Friday is part of the weekend here, giving us time to prepare for Shabbat. HUC asked people who were more settled to host the more recent arrivals for Shabbat dinner, so my apartment volunteered to be a host. Then, I got invited to Shabbat dinner at my friend Minda's, a friend from Princeton who is in the middle of her two-year program in Jerusalem. So for much of the day Friday, I helped my roommates make dinner. I was disappointed to not be able to participate in our first hosting night, but I know there will be many more, and I thought a night with non-HUC people would be more rare. I found my way over to Minda's in the evening, again marveling at how this city shuts down on Friday afternoons and how many other people I saw, all going to Shabbat dinners all over the city. A few minutes away from Minda's, I heard what sounded like a long shofar blast. It turns out it's the Shabbat warning, reminding the city that it's time to light candles. I'm sometimes amazed that this city finds a balance, as shaky as it might be, between being a religious Jewish city and a modern, functioning city. I was proud when I got to Minda's and found out that people seldom find their way there the first time. I was a good navigator:) There were 6 of us at dinner, and it is always nice to spend an evening with an entirely different group of people, even when you like the ones you're usually surrounded by. We all hung out and talked for a couple hours after dinner, because nobody really had anything else to do that night or anywhere else to be. It was really nice. I also found out after the fact that the dinner proved yet again how teeny the world really is. It turned out that one of the other girls at dinner is a good friend of Michael's, but nobody figured out that connection until the next day.
On Saturday, one of our classmates had invited the class over for a potluck Shabbat lunch. I'm not sure he realized at the time that he had volunteered to host, in his one-bedroom apartment, a lunch for 40-50 people! It was pretty crowded for a while, but a lot of fun. A lot more people came in during the week, so it was a great afternoon of just getting to know a lot of new people and figuring out who we know in common. There's always someone, and often a few people.
Saturday evening we were invited to an alumni Havdalah at HUC, and then a group of us headed downtown. We walked around the stores, many of which reopen Saturday night after Shabbat, and then sat at a bar for a little while. All of the hanging out is fun, but I'm starting to be ready for classes to start and a real schedule to develop.
Today, the interns had organized a trip to the beach in Tel Aviv, so that we would know how to get out of Jerusalem when we wanted to do so. The picture is the group that headed to the beach, in Jerusalem right before we left. It's an easy shuttle van (not a bus) for a little less than $5 each way. The cities are about an hour apart. The beach in Tel Aviv is amazing and beautiful. The sky is perfectly blue, and so is the water. The water is also really warm, which would be even better if it weren't jellyfish season. I didn't go in past my feet. A group of us went shopping when we got bored on the beach, but didn't get anything. We found nothing in Tel Aviv we couldn't get in Jerusalem, and we weren't that impressed. I'll give it another try sometime when I'm not quite as worn out from the beach, although it would be hard to go there without spending some time on the beach.
Tomorrow is our last totally free day, and then orientation starts. I think I'm ready though. I hope so!Also, I'll work on making the pictures lay out more neatly. Keep the emails coming:)
2 comments:
Very, very jealous that my friend got to have dinner with you in Israel before I did! Guess I'm going to have to work on making up for that :-)
Having heard all about your trip to the beach, the picnics, the cheese tasting, the Shabbat dinners, etc., a thought occurred to me: I guess I made a terrible assumption about your trip to Israel; I was under the impression you were going there to STUDY! :-p
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