I have noticed an interesting trend with my time, the more I write about it, the more I become aware of it, the more I seem like I have. This has been a week full of time as I have been off my ordinary routine. My sweetheart, Ariel, and I have been spending the week in Haifa, a gorgeous city on the northern coast of Israel. We have this deluxe apartment to ourselves...a friend of Ariel had given us the keys to have a getaway. Time has been well spent, planned, and thought through. We made a list of goals for what we wanted to do while we have been here...pray before and after every meal, study, relax, go running, cook great food, and go on a tour of the Bahai Gardens. We have done all of this and have made 3+ days feel like a lot longer. I can look back and see how productive time can be spent when it is gone through intentionally.

Last week I saw the gift of Shabbat given to the Jewish people while they were wandering in the wilderness. Shabbat is the utmost gift of time...time off. Shabbat will begin for us tonight and it will show me this different use of time. No movies or emails. Differentiated time by the little inserts and different prayers said. Different mood, and even different people, as we have invited our friends David and Maya to share the day with us.

What is a yearon without a little experimentation? But then I wonder, can one be attached to their ways of being an still have time on? I want to think yes, as I will likely be someone with more set ways of being in the future...but the openness to be doing things a little differently on occasion, I am hopeful will still be a value. As I experiment with what I likely to take hold, I find myself in an interesting place of transition. My prayers and ways of being Jewish are solidifying...

This week in the parsha, we have the handing over of the 10 commandments. Before that though, Yitro, the father-in-law of Moshe, gives him some advice in leadership: delegate. It is not explicit as to why Yitro gives Moshe this advice. It is clear that Moshe will burn out if he continues in his ways, and now that Yitro has brought back Tziporah, Moshe's wife, and their two children, Gershom and Eliezar, Moshe will be better off spending less time as judge for the squabbling Hebrews and more time with his family whom he has not seen in a year+.

I feel we learn a lesson about time here. When I am in a position of leadership, it becomes easy to lose sight of everyone who my work is not affecting. I spend too much time doing my work because it can be very self gratifying. But I lose sight of those whom I love. By delegating what there is to be done, I allow myself to spend time more qualitatively and equitably. Without delegating, I also lose sight that there are potentially other leaders in our midst who could run with a shared power system. Leaders who when given authority shine brightly and do amazing things, while being trained for future situations of greater magnitude.

In a yearon, there is a balancing act that must occur. Time for me versus time with others, sometimes even time spent doing that which I don't want to be doing. Maintaining a balance is important, and hopefully we all have people in our life like Yitro who can call us on our stuff and give us some helpful advice. My advice would be to create relationships like the one shared by Yitro and Moshe. Even the greatest of leaders have the people they counsel with and set them right, as should we.

This week, have a yearon.

Does a year ever really end or does it blend into the next, and the next? I was suddenly put in a situation this morning where I was confronted to speak about what I am now learning in a non academic and most personal way. I was challenged to organize thoughts and speak them into the world in an experimental group discussion format during my chumash class (chumash is a Hebrew term for Torah, or the 5 books of Moses, or the Old Testament, depending your lingo). I worked with 3 women whom I do not normally individually learn with, but look to with respect.

During our discussion, I found myself "suddenly" able to interact from a learned place with integrity - approaching the text from what is actually written - while also speak about how I interpret it and speak to what it says about my theology and ideology - both in a healthy process of development. I had not yet realized (and was beginning to freak out because of it) that I am actually learning how to read the text in ways that acknowledge and bring respect to tradition while weaving in my own chidushim (these are "new" ideas that one comes up with - the reason I put the word new in quotation marks is because I find it intriguing that in another one of my classes, I am learning that there exist some opinions, call them maximalist statements, that say everything we come up with now - such as comments anyone makes in class here in 2006 - was actually part of the revelation at Mt. Sinai...Though this could seem radically religious, it is a deep spiritual concept in my mind - it has been doing me good to find a great deal of respect for the tradition despite a maintenance of wrestling and questioning).

The reason this is blog worthy for me is that I have been freaking out of late around the idea of returning to an environment where not everyone (in fact, potentially no one) else has been learning Jewish texts all year, and I fear that I am learning a routine that will be swept from under me when I find no time and/or person/people to continue it with. I am afraid that the way I speak about Judaism will have to change...This is in fact absolutely true and on the flip side I totally look forward to the translation process which I will look to recruit some absolutely fabulous, curious, open friends to engage in long summer conversations with in Seattle. Being that the way I have learned to speak about Judaism must adapt, I have worried that I would not be able to "translate" what I am learning into conversation that makes sense and thus I will alienate my awesome friends who have not been constantly exposed to the discourse in which I am becoming more and more familiar.

This has been compounded of late by the fact that Pardes has begun their recruitment of "fellows" which is the program for those who stay here to study full-time for a second year. I would be lying if I said the idea of doing this is not highly tempting. I have already begun my campaign to make it a very easy, thoughtful decision to not stay, nonetheless. Decisiveness is my next project...And for those of you who know me well, I am sure there is the thought of "finally!" Well, it is time.

So, today I can take a deep break thinking that yes, a year on can in fact flow into a future year on, and not necessarily because one continues doing the same thing. Thus, the year's activity and that which makes it on, truly does not end and things remain turned on all the more so, now applied to and challenged by change.

How are you making this a year on? I ask this, as it is a goal of mine to create an online community or people being intentional about how they are spending their time. Sharing how and with what can provide space for communal support as we write about our experiences and comment on what others write. In the meantime, please comment here and let me know if and how you may be spending your time.

What are you up to?

Meanwhile, the upcoming movie I am most excited about.

Welcome to my new blog! View my old entries from my Friendster blog here.

The concept of "yearon" came to me about a year ago or so in a journal entry of mine. It was among the days when I was trying to decide about what to do "next year" (a seemingly persistent conversation in my life). When it turned out coming to Israel made the most sense for me this year, I worried about it being a "year off." I don't want to take any years off anymore. The year after college I had deemed a year off, and it was one of the most amazing, productive, educational years of my life, and I am left wondering, where did this term "year off" come from? What is so "off" about it? I claim that such years are truly years on. And my ultimate claim is that every year, even the most banal, can be a year on.

In my year after college, I worked in New York City for 6 months in Real Estate Management for Heron Properties and then lived in Mexico (Chiapas) for a month and Peru (Ayacucho and Lima) for 2 months teaching in English. I then worked as an administrator at a Jewish summer camp. The year was unbelievable and confronting and learned and all-encompassing. It led me in a path that 4 years later has me exploring the world in a most practical yet extraordinary way.

I have been living in Jerusalem since September on what many could call a year off. I left a (relatively) stable life in Seattle with community and work and a grad school admission to pursue studies I feel are important. I have come to learn about my people's history and culture and religion and try to better understand my role inside of that. Without this firm identity, I believe I would have always been missing something important. Because what I am doing fills such a deep desire inside, I say it could be nothing less than a year on.

The challenge will be making years after this also years on. A dream of mine is to be in community with people who see every year as a year on creating new goals and dreams for each year (as well as for other set times in our lives).

This week's Torah portion tells of God giving the Hebrew slaves their first commandment - the gift of time. Just as the Exodus from Egypt is to culminate with the 10th and final plague against Pharoah and his followers (if there were in fact any left), the bible goes on a tangent about the creation of the first month and explicitly says that the months are now for you. In other words, the freedom of time was handed over to these enslaved people just as they are being freed...and thus one definition of freedom becomes having control over one's own time.

As we all live in a world consumed by business and appointments and the like, it is easy to lose site of our freedom over time. In declaring a year on, I believe I have given myself freedom and choice over my own time, not to be dictated by social norms, peer pressure, or familial expectations. I hope for us all that we can continually begin the process of freedom by realizing the liberty we possess over our own time and making the best of it...by our own standard. And, as we continually do so...

welcome to a year on.

5 minute Exercise:
1. Enter a quiet space without distraction. Silence your cell phone, close your laptop, and pause your iPod.
2. Write down 5 things you keep saying you want to do but do not get to in life. Start with whatever comes to mind and silence the internal critic. Start small and work toward the daunting if you need to. The goal is to get at least one or two longer term goal on the list.
3. Read over the list 3 times.
4. Commit to completing something on the list this year.
5. Start today. Do something today that sets forth events toward the fulfillment of your goal.
6. Carry on feeling good about taking a step for yourself, in charge of your own time.