Caesaria, Tzippori, Tiberias, Tsfat, Haifa

I’m back from Haifa, and now having had a day to recover, I’m still tired. But school starts again tomorrow, so I’m trying to get this written before I get bogged down in the craziness of the week.

We actually started this tiyul on Monday night with an introductory session with my rabbinics professor. He is so incredibly educated about the rabbinic period, and I actually love listening to him talk. He gave us some background information about the places we would be visiting and showed some slides of archaeological discoveries, some of which we saw on the trip in person.

Wednesday morning we met at the college early in the morning to get on buses and head north. (Dad argued that 7:30 isn’t really that early. To be ready to be social with more than 50 future colleagues, or more than 70 of anyone, that’s early!) A couple of hours later, we arrived at Caesaria in northern Israel. This city is a major testament to the Hellenistic influence over Israel. We divided into our three study groups to tour the ruins, starting in the theater. Our educator told us that the acoustics aren’t as good as they used to be, because where there is now a beautiful view of the sea behind the stage, there used to be a backdrop to reflect noise back to the seats. Another group’s educator apparently disagreed, because in the middle of our text study, we saw five of the HUCers with the most amazing voices run up to the stage, and then we heard them, from way up in our seats, singing beautifully. (What did they sing? In multi-part harmony, first we heard “Gin-gy. Hi Gingy. O-phir. Mo-she.” Those were our three educators. Then we heard, also in beautiful harmony, the Oscar Meyer Weiner song. It’s never sounded so beautiful! They had some non-HUC tour groups doubled over in laughter as well.) From the theater, we moved on, walking through the hippodrome and then to a crusader village. We also saw a beheaded statue of one of the emperors, but of course three days later, I no longer remember which one. Oops.

From Caesaria, we got back on the buses and drove to Tzippori, where the Sanhedrin met for a while under Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi, the editor of the Mishnah. We did some text study there, and heard stories about the lives of the ancient rabbis while we were standing on ruins of what was probably a Jewish village, so the stories could have taken place in that exact spot! Clearly, I enjoyed it. I guess I’m heading in the right direction! We saw the remains of a huge house from that time period, which given the mosaic glorifying drinking, was probably not a Jewish house. We looked at some related texts, including one on how bathroom location was an indication of wealth. Seriously. We then went into the remains of an ancient synagogue where a huge mosaic was found on the floor. The mosaic was surprising when it was first found, because some of the images, such as a giant zodiac, are not generally thought of as very Jewish. Lots of historians have rationalized the discovery, and subsequent discoveries of similar images in other synagogues of the time, as a portrayal of Jewish time and possibly of creation. Or else the way that Hellenization crept in everywhere, including the synagogues. After all of the groups had been through the ancient synagogue and finished studying texts for the day, the whole group gathered in the synagogue remains and prayed the mincha (afternoon) service together. It was actually an odd feeling, because we were facing the back of the synagogue. This one was oriented towards Rome, not Jerusalem, so when we prayed facing Jerusalem, we were turned backwards from the way it had been built. Apparently the Greeks and Romans were more influential than anyone likes to believe.

From Tzippori, we drove to Tiberias, where we had some down time in our hotel before dinner. The hotel itself was an interesting place. It was a hotel-museum to Dona Gracia, who was one of the people to establish the Jewish community in Tiberias in the 16^th century. Among other things, there was a rack of costumes in the lobby. I still haven’t figured that out, but a few of my classmates did play dress-up at some point. The whole class went together to dinner (on HUC) at Decks, apparently the best restaurant in the area. It was fabulous! It was presented to us as an all-you-can-eat meal; as soon as one dish was empty or close to empty, it was refilled AND the next food came out. To make it even better, it was a (kosher) meat restaurant, so we got good meat as some of the never-ending courses, including some sort of beef skewers that were a highlight and goose, which was delicious, although some of my table-mates yelled at me a little for cutting off the massive amount of fat. Apparently it’s part of the experience and deliciousness, but I had plenty of experience and deliciousness without it. So there. We were also served crepes for dessert. It was delicious. We had walked to dinner, so we essentially rolled back afterwards, where I hung out with my tiyul-roommates Hayley and Cassi, and then went to bed.

Thursday morning we were up really early again. (How early is really early this time? We had to be downstairs for morning services at 7:15. And they didn’t feed us until afterwards.) I realize I tend to rave about good food, but such is life. Breakfast was delicious. An excellent balance of the Israeli – salads and cheeses – and the American – pancakes with chocolate sauce, among other things. We went to Tsfat, where mysticism took off. We did more text study and visited three old synagogues which were all beautiful and so completely unlike anything you would find today. As we walked into the first one, I remembered being there on my NFTY trip nine years ago! Although I have probably been to many of the sites we have visited this year, I remember almost nothing from that trip, for no reason I can figure out. So when I see something familiar, I get excited. But I digress. In one of the synagogues, there was a geniza with glass doors. A geniza is a place where any paper that might have God’s name on it is deposited, and when it is full, it is buried, so that the name of God is never thrown away. This one had doors that you could see through, and it has clearly been used for a very, very long time. It was really interesting to peek inside. Among other things, there was a very old Torah scroll, off its rollers, in the geniza. After the synagogues, we went to visit a kabbalistic artist, someone who studies the mystical parts of Judaism and uses them in his art. He had a lot to say. I find the mystical stuff interesting, but I think I am far too rational of a person to get very excited about it. The art was beautiful, but the explanations of some of it made it a little too out there for my taste. After that, we had free time to eat and explore the city on our own. Tsfat has zillions of little shops and artists, and I was excited to go into some of them. I am looking forward to going back, possibly in February with my parents when they come. (YAY for booking tickets!)

After Tsfat, we went to Haifa, arriving in the late afternoon. We were given free time for the rest of the day. Some friends and I asked the hotel manager where we could find a good restaurant for dinner. He gave us directions and told us it would be about a 10 minute walk. We headed in that direction, and after about 20 minutes got to the beginning of the street he was talking about, but nobody got excited about any of the restaurants for a while. After 45 minutes of walking, we were all pretty hungry. We settled into a Thai restaurant and had a fabulous meal. One of these days, someone is going to have to explain to me why Jerusalem doesn’t have any good ethnic food, but the rest of Israel seems to. Somehow, a bunch of my classmates stumbled on the same restaurant. I was there with a group of nine, and while we were eating, there were somewhere around 25 HUC people in the restaurant, and another big group showed up as we were leaving. I think we were the only ones who walked. We decided to walk home as well, in part because we were really full, and in part because we had passed some bars that looked good. We stopped in one of them, about halfway back, to get a drink. Since apparently Haifa is like Jerusalem in that you can’t go anywhere without seeing HUC people, we ran into our professors, who had just finished dinner where we were going to have a drink. Apparently this place also had great sushi. When we got back to the hotel, I had more roommate time and then slept happily, although never for long enough.

Friday morning we went to the Leo Baeck Education Center, a middle school/high school affiliated with Progressive Judaism, although most of the students there would identify themselves as secular Jews rather than reform or progressive Jews. We had services at the school, led by their rabbi/educator. With his playing guitar through the reader’s Kaddish and Aleinu, I have altered my opinion of guitar use during services: there is such a thing as too much. It was a little odd. I don’t think he stopped playing it at all, except during the silent part of the Amidah, until the Mourners’ Kaddish at the end of the service. After services, we had a brief tour of the school. It looks like no high school I have ever seen! It is on the shore of the Mediterranean, and the whole inside is gorgeous, modern, and decorated with tons of art. I am pretty sure the building is nicer than most universities. After our tour, we divided into smaller groups and met with students at the school. I am constantly impressed with Israelis’ command of English. These students, from 7^th to 10^th grade, had much better English than my Hebrew. I know they study it in school starting when they are really young, but it still surprises me and amazes me every time. It was really interesting to hear their opinions on all kinds of topics. The school does an exchange program with the Rashi School in Boston. The kids who had been through the program already said that they felt more Jewish in Israel than Boston, even when they weren’t doing Jewish things, and even though the Boston kids might have been more traditionally observant. They couldn’t imagine living anywhere but Israel. One HUC student asked them what they wanted to do in the future, and they all told us what part of the army they wanted to go into. It was a really interesting look into Israeli minds. It echoed a lot of what we talk about in our Israel Seminar, but to hear the same opinions directly from kids was still fascinating.

After an unexciting lunch, we got back on the bus and slept most of the way to Jerusalem. We arrived at about 3:30. Shabbat started at 3:56. (In two weeks it starts moving later again!) I slept well last night. I worked hard today. I drafted a paper. Michael arrives in less than two weeks. I have a ton of work to do between now and then. It’s bedtime. Pictures soon, I really promise. I have lots of procrastination to do these days, so it will happen. Mazel tov, Abi and family! Safe travels, Debbie! Happy studying, Michael! Becky and Lev, your turn to book a trip? Goodnight.