My Jewish Story Part II: Birthright 2.0🚶🏼🛐
+ I signed a lease in Berkeley! 🌳
I hope this finds you and your loved ones well on this Tu Bishvat (the new year of the trees!)
Here’s Part II of my three part series on Judaism (see Part I here). It’s about my 10 week pilgrimage to Israel and Palestine last summer. A self-directed, sort of “Birthright 2.0” that led to deep explorations in religion, politics, family and more. My direct experience > analysis (Part III). What happens when I visit the place on Earth that I have the most connection to, but hardly spent any time in, at this phase in my life?
Whatever tradition(s) you identify with, I encourage a slow visit to the land(s) that gives rise to the culture of your ancestors.
As always, I’m curious how this lands for you. What would you like me to address in Part III?
To be honest, my interest in Judaism has been waxing and waning this season. I wonder how much of that has to do with the act of writing giving a closure vibe, or maybe binging John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis has me feeling a little more skeptical about Axial Age religions.
Maybe it’s just part of a natural cycle of things. Whatever is going on, I’m grateful for the process. The tensions and questions are where there’s richness. I accept that things change. I’ll double click on these tensions in Part III.
East Bay
In other news, I recently signed my first lease in 5 years in North Berkeley, right by the Rose Garden! Still settling in, crafting my life map for this new chapter, dusting off storage from previous ones.
I’m delighted to learn that Tu Bishvat has to do with an important discernment on our path to a harmonious reality: the discernment of needing to choose an environment, plant ourselves in it, invest in it, and care for the means that can grow us to become more and more optimally connected. May it be so, whether that means our physical house, community, city or planet we call home 🌱
