Tova
To-va; n.; | tôvä |

Tova wants to act because she thinks
She wants to. But she’s not always sure she’s the reason she acts.
Because all these other factors, they define what Tova does. She doesn’t want to let them. Still, if they influence what she wants to do in the end, shouldn’t she be grateful? What’s the harm if Tova’s doing what she thinks is right, even though it’s not necessarily because she thinks it’s right?
Defined by a tragedy, a death in the family, a twisted injury- does that darken the eventual actions? And even if Tova chose to act, if a tragedy has come to define who she is, who exactly is calling the shots?
Ultimately, anthropologists have determined that Tova is not defined by how she arrives at a course of action- she is defined by what she does once she’s arrived. Defined by what fuels her once the momentum is gone and what she does then. Tova is defined by an acknowledgment of her history, while not letting that history take over her future. By accepting that it will forever be part of her definition, but not allowing it to define her. Tova will never be free of this precedent, but perhaps that’s good. When she feels passionate and dedicated to the action itself, Tova knows she’s not just acting based on the uncontrollable past.

ORIGIN from Hebrew, meaning “good.”

Used in a sentence: Tova is absolutely not a morning person.
Used as an adjective (special cases): Did you just walk into a pole? That is so Tova!

Editor’s note: A full understanding is lacking of why she does what she does, whether she does it because of herself or because of others, or who she is altogether.

See next volume for more accurate definition; publication date thus far undetermined.

It’s about time to go to sleep.
I turn off the lights and go under the covers. I’m a bit tired. I close my eyes, think happy thoughts, review my day in my mind. Something’s off, though, and I can’t put my finger on it. So I start to get anxious about not falling asleep, so my heart starts beating like a drip from a leak. A little faster. Nothing too bad.
Then I tell myself to fall asleep and the dripping gets faster again. I turn to the other side of the bed. Check the time.
Dear God it’s late.
I forgot to say sh’ma. Maybe that’s it. So I say sh’ma and turn to the original side of the bed. I close my eyes. It’s going to be all right. I reassure myself that I can fall asleep if I just try a little bit harder.
The dripping is rapid now.
I try to divert my mind and focus on my day but I start to drown in the flooding. Can’t hear my own thoughts over the beat of my heart.
I’m never going to be able to fall asleep. Ever. I’ll just pull an all-nighter sitting in my bed, in the dark, alone.
I catch myself. Stop thinking so much. Embrace the water. Fall deeper. Breathe deeper.
Eyes relax. Muscles relax. Mind still. The dripping slows.
Right then, I hear it.
The Muezzin, a dog, a motherfreaking rooster. It may be a truck starting in the distance. It shakes me up and the dripping starts all over. I scream to myself, and would scream out loud if I didn’t have two sleeping roommates. Because somehow, everyone else in the world can fall asleep.
Check the time again. No human being should be up this late. Not doing something this boring, at least.
Shut up, rooster. If you don’t shut up I swear I will shecht you. What are you even doing in this century? I have an alarm clock to wake me up.
An alarm clock that’s going off in three hours.
Wait. Two hours.
I scream to myself again.
This isn’t helping. Try to sink again into the water, which is easier now because it’s rising above my bed. Drip drip, pitter patter, heart won’t stop. I try to breathe, and nearly choke on the water that surrounds me. Time to get out of bed.
Walk around the kitchen for a bit. Take a glass of water. Go to the bathroom. Peek inside my room. Return to the kitchen and lean neck against the edge of chair. Resort to desperate measures. Retrieve cell phone from room.
“Mom? I can’t fall asleep…”
My mom asks how she can help. Should she sing to me? I sense the half-joke in her voice. Honestly, it can’t hurt.
Mom forgets most of the words to the songs. I chuckle then remember that it’s about the time that some people wake up for work.
Try reading, she suggests as I sigh. Read something boring.
So I slip back into bed. The dripping has slowed. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m calmer or because all the water has fallen through already, but I’m done caring. I pull out my phone and play Sudoku. My eyes start to close to the slowing beat of the drips and I plug my mind. I put my phone on the side of my bed, snuggle under the covers, and sink asleep.

For the first time in my life, I’m experiencing an attack on Israel in Israel. Because it’s the first time, because I haven’t felt the hit as often as my friends around me, I’m less numb. Frankly, I’m terrified.
Logically, I would be terrified of the rockets that have been flying into Israel. 12,000 since we pulled out of the Gaza Strip, about 1,000 this year, and over 150 in the past 72 hours, to be exact. I should be terrified of the backlash from the assassination of the cruel leader of Hamas, the major Palestinian terrorist organization. Logically, I should be terrified because my brother and multiple friends are in the army and are about to give their all to fight an enemy that feels nothing. I should be terrified that my school, which in general makes fun of the American seminaries for being overly cautious about terror threats, has asked us to avoid leaving campus for the next couple of days. That a siren went off during kabbalat shabbat because a rocket hit way closer to Jerusalem that previously held possible. I should be absolutely terrified of all of these things.
And I am. Please, don’t get me wrong. This situation is not exempt from my constant paranoia.
Still, in the end of the day, my school’s just being careful. Most of the action with the rockets is only in the South for now. I’m more scared for the lives of the people who live near the Gaza Strip than for my own.
What really terrifies me is the overwhelming expression of ignorance in the world. The amount of hate and lies that the Internet cultivates. In no way should these oblivious and savage people be given a platform to express themselves, and in no way should any “news source” be given this prestigious title while functioning on such a profoundly biased selection of information. For some twisted reason, I can’t stop reading it all and becoming more and more terrified.
Yesterday, I asked one of my Israeli friends why almost all respected news sources didn’t report on the rockets that Gaza has shot into Israel so heavily throughout the past couple of years, yet are now reporting solely on attacks on Gaza that have been going on for a few days. Why such an immediate response? Why such an aversion to a blatant truth? Her response was one that I’ve heard before and generally dismiss immediately: the majority of this world is avidly, illogically anti-Semitic.
I’m terrified that this time I didn’t dismiss the idea immediately. I’m comforted because I did eventually.
I’m optimistic so I criticize myself for feeling a little hopeless. I’m cynical so I criticize myself for not being cynical enough about the world. I’m terrified of the blindness to the rampant, baseless, violent hatred of innocent people. I’m terrified not only for the stability of the country, but the stability of human morality.
I’m terrified that this has been going on for a while and that it’s only dawning on me now. That one day, if not on the field, but on the street or in a classroom, I’ll have to defend myself from these vicious monsters. That I’ll be too terrified to defend the innocent to do so coherently and intelligently. That in the end of the day, these monsters don’t even have ears or eyes to acknowledge a shred of truth.
I’m terrified of the terror that is plaguing not just Southern Israel but the moral consciousness of the world.

In general, I hate posting or discussing anything political or intensely controversial. But I have never been this personally terrified or desperate for hope. I need to write this through to understand what I think.
I think although I’m terrified that all I can do right now is pray for the people and the minds of the world, I’m grateful that I can do just that. And I’m positive that with all the terror that suffocates my thoughts, there is no other place I would rather be right now, to delve into what has stood by us for generations and what will help us stand now.
May we no longer be terrified of their toxic cruelty.
May HaKadosh Baruch Hu save us from their hand.

“Breathe in. Good. Now, hold your breath for a moment.”

My chest feels tight and the pinkish lighting in the doctor’s office makes me nauseous. My hands start to shake and I start thinking about it again. I start thinking about talking to him, about never talking to him again, about talking to him for the rest of my life, and I don’t know how to feel but I know I’m confused. I know I want to take a leap but I don’t know if the cliché’s are true. I don’t know if I want to lose it all and I don’t know if I will, and I don’t know if I really want to leap, because I never was that coordinated anyway. I fall further into my thoughts, tumbling and diving down, and I’m falling, and I’m falling. And everything’s surrounding me that I don’t want to risk, all the friendships and conversations and meaning, and my footing is nowhere in sight. Someone’s calling my name. He’s calling my name. Why is he calling my name? Now the doctor’s calling my name. Why is the doctor calling my name?

The squares on the ceiling of the office appear fuzzily in my eyes. My head kills.

“Tova?” the doctor says, his face materializing in front of me.

“Uh huh?”

“You forgot to breathe out.”

I forgot to what?

“I fainted?”

“Just a little bit,” the doctor chuckled. “Next time, breathe out eventually.”

“Oh my God, are you wearing makeup to the open house?”

“Huh?” I snap out of my daze and glance up at my friends. “No.”

“You look like you’re wearing blue eye shadow!”

I’m not.

“So what is it then?”

I inhale deeply through my nose, close my eyes, and raise my eyebrows. “I dunno. Are they really blue, or are you guys being annoying?”

I go see for myself. A face stares me down in the bathroom mirror, void of expression. A few wispy curls poke out of the reflection’s ponytail and frizz creeps its way onto the forehead. The eyelids are light blue around the edges, so light that I’d have thought I fell asleep on the watercolor painting I made in art history. But I know better. I’ve barely slept at all lately.

“It’s my veins,” I sigh as I return to my friends.

They laugh. “You’re kidding. That’s terrible. You need to get some sleep!”

My eyes droop. Uh huh.

I need to get some sleep.

“Gotta liiiiiiive like you’re dyinnnn…”

The song echoes, muffled in my ear. Clouds surround me, glowing green, pink, and shades of purple that are only detectable when I squint my eyes. I float like I’m in one of those space-station simulators, flipping and swimming through the air and flipping backwards and flipping forwards and flipping sideways. The song changes, and I smile. I bounce off the soft, pillowy clouds, and… wait… pillowy.

I shoot up in bed and dart my head around. The music now echoes from a peculiar cloud, one that looks eerily similar to my alarm clock, one that blares both the music and the time: 7:30.

“Shit.”

I jump out of bed, but I let the music play.

Fair warning: this piece includes transliterated Hebrew. Lemme know if you want a translation.

My friends and I dive into the mob, Hinei-Rakevet style. It’s late afternoon in the Old City. The sun is sinking gradually, though the same cannot be said of the patience of the crowd. A sea of bodies attempts to move forward in a street of Jerusalem stone. Personal space ranges from 0 to -3 cm.

“DACHOF!” a man bellows out. “JUST POOSH!” “LO!” another testy Israeli shouts. “Don’t poosh! We are ole trying to geyt through!” Possibly intoxicated by the body odor surrounding us, my friends and I start to laugh. “Oh my God!” we giggle, like the Seminary Girls we look forward to being next year. “Ahhhhhh hahaha! Oh my God!” The bitter Israeli man behind me lets out a grunt. “Oh my gode!” he shouts in a frilly voice. “Oh my gode! Nu??? Dachof!!!”
The people with the strollers, we soon find out, are in a tricky situation. We see one man bench-pressing his light blue stroller as he shoves through the crowd, and from far away it looks like a floating stroller is surveying the chaos. Other parents aren’t so gallant. Most try to weave through the crowd on the ground, using their strollers as pity-play. “We all want to get through,” explains someone to a nudgy father. Where are all of the kids who belong in the empty strollers the parents are pushing? Huh.
It’s a good thing I entered the mob in a good mood, because the heat is spoiling tempers. We stand still and laugh or complain or talk, like produce in an overstuffed, defunct refrigerator. A woman’s elbow is pressing against my back, and a man’s arm is squished against my shoulder. The crowd begins to move. MOTION! Then pausing. What the hell is a car doing trying to drive down this street? The crowd starts moving around the car, but one guy stops to lecture the driver through the window. “Nu, Mah Ata Choshev??” The people behind him tap his shoulder, a gentle reminder that this would in no way get him out quicker.

We escape the sardine-packed, conveyer belt of a street, then burst into laughter. “We made it!” we jump up and shout, and we warn passersby not to enter what we just escaped.

“Never-“ I begin, still chuckling. I take a deep breath of fresh, personal-space induced air and grin. “Never have I felt so close to Am Yisrael.”

I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote
And wrote and wrote and wrote,
I read and edited pieces about
Fruit, and ‘Tubbies,
And weddings,
And walrus,
And
A special goat.

Then I packed and packed and packed
And shipped off to a space,
Where Eidah Hey
took over my mind,
Leaving pineapples in
Its trace.

Then I flew and flew and flew and flew
To San Diego and LA,
Saw the Nerd Herd,
Met the writer of Big,
Tried on some hats,
Saw a panda,
And hung with familay.

Um…

I’ve pretty much established at this point that this form totally isn’t working… New approach:

Thanks so much to everyone who made my summer crazy, and for actually reading the semi-funny stuff I decided to post! You guys are super cool, and maybe I’ll continue this at some point during the year.

For now, I’m getting ready for senior picture day tomorrow and complaining about my toe that hurts… feeling a bit more like a senior citizen at this point…

Hope everyone had a fantastic time procrastinating to the beat of my off-beat writing! Enjoy the last seconds of your summer!

HA! Get it? That was one last joke! This is slightly uber depressing!

See ya later, kiddos. Good luck!