Move on up toward your destination

I leave for Sweden in 9 hours. 45 minutes ago, I realized that there are only 2 pairs of clean underwear in my drawer and I have been wearing the same jeans for the past 3 days. While waiting for my laundry so that I can start packing, I'm writing a speedy, yet newsy entry.

Music:

I am addicted to motown/soul music. I don't know when or why this happened, but I actually cannot stop listening to the "curtis mayfield" and "marvin gaye" stations on last.fm. A day without Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" is truly a day without sun. OMG "My Girl" just came on - life is good.

Midterms:

Not awful. A lot of stuff needed to get done in 6 days (3 papers, 2 outlines, 2 exams, 1 oral exam), but I think they went well.

Yom Kippur:

I had an easier fast than usual, probably because I didn't understand people when they bitched about the lack of food/water (Danish: it's all Greek to me!). I had planned to crash at Chabad after Kol Nidre, so I arrived at 3PM, when Ruchel told me to. Um, the place was locked and empty. I rang the bell and nobody answered. Knocked on the door, nobody answered. After 10 minutes, I called Mom. Never in a million years did I think I would be trying to break into a freaking Chabad center. Finally a little girl came by.

"At m'daberet ivrit?" "Kayn! Kayn!" "Bayt chabad?" "Kayn, b'vakasha!"

And she let me in. Thank you, Temple Emunah Hebrew School.

I helped Ruchel the Rebbetzin and her 67 children chop vegetables - it reminded me of Shabbat at the Bayit at Wes, except Ruchel is less of a tyrant than D.Bar.

At dinner, Seth, Gil and I listened to an old man from Jutland pontificate on the history of Danish Jewry. It was really interesting, but Gil bristled when the man told him, "vous n'e^tes pas francais. Vous e^tes Juif." Interesting clash between old and new world Judaism - but maybe the man had a point? I don't know.

Kol Nidre was pretty good. The Great Synagogue is a wonderful location for it because of its majestic size and white and gold interior. I missed the cantorial stylings of David "Srebby" Srebnick at Emunah, but I found a Siddur like the ones we use at home, so that was nice. The inscription was from Tovah Feldshuh, an actress I greatly respect, so that was cool, too.

After services, I walked back to Chabad with Gil and we hung out with Yitzy the Rabbi and 3 Yeshiva boys, just shooting the shit about politics and religion and travel. I stunned Gil by perfectly translating a couple of articles in Le Monde (my French is better than I thought!) and learned about - ready for this? - action movies for ultra-Orthodox jews. I'll try to find some titles from Yitzy and let you know how they are. The Yesiva boys were cool, 2 were British and had cute little Paul McCartney accents when speaking, but when davening, they sounded like little old men from Ze Old Country.

Anecdote: the stairwell in Chabad echoes. You know how American kids test echoes by yelling out stupid things? One of the Yeshiva boys tried it out by going "Koooooooool Niiidreeeee."

Services were spent with my new friends who recognized me from Rosh Hashanah. Sharon from Stockholm and I bonded majorly. And I saw the cute little old grandma with the sweet grandchildren, who greeted me with a, "hello, American girl who misses her family!" She then invited me to her house for the breakfast.

At the Chabad breakfast (bagels and lox! And eggsalad and tuna salad!), the man from Uruguay introduced me ("Ah! Mrs. Boston!") to his son, who is considering spending a semester studying communications at BU. The father was pounding back the whiskey shots, as was the Rabbi and every man over 30. Gut yontif, indeed.

Jonathan's Birthday:

Jonathan turned 11 on Thursday, so Friday was his birthday party with his class from school and today was the family party. The kids were SO CUTE. The party was loosely structured - entertainment ranged from watching the popcorn in the popper, playing "CounterStrike" and watching "Jackass," jumping on the trampoline, freezedance (to Rihanna's "please don't stop the music," obvi) and charades. It was funny to watch the kids: boys on 1 couch, girls on another, things like that. And Jonathan has a cute little girlfriend. Her name is Alberte. Aww...

Culture Night:

After the party, I headed into the city with Gabi, Liza, Madeline and DeDe for KulturNatten, the night when all of the museums, monuments, cafes, etc. are open late with special events. We explored the ruins under Christiansborg with a flashlight, which wasA really neat. Then we wandered around the Stroget, City Hall and Radhusplasen. So many people were in the streets! Young, old, drunk, sober... I have never seen Copenhagen this crowded before! The cobblestones at Amager Torv were sticky from all the beer spilled - it felt like a frat house floor.

Hilarious moments:

"My ex-boyfriend always wore an orange sweatshirt."

"did you date Kenny from South Park?"

On the Metro, we met the Super Mario Brothers and Hunter S. Thompson.

(After getting toasted, sugared almonds)

"You can eat the nuts."

A drunk man dancing to "Get Down (You're the One for Me)" by the Backstreet Boys.

"Are people from the Czech Republic called Czech... Republicans?"

And, oh yes, the Lederhosen boys.

Many other amazing things happened, and several facebook albums shall be made, but I need to get ready for bed soon. Plus I didn't even mention...

The Canal Tour of Copenhagen

and

Jonathan's Birthday Party 2.0

(or, how I ate my weight in carbohydrates - twice).

Hopefully I won't forget after the trip to Sweden and Estonia. I just hope my clothes are dry enough to pack by now...

I ate a cheeseburger... and I liked it!

// This post is dedicated in loving memory to Hy Eisenstein, one of the most warm-hearted people I have ever had the good fortune to love. (Also, a connoisseur of all things treif.) Visits New Jersey won't be the same without you, Hy, and I already miss you terribly. //

Keeping kosher has always been an accepted part of my life. It wasn't one of those things I did just because my parents told me to, either. Ever since I knew the definition, I knew exactly why I did it and what it meant. For me, kashrut is a thrice-daily reminder of my faith; sustenance with a side of Semitism, if you will.

My relationships with Judaism, with G-d, with the Jewish people, and with Israel have always allowed for questions and re-evaluation. For most of my life, though, it was more plate tectonics than anything else. Shifts were being made, but it was occurring at such a gradual, subterranean level that you couldn't see it with a naked eye. Sure, it was happening, but the final product seemed so far away.

To continue the simile, I feel like I woke up one morning this summer to find that Europe and Asia were now to separate continents (of my subconscious, of course). I continued to ask the same old questions: Do I believe in G-d? (probably) Do I support the existence of a Jewish state? (passionately, but rationally) Do I feel a connection to the global Jewish community? (YES) Do I want to continue and deepen my involvement with it? (YES YES YES) But then a new question cropped up:

Why?

Now I'm stuck. I don't know why I do the things I do in order to feel "religious." My greatest frustration is the fragmentation of global jewry, yet I secretly think of myself as superior because I had a Bat Mitzvah and know stuff about the Tanakh and could probably chant Shacharit backwards and in pig latin if you asked me to. I hate to admit this. I am seriously considering deleting this paragraph, but I can't. It needs to be said: I'm a bit of an elitist.

Realizing this sucked, and kind of put me into an existential funk. "Is what I'm just putting on a show to prove to G-d, people I encounter, my self that I actually am a good person? Is it real? Or am I blindly following a script just to make myself look good?"

These are really icky questions. I've asked them about other people, namely liars and crooks who attend morning minyan and make a show of their knowledge of Pirke Avot (Jack Abramoff immediately comes to mind). How can you keep kosher, I ask, but not live kosher?

Obviously I am no Jack Abramoff. In fact, I think I have proven myself to be pretty decent. I'm not going to rattle off all of my merits, but trust me, some exist. But when I do make that list of the things that make me an (I believe) objectively "good person," my keeping kosher is not included.

I will never forget a conversation I had with Ankit first semester of freshman year. I happened to mention my following Jewish dietary laws, and he responded with this gem: "Really? But you seem too rational to follow that kind of dogma!"

Faith has nothing to do with reason. That's why its called faith. And I think that faith and religion are also separate entities* - but that, ideally, shouldn't be the case. But I think that my reason and my religion need to have more cognitive pow-wows. I need to know rationally that the purpose of my religious action is to express and deepen my faith.

I've kept kosher as a reminder of my faith and connection to the Jewish people. Now, honestly, I don't feel like I need the reminder anymore.

I've always liked to try on aspects of other faiths for size (Today's religious forecast: cloudy, with a chance of Hindu). I like tradition and pageantry and rules and laws and philosophy and all of those things that religion entails. Yet I always come back to Judaism as my home base. It is a big security blanket of spirituality that will always keep me warm at night. I am a Jew. My kids will be raised as Jews. I will be buried as a Jew. Slowly, I am beginning to see that the religion I happened to be born into is truly the right one for me.

And now, I realize that the most important thing in my life is, well, living. L-I-V-I-N'. Appreciating life and loving every moment and giving all I can and loving people and maintaining a goofy, childlike sense of wonder about everything I see: these have become my modi opporandi.

Now what does this have to do with Judaism or kashrut?
Everything.

I am now living my life in a wholly Jewish fashion. The here and now, the committment to justice and goodness today, not tomorrow. Rejoicing and learning and loving and giving: that is my postmodern hippie definition of Judaism. My desire to follow this model at all times means more to me - on the levels of reason, religion, and faith - than giving something up whenever I hit the cafeteria. This lifestyle reevaluation is, pardon the pun, something I can truly 'sink my teeth into.'

I will never eat pork or shellfish, more for the fact that they gross me out than anything else. But all other meat is totally cool by me. I'm not going to flaunt this change (other than this blog post, of course! haha), nor am I going to apologize for it.

The punchline, however, is this:
When I ordered that fateful burger... I didn't even realize there was cheese on it until it was almost gone.

Take-offs & Landings

I have been awake for over 36 hours and am feelings more than a little punchy. This post was intended to be a description of my journey from Boston to Newark to Copenhagen to Dragor... but I am, frankly, exhausted. Instead, a montage of stuff I remember finding significant at some point or another:

1:20AM. Atmospheric background music ("slipping through my fingers" by ABBA) plays as Franni and mom sit on the couch, studying two duffle bags full of clothes, electronics and general crap. They run through a list of their contents until they agree that nothing has been forgotten and they can fall asleep.

7 hours later, Franni is still awake, reading "Skinny Legs and All" by Tom Robbins (which she highly recommends). 

6 hours later, Mom flicks one helluva paper football field goal - knocking a fellow Chilli's patron on the head. She, Steve and Franni erupt into hysterics. Franni half-hopes no one from DIS witnessed the unintentional attack.

Franni says good-bye to parents with minimal drama, given the situation. She doesn't look back because she doesn't want to see her mom cry.

Meeting other DIS students, including a girl from Portugal who expat-ed to New Jersey who plans to expat to Denmark so she can expat to someplace else in Europe. I am thankful I have people to come home to.

Plane ride. No sleep. Resenting the fact that Newark, New Jersey is her last view of America the Beautiful, Franni distracts herself by deciding that "Definitely, Maybe" is the perfect in-flight movie and "Reawakening" by Alex Pfeifer-Rosenblum is the perfect in-reverie song (free publicity, AP-R!). Turbulence. Sleep just isn't an option. It is now midnight EST... and 6AM in Denmark.

Landing. Eyes glued to the window, Franni realizes that, from an aerial view, the trees in Denmark look like thick stalks of broccoli. Also, Danish sounds like gibberish. And not the gibberish as a real secret language (gibdigiberdigerishdigish, et al), but like the gibberish when you just made up random-ass noises in order to be obnoxious. Crap, how am I going to learn this friggin' monster tongue? As wheels hit tarmac, my gut falls to my knees: it just became real. I say a quick "shehechianu" under my breath and scramble to get my crap together. I find a letter from mom and try not to start bawling... can't make a good first impression with red, cried-out eyes!

Airport. I make friends. People seem pleasant enough. A new gay boi BFFL quickly finds me, as if attracted by sonar. Fun games of "oh, you're from ___! do you know ___?" ensue (Julianne Tylko and Adam Schlesinger are early winners).

Waiting and waiting and waiting. The other host families pick their kids up at 11:30. Mine arrive at 4pm. The atmosphere is as awkward and jittery as freshmen orientation - minus the booze. On the bright side, I decide to take Danish cooking classes with a girl from Kansas and bond with Gabriel and Ryan from Wes and a few other cool people... including 2 other girls named Frances!! (thereby skyrocketing the number of Frances-es I have met who are under the age of 80 to a rip-roaring... 2)

Host family picks me up. Mom is as beautiful as in her picture. The boys are cute, but can't speak any English! This is mad awksauce. I wonder what the hell I am doing here.

Trine (Tree-neh), 10 year-old Jonathan (Yo-nah-tan, like the Israeli pronounciation), 8 year-old Tobias (Toh-bee-us) and I drive past lots of things I can't pronounce. I learn that my new hometown is not pronounced Drah-gor, but rather Dra-euuer. Apparently, my Danish accent is pretty good and I thank my lucky stars that I have been a shameless mimic for the past 20 years of my life. We go to the main train station in Copenhagen to get me a train pass. I spend 60DKK ($12) on polaroid snapshots. I look like either a mentally retarded serial killer (with all due respect to the mentally retarded... and serial killers) or a really confused and jetlagged American, but I refuse to waste $12 on photos. Besides, these are hilarious and I will post them to the blog as soon as I get access to a scanner. The guy at the desk loves Americans - particularly Bostonians, he says - and gives me the name of some cool bars in the area. Solid.

I am still a little freaked out by the little blonde people who only utter weird foreign phrases and frequently punch each other in the face. Trine keeps pulling the car over to rip them apart. Again, I'm feeling pretty awkward and out-of-place, when all of a sudden Jonathan goes, "sdakfhsldkfh lksdhfldskfhdslkjfh sdfkjhsdfl... OH, SHIT!"

I burst out laughing. Guess I found the right host family after all.

(Fade to black on my first day in Denmark.)