A point of cultural translation for those from the east: on the West Coast, Maui is our Miami Beach -- a way to get remedial Vitamin D in the winter, if you don't mind visiting your grandparents. The difference is that Maui, like West-Coast dress codes and punctuality, is just a bit more relaxed.
So a week ago I was enjoying the record-setting low afternoon temperature of 72 degrees, thinking to myself, "the last time I walked in the warm sun in January, I was in Israel. But it's so much calmer here." For good reasons, obviously, Israel may be warm but it is not chill. Hawai'i is the perfection of both.
The weird thing is, it felt wrong. Even in the dark, dank winter, somehow in Seattle I always know that I share a land mass with New York City, which had might as well be Israel, between Golda Meir Square, strangers asking questions in Hebrew, and a 747 full of screaming chareidi babies coming or going at any time of the day or night. On Maui, I realized, if I wanted to find so much as a continent with an Israeli consulate, I would have to cross thousands of miles of beautiful blue tropical waves.
I felt as though I were in a completely other world. I should have known better.
Meandering about the sleepy town of Kihei, after taking a wrong turn back from the beach, I came across a giant Star of David attached to what looked like a house, and I had to check it out. This is how I discovered Beit Shalom, a charming little synagogue reminiscent of Emanuel Congregation back home, right there in my grandfather's neighborhood (not that he cares). The rabbi popped out and invited me to the next morning's services -- where I got to hear not only the Torah, but also enough passionate talk of Israeli politics to more than make up for my isolation in paradise.
Even Hawai'i, it turns out, is not as far from Jerusalem as it seems. The Hawai'ian Legislature, I was told, opened 2009's session with a performance by Maui native Willie K, the "Hawai'ian Jimi Hendrix," who sang -- what else? -- the Israeli national anthem, "Hatikvah." No kidding.
The moral is not that it's a small world. It's a huge world. Most of it is covered with water. We live on islands among the oceans, and as Jews we live on cultural islands among the oceans of tribes dwarfing ours. But, not to start any rumors, I think we've got some rabbi, backpacker, or grandparent installed on any little island you can find.
