Good Eats

Ulpan is over, and as of Thursday afternoon, I have been academically oriented for the year. And what a year it looks like it will be! I’m going to be pretty busy. We’re in class from 8:30 in the morning until 4:10 or 5:30 in the afternoon, depending on the day. We get 20 minute breaks between classes and just over an hour for lunch. I’ll be taking lots and lots of Hebrew (8 hours a week), plus Rabbinics, Liturgy, Biblical Grammar, Modern Jewish history, Rabbinic professional forum, and hopefully a class on Reform Judaism. Those classes are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. All of those classes, except for History and one Rabbinics lecture, including the two other rabbinics classes, are conducted almost entirely in Hebrew. It should be interesting! Wednesdays we have an Israel seminar, which looks at Israeli society, I think through lots of trips and things, but I’ll let you know. It’s a good thing I have a week off before the year starts for real!

Earlier in the week, I got a special treat. A family friend was in town from London, and even though I had never met him before, Nigel wanted to meet me and take me and a friend to dinner! Mara and I were incredibly excited to visit this steakhouse that we had heard was amazing, but had yet visited. It was really fun to finally meet someone I have heard so much about, and we all had a really good time sitting and talking for a couple of hours, and eating some of the best food I have had since arriving in Jerusalem.

This was the last week of Hebrew. I had to do a presentation last week, and I talked about what my family does on snow days at home. My parents had sent me some pictures of Becky and Debbie and I playing in the snow lots of years ago, and I made chocolate chip cookies for the class, since after (or instead of) playing in the snow, we also always bake on snow days. The cookies were much appreciated, and hopefully they blocked out any bad memories of my Hebrew skills! I am starting to learn my Hebrew limitations, and I am trying to figure out ways to really work on it. Back in middle school, I did a science project on learning styles, and I learned that while most people have a preference for visual or auditory learning, they are fairly balanced between the two. I am almost completely visual. This means that while I can take a test and do very well on it, when I have to listen to a radio program in Hebrew or listen and respond to a supermarket clerk, I have a lot of trouble. So my friends assume that my Hebrew is really good, and the truth is that I have a lot of work to do. I am trying to find good ways to work on it, aside from being immersed in classes conducted in Hebrew for a lot of hours a day, without overwhelming myself too much. But first, I have a week in Spain!

For the last day of ulpan, HUC took us all to dinner. Rather than going somewhere in Jerusalem, we went to a restaurant about a half hour away (on private buses) that was attached to a spice farm. Yes, you read that right. Spice farms exist! Which is a weird concept, but it makes for some really delicious and (shockingly) flavorful food. Dinner was outstanding: they kept bringing out plates of food for the table, so we got to taste something like a dozen different dishes, just a few bites of each. Wow. I ate well this week!

I also led the optional morning services with a friend this week. We led Monday morning, which meant that there was also a full Torah service. It was really fun to be able to lead an entire Torah service, and feel like I knew what I was doing! (Yes, it was fun. And this is why I’m in rabbinic school.)

We are now in the middle of Rosh Chodesh, a celebration of the new month. I love that on the Hebrew calendar, there is a celebration for every single week (Shabbat) and every single month. It’s a great reminder that every single day is really special, and that all time can really be holy. (This rabbinic school moment brought to you by….) Because the Hebrew calendar goes on a lunar cycle, Rosh Chodesh is traditionally accompanied by women’s celebrations. A couple of girls in my class decided to organize one last night, and I am so glad that I went. We did actually talk about the holiday itself for a while, but we ended up just talking. About 10 of us were there, and it was not a group where everyone was really good friends with one another. Somehow, though, we ended up having some very personal, very open conversations for several hours. It was sort of amazing, and it felt so good to connect with people I had not talked to very much before.

A few hours after Shabbat, I am getting on an airport shuttle! I will be in Barcelona from Sunday until Friday morning, and I can’t wait! It does mean I won’t be updating for a week, but rest assured that when I return, there will be lots and lots of pictures and some fun stories to share. I’m posting some new and random pictures this afternoon as well. Should you feel the urge, even though I’m on email, it’s sort of like camp in at least one way: it’s really fun to get real-mail here. It’s easiest to get at HUC: 13 King David Street, 94101 Jerusalem, ISRAEL. Write Israel nice and big. I’ll try to write snail mail back, but ask Michael: I’m not very good at it. I’m a little slow, but I’ll get back to you eventually.

Have a wonderful week, and I’ll talk to you soon!