Bat mitzvah

My dear Friends

Last Saturday (Shabbat) some friends and i had a beautiful and moving experience. We went to Beth Shalom, the Reform Synagogue in Cambridge, to hear a young girl coming of age in the community-this is called in Hebrew a Bat Mitzvah, literally a 'Daughter of the commandment.' (Perhaps you have heard of a Bar Mizvah).

During the course of the joyful service, which consisted of various prayers, songs and hymns, Sofia explained the verses that she was to chant from the Torah. These included the special Aaronic Blessing, and verses about sacrifices and the use of vessels in the Tabernacle. Not an easy choice, but the parasha, or series of verses, was alloted around Sofia's birthday.

She chanted beautifully and confidently and in the Sephardic Jewish mode, that is how the Jews of Spain, Portugal and Morocco chant. (It was quite different to my own debut at a much later age in the Ashkenazi, or Russian and Polish Jewish mode.)

As we listened, it was as if we went back thousands of years in Jewish history, right back to the Children of israel in the desert. Sofia's voice, my friend said, stretched right up to the Creator Himself.

I leave you with the Aaronic Blessing:

My the Lord bless you and keep you
May The Lord shine His face upon you and give you favour
May The Lord lift up His face to you and grant you Peace.

Shalom from Gila

Between Ascension and Pentecost

My dear Friends
We are in a season full of grace.The Church has celebrated several weeks of Eastertide, following on from the Resurrection.It is written in the New Testament that Jesus appeared to His disciples in Galilee many times after the Resurrection and prepared them for the time when He would ascend to the Father and send down the Holy Spirit as a Comforter and guide for their lives, in speech and action


'All that has life has breath.' Filled with the Spirit, in which we 'live and move and have our being', we can do anything that God wants us to do. We can pray, we can love, which is our greatest commandment, we can dance and sing and we can especially heal the sick and give light to the blind.


Henri Bergson, was a French philosopher in the 1930's and 1940's (he was a relative of mine on my grandmother's side.)He wrote about the 'elan vitale', the life force, which in religious terms is the Holy Spirit. Bergson spans the bridge between Judaism and Catholicism. They say, with his writings on Time, that he influenced Proust and his 'A la Recherche du temps perdue', In pursuit of Lost Time, which is written in the genre of the stream of consciouusness.(cf James Joyce and his novel 'Ulysses')


'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was null and void and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.'
Let us meditate on these great mysteries as we approach the great Feast of Pentecost this Sunday.


Shalom from
Gila

Amsterdam again

My dear friends

I wanted to share with you an experience I had in the Jewish Museum and some reflections on it. Lies and I went together. We had both seen Jewish artefacts, Torah scrolls, Menorahs etc., so we concentrated on a stunning art exhibition by two Jewish artists in the 1920's and 30's. Their names are Else Berg and Samuel Schwartz, known as 'Moomie.' Else painted figures, including a self portrait, while Moomie painted landscape and stil life. They went to many countries to paint and the pictures are ravishing, full of bright colours. Lies's favourite painting by Moomie was of a monastery somewhere in Italy, high up on a hill, the aspect of which fascinated the artist apparently.

They were associated with a Dutch school of painting and gathered somewhere with their friends outside Amsterdam. When the Nazis came they were hidden,presumably by their non-Jewish friends but for reasons which were 'unclear' (according to the information in the Jewish Musuem) they returned to Amsterdam in the early 1940's, were immediately rounded up with many other Jews and sent to Westerbork, where they were deported to Auschwitz and immediately sent to the gas chambers.Most ot the paintings were hidden, others confiscated by the Nazis and returned after the war.

Sometime I will tell you about Etty Hillesum, a twenty seven year old Dutch woman who was a mystic and felt that what was happening to the Jews was a part of history.She had a sense of their collective destiny-was this perhaps the reason that Else Berg and Moomie returned to Amsterdam? I know that this may sound controversial, but if you take it in the context of Death and Resurrection this may give us some meaning.  It says in John's Gospel that 'the darkness can never overpower, or even comprehend the Light.'

Hannah Senesh, a young Hungarian woman who flew a plane over Germany and was captured by the Nazis, said that'The souls of those who have gone before us light up the way for the rest of mankind.'

Shalom from
Gila

Paintings in Amsterdam

My dear Friends

The Rijksmuseum is in the middle of being renovated but you can see most of the best paintings, especially 'The Night Watch.' This painting by Rembrandt is full of burnished reds and golds. When it was originally hung, it was on a very long wall, which gave it much more depth-today it was in a small room, but the colours still stood out.

Virtually next to it are the Vermeers, which of course are much more homely. Vermeer's colours are also bold, and he adds yellows and blues, which are intimate and attractive. I bought a card for a friend with his painting of 'The girl with the pearl earring' (which has been made into a film). but I couldn't see it actually in the gallery. Despite the smallness of the current space in the gallery, you could still appreciate the stunning beauty of the paintings.

Dazzled by all this, Liesbeth and i decided to treat ourselves and go to the art nouveau cafe called the American. It was very near the museum and you have to dodge several fountains in front of the building. We sat in the corner on two armchairs and enjoyed a nice lunch with a glass of wine. At the next table ws a very nice retired Swedish couple-they had heard me telling the waiter that my family was Scottish, Swedish, Russian and Polish. and, of course Jewish.My Swedish grandmother came from Karlstadt, in the middle of the country and on the lake. this nice couple came from near Malmo, where my mother used to go for holidays and which is across the 'Sound' from Copenhagen.

I have to admit that i feel rather tired after all the walking and sightseeing-I leave tomorrow-but it has been a wonderful opportunity to catch up with Chava and Liesbeth, and meet all their children at last.

I am left with one impression which I want to share with you, but tomorrow is my last day and I will wait until returning to england. In the short term, I look forward to the final breakfast and one more conversation with the nice man from Vancouver (originally turkish) who I met a couple of days ago in the hostel dining room.

A bit too early to give you the following greeting, but here goes-

Wel te Ruste-Sleep well.

Shalom from Gila

News from amsterdam

My dear Friends

What a fascinating trip it has been so far! I am staying in the German Seaman's Mission, which used to be a hostel for sailors and is now for everyone. I have not seen a sailor so far, but Stefan, the guy on reception, goes out to the big boats and takes the sailors the things that they need.

The little breakast room faces a lovely canal, lit up at night, which houses some quite big barges. I think people live on them, but, like the sailors, i have not seen anyone. but it is the greatest pleasure to walk alongside the canals and gaze into the water-it gives a feeling of peace.

I am living very near Rembrandt square and there is a fine statue of him in the middle. tomorrow my friend lies and i will go to the museum with his paintings, but yesterday I saw the outside of the house where he spent most of his life. and presumably did his paintings. Not sure about that, because the paintings are enormous and would have never fitted in the narrow Dautch houses.

Speaking of which, I took an hour long boat trip on the water yesterday.I say 'water' because although most of the journey was along the canals, we did go as far as the beginning of the North Sea, where the water is wide and there are some big boats-very exciting!

On the tour we had the history of amsterdam, cruised along the different neighbourhoods and saw some very elegant houses, as well seeing some buskers with guitars taking a rest on a bench by the canal. they have put up smass railings to prevent cars faling into the water, but at least one car a week still tips into the canal!

Catch you again soon

Shalom from Gila

Run up to Amsterdam

My dear Friends
This will be the last blog before my trip to Amsterdam-I leave on Saturday. Chava and Liesbeth have made a detailed plan for me, apparently,with one or two gaps when i will be on my own. I have very little sense of direction, (once being lost in the middle of Tel Aviv for about three hours), but they have assured me they will acquaint me with the trams, as they know i don't enjoy walking too far either!

But isn't any holiday an adventure? You never quite know what will happen, but i am in good hands.I long to go to the Ryksmuseum and see the Rembrandts-I remember the first time I was gasping at the size of them, and oh, the colours, those deep reds and burnished golds of 'The Night Watch.' I have never been to the Van Gogh museum, but was very struck by the Jewish Museum. From the window you see a canal, and just behind a canal an old building, which turned out to be the Old Synagogue, where Chava got married.

Anyway, I will be in touch again in about two weeks, when we will be really into Eastertide. Between Easter sunday, Ascension and Pentecost we have seven weeks, when Jesus appeared to His disciples in Galilee. In parallel, the Jewish people celebrate passover and then 7 weeks until Shavuot, the giving of the Torah on Mount sinai.

Be well and joyful
Shalom from Gila

Chava and Liesbeth (contd.)

My dear Friends
Some of my more conservative friends in the Church were a bit concerned that I was having my first real Christmas in Amsterdam,but Chava and Lies took me a very traditional Jesuit Church, complete with choir and orchestra! Afterwards I prayed in the Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and I felt her hands on my shoulders.

When we were all in Israel, I had got to know a Calvinist Christian man and his family who asked me get in touch with him in Holland. I stayed in his house by the sea outside Amsterdam, just for one night, but it was enough to learn of his important work among the prostitutes, who were mainly from Catholic countries. He and his team brought them healing and shared the Gospel with them. His family were delightful and after dinner I took a walk near the sea front with his wife. The sky was full of stars and I was able to share at a very deep level with her. Their daughter was engaged to a man who was not from the same sect, and the next morning the daughter confided to me that she was looking for a church to marry them-she was even interested in the Catholic church!

Some time later, I visited them in their office in Amsterdam. I had a few hours to spare, so I went into a cafe in the city. The waiter brought me a menu-25 types of cannabis! But I only want a coffee, I said. that's okay, madam, he replied, we do that too!

More later
Shalom from
Sister Gila