Midbar Year

B"H
It is 3 AM! And Avraham Fried is blasting from the speakers on my computer (unfortunately), the girls are ordering pizza, and I'm taking a break from editing farbrengen notes to write this. I'm still working off the fumes of the two coffees I had about two hours ago. I keep burning my tongue on those... but they taste SO good.
It's always like this at the end of things. Normal life, which includes things like sleep and food and moving around, is canceled. Instead, life becomes centered around coffee, late night conversations, and hysterical laughter when Chana Leah falls off her chair. For no reason. Schedules go crazy and attendance in class becomes a suggestion instead of a requirement. Ahh, the joys of youth.
However, discussing the vagaries of my life in seminary is not the purpose of this post. In fact, I wanted to comment on leaving sem.
One of our madrichot said this at our weekly farbrengen:
An explanation given for the Jew's desire to stay in the desert, instead of entering Israel, is that the desert was actuallya place of spiritual inspiration for them. They were given the Torah there. They built the Mishkan there. All their physical needs were provided for, and all their energies could be focused on the study of G-d's words. Why would they want to enter the 'Holy' Land?
Immediately upon entering, they would have to involve themselves in the unpleasant task of conquering its inhabitants. They would eventually have to divide up the land, and settle there, devoting themselves to back breaking physical labor. They would have to plow and sow and harvest. They would have to make their clothes, and keep them clean. (I wouldn't have wanted to do my own laundry either.)
The Jews at that time would have prefered to stay in the desert, surrounded by the Clouds of Glory, with all their physical needs taken care of. They would have loved to devote every waking moment to the pursuit of G-dliness.
What they failed to realize at that time was that this was not what G-d intended. He has a plan. A prescription. The way to reach Him is specifically through being drenched in all that 'distasteful' physicality that the Jews wanted so desperately to avoid.
It is at those times when a Jew is most involved in the daily pattern of his regular life, and he raises himself above it to fulfill a request of G-d, that he is most connected. It's when you're sitting in psychology class, hanging your wet laundry, forcing down another bureka or savoring a hot coffee - all with the consciousness that all the physical things you do are not for yourself, but rather for HIM - that you have achieved the highest spiritual levels.
After all, there's nothing really special about sitting in the Clouds of Glory and feeling G-d's presence. I mean - Duh! If you don't feel G-dly at that point, you must be spiritually DEAD.

So -
Seminary is the desert. It's been a place of inspiration for us. It's been easier to connect, easier to feel our desire for G-d, our desire to grow.
But -
We have to leave the cocoon of seminary. We have to abandon the sheltered world that we've been absorbed in this year. We've been sensitized, focused. And now we return to our families and friends, as new people. We have to move on into the real world, of jobs and rent and bills. It's scary. But that's what we've been working toward this year. That's where we will really fulfill our purpose. That is where we will actualize everything we have learned this year.
Out There.

Of course, the Jews ended up staying in the Midbar for 40 years..... Shana Arbaim, anyone? ;)

Dropped in A Black Hole

Bs"d
I haven't written a word for weeks. This is a symptom of the seminary effect caused by being in the bubble, on a mountaintop in Israel, making my best efforts to become semmed out. Also the fact that I share my computers with 75 other girls.
But there's only 3 more weeks, and I will be free!
Never mind that I'm not sure I want to be. Leaving seminary is going to have more impact on me than I'm ready to accept. I'm leaving an entire world, one to which I will never return.
I'll be back in Israel, yes, but seminary?
No.