Israeli Music is Great!

Today's New York Times had an interesting article about the music culture in Sderot.
Sderot is, of course, best known for weathering the most Qassam rockets in Israel, being right on the border with Gaza. The article talks about how more hit music groups have come out of this small town than almost anywhere in Israel. Notably, this year's entry from Israel in the annual Eurovision Song Contest comes from a Sderot group, Teapacks. The song was controversial because it has a political message. Some said that the Eurovision contest shouldn't have messages like that...my understanding of a lot of Israeli pop/rock is that most of it has political messages! So it might be hard to choose something without!!

To see the Teapacks video of their Eurovision song, click below. There's a way to click (on the right) for the lyrics to the song too. You decide if it's a political statement....

Happy Birthday Israel! (A tiny bit late)

Okay, so I'm a couple of days late to celebrate Israel's birthday. My son's school had birthday cake (always a favorite activity, right?) and the JUF Israel Solidarity Day/Walk with Israel is coming up in a week or so. So in honor of Israel's birthday, I share with you this beautiful song by Israeli singer Sarit Hadad. Did you know that YouTube is a great place to explore Israeli music? Who knew. Enjoy!

Our Thoughts are in Virginia....

A prayer, from ritualwell.org

Blessed are you, Source of Life,
Who helps us to bring Light
where there is darkness,
Healing where there is brokenness, and
Peace to all of the earth's inhabitants.

May it be so.

Busy Being Busy

This past week's New York Times ran an article entitled: "Too Busy to Notice You're Too Busy."

From the article, which cited from the book, CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! Strategies for Handling Your Fast-Paced Life by Dr. Edward Hallowell:

• According to Dr. Hallowell, there are many (26 in his book) overlapping reasons we all fall into the trap of being overly busy. A few are:
• It is so easy with cellphones and BlackBerrys a touch away.
• It is a kind of high.
• It is a status symbol.
• We’re afraid we’ll be left out if we slow down.
• We avoid dealing with life’s really big issues — death, global warming, AIDS, terrorism — by running from task to task.
• We do not know how not to be busy.
  
  Not only are we constantly occupied, but we, as Americans, are also famous for not knowing how to be unoccupied.

I love nothing better than to spend Shabbat afternoon doing nothing with my family -- hanging out in the living room, having friends over, letting the kids run around and play. We recently spent a day with a family that really wanted to schedule all the events. Now don't get me wrong, I love a good schedule. In fact, I wake up most mornings with a little schedule growing in my brain. But I have learned that just inviting a friend over with no agenda or curling up on the couch with my son to read as many chapters as he wants with no time restraints is usually much more fulfilling for me than planning a family outing to a museum or zoo. Those things are fun, but certainly for us in moderation!

How do you handle these ideas in your own life? During the holiday of Passover, we spend a lot of time thinking about slavery and celebrating freedom. We say that we are free, but are we really free when we are merely "re-enslaved" to our phones and our computers, our pda's and our calendars? How many of our children have that precious "downtime" that we know is so good for their souls?

Having a new baby certainly requires a slowing down...things have to happen on her schedule, not on mine. And nursing a baby requires even more -- it's hard to multi-task beyond perhaps talking or watching tv, and it's about how long it takes her to eat, not how long I want it to take! Sure, I can nudge her into my schedule if I have to. But I know that ultimately, she is in charge, which can be a frustrating but also exhilarating experience. I think it's one of the blessings of maternity leave -- the world works at a completely different pace. It is certainly hard to let go of some of the things that I wish were happening, even so much as cleaning up the kitchen or doing laundry, but I know that at the end of the day, I'm doing such an important job... even if it is 6:15am as I type this, and the baby has decided that it's "awake time"!

A side note, I have been struggling with this busy phenomenon for some time now and I highly recommend one of my favorite books: Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry by Katrina Kenison... a lovely and eloquent book on slowing down family life.