad and take the etrog from my great grandparents etrog box. The etrog is too big now. We get better produce than 80 years ago it seems… even in the business of the etrog! My parents and I took some time for Torah too. Rambam and the beleaguered, orphans and widows and that even when times are tough, we are fortunate to have a home to go to and a hut to eat in! Also cute, the following night when my parents had a synagogue board meeting, they loaned it out to our neighbors. So friendly!

Friends (new and old): Two UWSers hosted holiday meals in their personal sukkot … despite impending rain on both meals, they were LOVELY. One had a fish pond right beside the sukkah. Talk about a glorious connection to nature! The other I returned to during the week for s’mores in the sukkah. A firepit right outside of the sukkah kept us all happy and warm… and the beer and marshmallows did a good job too! Those were moving moments. There is something especially tremendous sitting amongst so many friends in a family feeling, small intimate sukkah built by hand.

So, given that I get so excited about these more intimate experiences, what should have been the farthest from my personal sukkah, one at the Jewish Theological Seminary, is actually the nearest to my heart. Not only because I am an alumna and it was a home to many college meals, but also because of the little plaque very few people probably notice. The sukkah is endowed by my darling ‘family’ Frances and Buddy Brandt. Their granddaughter is like a sister to me (having been my roommate for three years) and the sukkah is in the memory of her brother Oren. This was my most recent sukkah experience and to participate in something l’zecher Oren (in the memory of Oren) added so much more meaning to what has become a pretty common experience. I say these blessings in Oren's memory because he liked to build so much everyone thought he'd become an architect. Also, Oren definitely had the type of relationship with God where they were in a strong embrace. Always. So I sat last night hugging Oren’s memory, and also hugging his sister and his grandparents. I hope we were being hugged by God as well. Because in those moments is where God should be. And I returned today to bless some more. The beauty of a sukkah is often times in the people you share it with. Tonight I’m off to a celebration of volunteers for Limmud NY. And then, outside of the sukkah I will go celebrate another wonderful soul who is headed to Thailand to work on human rights and change the world for the better.

I live a blessed life… and this holiday season has reminded me of that tenfold.