By Sami Frankel
I live in Jerusalem. (I have to keep reminding myself.)
My stop on the lightrail is Machane Yehuda. (No, that doesn’t get old.)
Shopkeepers like to speak to me in Hebrew, then roll their eyes and switch to English as I stare at them blankly. (Keep telling me I look Israeli, though, and maybe the language will come with the vibe.)
My first night in Jerusalem was pitch-black.
Nearly four weeks ago, we embarked on a five (plus!) month journey in Israel, and I spent my first night in Jerusalem completely in the dark. Not even four hours after we moved into our apartment in Nachlaot, we blew a fuse. The washing machine stopped spinning; the dryer stopped whirring; the dishwasher stopped sudsing. All the lights went out; the room got cold; and I could hear all three of my roommates exclaim from downstairs, “What the hell?”
Despite our best efforts—putting our Jewish geography skills to the test, Facebook messaging a Ramah celebrity, FaceTime-ing all of our (questionably handy) fathers—the apartment stayed dark. Frustrated, stressed, confused, and guilty, we WhatsApp’d our landlord and tried to fall asleep. Yet, there’s something about enforced darkness: even those who insist on barring any light from entering the room as they sleep reject the possibility that light is entirely out of reach.
There’s a desperation inherent to inaccessibility, and even the strongest among us are wont to revert to children in need of nightlights when the room goes dark of its own accord.
“What are we doing here,” we ask. “How did this happen? What did we do wrong? Can we do anything right?”
These questions are too heavy for the first night, in a new place, with new people, with unfamiliar culture and customs and language. But the next day, at the shuk, with the memory of darkness all too close, all the questions come up again.
“How can buying cucumbers be so impossibly hard? Why do I need to know how to say anything but numbers?” The questions escalate, “Did I make the right call coming here? Living here? Learning here?”
And then, I remember that the night didn’t end in darkness. Indeed, all it took was finding the words to ask for help. And from there, all that was left to do was to flip a switch, and, once again, we had light. And, more importantly, we had each other to celebrate our adventure and bring light into the rest of the semester with.
That first Shabbat in Jerusalem, four days after our pitch-black evening, we had the best weather we’d had since arriving in Israel. The skies were clear; the sun was out; the air was temperate. If that first night was the embodiment of darkness, then that first Shabbat was the picture of light. As I wandered the streets of Nachlaot on Shabbat afternoon, I discovered orange trees on my street, a park full of children playing, synagogues far too numerous to count, a French Canadian subdivision and a family who wished me, a stranger, Shabbat Shalom.
So as we continue with the rest of our semester, here is my kavanah:
Sometimes, the power goes out when you least expect it. And sometimes, it’s even entirely your fault. But with a bit of effort, the support of friends, and the willingness to demonstrate just a little vulnerability, there’s just no reason to stay in the dark. Explore. Ask questions. Discover. Wander and wonder. And more often than not, our days will be filled with light.
