My New Golden Rule, by MSIH's first year blogger of the month Jay Berkes

Procrastination is usually pretty fun.

That’s what I was thinking this morning when I was riding through the hills outside of Beer Sheva on one of the many mountain bike trails that surround the city. I should have been studying for the upcoming microbiology quiz. Or the upcoming histology quiz. Or the upcoming immunology quiz. I probably should reviewed gluconeogenesis for biochemistry, and I definitely should have looked back over my notes on recombinant DNA technologies for molecular biology.

But, procrastination is fun, so I kept riding. And after our two week break for the Jewish High Holidays, I’ve rediscovered the importance of little vacations like that.

Nitzanim Beach Weekend

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When you imagine your own personal getaway, the one in the forest, or on the beach, or in the city you’ve always wanted to visit, you do it for the solitude. Your own kind of solitude. You might do it for peace and quiet, or you might just do it for the difference that isn’t in a daily grind. It’s a grass-is-always greener thing, and it’s usually hyperbole. But hyperbole, like procrastination, is fun.

For me, solitude used to be the promise of efficiency; a window of opportunity. “If I can just get away, I’ll finally catch up.” It’s probably why I spent three weeks in a cabin in the mountains of southern Colorado studying for the MCAT. Or why I regularly spent my summers during college 1200 miles away from home…sorry, 1931.21 kilometers away from home. It might even be why I moved to Israel to attend medical school. But my break from school over the last couple of weeks has helped me understand what I really need out of little vacations.

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As one of the many non-Jewish students at MSIH, with no previous links to Israel, this is my first time experiencing the High Holidays. In the days leading up to our break they were explained to me as a new year celebration in September (Rosh Hashanah), a day where no one eats or drives (Yom Kippur), and a week where everyone eats their meals in little wooden dwellings outside of their houses (Sukkot).

After being welcomed with open arms into a Jewish household for a Rosh Hashanah feast, talking with new Israeli friends about the importance of self-reflection during Yom Kippur, and seeing little beautifully constructed huts pop up throughout my neighborhood I began to get a little more perspective on the traditional undercurrent of the High Holidays. Specifically, the concept of teshuva (תשובה), which literally means “return.” In respect to the High Holidays it means repentance, and the ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are especially focused on teshuva.

I’d never heard the word before a couple weeks ago, and I’m still a little fuzzy on the details, but I understood it as a kind of returning to your original nature, or refocusing on your real self. Personally, I’m no longer a practicing member of any religion, so I applied this idea of returning to your original nature and refocusing on your real self to the primary religion in my life: med school.

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Mountain biking north of Beer Sheva

Moving to a new country is jarring. So is starting professional school. Put the two together, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Our first 6 weeks included an accelerated emergency medicine course, hours upon hours of studying Hebrew, being introduced or reintroduced to some heavy scientific topics, and the many tedious details of securing housing, utilities, groceries, and school supplies.  Throughout those 6 weeks, the holiday break became more and more of grass-is-greener type of window of opportunity; a promise to catch up on the growing list of “things to review.” By the time the break arrived, though, that list had grown so long that it became its own source of stress. I was overwhelmed with class, and I was overwhelmed with break…Until this concept of returning or refocusing started weaving its way through my mind…On one bike ride it reminded me of how inspiring the desert scenery is around Beer Sheva. On one hike it reminded me of how the challenges of medical school are easily trumped by the excitement of learning. And when I shadowed one of the orthopedic physician assistants in the emergency department it reminded of how rewarding patient interactions are.

Nico and Raphy duking it out in Krav Maga. 

My true nature, and my real self, is the reason I came to medical school. Whenever the stressors get too great and I begin to lose sight of that reality, I’ll just need to make use of little vacations to help me return to that reality. Whether that means doing an extra Krav Maga session with my classmates, camping out on the beach for a weekend, or taking the occasional nap, I know that returning to my original self will help check things off my list much more effectively than worrying about how long it’s gotten. And I have my first High Holidays to thank. 

My new golden rule for the next four years: Plan to Procrastinate.

Holy Days by blogger of the month Jessie Seiler

As a student at MSIH, you’ll be offered opportunities to attend Shabbat and holiday dinners with families connected to the school. Take them all, even if you’re not Jewish and you’re nervous about what to wear, what to bring, and not knowing the prayers. I wouldn’t have given this advice a couple of months ago, not being much of a fan of holidays. So here’s an explanation for my change of heart.

I know this is supposed to be a blog about the experience of the first years at MSIH, so I sincerely apologize for the fact that this installment begins in Israel, but then heads back in time to a week I just spent in Portland, Oregon. 

To make up for it, I’ve included a few photos from classmate Justin Hylarides, who has a real skill with a camera.  These are shots from the class trip to Jerusalem, which I missed for the trip to Portland. But after my short holiday, I made it back to sandy Be’er Sheva. I promise the blog post will remain more or less rooted there the whole time.

 To start in the middle of things: A few days ago, I was very, very jet lagged. It’s a long trip back from Portland to Israel, and my trip out there was exhausting, so I spent all those long flights as little more than a sentient pile of comfortable clothing with ear plugs, an eye mask, and an endless appetite for free airplane wine. But I was happy to be back at school, and the timing couldn’t have been more compelling: I had arrived just in time for the holidays. In the middle of unpacking and greeting friends and trying to wrap my reluctant, complaining brain around the quantity of class I had missed, I accepted an invitation to attend Rosh Hashanah dinner with a member of the MSIH faculty, a doctor. And on top of my jet lag, yes, I was indeed nervous about what to wear, what to bring, and not knowing the prayers.

But I shouldn’t have been. It turns out that my general rule for these things – dress as if you’re going to visit your grandmother – holds up fairly well here; that you’re allowed to ask your host if you should bring anything; and that nobody expects you to magically be word-perfect on the prayers of a faith that isn’t yours. That’s not why you’re invited.

I’m not a religious person and my sense of holiness is a little vague, so holidays in the States sometime felt to me like very isolating times. As a kid, I associated them with not seeing my friends for a few days, since they were being whisked off on vacation by their parents or staying behind closed doors for what I could only assume was the torment of spending hours and hours with extended family, soberly playing board games and reverting to the behavior patterns of their childhoods. So I went a little nervously to the Rosh Hashanah dinner.

More than anything, it was a family meal. Sure, the host offered a couple of prayers at the beginning, and we all used the traditional greetings and words wishing each other a good new year. But beyond that, it was really a time for these four generations of a family to be together. We talked about the youngest member of the family, the great-granddaughter, who slept through the whole meal. Somebody made gentle fun of one of granddaughters, who is shy in English and apparently very forthcoming in Hebrew. Pictures were taken and shown off, courses came and went, and conversation flowed in Hebrew and English.

Through the haze of jet lag and the stupefying effect of a delicious and very long meal, I realized that I had been asked over for a holiday by a complete stranger. We don’t often consider doing that in American culture. But how special is it to invite somebody into your home? We do it so often on mundane occasions – the repairman comes around to fix your washing machine, or your friend drops by to pick up that book you promised her – that we don’t see it as being that big of a deal. But we know it’s different for holidays. All the traditions your family has spent generations accumulating are there to be shared with a stranger. All the closeness and intimacy of a family gathering are being observed by an outsider. When you bring a stranger to your home for a holiday, you’re inviting them to join this intimate moment of communion: communion both between family members and between what is human and what is holy.

Which brings me back to my reason for missing the class trip to Jerusalem, on top of several days of class. Oregon is ten time zones away from where my classmates were attending class lectures and histology quizzes and important meetings, and I was there for my brother’s wedding. My brother and I weren’t really raised together. Being invited to the wedding wasn’t like being invited as a stranger to the Rosh Hashanah dinner, but I would still be seeing family members I hadn’t had a chance to be with since I was very young. I would be defining my place in this family by attending the wedding.

I could talk about how beautiful the occasion was forever, but I’ll try to be brief. To see my brother and new sister-in-law stand together and make a promise was to witness a miracle, and the act of adding my blessing to those of their other family members and close friends was the closest I’ve felt to holy action in years. Because to be included in a wedding like that is to be invited to a holy day. You come together, everyone gathers close, you sing or speak or whisper a blessing out loud and hope that it comes close to the one that is moving through your heart, mind, and whole body in a way you could have sworn (because you’re a medical student) was reserved for your blood alone, and something about your coming together to celebrate, thank, and bless offers protection, comfort, and joy.

It was a much greater moment of communion than what I would be experiencing in a few days at the Rosh Hashanah dinner, but it prepared me for it: to see the holy and the human, and to accept a place in a community when you’re invited in.

So that’s why my advice to future MSIHers is to go to all the holidays they can. Because attending a brother’s wedding and being invited to a holiday dinner have a lot in common with what it felt like to be embarking upon a public health program, or what I imagine meeting a new patient for the first time will be like. It’s about learning how to accept a generously offered place next to somebody new or in a new world and family, at a moment when something holy is happening.