Category: Living

Time Flies When You’re… Working and Living As An Adult
Emily Bernstein
March 5, 2019

It has come to my attention that I have left this blog to fall to the side. Which is kind of the story of my life because who even knows how many blogs I have floating in the universe that have one or two posts on them and then I either forgot to post, forgot the password, or just started a new one for the hell of it (my mom can attest that this happens with real journals as well – I think she counted seven earlier this year?).

To sum up what you’ve all (and by all, I mean some of my friends and my family) missed:

  • Mom, Dad, and Meghan came to visit and we had an amazing time going around Israel and seeing all the sights!
  • We (the four Bernsteins) rang in the New Year at Disney Paris which was so cool! First of all, the roller coasters are way better there – almost every one had a loop-d-loop, which is, of course, the official term, and they were fast and exciting. 10/10 would recommend.
  • I spent two days in Paris wandering the city and wondering if it was possible for me to stay there forever.
  • I worked. I got tonsillitis. I worked. I watched Netflix. You know, the usual.
  • Some of my friends and I went to Tel Aviv to take in some good old Vitamin D and – hello, it’s me – tacos!

Now, not to make any excuses, but the reason I haven’t posted is that every time I think about posting, it’s all to do about adulthood and if you scroll down a little, you’ll see that I already ranted about that, so there’s no reason for you all to read about that again!

I suppose I don’t really have anything of substance to say all things considered. And, while I know not all blog posts have to be deep and full of fancy language, I honestly don’t have much to report. (Want to hear about something in particular? Leave a comment below!!)

Please enjoy the slideshow of photos (which are horrendously out of order – thanks WordPress update) below, which are all from the bullet points above.

Much love from Jerusalem!

!שלום

A Definitely Cynical and All-Around Slightly Depressing Post About Adulthood
Emily Bernstein
January 8, 2019

What do you hope to be doing in 5 years?

I hate this question. I got asked it two years ago, and the year before that. I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer it considering that I don’t know what I want to be doing when I’m 26 or 27, let alone what I’m having for dinner tomorrow night.

If you had asked me 5 years ago what I thought I was going to be doing today, I wouldn’t have said living in Israel, studying for the LSAT before going to law school. I would have said I would be interning at a publishing house in New York City, working my way up to becoming an editor while working on my own manuscript. And so much has changed since. Life is funny that way.

And I still can’t answer that question. To be honest, I can’t tell you a lot of things.

When I graduated college, I think I assumed something magical was going to happen. That the tassel was going to move, and I was just going to know. Know without a doubt what I want to do professionally, know how to pay bills, know how to budget effectively, know what I’m already doing, know how to host a classy dinner party with friends, know who I’m going to be.

Yet, here we are, six months post-graduation and, once a day, I still think how am I allowed to be an adult?

I reach for my phone to call my mom every time I don’t feel well, I text my sister constantly about my friends and in dire need of advice, and my dad is my go-to guy on all my technology questions.

And let’s not forget about the internet.  If I have no idea how to do something, the whole world – or almost all of it – is at the tip of my fingers.

But still…

I have no idea what I’m doing.

Google is no help. Google gives me WikiHow articles. Google gives me advice columns about making my bed every morning, checking my ego, calling people back in a timely manner, being grateful. But that’s not how to be an adult, that’s just how to be a good human being.

I guess what I want to know is: when do I start knowing?

And I’d like to know. Just know. I’d go to school forever if I could – study literature, law, politics, teaching, history, art. I’d learn and study and then maybe I’d have the knowledge. But I doubt it.

See, school is really useful in that it gave me – and will continue to give me – critical thinking skills that are useful in the real world to an extent. But what’s going to give me the knowledge (maybe I should be referring to it with a capital K) is getting out into the world and working and acting like an adult.

But how am I supposed to know how to be an adult? High school and first year of university classes take so much care to introduce you to and ease you into what it is to be a college student. Then, you get to senior year, you have your graduation gown and you’ve decorated your cap, and what do you get?

An empty diploma booklet and a bag full of “goodies” containing an envelope asking for donations.

No helpful hints on how to actually be an adult – just a drawn-out graduation speech from some household name celebrity that has vague references on how to succeed as an adult. Not that I didn’t like my graduation speaker – he was actually quite funny – but his advice didn’t have a lot of weight. His speech was engaging and full of humorous anecdotes that, surrounded by the magic of graduation, really inspired me.

But here I am. And… I feel like I’m floundering.

As millennials, my peers and I face a lot of criticism about being lazy or spending too much money on avocado toast or feeling better than our jobs.

But it’s the opposite. We have to work twice as hard as other people to prove ourselves, to make our voices heard, to make our positions matter. Our toiling away in jobs we feel better than is because the job market demands experience in fields we don’t have experience in due to our toiling away in school for 17+ years. I’ve had a job since I was 15 and I still don’t have enough office experience to even interview to be someone’s assistant.

So how am I supposed to use my fancy degree from a fancy university to do anything other than something I feel might be slightly below me due to the lack of experience I have. (This statement does not apply to what I’m doing right now in Israel – it is obviously a feeling expressed in cynicism about the job market in America.) So yeah, we feel better than our jobs.

How could we not? We’ve been in school for 17+ years working our butts off for jobs we can’t get.

And, personally, all I see are other people my age floundering and putting on their work clothes every morning pretending they know what they’re doing – just like I do. None of us really know anything, so we eat our avocado toast with pride because at least we know that avocado is amazing.

I’m not trying to make excuses for my generation. Really, I’m not. I’m just trying to understand. And I’m sorry if you came to this blog post looking for some sort of conclusion. I don’t have one.

Yet.

So, I guess, for now, I’ll stick with the age-old adage of fake it ‘til you make it. After all, that’s what everyone else is doing…right?

שׁלום

“How Much Is Easy Going To Get You?”
Emily Bernstein
November 17, 2018

“But easy’s like, who cares? Easy’s like, how much is easy going to get you?”
-Anne Lamott

I’m a self-declared homebody. I’m also an unashamed introvert. I need time to myself to recharge and feel fully human again – to brush off the morning I woke up feeling depressed and had to drink three cups of water in quick succession to get my body going, to stop dwelling on that one thing I said on Tuesday about something so unimportant that I’m the only one still thinking about it, to start again. And I love having my own space. After a long day at work, I like coming home to a space I inherently know is my own – a place that feels like, and is, a home. And yeah, I like curling up in my free time with a book or with Netflix. All of this soothes my very heavy and needy anxiety. It calms me.

Now, pack all of this into two suitcases and a backpack and move it all across the world to a foreign country for 10 months. I know, sounds impossible, right?

It’s safe to say that (after almost three months) I’m finally starting to feel settled. My apartment is becoming home. My roommates have adjusted to the fact that, sometimes, I’m too overwhelmed to communicate beyond hellos. I’ve started to feel comfortable in a city that, for a long time – even before I decided to move here – was little more than a line in a prayer, a place to visit next Pesach.

And now that Jerusalem is home (a phrase I never thought I’d have the privilege to write), now that I’m starting to feel comfortable, I’ve realized this:

It’s not supposed to be easy.

This probably sounds silly. Duh, Emily, why did you ever think moving across the world to a place where there will be a language barrier, a cultural barrier, and the like would ever be easy?

But that’s not what I mean. Because no one in their right minds would think any of that would be easy. I don’t mean easy in terms of simplicity of logistics. I mean easy in terms of emotionally, intellectually, and ideologically.

What I mean is that an opportunity like this – to live in Jerusalem, have a fellowship, work within the government is supposed to be challenging. It’s supposed to have felt odd and difficult at first.

Because if we don’t push ourselves out of these comfort zones, if we don’t search for anything beyond our satisfying little boxes, if we don’t move beyond our lane, we will never grow. 

A program like this forces you to look at the world, and all its inhabitants, more intensely, and in a new light. We are all looking at our own views and opinions more closely – whether that is spurred on by each other, our internship placements, or our speakers – and whether or not our views change is irrelevant because at least we’re listening.

I find myself looking more critically at the world. My friends and I have conversations that shift from Israeli politics, to US politics, to what’s new in American football, to religion, and back again – something that simultaneously makes my head spin and impresses me. I wake up every day with a new conviction to change something.

So, okay. I’m ready for more challenges. I’m ready to push myself. I’m ready to step even further outside of my box.

Bring it on.

.שׁלום

There Is Too Much… Let Me Sum Up
Emily Bernstein
November 5, 2018

My lack of updates on my life here has not been for lack of something to share, nor has it been because of laziness. Actually, it has just been due to how busy it’s all been and the fact that, about a month ago now, I started my internship!

The work we do at my office is quite incredible. For a multitude of reasons, I can’t say too much about it. The main reason being that I’ll just babble about it because I get very excited about it and all the work we do.

I spent most of my days researching and writing, which, if you know me at all, is right up my alley. The people in my office are very nice and, because some of them don’t speak English, I’m working on my Hebrew skills (hopefully).

It’s strange to have already turned to November (metaphorically, of course, as I don’t have a calendar here other than my planner which I technically turn every week). It’s odd to have been here two months already and still feel like I’m leaving in a week. However, the little town of Jerusalem has officially started to feel like home. It’s a home without access to nachos, but it’s a home nonetheless.

A very exciting thing happened last week, which was that Dad came to visit! Dad jaunted over to Israel after being in Europe and spent the weekend with me. I was very excited to see him, but more excited to see all the stuff he brought me – some shoes I forgot, my kindle, and, to my surprise, an Aaron Rodgers jersey! I was shocked and excited to the point of speechlessness (although I’m kind of embarrassed to wear it now – the Packers are really disappointing me this season). This might seem like an inconsequential detail to you but it was an important detail to me and so you must hear about it.

We had Shabbat, ate tacos (because of course I found tacos here – don’t doubt my powers), walked through the Old City, went to a yummy brunch, visited the Kotel on Saturday… Just regular my-dad-is-visiting-me-in-Israel things.

Then, we said goodbye, but Dad will be back, along with Mom and Meghan (but no Norman I have been assured which is disappointing but I supposed seeing Mom and Meghan will have to do 😉 ) in December! Hooray! It’ll be here before I know it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hello, and that, no, I have not abandoned my blogging. Just been busy.

Until next time!

שׁלום

This Too Really Shall Pass: In Response to Pittsburgh
Emily Bernstein
October 29, 2018

Dad was here over the weekend (blog on this to follow later), and because it was Shabbat, and I was doing my regular Shabbat things – going to shul, cooking dinner, not doing much on Saturday – I was terribly worried he would be bored. When I expressed this to him, he said, “Are you kidding? I’m in Jerusalem, on Shabbat. That’s so cool!”

And he’s right. I’ve been taking living here, getting to actually observe Shabbat, and my religion for granted. Here I am – saying my daily prayers, celebrating the high holidays, going to shul on Shabbat – in the Holy City. Yet I’ve been treating it like every other day.

That was shattered on Saturday morning in Pittsburgh. 

An ignorant, hateful man walked into a synagogue on a Saturday morning shouting unspeakably anti-Semitic things and killed 11 people, wounding more. All these people were doing was praying. All these people wanted was to have a peaceful Shabbat. All these people were doing was living their lives. 

And I wish I was shocked.

I wish my first question was why? I wish I was asking how? I wish I was surprised that someone could do something so horrible to people innocently praying in synagogue.

But this isn’t the first time this has happened. Countless people have been targeted for their religion in just the last 10 years – not just Jews. So many people have been punished for going about their day, following their beliefs, simply living their lives and hurting no one – targeted for little more than the color of their skin, where they choose to pray, what they believe in. And of course we need change – new laws, less hate, more overwhelming love for a fellow human being. But today, it’s just horrific. And it’s heartbreaking.

I debated all day about whether or not I wanted to write this. My mind was all over the place at work. I didn’t know if I was angry or sad or in disbelief. It wasn’t until I was crying that I realized I was honestly just mourning. Mourning for what, I can’t really say. But my heart is aching. And I can’t stop it.

But when I sat down last night to say my nightly prayers, and opened my Siddur to see the first prayer of the night: “I hereby forgive anyone who has angered me, provoked me, or sinned against me,” I knew I would be remiss not to say something. 

Today and yesterday, like so many other days, people were saying “my thoughts and prayers are with Pittsburgh.” And today and yesterday, like so many other days, other people said, “Your thoughts and prayers aren’t enough.”

But in this case, my thoughts and my prayers are literally with the Pittsburgh community. They haven’t been more than one thought away these past few days. They have been in every move I’ve made, every prayer I’ve said, every thing I’ve done.

And I know, I know, that my thoughts and prayers aren’t going to reform laws. I know my thoughts and prayers aren’t going to remove any hate from this world. I know my thoughts and prayers go no further than where I direct them.

Today though, and until next Shabbat when I hope so many Jews pile into their synagogues to show that we are resilient and that hate doesn’t get to win this time, I hope my thoughts and my prayers and my will to beat these ignorant people is enough to make a slight difference for Pittsburgh.

Because we – as a world, a country, a people, a religion – are stronger than this. We are better than this.

And we won’t let hate win.

Yom Kippur Reflections…
Emily Bernstein
September 19, 2018

Yom Kippur has just passed, which is the holiday where we, as Jews, finish out the period of atonement between the new year and now. This is the day where we spend 25 hours fasting and sitting (or standing) in synagogue apologizing and asking to be written down in the book of life. These days always make me introspective – or at least more introspective than usual – and out of that, came this post.

I find myself, around this time of year, wondering if I have done enough in the past year to deserve the amazing things that have happened to me. I graduated university – something which, if you had asked me four years ago, I never thought I would achieve. I had an amazing job – learning, reading, working in a law firm and gaining invaluable experience for my future.

And, finally, I had the incredible opportunity to move to Israel, a move I never thought I’d make, but one I’m forever grateful for, and one that still feels surreal when I think about it.

It is very difficult for me to put into words how I truly feel about this time of year. I feel repentant, apologetic to all those who I have wronged (and although it might seem trivial or cowardly to say this on a blog, but I truly am sorry to anyone who I’ve offended, wronged, or been mean to. I know that an apology via a blog, and a parenthetical to boot, can’t seem like much, but I truly mean it), accepting of my fate, but most of all, I feel a sort of closure. Closure on the year past. Closure on anything I might have felt like I had done wrong. Closure on wrongs done to me.

And it’s not necessarily that I feel like these things will never come up again. It’s not like I feel like the wrongs of the past year have been erased. It’s not as though I think everything that I’ve done, or that others have done, have just automatically been excused because I went to synagogue and prayed and repented. 

But there is definitely a certain level of cleansing I feel, no matter how real, or just how personal and individualistic, that cleansing may be.

However, there is no way for me to take on the wrongs of the world, of everyone else, no matter how much I’d like to. And this is something I’ve struggled with for some time now. How can I, a simple woman fresh out of college, stand here in Jerusalem with the goal of changing the world?

My friend, Will, would say it’s easy – that changing one or two lives is enough to really have an effect on the rest of the world. And, to a certain extent, I agree with him. Perhaps this year will teach me that affecting just a few people will help the world as a whole.

But if you know me at all, you know that I can say that as much as I want, but I’ll still feel an obligation to change the whole world. It’s idealistic, and I know that, but this is a burden I carry.

Below is a poem I composed for my senior capstone this past year that I feel encompasses this responsibility I feel to the world. That there is something bigger than me here – something I am aching to be worthy of. Enjoy it, or don’t, but hopefully it reveals some sort of point that I’m reaching for in this blog post.

Yad Vashem

Smaller at the middle than at either end,
the building seems to rock and
the words I have painted on my skin countless times
echo – lo lishkoach, lo lishkoach, lo lishkoach.
We snake through the photos and newspapers
and old bedframes and learn
more about ourselves than anything else. We turn
again and again and become part
of the families that have grieved for people
we have never known, and are nothing but
faded numbers now.

In a room curved around itself, my voice
rings. Claustrophobic, I sink in the center,
and look up through half-shut eyes to see
blank shelves and blank faces and
black water shifting with sighs.

Soul after soul of the unforgotten swirls
around me and I ask for answers
they can’t give – how to heal, how to hope,
how to move on.

They rustle in a language I learned but have
never truly understood and I am
brought to my feet by an existence much
more immense than my own.
They are made of prayers – ken yehi ratzon –
swathed in those whispers that stretch over years
of promises that never came to anything
other than leftover remembrances.

I emerge into the sunlight, the stale oxygen
in my body turning crisp,
a vast view of the city that glints into the day.
I have never known what it is
to hurt until now. I have never
known happiness until now.
I have never known my own story until now.
Still, I etch my skin so that I
never forget – lo lishkoach.

 

I hope you all had an incredible fast – or just week, in general, if you’re not Jewish and have stuck through this whole blog post – and that you have an incredible rest of your week, month, and year.

!שׁלום

Previously On… This Year in Jerusalem
Emily Bernstein
September 19, 2018

I know, I know… I haven’t written in a while. There’s no excuse, other than the fact that I’ve been busy, and, probably more importantly, without WiFi. #firstworldproblems

So, I feel like, before I post the next real blogpost, I need to post a recap of the last week and a half of my life.

Probably the most important thing that has happened: we found an apartment! It’s a beautiful three-bedroom in the city center, with a ton of bus lines and access to literally everything we could need. Now, you might be thinking, okay, but who’s we?

The roommates:
–Yours Truly: a Utahn, studied creative writing and politics, is very witty and snarky, loves Netflix, and will be working at the Ethiopian National Project;
–Jenna: from Massachusetts, has a MA in American studies, is so so smart and funny, a great cook, and will be working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Congressional Affairs division;
–Ines: Australian (Melbourne specifically), is probably one of the funniest people I’ve ever met, studied law, is adorable, and will be working at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Services.

We get along really great and have become the hosts for various events (which Jenna and I specifically love because we love being the hosts).

The High Holidays have since passed – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

For Rosh Hashanah, a few of us were hosted by various families for dinner which was an amazing experience to attend a Rosh Hashanah seder (something I hope to bring home with me. You’re welcome, family!) where we bring simanim to the table – various foods that we have made into puns for the new year (ex: pomegranate so our worthiness increases to the value of the 613 seeds, apples dipped in honey for a sweet new year).

We’ve also had more Hebrew classes and incredibly fascinating lectures about the diaspora and the history of Judaism in Israel and the world.

More soon (including pictures since I’m getting in trouble for not taking or posting any).

!שׁלום