It's important to step back sometimes and try to see the big picture.

I was walking home tonite, after another three hour teeth-breaking session of pouring over my homework, reviewing previous lessons, asking the coffeeshop waitress how to say "fruit shake", and trying to engrain various grammatical rules and exceptions into my memory, when I found myself thinking about how far I've come in only a few short weeks. When I first arrived, I lacked the most basic Hebrew language skills to even ask someone on the street for directions, much less interpret what the heck this person just told me. I mean, my seven year old niece was practically embarrased to be in the same room with me as I tried/pretended to speak Hebrew. Today, I feel fairly confident that I can hold a three minute conversation with almost anybody, albeit in my poorly constructed Hebrew. In ulpan this morning, we actually broke out the radio for the first time and began listening to the news. Later in the day, I had two personal phone conversations conducted entirely in Hebrew (you have no idea how intimidating the telephone can be when you don't speak the language).

At this point, I've got three favorite spots in town where the entire staff knows I'm trying to learn Ivrit. After three straight weeks of my stubborn insistence on ordering my coffee and water in Hebrew, they've finally given up on using English and speak to me solely in our mother tongue. Wherever I go, I insist on speaking Hebrew to everyone I come in contact with - bus drivers, store clerks, friends, teachers, kids, policemen, dogs, cats, you name it. I've even been known to tell people that I don't understand English. I carry a pocket-sized notebook (pinkas) with me at all times and I'm constanly asking people to repeat themselves so I can write down key phrases and terms. I never leave home without my two dictionaries and I'm constantly stopping for several minutes to read and understand street signs and billboards. Tomorrow nite I'm heading to Tel Aviv to meet an Israeli friend of mine who's graciously agreed to meet me for a couple hours each week just to sit and speak the language. In short, I'm really busting my ass to set some sort of record time for learning this language.

So all of this sounds really positive, right? Well, trust me, it ain't all peaches and cream (Outkast). Lately there've been as many bad days as good one's. There's a lot of frustration involved in overcoming such a great challenge. And because everybody seems to know how seriously I'm taking this, I frequently hear "So, can you speak Hebrew yet?" Of course their just joking, but within mere seconds my head begins lecturing me "When are you gonna finally learn this crazy language? What's taking so long?" It can be downright demoralizing when I think about how much I've studied and yet still find myself (on a very regular basis) in the midst of a group of Hebrew speakers with whom I can't even hope to keep up with. It's easy to get down, especially when I realize how much farther I have to go before becoming fluent.

I think my frustration can be attributed mostly to the lofty, perhaps unrealistic, expectations I've set for myself. On the one hand, I realize that practically nobody masters a new language in mere months, so I need not get upset when I feel like things aren't moving as fast as I'd like. But on the other hand, I feel that by keeping these expectations alive, I will continue to push myself to do more than I normally would and certainly more than most people dream of doing. So perhaps it's a healthy type of frustration.

I must take pause here and recognize that I am more fortunate than most in that I have absolutely no other responsibilities in life right now other than to learn Hebrew. Most people in ulpan spend the rest of their day working, going to school, parenting, learning in Yeshiva, etc... I have the luxury of spending my time focused solely on learning Hebrew.

OK, back to the story at hand... There's also the simple aspect of time itself. I've come to realize that no matter how hard I try, how much effort I exert, there's something that only the element of time can provide. The brain can absorb only so much at once. It's going to require a certain amount of time to allow the brain to rest and absorb all the various inputs I've been pouring into it. Time will allow for sleep, rejewvination, repetition, and experience in applying new learnings to different situations, conversations, and contexts. All of this is sorely needed before I can finally master everything that's required to hit the streets and become a true Israeli.

That being said, I still want to speak Hebrew NOW!

So lately I've become accustomed to feeling a bit frustated. But tonite, as I walked through the quite streets of Efrat, under crystal clear skies with the stars shimmering down on me, I realized something. I realized that I've learned a whole heck of a lot since I got here. I've moved up a level in ulpan, I can converse with the average Joe on the street, I'm compelely independant in my day to day life using as little English as possible, and I'm starting to recognize a lot of great potential. When I think about it all, I realize that if I accomplished all this in less than four weeks, what do the next two months have in store for me? I know there's always the law of diminishing returns to worry about, but I feel like there's still so much new material ahead, and if I keep myself dedicated and focused, the sky's the limit. I also know that the payoff for all this hardwork will be tremendous. Life here will be that much easier if I can converse in both Hebrew and English (I'll tackle Russian a bit later).

So there I was on the street, thanking G-d for bringing me to this point, for giving me the courage to not be embarrased by my mistakes, for providing me with the intellect to grasp such challenging material, and for blessing me with the strength and wisdom to tackle this using a method most other people shun, when I realized the most beautiful thing. Hashem desperately wants us to enjoy life and the world around us. I believe this is the reason for the commandment Hashem has given us to sit down before we go to bed each night and review our day. We're commanded to take a few minutes to think about all the things we did from the moment we woke up until the moment we decide to go to bed. We think about our accomplishments as well as our failures. What we did right and what we can improve upon. This ritual of "taking stock" of our lives on a daily basis provides us with a method by which we can more easily put things in perspective. Too often we go through life worrying about all the things that are troubling us and far too rarely do we take the time to appreciate what we really have and who we really are. It's a great opportunity to see all the gifts we've been given and to see how we can better put them to use. Many times when we do this, we recognize that we've accomplished far more than we initially thought.

I thank G-d for giving me this moment of clarity.

posted by Avi G @ 23:20