Praying like a changed Yehuda

It's finals week(s) here at Israel Experience! I can't believe that the first semester is coming to an end..it feels like just yesterday I was starting my first class, eager and ready to take on a whole new world of Jewish information. In confidence I state I have seriously learned SO much about the Jewish religion; history, laws, stories, the works. Despite my fear that it was all going to be lectures straight from the Torah, it really was something way more. Each class had it's own special topic that either seriously inspired me or seriously educated. I'll share a few important messages I picked up from some of my classes.

Jewish Philosophy.
This class, taught by a woman that is vigorous but intriguing in her teaching style introduced every lesson with a theme. This way, she kept us, or at least me, all ears trying to see how it would tie in at the end. One lesson we covered was the topic on if we are able to influence G-d or not. I immediately thought of course we could, but I was then informed otherwise. There is one opinion that the righteous have the ability to change G-d's decree, but then there is a counter. NO-we cannot influence G-d. Questions are raised like-if G-d knows what our whole life is going to be like, then why do we have to pray for something to change anyways? The answer, making complete sense to me at least, is that through prayer we are influencing ourselves. The literal meaning of 'Hitpallel' (the Hebrew word to pray) means self-judgment. It all comes down to what you need, who you are, and what you've done. Through this process of self-judgment, one may or may not be inclined to change. If you are, you change yourself, erasing G-ds decree, and starting you on another path. Anyways, that was a little lesson from that class-but one more seriously important thing I picked up on is about the repetitive praying everyday. It's a main question people ask on why Jews always are in constant prayer. Even though it didn't bother me, I wanted to know the answer anyways. I was presented with an analogy while studying for the final on this question that makes total sense: lets say you want to be someone's best friend. You can't just go up to them on their birthday's and say happy birthday and expect to from then on to be their best friend; you have to be in constant work with them. You have to hang out with them, compliment them, talk to them, etc. This parallels praying everyday and why you can't just randomly go asking G-d for something, only when you need it. I took this into serious consideration and now that I'm attempting to pray everyday, I feel very comfortable when I need to ask for something from G-d.

In my World view of the Sages class, author, lecturer, strongly opinionated (in a good way-if you agree with him), teacher Rabbi Kahn, discusses the weekly parshas (biblical stories) and gives his insight on the deeper meanings. One story that was covered was the story of Yosef. I though the whole time we would be talking about him, but we side tracked into one of his brother's Yehuda. At first, the view of Yehuda is-lets just say not so good-he is the leader of the pack when it came to throwing Yosef in the pit and then deciding that instead of killing him, to make a profit my selling him. Then after all of that goes down, after his first son dies (because of ignoring G-d's prophecy-read up on it to understand in depth), he tells his first sons wife, Tamar to marry his second son. His second son sinned, then he dies and then Yehuda tells her to marry his third son. But he then changes his mind, blames all the problems on Tamar, and sends her away. Yehuda gets lonely one day and decides to take a drive to the corner store to pick up a prostitute. Yehuda didn't have any cash with him so he gave her his ring coat and staff as compensation later to be picked up and payed for. Little did he know that Tamar was the hooker, undercover. So when he tries to find the hooker to pay her back, she is missing. He forgets about it. A message comes to him later telling him that Tamar is pregnant. Furious, he sentences her to death. Right before she is about to be killed she takes out the things that Yehuda gave to her as compensation and says 'whoever is the owner of this stuff is the father of my child!' Dramatic right? Well right after that, instead of denying it, Yehuda immediately comes off his pedestal and admits that she was right and changes his life from then on. He did a 180-a complete 180. Stories like this show that broken hearts are really the full hearts-and that turning a new leaf is possible-despite circumstances like impregnating you first and second dead son's wives.

These are just two examples of some interesting and inspiring lessons I've received from this semester, and that was only from actual classes. I've been on many shabbatons, attended many extra classes, and met many people that have made serious impact on my life. I know that a new life is just beginning-deep down I know that it's right.

Ice skating with some friends on a Thursday night :)
From left: Me, Atara, Leetal, Rachel, and Sheera