My dear Friends
I have now been back for more than a week.Here in Cambridge the sun is shining and I am sitting in the UL, which is the university library. I am going to write up the second part of my little book, which as you know was published three years ago. The book goes from 1999 which is when I finished the last part. It is taking a little more time than the last one, but if I persever I am sure it will be finished.
Here the university term is beginning again, and I have an invitation to one of the colleges for dinner. I will also be returning to my own college, Lucy Cavendish, a woman's college, where I studied Hebrew between 1988 and 1992. It was a beautiful experience.
I have started teaching some Hebrew and some things about the festivals to a group of Christians in Cambourne, a village outside Cambridge. It has been the Jewish festivals of the New Year and the Day of Atonement and it is coming up to the Feast of Tabernacles. All these I celebrated in my Jewish childhood and they are beautiful feasts.
Till next time
Shalom from
Sister Gila
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Ireland
My dear Friends
This time last week I was in the air above Dublin and flying back to Stansted. I had been in the Republic for a week and had an absolutely wonderful time! I had been to Co Galway before, three times in fact, but this was the first time I was in the south-east. Of course the whole thing was made better because I went to an old friend, a Religious Sister, Sr Christina, whom I had known over the years in her little community in Cambridge. So we go back a long way...
The place of their community is called Ferns, and is a village on the Dublin -Wexford road which takes about two hours to get to by bus. I had not realisd it is an old monastic foundation, dating back to the first Bishop, St Aidan, who live around 635AD. His traces were everywhere and I had the feeling he was following me around...
I spent the week in a little hermitage in the grounds of the monastery, praying, cooking, thinking, writing, and in between going to the mountains and the sea. I got rather fond of my little hermitage, fully equipped with its own kitchen, bedroom cum sitting room and bathroom. and the garden faced on to a famous hill whose name escapes me, anyway I couldn't pronounce the Gaelic which is delightfully everywhere.
I explored the castle with the help of Connor, one of the staff at the visitor centre, which was opened by Mary Macaleese, the President of Ireland. Several women of the village of Ferns got together and made 26 tapestries depicting the history of Ferns up to the Norman Invasion and the Vikings. I used to drop in for tea there and chat and felt sad to leave them even after only a week.
More tomorrow
Shalom from
Sister Gila
This time last week I was in the air above Dublin and flying back to Stansted. I had been in the Republic for a week and had an absolutely wonderful time! I had been to Co Galway before, three times in fact, but this was the first time I was in the south-east. Of course the whole thing was made better because I went to an old friend, a Religious Sister, Sr Christina, whom I had known over the years in her little community in Cambridge. So we go back a long way...
The place of their community is called Ferns, and is a village on the Dublin -Wexford road which takes about two hours to get to by bus. I had not realisd it is an old monastic foundation, dating back to the first Bishop, St Aidan, who live around 635AD. His traces were everywhere and I had the feeling he was following me around...
I spent the week in a little hermitage in the grounds of the monastery, praying, cooking, thinking, writing, and in between going to the mountains and the sea. I got rather fond of my little hermitage, fully equipped with its own kitchen, bedroom cum sitting room and bathroom. and the garden faced on to a famous hill whose name escapes me, anyway I couldn't pronounce the Gaelic which is delightfully everywhere.
I explored the castle with the help of Connor, one of the staff at the visitor centre, which was opened by Mary Macaleese, the President of Ireland. Several women of the village of Ferns got together and made 26 tapestries depicting the history of Ferns up to the Norman Invasion and the Vikings. I used to drop in for tea there and chat and felt sad to leave them even after only a week.
More tomorrow
Shalom from
Sister Gila
Friday 18 September 2009
Rosh Hashanah
My dear Friends
Tonight is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I will be celebrating with apples and honey, the traditional way of wishing people a happy and sweet New Year. In my childhood there was great excitement and anticipation leading up to this Festival, with new clothes and visits to the Synagogue.
On this Festival people ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life and begin the prayers asking for their sins to be forgiven, individually and communally. Thus the Synagogue liturgy is very solemn, with haunting and beautiful music, usually in the minor key. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah people go down to the river and symbolically throw their sins into the river.
Rosh Hashanah literally means the head of the year and I have a rather poignant story about this. I was asked to visit a lady who was totally paralysed and on the second occasion I sang to her at her bedside. She particularly enjoyed the Jewish music.I explained to her that I would not see her over the weekend as it was the Jewish New Year. 'When did you say the head of the year was, Gila' she asked. I had not mentioned the word head so it must have come straight up from her subconscious.
She died before I could see her again and I sang Jerusalem of Gold in Hebrew at her funeral.
More later
A very peaceful, happy and sweet New Year to you all
Sister Gila
Tonight is the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. I will be celebrating with apples and honey, the traditional way of wishing people a happy and sweet New Year. In my childhood there was great excitement and anticipation leading up to this Festival, with new clothes and visits to the Synagogue.
On this Festival people ask to be inscribed in the Book of Life and begin the prayers asking for their sins to be forgiven, individually and communally. Thus the Synagogue liturgy is very solemn, with haunting and beautiful music, usually in the minor key. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah people go down to the river and symbolically throw their sins into the river.
Rosh Hashanah literally means the head of the year and I have a rather poignant story about this. I was asked to visit a lady who was totally paralysed and on the second occasion I sang to her at her bedside. She particularly enjoyed the Jewish music.I explained to her that I would not see her over the weekend as it was the Jewish New Year. 'When did you say the head of the year was, Gila' she asked. I had not mentioned the word head so it must have come straight up from her subconscious.
She died before I could see her again and I sang Jerusalem of Gold in Hebrew at her funeral.
More later
A very peaceful, happy and sweet New Year to you all
Sister Gila
Monday 7 September 2009
Dumiyah
My dear Friends
To continue the story of Father Bruno in Neve Shalom. He decided once the community was up and running that, although ostensibly it was a secular group, there should be a religious dimension. So he and the community built the House of Dumiyah-Deep Silence. This name comes from a quotation of the first line of Psalm 65. (Unfortunately not in all the translations)
To continue the story of Father Bruno in Neve Shalom. He decided once the community was up and running that, although ostensibly it was a secular group, there should be a religious dimension. So he and the community built the House of Dumiyah-Deep Silence. This name comes from a quotation of the first line of Psalm 65. (Unfortunately not in all the translations)
To you, deep silence and praise is due in Zion.
Father Bruno built a round structure in the valley below the community. Members of the community, although not religious themselves, carried huge flagstones down the steep sides of the valley and laid them by hand in the House of Dumiyah. The roof was a huge white Dome. It was Father Bruno's intention that it should be a House of Deep Silence, where people could pray together. When I visited him, he invited me to visit the building. Standing facing him in the interior of the dome shaped building, the House of Deep Silence and also of Peace, I felt I had come home.
I am having a holiday and retreat in Ireland from 9th - 16th of this month, September, and so will be off-line from now. I feel very privileged to be going away for a quiet time in the build up to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which falls on September 19th and will chat about this on my return.
Shalom from
Sister Gila
Friday 4 September 2009
Oasis of Peace
My dear Friends
Neve Shalom/Wahaat al Salaam is a community of Israelis and Palestinians living together. They live in the Ayalon valley, famous in the Bible for the sun and moon standing still when Joshua was fighting a battle. It was also the site of a fierce battle in the 1948 War of Independence. The story of its origins is quite intriguing.
There was a priest called Fr Bruno Hussar, French of Egyptian Jewish parents, who had a message from God to build a community of peace between Jews and Arabs. A tall order, thought Fr Bruno, but being obedient to his divine Master he felt he must go ahead with it. So he bought the land on the Ayalon Valley for a token shekel from the monastery of Latrun nearby. The only poeple to come and help him were a group of hippies. So Bruno said to God: 'If you don't send a family of Jews and a family of Palestinians in the next week, I'm quitting! And so within the next week God sent the families Bruno had asked for.
When I went in 1989 there were 75 families and a School for Peace. That was built by someone else, a Jewish businessman who eventually came to live in Neve Shalom with his wife. In the school the children learn Hebrew and Arabic together. There are also workshops for Jewish and Arab teenagers who come to the community and confront the 'other' whom they have never previously met.
More next time
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
Neve Shalom/Wahaat al Salaam is a community of Israelis and Palestinians living together. They live in the Ayalon valley, famous in the Bible for the sun and moon standing still when Joshua was fighting a battle. It was also the site of a fierce battle in the 1948 War of Independence. The story of its origins is quite intriguing.
There was a priest called Fr Bruno Hussar, French of Egyptian Jewish parents, who had a message from God to build a community of peace between Jews and Arabs. A tall order, thought Fr Bruno, but being obedient to his divine Master he felt he must go ahead with it. So he bought the land on the Ayalon Valley for a token shekel from the monastery of Latrun nearby. The only poeple to come and help him were a group of hippies. So Bruno said to God: 'If you don't send a family of Jews and a family of Palestinians in the next week, I'm quitting! And so within the next week God sent the families Bruno had asked for.
When I went in 1989 there were 75 families and a School for Peace. That was built by someone else, a Jewish businessman who eventually came to live in Neve Shalom with his wife. In the school the children learn Hebrew and Arabic together. There are also workshops for Jewish and Arab teenagers who come to the community and confront the 'other' whom they have never previously met.
More next time
Shabbat Shalom
Sister Gila
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