Deityblog

Sitting here in front of the computer, I have absolutely no idea where to begin. This will probably be an excruciatingly long post, so just bear with me and skim for the juicy parts. Check out http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=sulha&itemNo=467103 for real coverage of the Sulha. Oh, and be sure to keep look out for www.stopabusingtorah.org, a new project of my man Yaakov's which is sure to revolutionize the world as we know it, as usual.

Just diving in:
Thursday night--took the train to Tel Aviv, met Erica and Ariel there, two fellow seekers and temporary Nachlaot dwellers, hopped a quick train to Binyamina which turned out to be a very long train to Nahariya, freaked out for a bit, but eventually worked out a bus to Haifa and a ride with the most beautiful female cab driver I've ever seen to arrive at Park Shuni at around 1 am. First impressions: This is going to be insane, in a good way. Huuuuge site for the peace organizations, with booths all laid out. A winding path from the Welcome Center into the larger lawn, with netting and tents stretched out over the grass to form the Children's Space, the Bereaved Parents tent, the Meeting Tent, and the information center. Stage set up facing the grass, with a big tree to its right, whichwould become a central place for prayer, discussions, and gathering during the days. Said hi to Ihab and Sagi, then kept going up the winding path past many semi-permanent tents curtained by tapestries and carpeted with pillows and mattresses, the largest of which being the Ohel Sarah V'Hagar, the Women's Tent, a space for women to come together in an intimate, y-chromosome-free way and get some connection flowing. Said hey-lo to Eliyahu and pitched our tents in the dark, thinking, "this is real, I'm here.......hey G-d, let's go for a ride."

Friday: Woke up to Gabi on the ram-kol, arousing everyone from their sleep just like in camp, singing songs of peace, love, and get-the-hell-out-of-bed and help us down here, the bus from Ramallah is arriving momentarily. Went down to help Yoav and Eliyahu set up the site for the various peace organizations that would be arriving to have booths and give workshops, just in time to greet Firas in full PLC splendor, and Ibtisam with her usual glow of ultimate awesomeness. Rav Froman and Hadassah arrived soon after the Jordanian contingent, and then I turned around to see holy brother Casey-Baruch of Baltimore fame, tired and generally blissed-out from the Jerusalem bus ride. Casey, you made my Sulha just by being there, man. Also ran into Sareet, holy sister one-hour fresh off the plane from the States, making aliyah. I stopped in at the Bereaved Parents Tent as people were assembling there, and fell in with a loving crowd of young Palestinian guys, instant connection. One new friend with a guitar played a song about my name, Habiba el Habiba, kind of like Chabibi....that was it for me, right there, Sulha just being able to sit around and sing with these guys, at the prime age to be hate-filled suicide bombers, making peace with Israeli Jews, many of whom were current or former soldiers and/or settlement-dwellers. Everyone at the Sulha was making a committed choice--choosing life over death, love over war, and then putting themselves out there to make it a reality.

While the official opening ceremony wouldn't be until later, Gaby gathered everyone around the tree and shared a beautiful niggun that incorporated Ein Keloheinu with a chorus of "Lai lai, Il'Allah...." This was followed by the first listening circles, where everyone broke up into groups to get to know one another for the first time. Among many other holy souls, my group included Rana and Nevim, two women my age from Bethlehem, both fighting the good fight on their end (peacing the good peace?). We all went around introducing ourselves and saying what had brought us to Sulha, answers ranging from plain curiosity to hope, to wanting to be woken up from skepticism. Casey just wanted to meet some of his neighbors out there near Bat Ayin. Rana believed that Jews wanted peace, and wanted to see it for herself.

When the circle disbanded, Mahmoud brought me over to be interviewed on Al-Jazeera. Crazy! I think it went well, the reporter just asked me what the Sulha means to me, and I said that it means creating a consciousness for authentic and lasting peace to grow out of, in so many words. Don't know if the segment was live, don't even know if they used it, but it was definitely a unique experience.

Spent a good portion of the day fenagling stuff with the peace organizations. In the end, not many showed up, for whatever reason. Either they had no people to send during summer vacation,or things got screwed up, or they simply weren't interested in compromising their time and attention to be at the Sulha. Their loss, but it was quality instead of quantity all the way, with Bustan L'Shalom, Pathway Circle, Rabbis for Human Rights, and the Theosophical Society all making choice appearances. Check out these orgs, my friends. Their work is bringing us into the new world. Caught an impromtu mincha led by Rav Froman, screaming out to the Creator from the eye of a storm of peace. Let it hail, brother!!!

Made friends with Chaim, a refusenik who'd just been released from being in jail for a month for taking his stand. A really beautiful, sensitive soul, changed the way that I'd thought about people who refuse to serve in the territories for humanitarian reasons. I still have reservations, generally believing that the Israeli army tries very hard to do the right thing and isn't out to get the Arabs, just to protect Israel. In my circles, army service is a duty, even a holy thing, that you do even if you believe in peace, to defend Israel against many ever-present threats. So talking to Chaim was challenging for me. He'd been on the career track in the army, eight years running, when he got completely disillusioned by Operation Defensive Shield, April 2002 when Israel went into Jenin and Ramallah and conducted full-on terrorist raids. Personally, I believe these raids were justified or not after a month where there were terrorist attacks every single day, but Chaim read the reports of the army's actions there and became demoralized, choosing to leave the army and do time rather than continue serving. Heavy stuff, he'd been clearly shaken up by his experiences in prison, where he says he bonded more with the Druze prisoners than the Israelis. He planted an organic garden there, and is now reshaping his life by working with Bustan L'Shalom and doing organic farming. Love, blessings, and strength to you, Chaim.

First night of Sulha, I don't even have the right words to describe it. While a dedicated group of Arabs and Israelis worked nonstop making refreshments in the back corner of the lawn--including one elderly Bedouin woman who never stopped making lafa the entire time--seriously, I never saw her get up--the opening ceremony commenced. Rav Menachem and Hadassah Froman lit the first torch, and the Rav gave a rousing speech in his uniquely plantive, incendiarily loving manner, getting the crowd to scream Allah Hu Akhbar, saying that it means Ahava T'Natzeach--Love willl be Eternal. "Allah Hu Akhbar--Ahava T'Natzeach!!!!" Rav Froman is other-worldly. Other speeches included organizer Elias Jabbour explaining the significance of the Sulha, Zulu chief John Quizulini doing a peace dance in full tribal regalia, Tibetan monk Geshele urging both sides to be free of their attachments and work together, a messenger with an endorsement from Arafat which proved to be a bit of a bring-down (long story behind that), and many more. After the speeches, a concert began which lasted well into the night. First Shoteh HaNevuah (Fools of Prophecy) played, one of their chorus being, in Hebrew, "Nobody's leaving this place, so let's start to love." Sounds better in the original. The music was rocking beyond belief, including the young Arab indie-rock salaam band, the Israeli peacenik garage band, and Gaia, who totally brought down the house on an ecstatic, tribal revelation of Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, dancing and singing together for several moshiach-induced hours. The highest of the high.
Wednesday: Spent a few estrogen-filled hours in the women's tent with Sareet, meeting Israeli and Arab women who'd lost children, and more blessed sisters who just came to talk and build consciousness from the inside out. I remember saying that I felt like our spirituality had been hijacked by masculine forces of hatred and control, and that it's up to us to infuse the soul back into our peoples. My friend Leah spoke about being sick of feeling like it's wrong somehow to greet Arabs on the street, really wanting to break down needless walls. Ibtisam gave a moving testimony of her story. She'd been on an Egged bus and had been terribly humiliated by the driver, who told her to get off, and when she wouldn't, as an Israeli citizen and a human being, he got both the cops and a couple of soldiers to physically extract her, for no reason whatsoever. Bitterness burned in her heart for a long time after taht, especially when Egged did nothing about it. She thought all Jews were terrible human beings. Gradually, though, she began to meet Jewish people, opened up more and began to get seriously involved in peace work. So many skeptics, all it takes is a couple of conversations to know that the "other" is a person, is a friend, and that can be the world. As Rumi put it, "If you have a hundred cynical conceptions of G-d, make them ninety-nine!" All we did in the circle was go around and share our experiences, and by the end everybody was crying.

The Green Sheykh and Habibah came that day, so nice to see them. While the Sheykh sat on a panel of international leaders discussing peace as various energy circles and music went on throughout the lawn, I chilled out with my soul-sister Habibeleh. At least four times that day, we'd introduce ourselves to someone and they'd do a double-take at the fact that we have the same name.

That night was an intensely stirring Rosh Chodesh celebration, led by a group of angelic women, getting the crowd of 4,000 people to chant "Elohim Echad" and "Allah Hu Allah" together, interpersing the phrases, their voices dancing in and out and lacing them together until they were one, going from soft to hardcore on the jembe, rocking out to the Oneness, within and without. We were also greeted, via satellite, by Rav Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, the Patriarch of Jewish Renewal and a palpably righteous presence, who shared words of peace and blessing for the Sulha, for Israel and Palestine. Ari also came that night--yay!! So good to have some Ari energy around. Sitting in a circle with a group that included Sareet, Ari, Casey, Habibah, and new friend Yosef David, I was thinking it does not get any better than this. This is real, and we have to do everything in our power in this world to keep this going. This Sulha is a microcosm of what needs to happen on a grand scale and on every level, a utopia that we've proved can exist, even for a few days. Everything is here.

We said goodbye to our Palestinian and Jordanian friends the next morning, who needed to leave early because of delays they were expecting at the border. Orthodoxanarchist.com has a beautiful narration of the ceremony, where Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian leaders were given branches from an olive tree, resolving to plant them and bring back a piece of them the next year, to show that the symbol of peace is firmly entrenched and growing. All of the Israelis got up and handed t-shirts to our departing friends, sharing hugs and words of blessings. The t-shirt is a blessing itself, a yin-yang with an Israeli and Palestinian flag, showing that we're dancing, struggling, learning from one another, sharing the same space whether we like it or not. I gave a shirt to Rana, she liked the design and we resolved to keep in touch. She said that the Sulha had proven to her that Jews really are interested in peace, and that we all have to forget our inept political leaders (whoever is more of a problem, Sharon or Arafat, is still a divisive issue) and work together as people of this land. All the power to you, Rana.

After chilling with some friends who'd come to experience the end of the Sulha, I made a mad dash back to Jerusalem with Ari to catch Tamar's wedding, which was a microcosm of insane holiness in it of itself. Tamar's the first one from my high school class to bite the dust, marriage-wise, so it was a pretty blessed event. Tamar and Moshe, mazal tov of the highest order on your new life together, and you can't imagine how sorry I am for calling you at 2 in the morning on your wedding night trying to find my cell phone. So it goes....

Might sound like an anti-climatic end to the Sulha for me, but the truth is, it's still going. Last night we had a ridiculously delicious seudah-shlishit-melava-malka at Eliyahu's with all of the Sulha's international guests plus holy Nachlaot chevre. A groovy soul-stirring time had by all. Today I'll be travelling back to Shuni for a processing meeting with Sulha staff, should be interesting. I'll keep you posted, and thanks for reading this far.