I always have such good intentions of updating more often, but then life seems to get in the way. So here goes…
In last week’s trip, I think I skipped over my Hebrew field trip. Last Sunday, we went to the Hebrew Language Academy, which is basically what it sounds like. They make up new Hebrew words. The process is actually interesting if you’re a language geek; they often take words from the Bible and adapt them to a modern use. The word for “electricity” is from a biblical word that appears once or twice and refers to some sort of bizarre fire. They also try to come up with new words to replace the foreign (read: English) words that keep creeping into the language, mainly in technology, but a little bit of everywhere. “Zeh lo beeg deel” is one of our favorite “Hebrew” phrases. (Zeh lo = It’s no. Read it out loud.) I think the most interesting part of the visit was that I understood most of what the speaker was talking about. Yay me!
We went to the Ethiopian immigrant absorption center again (every Tuesday), and had another fun evening with our family. This week, Karen and I brought a bunch of coloring pages that I had printed from the internet (and some blank paper), crayons, and markers. We did have some other backup activities, but we really didn’t need them. The kids were thrilled to color for an hour and a half! The oldest child (the 11-year-old) didn’t arrive home until toward the end of our visit, so we just had the younger four. In talking to them, it became clear that while the oldest’s Hebrew is decent, the rest of them have a long way to go. (Well, the 2-year-old has a really long way. She hardly talks at all.) But we communicated effectively, and since I could name all of the marker colors except two, I promised to learn pink and orange by this week. It was a lot of fun, and I’m thrilled that I’m really looking forward to the project every week!
This past Wednesday, I got to meet up with Rabbi Luxemburg for a few hours! It was great to see such a friendly face from home. We had hot chocolate with another rabbi-friend of his, and then went to meet the rest of their group for dinner and a speaker. The food was delicious, and the night was definitely really interesting. The room was me and 20 rabbis. The speaker was talking about strengthening connections between Israeli Jews and American Jews, except that the path his organization had chosen to take to do this strengthening was through facilitating American Jews getting married in Israel. It’s a great idea, except that…only Orthodox Jews can get married in Israel. So it’s outreach, but to a very specific subgroup. It definitely sparked some interesting discussion among the rabbis from Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Judaism. I sat quietly and took it all in and actually really enjoyed talking to the people who were sitting around me.
On Friday afternoon, I had an incredibly interesting experience. One of my classmates has a Palestinian family friend, and he stayed in the friend’s guest house for the first six weeks he was here. This friend, Ibrahim, is a Moslem who wants nothing more than peace, and he has basically devoted his retired life to making peace just through relationships. He invited the HUC class to his house for lunch on Friday. About 35 of us went. We first arrived on the Mount of Olives at an overlook. The Mount of Olives is definitely part of East Jerusalem which is the part of the city where the Arabs live; Jerusalem is incredibly segregated. It also is above the Old City, with an amazing view of what was the Temple Mount, and is now home to two sacred Islamic mosques, Al Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock. The view is breathtaking, and as soon as my friends post pictures, I will take them and post them as well. (I forgot my camera…) From the overlook we went a short distance to Ibrahim’s house. His family has lived on the Mount of Olives for 1400 years, and he operates a guest house next to his home, where he welcomes people of all religions to stay, and that’s where we had lunch. He talked to us about some of the amazing experiences he has had, the people he has met, and his dream of peace. He told us how he is not a citizen of any country, because Israel does not grant citizenship to those living in East Jerusalem (which was not part of Israel until 1967), but he has a travel permit of some kind and travels extensively. It’s an interesting issue that I don’t think any of us had ever really considered. He is generally not allowed into certain Arab countries, because he is traveling from Israel, even though he is Arab. Because of his type of travel permit and lack of passport and citizenship, if he stays outside of Israel for over a year, he is not allowed to return. He is not so happy about the situation; two of his (eight) children studied abroad and are no longer allowed to come home. I don’t know the answer; it’s pretty clear nobody has figured out a good one yet. In addition to all his talk of peace, though, we were allowed to ask him questions. We did notice that he did not directly answer them all. When questioned about how his neighbors felt about his multicultural visitors, he said his family supported his efforts fully, but he did not tell us how his neighbors felt. It got a little bit frustrating, but it was definitely worth the trip. Most of us realized only on the way home that while we have all learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have not had much (or any) contact with any Palestinians. Now we have, and it was a little old man who wants nothing more than love and friendship and peace.
Shabbat evening, we were required to attend services at HUC, because a couple of students were leading services. Some people were not super-excited to have to break out of the usual Shabbat routine, but it was really nice. It was actually really nice to see the whole class together outside of school, dressed up nice and everything! And a lot of the professors, rabbis, and staff came as well, many of them with their families. I really enjoyed getting glimpses into their real, outside-of-HUC lives, and seeing that some of them have really adorable children! I was asked to lead Kiddush at the student potluck dinner afterwards. I had to finally learn the first paragraph that I always meant to learn but hadn’t gotten around to learning so well yet. I was sort of glad to have the excuse to finally learn it, but it is always intimidating to sing in front of a big group of people, especially the cantorial students and rabbinical students who sing really well! I got through it, and I am glad I finally had to put in the effort to learn it.
Saturday morning I got up early and went to services at Kol Haneshamah with a friend. I don’t always make it to services on Saturday mornings, because it’s often the only morning when I can sleep in. But I want to make an effort to get to services more often, and the potluck ended really early the night before, so I actually got ten hours of sleep even with getting up early to go to services! That was exciting for me. Obviously, I lead an exciting, although sleep deprived life.
Last night I went out with some friends to celebrate. One of my classmates, Cassi, got engaged over Sukkot, but her now-fiancé is not here for the year, he was just visiting. So a whole group of us who are involved in the long-distance thing took her out to dinner to celebrate! As part of the bargain, I got to try a new restaurant that turns out to be delicious and spend an evening with a fun group of girls!
Ira and Allison, congratulations!! I so much wish I could have been there to celebrate with you, and I can’t wait to hear about it and see pictures!
Becky, see how long you delayed me? This would have been posted before football started today otherwise. It was good to talk to you finally:)
Debbie, I’m still encouraging it. We’ll do fun things and eat good food and play!
Mom and Dad, thanks for sending the forms. All is here and turned in.
Alex, now that I know you’re reading, you get your own note! Which wouldn’t be complete without a woooooooooooosh!
Michael, let me know if there were any surprises. If there were, I’ll do better next time!
It's now cold and on-and-off rainy in Jerusalem. I miss the sun and flip-flops.
Also, it’s way past my bedtime. Goodnight!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
This and That
It’s been a whole week since I last posted, so rather than summarize everything I’ve done, I’ll leave you with another batch of thoughts, in really no order at all…
Visitors are great! My friend Melissa Renny from college was coming to Jerusalem for work, and she spent Shabbat with me. We haven’t been in touch much (at all) in the last couple years, but we had a great time together, going to services, eating, shopping, and hanging out. Old (ish) friends are great fun, especially when in a foreign country.
I understood (some of) the radio today! We talked in class for a while about what stories were in the news today, and went over some of the vocabulary, but I was nonetheless incredibly excited to recognize and understand several of the headlines that wooshed past us on the news. We’ve also moved on to television; after going over radio headlines for a while, we watched a tape of a little piece of the early morning news. Our teacher thinks it’s much harder than radio, but I think there are more pauses, which make processing the words easier, I can see the speakers, which makes it easier, I can see pictures, so I know what story is being discussed, which also of course makes it easier. The stories are more in-depth, so I don’t get every single word, but I have a decent idea of what’s going on after watching TV-news, so I find that encouraging.
The Redskins are doing a great job this year…of making me sad. There isn’t any more to say on that topic. There’s always next season.
I do miss home. Jerusalem is a nice place to be, for a year, but I do sometimes feel very far away. I miss the day to day conversations with friends and being around for important events and fun events. I also miss having separate groups of friends. I kind of liked at home having my college friends, high school friends, work/youth group friends, and extra miscellaneous friends. Here, I have sort of different groups of friends, but they’re still all HUC people. They’re wonderful, and I’m definitely marveling at how I have become so close with some people after only a few months, but I don’t have the same escape as I did at home.
Fall produce is not as good as summer produce. The shuk is a somewhat depressing place to be these days. There are apples, but they’re not that good. There are some late plums and grapes, but they don’t look that great either, and they’re really expensive. The tomatoes aren’t looking so good anymore. Pomegranates were a novelty, but I’m not going to put one in my backpack as a mid-morning snack like I did with peaches. I miss watermelon. I’m ready for the winter fruits, especially various types of citrus, to make their way to the shuk.
Bet you never thought you’d read about me longing for fruits and veggies, did you?!
My Shabbat dinner this past Friday night was part of an HUC program to have us get to know people in the community. They did a home hospitality program with a local Reform congregation, Kol HaNeshamah. Along with several other HUC students and some other people, I went to a local couple’s house for dinner. The discussion and people there were fascinating, the home was beautiful, and the food was amazing. I miss having a real, live Jewish mother to feed me! There was a constantly-refilled platter of brisket (really yummy, but mom’s is better!), salmon, sweet potatoes, and several other types of deliciousness. I was a happy camper! It’s funny that we all cook for ourselves, and we often have big group dinners, but I seldom have a really, really good meal with endless amounts of food. I should do that more often.
This afternoon the rabbinic students met in our “reflection groups.” These are groups of 5-6 students and 2 staff members or professors that meet every month or six weeks, just to talk about whatever is on our minds or issues we are having and things like that. The actual content of the discussions is confidential. Today we talked about levels of practice, inspirational rabbis we’ve met, differences between movements, and comfort with different parts of Judaism. I really enjoy these meetings. I have a great group of people who have widely varying opinions, but really respect one another and get along well. Both times the group has met, we have had great discussions, and the designated time really flies. I think it’s a great forum for discussion and reflection, and I only wish we met more often!
Tomorrow I go back to my Ethiopian family again, and I realize I never wrote about my experience there last week. To summarize: we all have to be involved in a community service project this year. My project is working with Ethiopian immigrants every week. A group of about a dozen of us goes to an absorption center about 20 minutes away after classes on Tuesdays. We work in pairs. My roommate Karen and I are working together. We were assigned a family to work with. Our family is parents and five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11. They immigrated to Israel about 8 months ago, in February. The kids have been going to school since they have been there, so their Hebrew is really good. The parents hardly speak any, so I can’t really talk to them. The oldest daughter is the one I talked to the most last week. We brought a bag of games and activities to break the ice. The biggest hit: balloons. We ended up with somewhere over a dozen kids in our house all wanting balloons and stickers. It didn’t take too long before all the balloons were broken, of course, but it was fun while it lasted! I played endless games of cards with the 11-year-old. Karen played basketball with a beach ball with a group outside. With her hands in front of her in a circle, Karen was the basket. I had a really good time, but I hope we can do more than just play in the future, and talk to them some more. It will be an interesting challenge; I don’t even know the names of the family members. We got a list of names and ages, but everything is in Hebrew and without vowels, and the names are Ethiopian, so I don’t recognize them at all. It will be an uphill battle!
And now it’s the nightly battle between my to-do list and my pillow. My pillow usually wins eventually. Goodnight!
Visitors are great! My friend Melissa Renny from college was coming to Jerusalem for work, and she spent Shabbat with me. We haven’t been in touch much (at all) in the last couple years, but we had a great time together, going to services, eating, shopping, and hanging out. Old (ish) friends are great fun, especially when in a foreign country.
I understood (some of) the radio today! We talked in class for a while about what stories were in the news today, and went over some of the vocabulary, but I was nonetheless incredibly excited to recognize and understand several of the headlines that wooshed past us on the news. We’ve also moved on to television; after going over radio headlines for a while, we watched a tape of a little piece of the early morning news. Our teacher thinks it’s much harder than radio, but I think there are more pauses, which make processing the words easier, I can see the speakers, which makes it easier, I can see pictures, so I know what story is being discussed, which also of course makes it easier. The stories are more in-depth, so I don’t get every single word, but I have a decent idea of what’s going on after watching TV-news, so I find that encouraging.
The Redskins are doing a great job this year…of making me sad. There isn’t any more to say on that topic. There’s always next season.
I do miss home. Jerusalem is a nice place to be, for a year, but I do sometimes feel very far away. I miss the day to day conversations with friends and being around for important events and fun events. I also miss having separate groups of friends. I kind of liked at home having my college friends, high school friends, work/youth group friends, and extra miscellaneous friends. Here, I have sort of different groups of friends, but they’re still all HUC people. They’re wonderful, and I’m definitely marveling at how I have become so close with some people after only a few months, but I don’t have the same escape as I did at home.
Fall produce is not as good as summer produce. The shuk is a somewhat depressing place to be these days. There are apples, but they’re not that good. There are some late plums and grapes, but they don’t look that great either, and they’re really expensive. The tomatoes aren’t looking so good anymore. Pomegranates were a novelty, but I’m not going to put one in my backpack as a mid-morning snack like I did with peaches. I miss watermelon. I’m ready for the winter fruits, especially various types of citrus, to make their way to the shuk.
Bet you never thought you’d read about me longing for fruits and veggies, did you?!
My Shabbat dinner this past Friday night was part of an HUC program to have us get to know people in the community. They did a home hospitality program with a local Reform congregation, Kol HaNeshamah. Along with several other HUC students and some other people, I went to a local couple’s house for dinner. The discussion and people there were fascinating, the home was beautiful, and the food was amazing. I miss having a real, live Jewish mother to feed me! There was a constantly-refilled platter of brisket (really yummy, but mom’s is better!), salmon, sweet potatoes, and several other types of deliciousness. I was a happy camper! It’s funny that we all cook for ourselves, and we often have big group dinners, but I seldom have a really, really good meal with endless amounts of food. I should do that more often.
This afternoon the rabbinic students met in our “reflection groups.” These are groups of 5-6 students and 2 staff members or professors that meet every month or six weeks, just to talk about whatever is on our minds or issues we are having and things like that. The actual content of the discussions is confidential. Today we talked about levels of practice, inspirational rabbis we’ve met, differences between movements, and comfort with different parts of Judaism. I really enjoy these meetings. I have a great group of people who have widely varying opinions, but really respect one another and get along well. Both times the group has met, we have had great discussions, and the designated time really flies. I think it’s a great forum for discussion and reflection, and I only wish we met more often!
Tomorrow I go back to my Ethiopian family again, and I realize I never wrote about my experience there last week. To summarize: we all have to be involved in a community service project this year. My project is working with Ethiopian immigrants every week. A group of about a dozen of us goes to an absorption center about 20 minutes away after classes on Tuesdays. We work in pairs. My roommate Karen and I are working together. We were assigned a family to work with. Our family is parents and five children, ranging in age from 2 to 11. They immigrated to Israel about 8 months ago, in February. The kids have been going to school since they have been there, so their Hebrew is really good. The parents hardly speak any, so I can’t really talk to them. The oldest daughter is the one I talked to the most last week. We brought a bag of games and activities to break the ice. The biggest hit: balloons. We ended up with somewhere over a dozen kids in our house all wanting balloons and stickers. It didn’t take too long before all the balloons were broken, of course, but it was fun while it lasted! I played endless games of cards with the 11-year-old. Karen played basketball with a beach ball with a group outside. With her hands in front of her in a circle, Karen was the basket. I had a really good time, but I hope we can do more than just play in the future, and talk to them some more. It will be an interesting challenge; I don’t even know the names of the family members. We got a list of names and ages, but everything is in Hebrew and without vowels, and the names are Ethiopian, so I don’t recognize them at all. It will be an uphill battle!
And now it’s the nightly battle between my to-do list and my pillow. My pillow usually wins eventually. Goodnight!
Monday, October 16, 2006
Rain Dance
The end of vacation came way too fast, as I guess it always does. But with it came one of the most fun holidays of the year, Simchat Torah, when we celebrate the Torah, finish the yearly cycle of reading it, and start again at the beginning. It fell on Shabbat this year. Friday night, I went to Shira Chadasha, the traditional, musical community I have been going to frequently. We went through the usual Shabbat service, but after the Amidah, they gave instructions (in Hebrew, and I understood!) to stack all the chairs (several hundred of them) so that we could begin celebrating. Celebrating involves seven separate rounds of singing and dancing with the Torah scrolls. In this congregation, the dancing had a curtain down the middle to separate the men and the women. It’s okay though…the women’s side tends to have the better dancing! In this congregation, they do let women touch the Torah (which they don’t everywhere), so the men’s side had a couple Torah scrolls (the bigger ones), and we had a few as well. Basically, it’s dancing in circles, passing the Torahs around, people dancing while holding Torahs. Think the hora at a Bar Mitzvah, but instead of dancing around the Bar Mitzvah boy and lifting him (and his siblings and parents) in the chair, the Torah is in the middle being danced with and lifted. I think the seven rounds of dancing (separated by a brief couple of lines of prayers, all sung) went on for almost 45 minutes. It was really crowded, so sometimes it was difficult to stay involved in the dancing and too easy to end up on the side talking to friends (and avoiding getting toes stepped on), but when I got into it, I had a great time. After services, I came back home for dinner. It was my roommate Karen’s birthday, and both her parents and my other roommate Amy’s parents were visiting, so they had a big birthday dinner here. Karen’s mom cooked, and did a great job!
Saturday morning, I had usher duty at HUC. Each student has usher duty once or twice during the year, so that the services, open to the community, run more smoothly. Mine was Saturday. So I got there a half-hour before the service, at 8:30, as requested. I think the first people came at 8:55. Yes, I’m regularly among the first to arrive almost anywhere. HUC was also fun for Simchat Torah, although of course differently fun. One of the cantors organized a student HUC band, with keyboard, guitar, drum, and I don’t remember what else. So in the middle of the service, when we took the Torah scrolls out of the ark, the procession continued out the door of the sanctuary and out into a courtyard! I’m sure the musical instruments projecting onto King David Street made a lot of people not-so-happy. But we had a great time! We did the seven rounds of dancing in the morning as well, mixed men and women of course. Because we were in a huge courtyard (with less people than the night before), it was much easier to get involved in dancing, because there was more space. I had a great time, and I even got to dance carrying the Torah for a round! (Really, everyone who wanted to had ample opportunity. There were four Torah scrolls, seven rounds, and often at least one handoff per Torah per round.) After all the dancing, we went back inside, and did the whole reading, of the last chapter of the Torah and then the first chapter. Usually synagogues will have one scroll ready for the end part and another one rolled all the way to the beginning. Somehow, there was a miscommunication somewhere though, and the beginning scroll had not been rolled. So we got to watch the scroll rolled back to the beginning, which, by the looks of the rabbi and cantors who did it, is not such an easy task. It was a fun reading though, and I love that I could understand a lot of what was being read! With all the dancing, a long Torah reading, a Yizkor memorial service, and all the other holiday additions, it was an almost four hour service, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.
The other interesting addition to the service was the prayer for rain. It’s difficult to realize from the US how strongly the Jewish calendar is tied to agriculture until you’re here in Israel experiencing it. Sukkot really is at the change of seasons, for example. Also, traditional liturgy includes a prayer for dew from Passover (spring) until the end of Sukkot (fall). The other half of the year, we pray for rain. Because Israel is a desert, there really is a rainy season and a dry season, which I’ve never experienced before. I got here at the end of June. For three and a half months, no rain!! But I get ahead of myself. On Simchat Torah morning, the end of Sukkot, is when we switch from praying for dew to praying for rain. Usually, that prayer is two words (dew) or four words (rain) in the middle of another prayer. But on this first day of the season, there is a really long prayer for rain in addition. The prayer we did (which I can only assume was the traditional prayer, but I don’t know for sure) basically outlined all the reasons that the Jews deserve rain. Because of the righteousness of Abraham, the merit of Isaac, and so on. Except that each ancestor got several lines, and there were about 6 of them listed. It took up about a page, with the Hebrew down the left and the English down the right. I thought it felt a lot like a rain dance of some sort, which I guess it was! But I’ve never seen a prayer so powerful…
After relaxing the rest of the day Saturday, Sunday was back to school. It had cooled off somewhat, so instead of having the air conditioning on, we had the windows open. I was looking out the window in the middle of our first class of the day (Hebrew), and pointing out to a friend the ugly clouds that had been appearing more and more often in the last couple of weeks, although they hadn’t done anything other than block my beloved sun. A couple of minutes later, we were all distracted from Hebrew (which isn’t really that hard to do) by a new noise: RAIN! It poured for a good ten minutes, and it was all that we wanted to talk about. The first rain of the season even has its own name here, because it’s so important. It was sort of amazing to see rain somewhere that I’ve only known as warm and sunny, and after not seeing any rain for so long. And so much rain! Once it stopped pouring, it was much cooler out too. We were talking about the power of prayer and how amazing it was that the rain appeared the day after we started praying for it. It was quite an experience! (Ok, so apparently the rain doesn’t always come the day after the prayers change. But it was pretty cool that it did this year!) And for the record, it was gray and cold for the rest of the day, and rained on and off a little bit, but mostly off. Reportedly, we get on-and-off rain from now until Passover, but it’s more off than on, except during December-January or so, when it’s mainly on, and also cold. I’m not so excited about that. But right now, cool and threatening to rain is a bit of a novelty, so I guess I can’t be sick of it yet!
Also, I’m ready for another vacation. All of a sudden, the workload has picked up, and the next break is not until December. After having a month of classes constantly interrupted by holidays and trips, this is going to be a long couple of months. And on that note…it’s past my bedtime. Happy Fall!
Saturday morning, I had usher duty at HUC. Each student has usher duty once or twice during the year, so that the services, open to the community, run more smoothly. Mine was Saturday. So I got there a half-hour before the service, at 8:30, as requested. I think the first people came at 8:55. Yes, I’m regularly among the first to arrive almost anywhere. HUC was also fun for Simchat Torah, although of course differently fun. One of the cantors organized a student HUC band, with keyboard, guitar, drum, and I don’t remember what else. So in the middle of the service, when we took the Torah scrolls out of the ark, the procession continued out the door of the sanctuary and out into a courtyard! I’m sure the musical instruments projecting onto King David Street made a lot of people not-so-happy. But we had a great time! We did the seven rounds of dancing in the morning as well, mixed men and women of course. Because we were in a huge courtyard (with less people than the night before), it was much easier to get involved in dancing, because there was more space. I had a great time, and I even got to dance carrying the Torah for a round! (Really, everyone who wanted to had ample opportunity. There were four Torah scrolls, seven rounds, and often at least one handoff per Torah per round.) After all the dancing, we went back inside, and did the whole reading, of the last chapter of the Torah and then the first chapter. Usually synagogues will have one scroll ready for the end part and another one rolled all the way to the beginning. Somehow, there was a miscommunication somewhere though, and the beginning scroll had not been rolled. So we got to watch the scroll rolled back to the beginning, which, by the looks of the rabbi and cantors who did it, is not such an easy task. It was a fun reading though, and I love that I could understand a lot of what was being read! With all the dancing, a long Torah reading, a Yizkor memorial service, and all the other holiday additions, it was an almost four hour service, but I actually enjoyed it a lot.
The other interesting addition to the service was the prayer for rain. It’s difficult to realize from the US how strongly the Jewish calendar is tied to agriculture until you’re here in Israel experiencing it. Sukkot really is at the change of seasons, for example. Also, traditional liturgy includes a prayer for dew from Passover (spring) until the end of Sukkot (fall). The other half of the year, we pray for rain. Because Israel is a desert, there really is a rainy season and a dry season, which I’ve never experienced before. I got here at the end of June. For three and a half months, no rain!! But I get ahead of myself. On Simchat Torah morning, the end of Sukkot, is when we switch from praying for dew to praying for rain. Usually, that prayer is two words (dew) or four words (rain) in the middle of another prayer. But on this first day of the season, there is a really long prayer for rain in addition. The prayer we did (which I can only assume was the traditional prayer, but I don’t know for sure) basically outlined all the reasons that the Jews deserve rain. Because of the righteousness of Abraham, the merit of Isaac, and so on. Except that each ancestor got several lines, and there were about 6 of them listed. It took up about a page, with the Hebrew down the left and the English down the right. I thought it felt a lot like a rain dance of some sort, which I guess it was! But I’ve never seen a prayer so powerful…
After relaxing the rest of the day Saturday, Sunday was back to school. It had cooled off somewhat, so instead of having the air conditioning on, we had the windows open. I was looking out the window in the middle of our first class of the day (Hebrew), and pointing out to a friend the ugly clouds that had been appearing more and more often in the last couple of weeks, although they hadn’t done anything other than block my beloved sun. A couple of minutes later, we were all distracted from Hebrew (which isn’t really that hard to do) by a new noise: RAIN! It poured for a good ten minutes, and it was all that we wanted to talk about. The first rain of the season even has its own name here, because it’s so important. It was sort of amazing to see rain somewhere that I’ve only known as warm and sunny, and after not seeing any rain for so long. And so much rain! Once it stopped pouring, it was much cooler out too. We were talking about the power of prayer and how amazing it was that the rain appeared the day after we started praying for it. It was quite an experience! (Ok, so apparently the rain doesn’t always come the day after the prayers change. But it was pretty cool that it did this year!) And for the record, it was gray and cold for the rest of the day, and rained on and off a little bit, but mostly off. Reportedly, we get on-and-off rain from now until Passover, but it’s more off than on, except during December-January or so, when it’s mainly on, and also cold. I’m not so excited about that. But right now, cool and threatening to rain is a bit of a novelty, so I guess I can’t be sick of it yet!
Also, I’m ready for another vacation. All of a sudden, the workload has picked up, and the next break is not until December. After having a month of classes constantly interrupted by holidays and trips, this is going to be a long couple of months. And on that note…it’s past my bedtime. Happy Fall!
Friday, October 13, 2006
New pictures!
Happy Friday!
A short post, since I haven’t done much in the last few days. Wednesday I went on a long hike with some HUC people. We were out for a good 8 hours, hiking probably for 5-6. It was really fun to be out there! Israeli hikes seem to be different from American hikes, because as you’re walking, you come across all sorts of things. We saw ancient (Byzantine era) monasteries and associated buildings (well, their remains), mosaic floors that were just covered by sand, a really old olive press, and probably some other things that I’m forgetting right now. We also hiked through a lot of thorns, but it was worth it! I had a great time, although it makes we want to hike in the Shenandoah. It must be gorgeous right now!
Yesterday I tried to get some things done around the house and start attacking my pile of homework. I did some of it, but I still have a history paper to write for the end of October. I know I’m way ahead, but it’s not done yet. (It’s barely started.) And I’ll be getting more work again Sunday when vacation’s over. Last night I was with my frequent Thursday night crew, playing cards and hanging out. We tend to divide by card game and gender somewhat, with the boys playing poker in one room and the girls playing euchre or just hanging out in the other room. So we had lots of good girl talk last night. It was so much fun!
Today I slept in, went grocery shopping, talked to Karen’s visiting parents for a while. And I had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Cheese is delicious in Israel, but good, sharp cheddar cheese is difficult to near impossible to find. So right now I’m giddily enjoying the cheese that Michael brought over from my parents. Life is good!
I have new pictures posted! Flickr has a very low upload limit though, and it’s been driving me nuts, so I’m posting somewhere new now. I apologize that you may have to register again (although I don’t know if it makes you), but it will be worth it. This is (I think) where my pictures will be posted for the rest of the year: http://community.webshots.com/user/jkarpay. What’s there now is pictures from Michael’s visit. They’re mainly scenery, around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and lots of self pics of the two of us. I’ll keep adding more when I have time. Also, some of you have been curious to read some of my classmates' blogs. I added a link to my friend Mara's on the right side, and I'll try to add a couple more. (I feel like I have to get permission to link though, so it may take a couple days. Mara linked to mine this morning, so it's ok!) She updates a lot as well. Enjoy!
Shabbat Shalom!
A short post, since I haven’t done much in the last few days. Wednesday I went on a long hike with some HUC people. We were out for a good 8 hours, hiking probably for 5-6. It was really fun to be out there! Israeli hikes seem to be different from American hikes, because as you’re walking, you come across all sorts of things. We saw ancient (Byzantine era) monasteries and associated buildings (well, their remains), mosaic floors that were just covered by sand, a really old olive press, and probably some other things that I’m forgetting right now. We also hiked through a lot of thorns, but it was worth it! I had a great time, although it makes we want to hike in the Shenandoah. It must be gorgeous right now!
Yesterday I tried to get some things done around the house and start attacking my pile of homework. I did some of it, but I still have a history paper to write for the end of October. I know I’m way ahead, but it’s not done yet. (It’s barely started.) And I’ll be getting more work again Sunday when vacation’s over. Last night I was with my frequent Thursday night crew, playing cards and hanging out. We tend to divide by card game and gender somewhat, with the boys playing poker in one room and the girls playing euchre or just hanging out in the other room. So we had lots of good girl talk last night. It was so much fun!
Today I slept in, went grocery shopping, talked to Karen’s visiting parents for a while. And I had a delicious grilled cheese sandwich. Cheese is delicious in Israel, but good, sharp cheddar cheese is difficult to near impossible to find. So right now I’m giddily enjoying the cheese that Michael brought over from my parents. Life is good!
I have new pictures posted! Flickr has a very low upload limit though, and it’s been driving me nuts, so I’m posting somewhere new now. I apologize that you may have to register again (although I don’t know if it makes you), but it will be worth it. This is (I think) where my pictures will be posted for the rest of the year: http://community.webshots.com/user/jkarpay. What’s there now is pictures from Michael’s visit. They’re mainly scenery, around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and lots of self pics of the two of us. I’ll keep adding more when I have time. Also, some of you have been curious to read some of my classmates' blogs. I added a link to my friend Mara's on the right side, and I'll try to add a couple more. (I feel like I have to get permission to link though, so it may take a couple days. Mara linked to mine this morning, so it's ok!) She updates a lot as well. Enjoy!
Shabbat Shalom!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Vacation!
I love vacation:) But I get ahead of myself…
After Yom Kippur, we were back to school for a couple of days. Wednesday we had our Israel Seminar, where we learn about current Israeli life and society. Last week we went to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, and Har Herzl, the military and political cemetery. Yad Vashem was incredibly well done and moving and emotional. The museum was redone a couple of years ago, and it has some incredible features. The museum is designed as a triangle, and the exhibit rooms zigzag back and forth from the tip to the wide base. Down the middle, you can see from one end to the other, so you can always see the movie at the beginning, depicting Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust, and you can always see the huge window at the end, looking out over Israeli beautifulness. But you can also see that you still have a long way to go through the museum. It’s as if they’re trying to constantly give you the feeling of the never-ending situation, or something like that. It was an interesting design of the museum that we all had comments on. I thought the museum also did a fantastic job of emphasizing life. It is a multi-media experience, and in every room there are pictures, words, objects, and audio/video interviews. The words, objects, and pictures on the walls tell the majority story: sadness, humiliation, separation, death. But the videos, the soundtrack to the whole museum, are all of survivors. So while reading about mass deportations, you are hearing the story of someone who escaped, snuck away, succeeded, survived. There are seats in front of most of the television screens, so when you’re tired from walking through a very long museum, the place you sit and rest is in front of stories of survival. It’s fascinating. The museum does not end at the end of the war, however. It continues with stories of displaced persons camps, immigration to Israel, and the independence of the State. It has apparently been toned down from the old version of the museum, but it is an interesting extension of a Holocaust Museum to logically extend to the formation of the State of Israel, as if the story really continued an extra few years from what most history books say.
From Yad Vashem we continued up the hill to the top of Har Herzl, where Theodor Herzl, the “father of modern Zionism” is buried. His grave is at the very top of the hill, surrounded by a large plaza, with no other graves around him. Apparently this plaza is the location of the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations every year. It’s a very different focus from the States, to really start with a tribute to the people who died for independence and worked so hard for it. I wonder if that will change as Israel ages; it’s such a young country that many soldiers who fought for independence are still alive. We also visited graves of past Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents. They are all uniform, as it is a military cemetery, except for the grave of Yitzhak Rabin. Because he was assassinated, his grave is much more ornate and different from the others. We also visited different parts of the regular military cemetery, including graves of soldiers who fell in the war in Lebanon this past summer. It’s sometimes hard to remember that this country is defended by kids so young. Most of the people buried in that cemetery are younger than I am now.
After the heavy, emotional day, I headed home for a little while to regroup and get happy. Then it was off to the airport to pick up Michael! It took a long time for him to come out, and then I think he got a much less happy reception than expected…because I was trying to figure out why he wasn’t carrying a suitcase! He was supposed to have a huge bag, mostly filled with my stuff that he was bringing for me. El-Al misplaced it somewhere between DC, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. Then I realized that while the bag hadn’t made it, he had, and I got much happier! I still had to go to class on Thursday morning, and afterwards we went with a group of my friends to the all-you-can-eat meat restaurant that I had been to once before. It was a fun and delicious start to vacation! After lunch, Michael and I did a little shopping to try and get some clothes for him, since El-Al still had not figured out exactly where the bag was, let alone when it would be delivered. Thursday night was cards night with my friends, as usual, and he got in on the guys’ poker game and did quite well:) Friday we did lots of walking around the city, looking at all the sukkahs going up outside every restaurant. Two phone calls within 3 minutes of each other while we were downtown walking around, and about to go get falafel: my tallit came in! And Michael’s bag was found and would be delivered in about a half an hour! We took a quick detour to pick up the tallit. It’s gorgeous! And then we walked home to wait for the delivery people, who came eventually. And then we went back out for the promised falafel, and returned home to look through the bag and get ready for Shabbat. (Missing items, all meant for me: m&m’s, Trader Joe’s Traveling Chocolate, Oxo can opener for incompetent lefty, receiver for wireless mouse. At least they left mom’s cookies!) For Shabbat, we went to services at Shira Chadasha with a group of my friends, which was slightly disappointing this week, with a very shortened Kabbalat Shabbat, but it was still fun and enough to impress Michael! I’ll drag him back there for a hopefully-better service next visit. For dinner we went to a friend’s place with a group of HUC people, the usual Shabbat dinner experience, and everyone sat and talked and hung out for a while after dinner. Saturday we went to lunch in the HUC sukkah with some of my classmates who were still in town, and we sat there for a couple of hours eating, talking, hanging out. Saturday afternoon involved reading, sudoku, Shabbat napping. We went out for a yummy dinner after Shabbat ended, and then headed to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was a great couple of days of relaxing, spending time on the beach, walking around the city, eating, sleeping, sitting by the pool. Exactly what a vacation should be! And we found a Mexican restaurant (none exist in Jerusalem; it made me SO happy) and had chocolate fondue for lunch one day. Clearly, a good vacation. Last night, sadly, I took him back to the airport. It was a fantastic visit, and I can’t wait for the next one! December…hurry up and get here!
I had another adventure on the way home from the airport by myself. Michael’s flight was at 1am, so we arrived at Ben Gurion around 10pm Monday night. There isn’t really anywhere I could go in that airport without a ticket, so I didn’t stay for very long before saying goodbye and going outside to get a shuttle back to Jerusalem. Airport shuttles to Jerusalem leave as soon as they are full (of 10 passengers) and drop off each person at home. The airport is about 45 minutes away, but depending on drop-off order (I’m somehow always near the end) it can take a little while. Last night was very, very long. I got onto the shuttle somewhere between 10:15 and 10:30. I was one of the first ones to get on. There were planes arriving, but few people who wanted a shuttle to Jerusalem. We didn’t fill up until just after 11. The other times I’ve taken the shuttle, it took a couple of minutes to fill and no longer. Once we were full, I fell asleep very quickly. There were several very religious men on the shuttle. (i.e., black suits, long black jackets, peos, black hats…one of them fur.) We went to the neighborhood where we were dropping off one or two of them, and got stuck. It’s the middle of Sukkot, and there was a lot of celebrating in this neighborhood. With all of the parked cars and people walking around (hundreds of them), the road was only wide enough for one. Which was a problem, because we were trying to go up, but a couple of buses were trying to go down. We lost. We pulled over. It took the first bus a good 10 minutes to get by, because the street was so narrow, and there were so many people who were not exactly cooperating about getting out of the way. Before the second bus could go by, someone else from my shuttle got out and stood in front of the bus. With the bus driver yelling and honking at him, he waved at our little shuttle-van. The driver jumped back in and took advantage of the opportunity to back out of our space and turn around and head back down the street ahead of the bus. The whole shuttle told the guy who stood in front of the bus “kol ha-kavod,” all the honor, basically, when he got back on. And we were back on our way. We circled around to try to get close to this man’s house from a different street. When we finally stopped for him (again), it became clear that he did not have enough cash to pay for the shuttle. So we waited for another 10 minutes while he went home, and a wife/sister/some associated woman came back and paid for him. It was a little ridiculous, and just frustrating because of how late at night it was already! While we were waiting, another shuttle passenger got out and demanded to switch to a cab. That was another few minutes. I was the second to last to be dropped off, of course. It was almost 1am by the time I got home.
Now I’m enjoying my vacation, but a bit homesick today. Feel free to cheer me up:) Pictures will be posted once Michael emails them to me and I get my act together and post them. Soon!
After Yom Kippur, we were back to school for a couple of days. Wednesday we had our Israel Seminar, where we learn about current Israeli life and society. Last week we went to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, and Har Herzl, the military and political cemetery. Yad Vashem was incredibly well done and moving and emotional. The museum was redone a couple of years ago, and it has some incredible features. The museum is designed as a triangle, and the exhibit rooms zigzag back and forth from the tip to the wide base. Down the middle, you can see from one end to the other, so you can always see the movie at the beginning, depicting Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust, and you can always see the huge window at the end, looking out over Israeli beautifulness. But you can also see that you still have a long way to go through the museum. It’s as if they’re trying to constantly give you the feeling of the never-ending situation, or something like that. It was an interesting design of the museum that we all had comments on. I thought the museum also did a fantastic job of emphasizing life. It is a multi-media experience, and in every room there are pictures, words, objects, and audio/video interviews. The words, objects, and pictures on the walls tell the majority story: sadness, humiliation, separation, death. But the videos, the soundtrack to the whole museum, are all of survivors. So while reading about mass deportations, you are hearing the story of someone who escaped, snuck away, succeeded, survived. There are seats in front of most of the television screens, so when you’re tired from walking through a very long museum, the place you sit and rest is in front of stories of survival. It’s fascinating. The museum does not end at the end of the war, however. It continues with stories of displaced persons camps, immigration to Israel, and the independence of the State. It has apparently been toned down from the old version of the museum, but it is an interesting extension of a Holocaust Museum to logically extend to the formation of the State of Israel, as if the story really continued an extra few years from what most history books say.
From Yad Vashem we continued up the hill to the top of Har Herzl, where Theodor Herzl, the “father of modern Zionism” is buried. His grave is at the very top of the hill, surrounded by a large plaza, with no other graves around him. Apparently this plaza is the location of the beginning of the Independence Day celebrations every year. It’s a very different focus from the States, to really start with a tribute to the people who died for independence and worked so hard for it. I wonder if that will change as Israel ages; it’s such a young country that many soldiers who fought for independence are still alive. We also visited graves of past Israeli Prime Ministers and Presidents. They are all uniform, as it is a military cemetery, except for the grave of Yitzhak Rabin. Because he was assassinated, his grave is much more ornate and different from the others. We also visited different parts of the regular military cemetery, including graves of soldiers who fell in the war in Lebanon this past summer. It’s sometimes hard to remember that this country is defended by kids so young. Most of the people buried in that cemetery are younger than I am now.
After the heavy, emotional day, I headed home for a little while to regroup and get happy. Then it was off to the airport to pick up Michael! It took a long time for him to come out, and then I think he got a much less happy reception than expected…because I was trying to figure out why he wasn’t carrying a suitcase! He was supposed to have a huge bag, mostly filled with my stuff that he was bringing for me. El-Al misplaced it somewhere between DC, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. Then I realized that while the bag hadn’t made it, he had, and I got much happier! I still had to go to class on Thursday morning, and afterwards we went with a group of my friends to the all-you-can-eat meat restaurant that I had been to once before. It was a fun and delicious start to vacation! After lunch, Michael and I did a little shopping to try and get some clothes for him, since El-Al still had not figured out exactly where the bag was, let alone when it would be delivered. Thursday night was cards night with my friends, as usual, and he got in on the guys’ poker game and did quite well:) Friday we did lots of walking around the city, looking at all the sukkahs going up outside every restaurant. Two phone calls within 3 minutes of each other while we were downtown walking around, and about to go get falafel: my tallit came in! And Michael’s bag was found and would be delivered in about a half an hour! We took a quick detour to pick up the tallit. It’s gorgeous! And then we walked home to wait for the delivery people, who came eventually. And then we went back out for the promised falafel, and returned home to look through the bag and get ready for Shabbat. (Missing items, all meant for me: m&m’s, Trader Joe’s Traveling Chocolate, Oxo can opener for incompetent lefty, receiver for wireless mouse. At least they left mom’s cookies!) For Shabbat, we went to services at Shira Chadasha with a group of my friends, which was slightly disappointing this week, with a very shortened Kabbalat Shabbat, but it was still fun and enough to impress Michael! I’ll drag him back there for a hopefully-better service next visit. For dinner we went to a friend’s place with a group of HUC people, the usual Shabbat dinner experience, and everyone sat and talked and hung out for a while after dinner. Saturday we went to lunch in the HUC sukkah with some of my classmates who were still in town, and we sat there for a couple of hours eating, talking, hanging out. Saturday afternoon involved reading, sudoku, Shabbat napping. We went out for a yummy dinner after Shabbat ended, and then headed to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv was a great couple of days of relaxing, spending time on the beach, walking around the city, eating, sleeping, sitting by the pool. Exactly what a vacation should be! And we found a Mexican restaurant (none exist in Jerusalem; it made me SO happy) and had chocolate fondue for lunch one day. Clearly, a good vacation. Last night, sadly, I took him back to the airport. It was a fantastic visit, and I can’t wait for the next one! December…hurry up and get here!
I had another adventure on the way home from the airport by myself. Michael’s flight was at 1am, so we arrived at Ben Gurion around 10pm Monday night. There isn’t really anywhere I could go in that airport without a ticket, so I didn’t stay for very long before saying goodbye and going outside to get a shuttle back to Jerusalem. Airport shuttles to Jerusalem leave as soon as they are full (of 10 passengers) and drop off each person at home. The airport is about 45 minutes away, but depending on drop-off order (I’m somehow always near the end) it can take a little while. Last night was very, very long. I got onto the shuttle somewhere between 10:15 and 10:30. I was one of the first ones to get on. There were planes arriving, but few people who wanted a shuttle to Jerusalem. We didn’t fill up until just after 11. The other times I’ve taken the shuttle, it took a couple of minutes to fill and no longer. Once we were full, I fell asleep very quickly. There were several very religious men on the shuttle. (i.e., black suits, long black jackets, peos, black hats…one of them fur.) We went to the neighborhood where we were dropping off one or two of them, and got stuck. It’s the middle of Sukkot, and there was a lot of celebrating in this neighborhood. With all of the parked cars and people walking around (hundreds of them), the road was only wide enough for one. Which was a problem, because we were trying to go up, but a couple of buses were trying to go down. We lost. We pulled over. It took the first bus a good 10 minutes to get by, because the street was so narrow, and there were so many people who were not exactly cooperating about getting out of the way. Before the second bus could go by, someone else from my shuttle got out and stood in front of the bus. With the bus driver yelling and honking at him, he waved at our little shuttle-van. The driver jumped back in and took advantage of the opportunity to back out of our space and turn around and head back down the street ahead of the bus. The whole shuttle told the guy who stood in front of the bus “kol ha-kavod,” all the honor, basically, when he got back on. And we were back on our way. We circled around to try to get close to this man’s house from a different street. When we finally stopped for him (again), it became clear that he did not have enough cash to pay for the shuttle. So we waited for another 10 minutes while he went home, and a wife/sister/some associated woman came back and paid for him. It was a little ridiculous, and just frustrating because of how late at night it was already! While we were waiting, another shuttle passenger got out and demanded to switch to a cab. That was another few minutes. I was the second to last to be dropped off, of course. It was almost 1am by the time I got home.
Now I’m enjoying my vacation, but a bit homesick today. Feel free to cheer me up:) Pictures will be posted once Michael emails them to me and I get my act together and post them. Soon!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Yom Kippur
So I really should be sleeping right now, but like the Disney World commercial, “I’m too excited to sleep!” Michael just left for the airport to come visit, and I can’t wait! Of course, I still have a day of class to get through first, but that is way beside the point. I also realized I haven’t blogged since Rosh Hashanah, and that’s a problem. Here we go…
Yom Kippur
Unlike Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is out of this world in Jerusalem. Israel’s government decided some years ago to tie fall daylight savings time to the holiday, so in Israel, daylight savings time is the Saturday night before Yom Kippur. I went to my pre-fast meal (“lunchdinner”) at 3:00 in the afternoon. Kol Nidre services were at 5:00. I enjoyed HUC’s Kol Nidre service, and because of the crazy times, the service was over before 8:00. (I enjoyed the service. It was still pretty long for Kol Nidre.) After services, one of our professors wanted to take interested students on a walk down a main street a little ways away to show us what Yom Kippur looks like in Jerusalem. I decided that since it wasn’t too far from home, and I wasn’t hungry yet, I would go along. It was pretty unbelievable. We walked down to a street that is lined by restaurants and shops. Everything was closed, but almost everything is closed on Shabbat as well. Traffic is light on Shabbat, but on Yom Kippur, the traffic lights were actually turned off. It turns out, it’s a law in Israel (or at least in Jerusalem, I’m not sure) that only emergency vehicles can drive on Yom Kippur. A couple of my classmates decided it would be fun to lay down in the middle of a main intersection, just because they could. People were just walking down the middle of normally very busy streets. And there were bikes everywhere. Apparently this is the holiday when all non-religious children learn to ride their bikes. There were zero cars on the road, so in addition to the zillions of pedestrians just walking around, there were huge numbers of children on bikes, scooters, and running around. It was like a block party! Except, without music, or food, or drink… I was home by 9:00ish, and in bed before 10. I slept for nine and a half hours!!
The next morning, I had made plans to go to the same synagogue I went to for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. There were a handful of HUC students there, and it was a good, all in Hebrew service. I liked the Rosh Hashanah one better there, but Rosh Hashanah services are also much happier and more upbeat, which I prefer to tired and hungry. Also, there were two Torah readings, which meant two different people spoke about the Torah portions. They both spoke in Hebrew. Several of the other HUC people left after the first sermon. When we got to the last section of the service, and a few pages in someone got up to give a third sermon in Hebrew…we gave up. We figured there was only another half hour or so left in the service, and we were already in the section that is cut out of Gates of Repentance, so we were essentially in bonus time, right? Yeah, we gave up and started the long, slow walk home.
I came back to my apartment and engaged in my favorite fasting activity: I took a two-hour nap. Then it was back to HUC for afternoon, memorial, and closing services. They cut out a lot at the beginning, but toward the end of the closing service, we all appreciated the service leader’s mark of being a truly good rabbi: he started cutting passages as it got closer to the 5:58 break fast time. We got out of services promptly at about 6:05. Before the end, there was a massive shofar blowing. Several students who had bought shofarot and been practicing basically had a competition on the bima to see who could hold the blast the longest. I was impressed that they had anything left in them to blow the shofar. By the end of not eating or drinking for 25 hours, I was proud of myself for standing there! I went to break fast at a friend’s apartment, and it was delicious, as break fasts always are.
Today was back to the grind, temporarily. Tomorrow we have our Israel seminar, and tomorrow is yet another field trip day. And then, I take a shuttle to the airport to meet Michael! (Yes, I have class on Thursday too. But only in the morning.) And then I’m on sukkot vacation!! I’m staying in Israel this vacation, with Michael for the first half and figuring out who else is around for the second half. I’m ready for the break! But now…I guess it’s bedtime.
Hopefully there will be lots of sukkah pictures coming soon!
Yom Kippur
Unlike Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur is out of this world in Jerusalem. Israel’s government decided some years ago to tie fall daylight savings time to the holiday, so in Israel, daylight savings time is the Saturday night before Yom Kippur. I went to my pre-fast meal (“lunchdinner”) at 3:00 in the afternoon. Kol Nidre services were at 5:00. I enjoyed HUC’s Kol Nidre service, and because of the crazy times, the service was over before 8:00. (I enjoyed the service. It was still pretty long for Kol Nidre.) After services, one of our professors wanted to take interested students on a walk down a main street a little ways away to show us what Yom Kippur looks like in Jerusalem. I decided that since it wasn’t too far from home, and I wasn’t hungry yet, I would go along. It was pretty unbelievable. We walked down to a street that is lined by restaurants and shops. Everything was closed, but almost everything is closed on Shabbat as well. Traffic is light on Shabbat, but on Yom Kippur, the traffic lights were actually turned off. It turns out, it’s a law in Israel (or at least in Jerusalem, I’m not sure) that only emergency vehicles can drive on Yom Kippur. A couple of my classmates decided it would be fun to lay down in the middle of a main intersection, just because they could. People were just walking down the middle of normally very busy streets. And there were bikes everywhere. Apparently this is the holiday when all non-religious children learn to ride their bikes. There were zero cars on the road, so in addition to the zillions of pedestrians just walking around, there were huge numbers of children on bikes, scooters, and running around. It was like a block party! Except, without music, or food, or drink… I was home by 9:00ish, and in bed before 10. I slept for nine and a half hours!!
The next morning, I had made plans to go to the same synagogue I went to for the second day of Rosh Hashanah. There were a handful of HUC students there, and it was a good, all in Hebrew service. I liked the Rosh Hashanah one better there, but Rosh Hashanah services are also much happier and more upbeat, which I prefer to tired and hungry. Also, there were two Torah readings, which meant two different people spoke about the Torah portions. They both spoke in Hebrew. Several of the other HUC people left after the first sermon. When we got to the last section of the service, and a few pages in someone got up to give a third sermon in Hebrew…we gave up. We figured there was only another half hour or so left in the service, and we were already in the section that is cut out of Gates of Repentance, so we were essentially in bonus time, right? Yeah, we gave up and started the long, slow walk home.
I came back to my apartment and engaged in my favorite fasting activity: I took a two-hour nap. Then it was back to HUC for afternoon, memorial, and closing services. They cut out a lot at the beginning, but toward the end of the closing service, we all appreciated the service leader’s mark of being a truly good rabbi: he started cutting passages as it got closer to the 5:58 break fast time. We got out of services promptly at about 6:05. Before the end, there was a massive shofar blowing. Several students who had bought shofarot and been practicing basically had a competition on the bima to see who could hold the blast the longest. I was impressed that they had anything left in them to blow the shofar. By the end of not eating or drinking for 25 hours, I was proud of myself for standing there! I went to break fast at a friend’s apartment, and it was delicious, as break fasts always are.
Today was back to the grind, temporarily. Tomorrow we have our Israel seminar, and tomorrow is yet another field trip day. And then, I take a shuttle to the airport to meet Michael! (Yes, I have class on Thursday too. But only in the morning.) And then I’m on sukkot vacation!! I’m staying in Israel this vacation, with Michael for the first half and figuring out who else is around for the second half. I’m ready for the break! But now…I guess it’s bedtime.
Hopefully there will be lots of sukkah pictures coming soon!
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