Our twelve-year-old daughter Merav became bat mitzvah this weekend. It was an amazing event for the whole family. She read the entire Torah portion of Bereshit plus the haftorah, and she gave a stellar drash to boot. Jody and I were shepping nachas big time.

I wanted to share with you the talk Merav gave in synagogue on Shabbat and at her party the next night. If you'd like to say mazal tov to Merav, post a comment on the blog or drop me a line at brian@ThisNormalLife.com and I'll make sure she gets it.

(The picture you see here, by the way, was taken during Merav's practice session before Shabbat.)

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"My parsha, Parshat Bereshit has some of the most interesting – yet confusing – stories in the entire Torah. Those stories include the six days of creation, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and a talking and walking snake that gives bad advice.

"What am I, a 12-year old bat mitzvah girl, supposed to make of all that?
 
"As I studied Bereshit for my bat mitzvah, the same questions kept coming up for me and I was determined to find the answers. They’re not easy questions.

"How do we know these stories are true? We weren’t there after all. Did things really happen exactly the way it says in Bereshit? If not, what do these stories mean? How can we really know? Should we read Bereshit as a literal history or as something more like a poem or a good story? What should we do when the Torah and science disagree?
 
"I started by doing a short research project. I asked my parents and my siblings, friends young and old my questions. The results that I found were that many of the younger children said of course it really happened, that’s what it says in the Torah. Most of my friends in school said the same.
 
"My counselors in Scouts were not so sure. One said yes I believe in everything that the Torah says. But another said she only believes part of the things that seem most real to her.
 
"As I went on to asking older people, most of them said no, and that wasn’t the point, the Torah comes to teach us more than just history.
 
"At this point, I was getting pretty confused. Was there an answer or not? I decided to see what some great thinkers had to say.
 
"The Lubavitcher Rebbe gives the least flexible opinion. When asked about fossils that are millions of years old, he says that if there’s disagreement between Torah and science, Torah is always right.
 
"The Rambam takes the opposite view. If there is a conflict between Torah and science, science is always right. He writes in Hakdama L’Mishna that Torah should not be read literally. He says:


 
"'The Torah speaks in the language of man.'
 
and


 
“'It isn’t possible to teach the many without using riddles and stories.'
 
"He gives the example of the sun and the earth. How would you know that the sun is actually bigger than the earth unless you studied handasah – that is, math? He concludes that man needs to study science in order to fully understand the Torah.
 
"Professor Shmuel Hugo Bergman, who won the Israel Prize in 1954, says that science and Torah are both right and are not in conflict because they speak two different languages. He writes:
 


“'There is no conflict between science and discovering more and more about the rules and reasons that act on man, and between the personal feelings of man.'
 
"He also uses an example about the sun. We expect the sun to rise every morning and science can teach us about how this happens scientifically. But as Rabbi Akiva says in Pirkei Avot:


 
"We have the privilege to relate to the sunrise however we want, as an everyday action or as a miracle from the Torah.
 
"Professor Bergman’s answer really spoke to me. But I still wasn’t sure. As I was thinking about it, I had a conversation with a friend of my Dad’s. What he said was that it doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks. What matters is what I think and how I understand it and how it can make me a better person.
 
"I am grateful for all the ideas I got. But in the end I have to figure it for myself and decide what makes it meaningful for me. I think that’s what being a bat mitzvah is all about.
 
"This fits with what Rav Kook says in Igrot HaRe’ayah.
 

 
“'The Torah doesn’t come to teach us history but rather how to behave in the world.'

"He goes on and says:
 


"'For every opinion that comes to disagree with something in the Torah, we need to start not with disagreeing but with building a palace of Torah on top.'
 
"What I think he means by building a palace of Torah is that we should use disagreement to rise higher and higher up the ladder of becoming a better person.
 
"I want to thank my father for helping me with this drash and my mother for taking me shopping for everything I needed for this day, and to both of them for being here with all the love and support I needed.

"I want to thank my little brother Aviv for being cute…most of the time. And my big brother Amir for not being annoying…most of the time.
 
"I want to thank my grandparents and my uncle Dave and Jen who came all the way from California to be here with me, and my cousins Dori and Richard who came all the way from Toronto. I want to thank Amirit Rosen for teaching me the trope and the haftorah, helping me with the sources for this drash, and guiding me through this process.
 
"And last I want to thank all my friends and people from out of town who came to celebrate here with me and my family.
 
"Now, you’ve probably been wondering: what was my conclusion? What do I think about the big questions I raised? What was it that I decided made all this meaningful and will make me a better person?
 
"But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? What matters is what you think."

We were in the middle of nowhere, hiking through a flat desert plane between two mountain ridges with nary a bush or significant cluster of rocks located anywhere in close range, when seven-year-old Aviv nonchalantly blurted out:
 
“I need to make.”
 
Four words that every parent has heard repeated countless times, in countless places.
 
“But...” I said, feigning exasperation. “There’s nowhere to make...here.”
 
We were out hiking in Israel's Negev desert with a group of about 20 other adults and children.
 
“But I need to,” Aviv said. “Badly.”
 
Now, we’ve done a fair amount of traveling as a family. And one thing you become pretty expert at when you’re on the road is how to handle potty breaks. I dare say we’ve gotten to know the inner plumbing of country and city alike when it comes to bathrooms.
 
The best place to look for a bathroom? A theme park. Plentiful facilities, generally clean, no waiting.
 
That is if you’re a boy. Try hitting the bathroom after the super twirly-wheel roller coaster thingie as a woman and you may find your bladder breaking before you’re granted relief.

At least that’s what the two female members of the Blum clan tell me.
 
Aviv and I are members of the frequent peeing club. I blame myself. For years, I used to drink an inordinate amount of water – upwards of four to five liters a day. That was until the doctor warned me about the dangers of "water intoxication." Apparently if you down, like, 15 liters in an hour, your blood cells get so inundated they can't function and you die.

Now I'm done to "only" 2.5 liters a day.
 
That's still a lot, and as a result, I’m constantly in need of a bathroom. And whenever we’re on a trip, I always ask if anyone else needs to go.
 
Aviv initially tagged along just to be with his father, I think. He liked waving his hand across the automatic eye that flushes the toilet or turns on the air hand dryer in most state-of-the-art facilities.
 
At some point, though, it developed into a habit.
 
It’s dangerous to hold it in - someone taught me that once. I have no idea if it’s medically correct. But it feels right.
 
The worst places to find a bathroom, by the way? A tie between the Czech Republic and India.
 
In the former, you have to pay everywhere. We try to save money when we travel. We buy bread and cheese and make picnics. But we use it all up on paid potty stops every 20 minutes.
 
India is a whole different ballgame. You’re better off going on a street corner, or in a field next to a cow than using some of the unbelievably filthy facilities…and they charge for those too in most places.
 
I know I’m not the only one who’s ever thought about the logistics of finding a bathroom in a hurry. One of my favorite websites is called Urinal.net. It solicits traveler-contributed pictures of men’s bathrooms from around the world.
 
The site is addictive…and educational too. You’d be surprised by what you can learn about local culture by looking at foreign toilets. The most unusual urinal on the site: on the space station orbiting earth.

There's also the Sulabh International Museum of Toilets which has a real live facility in New Delhi (of all places!) and entices visitors with the indepth online essay "The Evolution of Toilets."

A few years ago, at the height of dot.com mania, I thought it would be a great business to have a guide to every public restroom in major tourist spots. Like when you’re in Rome, where exactly and how much will it cost you to make like a Roman? The guide would rank bathrooms and include must-have information (such as toilet paper or bring your own).
 
I imagined the whole thing eventually going wireless, so you could call up the list on your GPS-enabled cellphone and the system would triangulate the nearest facility, complete with shortcut walking instructions. I dreamed of raising millions in venture capital and then flipping the company to Frommer’s or Lonely Planet.
 
I kind of gave up when I thought about what I’d tell people I did for a living. “Oh I run a site cataloging worldwide toilets.”
 
That and the fact that the URL bathrooms.com was taken by a British site founded by two brothers who, according to the website, “have over 45 years of experience in the UK Bathroom Industry.”
 
Hey, I have 45 years experience of my own, doesn’t that count for anything?
 
None of which had any relevance for the matter at hand: a seven-year-old boy and an open desert.
 
I looked around again. No, nothing, not even a mirage to camouflage what needed to be done.
 
“Can you hold it until we get a little farther?” I asked, eyeing the mountains in the distance.
 
Aviv shook his head.
 
There are many different customs concerning pee-ing in public. But for the most part, if you’re seven or under and out in nature, well, you can just let nature take its course.
 
“OK, then we’re just going to have to fall back and wait until everyone passes us.”
 
“What if they turn around and look?”
 
“They won’t,” I said, not entirely sure I was right (while at the same time wondering when my seven-year-old became so self-conscious).
 
It took a long time for the group to pass the plane.
 
“Let’s do it. Now,” I said.
 
“I can’t,” Aviv said.
 
“No one’s looking. I promise.”
 
“No, I mean, I don’t have to anymore.”
 
“But…”
 
I may never know what goes on in the mind…and bladder of a seven-year-old. But Aviv just started up again, running to catch the group, and leaving me to contemplate my, well…
 
I took advantage of the solitude and gave another thought to my brilliant bathroom business. Maybe if I turned it into a guide for locating crevices and cliffs when out in nature…

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Have you gone on an interesting tiyul during Sukkot? Drop me an email and let me know!

I dare say we must have the easiest sukka in the world to build. A sukka is an outdoor dwelling that Jews traditionally build during the holiday of Sukkot to commemorate our ancestors' exodus from Egypt when they had to live in this type of desert hut.

Now, our apartment is on the top floor and has a large terrace covered with a pergola. So all we have to do to build the sukka is cover the top of the pergola with schach - the leafy covering that is usually made of palm fronds (we use the permanent stuff that "rolls out" - think of it as the sukka equivalent of a fruit leather vs. the real thing).

The whole process takes no more than 15 minutes to complete. With a couple of intrepid children who don't mind climbing to jaw-dropping heights (warning kids: don't try this in your home), it's a snap to construct a temporary tabernacle sweet enough to shake a lulav at.

Getting the schach to stay up there, however, takes a bit of engineering skill.

The schach we use has these thin threads that attach the bamboo strips together. The kids insert string inbetween the threads and around the wooden slats of the pergola beneath. I then tie it all up from the other side, while standing on a chair. It’s always been a piece of cake.

Until two years ago.

What is it about the holiday season in Israel that makes the weather so consistently cruel.? Take Yom Kippur for example. No matter if the days leading up to the Day of Atonement are as lovely as a Jerusalem summer night, the day of the fast itself will always be a scorcher.

Same with Sukkot. Because of the intricacies of synchronizing the Jewish and non-Jewish calendars, the holiday where we're commanded to dwell outdoors among the elements could fall anywhere from the beginning of September to the end of October. In either, case, less than 24 hours before the start of holiday, strong winds and rain always descend on us in on Jerusalem.

As the schach began billowing last night - right on queue - I was reminded of a story from Sukkot two years ago...

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It's a half an-hour before the holiday begins, and twelve-year-old Amir comes bounding downstairs in a panic.

“There’s...a...big wind...It’s blowing...all the...schach...off!” he pants in time to the gusts which have kicked up at this, the eleventh hour before we can no longer make changes to the sukka according to Jewish Law.

All right, I think to myself. No cause for concern. Maybe a couple of the strings have come loose. It’s never happened before, but we can handle it.

This is a big wind though. And Amir is right. Both rolls of bamboo are billowing in the air, held on by just a couple of the strings we so meticulously tied.

Amir flies back onto the roof, employing some super hero powers heretofore never witnessed in our house. He literally throws himself onto the schach to keep it from flying off completely and hurtling downward.

As he holds on to one end of the schach, I do my best to assess the situation and offer solutions.

What I can see is that our string is still attached to the pergola slats, but the threads in the schach itself have torn clear through.

“Maybe we tied it in the wrong spot,” I suggest. “Why don't we wrap the string lengthwise around the bamboo strips and not just in the connectors. What do you think?”

Amir says nothing. He is laying spread eagle three stories up on top of a rickety wooden structure in the midst of a Jerusaelem version of a hurricane. His face sports the forlorn look of a child watching all his hard work blown away in a single act of a God with a wicked sense of timing.

We have no choice but to get to work. While keeping his torso splayed across one side of the schach, he begins threading the string in the new manner we’ve worked out. But he’s only one person...

Another huge gust slams into him, causing the schach to rise like a living creature. It turns, then twists back on itself before crashing down again. For this moment in time, Amir has taken on the role of Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as he faces down a formerly inanimate object with a newly independent mind of its own.

Amir ties one corner and starts a careful crawl across the schach. As he does so, though, he scrapes his knee. He lets out a yowl.

“I can’t do this,” he whimpers. “I have to rest.”

“We can’t stop now, Amir,” I respond. “What if another big wind comes and blows even harder? This is war!”

“But Abba, I can’t.”

“Imagine you’re in the middle of a battlefield, Amir. If you were to take a break at the height of the fighting, the enemy tanks would run you over. You’ve got to buckle up, forget about your pain and finish the job. We have no choice!

Now, I’ve never actually been in the army, but I can imagine this must be how a sergeant barks orders in a life or death situation. And right now I am Amir’s commanding officer.

Amir gets the message. Leaping from corner to corner while grimmacing in pain, he threads the strings like the trooper I know he can be, covering every base until any possibility of rogue schach has been neutralized.

The job is complete. As we survey the final results, a siren starts to wail. Not an air-raid siren (although that would be appropriate) but the shrill call that blares from loudspeakers all across Jerusalem announcing that start of the holiday of Sukkot.
 
The Battle for the Blum's Sukka has been won.

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The schach held that year. But the following Sukkot it broke through again and the dramatic events I just described were more or less repeated (though this time we were prepared for the inevitable and as a result a bit less panicked).

This season, though, a conversation with a Rabbi friend led to a startling revelation: we didn't actually need to put schach on top at all!

According to halacha (Jewish law), the Rabbi told us, our pergola was already a proper sukka. We just needed to make a "symbolic" act of "building" the roof anew. Schach was fine, but tying down a single wooden board with heavy duty rope would do the job just as well.

Our schach-less sukka looks a little bare this year. But I think we paid our dues. Sometimes you win a war through brute strength.

Other times, you just have to think a little out of the hut.

(This article first appeared on the This Normal Life website in 2003 and has been a reader favorite. I'm re-posting it now as we head towards Yom Kippur 2005. May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.)

When we moved to Israel eleven years ago, we were met with all kinds of changes – schools, work, food. And as October approached, there was an additional question: where we would pray for High Holyday services?

When we lived in North America, this wasn’t such a big deal: there were only a few options in our community and, in any case, we were already members of lovely congregation.

In Israel, however – and in Jerusalem in particular – there are literally thousands of options, from the tiny to the toney. So on the High Holydays, we found ourselves shul-hopping for a few years before discovering a place so unique it has developed its own fan club.

Amiqa D’Bira – dubbed the “Leader Minyan” for brothers Avraham and Zelig Leader who founded it (it has nothing to do with the congregation being "leaders," so now you know) – the service is heavily inspired by the music and teachings of the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

The minyan meets only for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and then once a month during the year on the Shabbat prior to Rosh Hodesh – the beginning of the new month.

But that’s more than enough to keep our spiritual batteries fully charged.

Amiqa D’Bira is the kind of place you either love or hate. The growing number of “Carlebach” minyans around the world are famous for their spirited singing and dancing, but this one takes things to an extreme. Shabbat services start at 8:00 AM and rarely end before 2:30 or 3:00 PM. An extended Kiddush with more than a little schnapps doesn’t hurt, either.

(On Yom Kippur, the service starts at 6:30 AM and doesn't end until a good 12 hours later...without a break...oy!)

Those who who’ve never experienced the intimate, sweaty joy that this kind of over-the-top davening (praying) brings are quick to deride its “unholy” length, rolling their eyes judgmentally and commenting how they like their prayer short and to the point.

To each his own. We love it.

While the minyan is always a blast, it especially rocks on the High Holidays when Ebn Leader, son of founder Zelig, returns home to lead the services.

Ebn, who now lives in Boston where he directs the Bet Midrash program at Hebrew College,  has developed a style that is all his own. A Rabbi, musician and Talmud scholar, he scores the service like a rock opera, bringing the music at times to crescendo, dipping down to melodic introspection, rocking out with an infectious beat, and finally soaring with a repeating wordless chorus on a par with the best of Genesis in its 1970s Peter Gabriel heyday.

Arms flailing, dancing at the bima, he mixes Israeli pop tunes, snatches of reggae, classic folk (Greensleeves is a favorite), Sefardi nigunim, the best of Carlebach of course, and urban rap (his hip hop adaptation of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” during a previous year’s Rosh Hashana services is missing only the scratching on an old ‘45).

There’s no need for a choir or organ; Ebn is a one man rhythm section, banging on the table, slamming two plastic chairs together, and generally leading the congregation in a vigorous workout of hand-clapping (think “boot camp”-style aerobics for the soul).

There are those who say Ebn is too over the top. That he is more self-aware than selfless. I say he is Yom Kippur’s first true rock star and we are his groupies.

We are awed when he enters the room, breathless with anticipation as his deep baritone belts out Kol Nidre, and high on life during the frenetic, arms-bonded dancing at the end of every Kaddish.

When I was growing up, I imagined that prayer must necessarily be composed of somber wailing and shuckling, and that Yom Kippur was the saddest day of the year. At Jerusalem's "Leader Minyan," I discovered how wrong I was.

Yom Kippur is the happiest, rockin-est, dancin-est holiday on the Jewish calendar. And I know a shul-full of pre, post, and wanna-be hippies who’ll gladly testify to that!