highlights

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Rosh Hashanah

I suppose nobody would be surprised if I said that Rosh Hashanah in Israel is a unique experience. I'm not sure it was all that unique though. The first day of the holiday fell on Shabbat this year though, and so the environment in Jerusalem was really not very different from any other Saturday. It continued an extra day though. Most of Israel does celebrate two days of Rosh Hashanah, contrary to popular belief. There are some people who do not, but it is still a holiday here, with schools (including HUC), stores, and businesses closed on the second day.

My experience was interesting, to use a fairly neutral word. HUC encouraged us to attend at least some of the High Holiday services there, in support of the student choir, among other reasons. The choir, made up of the 7 cantorial students in my class and about 7 or 8 rabbinic students with amazing voicesl, sang beautifully. I went to services at HUC on Friday evening and Saturday morning. Rosh Hashanah services at HUC were an experience. Unfortunately, they were more of an observing and listening experience than a participatory experience. The cantor is very classically Reform, enjoying a good solo (or a dozen good solos) more than congregational (audience?) participation. It was frustrating, to say the least. The cantor has a fabulous voice, and the choir was a beautiful addition. I just wish they could have found a better balance between vocal performance and congregational involvement.

Highlight: the shofar service. I have been craving a great shofar service. There were two shofar blowers, my classmate Josh and one of the professors. They each did one section, and they did the last section in unison. Except, it was really in unison. It sounded like they had practiced together, and when one of them finished, the other finished. Rather than elephant-like, it was beautiful and impressive!

On the second day, I wanted to try a different synagogue, hopefully somewhere with more congregational participation. Some friends and I went to Kol Haneshamah, a local Progressive (Israeli Reform) congregation. When the service started, 10 minutes late, there were about 25 people in the room. Over the next hour or two, the other hundreds showed up. It was a nice service. It was out of the Israeli Reform Machzor, of which they have not yet made an edition with English translations, so the whole book was in Hebrew. It was a little intense and intimidating at first, but as the service went on, it was encouraging how easily I could follow and how much I understood! There was no sermon, but two different people spoke about various Torah portions. In Hebrew. When I was trying hard to pay attention (which was hard, since I was really tired and there were so many people to watch!), I could understand, which is always exciting. If only they spoke so slowly and clearly on the radio. The service was almost an hour shorter than HUC’s service the morning before…but we did more. As in, there was an entire extra (fairly long) section that is not even in Gates of Repentance, and we finished all of that in 25 percent less time than it took the cantor and the choir to get through a more abbreviated (but more chorally choreographed) service. Kol Haneshamah does not have a cantor, but instead had this service led in sections by different congregants and the rabbi. I enjoyed it, and I am planning to return there for at least part of Yom Kippur.

Highlight: the shofar service. I have never seen a shofar service with so much joy! After each section, there was joyous singing, and parents dancing with their kids. It was so much fun! I also liked watching the shofar blower, who did the whole thing very quietly and modestly. He had a small shofar, rather than a big long curly one. He did not stay on the bima to receive any glory, but stepped up at the appropriate time and then immediately returned to his seat. I was impressed. Also, there were two shofar services, which I have never seen before. Remember that section of the service that is missing from Gates of Repentance? It includes a second shofar service apparently, which was a fun bonus.

I most definitely was missing the Beth Ami services all weekend. As one friend not-so-kindly pointed out though, chances are that none of us will be at our home congregations for the High Holidays again for a VERY long time. I find that very sad. I was thinking of you, and I will be again on Yom Kippur. (When, of course, I will be fasting!)

Also, the Redskins won this weekend. YAY! I got to see a little piece of the game, including one touchdown. It was beautiful:)

Now it’s back to the grind, at least for a few days: we get a four-day weekend this weekend, because we’re off on the day of Kol Nidre and for Yom Kippur. Then we return to school for three days, and then it’s vacation! It’s all so close. Time flies!

Shanah tovah, a good new year!

L'shanah Tovah!

A happy and sweet and healthy new year! I miss Temple Beth Ami. If you're there, enjoy it for me:)

Random Thoughts, part 2

So my last set of random thoughts were well received, even though I thought I was writing it that way mainly because I hadn’t done anything of a lot of substance for a few days. I still haven’t done so much that’s interesting. So, again:

Seasons in Israel don’t really show up in the weather. Apparently we’re in the season called “fall” right now. This means that sometimes it’s hot out, and sometimes it’s a few degrees less hot out. It gets cooler at night. There are a few clouds in the sky. I’m pretty sure that’s fall here. Once it starts raining, that’s considered winter. Apparently Israel gets rain only three months or so of the year, but as much rain falls as in England in the course of a whole year. Awesome.

Seasons in Israel do show up in the shuk. It was actually cool walking through there this morning (really, really early this morning, before it was crowded. As in, left my apartment before 7 am early), and noticing the changing produce. There are fewer peaches and plums, which is sad because I just learned that I like them. There are no more mangoes or pineapples. And now there are pomegranates (I may try one this weekend) and dates and apples and some other fruits and vegetables I have yet to learn the names of. So holidays and traditions make a lot more sense here. Why is it the new year? Because the rain is about to start. Why do we dip apples in honey? Yes, for a sweet new year. But why apples? Probably because at this time of year, they’re just ripening, and there is an abundance of them! It’s fun to see the changing fruits and vegetables, although it means a new round of trying new things. And that’s HARD for me!

I expected to see seasons in the shuk. I did not expect to see them in the supermarket. More specifically, in the canned goods section of the supermarket. I went in looking for some canned beans to make a bean salad. I’ve bought canned beans several times, in the same place every time. I knew exactly where to go, which I was excited about. I went to the right section of the right aisle. And I found…canned peas, canned corn, and canned green beans. No white beans, black beans, or kidney beans. Huh? I thought the point of cans was to not have seasons. Apparently I was wrong.

Sometimes I love this country. Leaving the café I went to for dessert last night on girls night, the waitress, the host, and the security guard all wished us Shanah Tovah. It’s like all the clerks everywhere wishing you a Merry Christmas, except it’s relevant! It’s fun:)

I picked up another project yesterday. A large group from HUC in Israel every year spreads out over parts of the former Soviet Union during Passover. We go to a bunch of different communities and lead seders and bring lots of Jewish and Passover things to Jewish communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. It’s an amazing project, and entirely student-run and planned. I’m now co-chairing the programming committee, which means my committee is planning almost all of the activities that our classmates will be doing with their communities for a week in the FSU. Without a common language. No pressure. But it is supposed to be an absolutely amazing experience to be there and participating in this project over Passover, and I’m excited to be able to take this kind of a role in planning it.

School is going well. I had my first Hebrew test/quiz of the year yesterday, and I don’t think it was too bad, although I haven’t gotten it back yet. The teacher is not so good at context clues in her fill-in-the-blank sentences, so there are usually several words that could fit. She says she’ll give credit as long as it makes sense, so it has yet to be seen how liberal she is on whether it makes sense!

It’s not 11 in the morning yet, and I’ve been awake for almost 5 hours. I’m really tired. I’m going to head to the gym, hoping it wakes me up, but more than likely I’ll be back here afterwards for a pre-holiday nap. For everyone celebrating, L’shanah tovah u’metukah, a sweet and happy and healthy new year!

Random thoughts. Seriously.

Random thoughts, as I put off reading for history class:

1. What Torah trope do I know? I fulfilled my Torah-reading obligation for the year this morning. (Yes, you read that correctly. We are required to read-and-translate one time this year.) I did it on the first week of official Reform Liturgy Workshop student-led services. I’m done now. But the required and incredibly structured RLW services are only once a week, and I’ve been going to optional morning services the rest of the school week, so I’ll probably get lots more Torah reading in this year. In any case, I chanted Torah, and then translated my verses (with only the Hebrew in front of me) in front of my class today. Afterwards, I had lots of people coming up to tell me I did a nice job, which is always nice to hear, but I also got some questions. Mainly about where I learned my trope. Apparently the trope I use, which as far as I know is the one I learned from the Beth Ami tutor before my Bat Mitzvah, is not the traditional Reform trope. One of my friends thought it might be some sort of Israeli trope, and a couple of other people thought it might be the Conservative trope. I didn’t know every group had their own, but now I’m throwing this question out there. (Dad: I expect an answer from you. All others are welcome to throw out their guesses.) Why/how is it that I grew up at a Reform synagogue, have only chanted Torah in a Reform synagogue (and once in the living room at an Orthodox women’s minyan, but that’s beside the point), and I apparently do not use Reform trope? Please enlighten me.
2. I don’t know where Israeli radio finds its headlines. I read an Israeli newspaper online an hour before class, and right around the time the teacher is taping the morning headlines. They differ a huge amount from what’s on the radio.
3. Rosh Hashanah is really, really soon. How is it that when I’m living in Jerusalem, where every instant of Jewish time is marked, when I went to a ceremony to mark the beginning of the month before Rosh Hashanah, when we have heard the shofar blown not every day, but a lot of days in the last few weeks, reminding us all that the High Holidays are approaching, do they still manage to sneak up on me?! As always, I want more time to think and reflect, and I want more time before the holidays.
4. I don’t want more time before the holidays. I get a visitor two days after Yom Kippur! That’s coming up soon and I can’t wait:)
5. This week is the second full week of school. The first week was full, the second week was short because of our tiyul. This is our last full week for another month. I’m pretty sure that this is the last year for a very long time that I will consider the next few weeks to be vacation or time off. I’m looking forward to it. We are off on Sunday next week for Rosh Hashanah, since that’s a weekday for us. We are off Sunday and Monday the week after for Yom Kippur. We have vacation the whole week of Sukkot!
6. Israel is a funny place. Rather than a fixed daylight savings time on the third Sunday of October, or something like that, it is fixed to the Hebrew calendar. It falls on the Saturday night (I think Saturday night) between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I’m pretty sure that’s just so that the fast is over earlier in the day, since it will be dark out earlier, but I’m not sure about that. It also means my pre-fast meal will have to be done by 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. Wheeeeeee. I’ll call home, all done fasting, and you’ll still be in “morning” second session services! Actually, now that I think about it, your services might not have started yet. Heehee.
7. I take notes in some of my classes in Hebrew. This is incredibly logical when the professor is talking in Hebrew and going over a Hebrew concept, but it makes studying take longer, since my notes are much harder to understand when I return to them days later. A dilemma I’ll have to work on.
8. My walls are bare. I didn’t bring nearly enough pictures with me. If you have one or two or three pictures of us or various friends or family or something you think I’d like, feel free to get it to my parents or Michael by the end of September, and I can promise it a place of honor on my wall and a smile on my face. An odd request, I know. But I don’t have a printer, so I can’t print anything out, and I want more pictures on my walls!
9. Saroj is coming to visit in January! I love Birthright.
10. I have worn flip-flops with my skirts to almost every Shabbat service I have attended since being here. It’s a fairly casual country. I think I have to wear nicer shoes than that on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and that makes me a little sad. I like flip-flops. (Michael: They ALL get a lot of use. It’s a good thing I have so many pairs.)
11. I find it a little sad that my last blog was so incredibly long, but there are no comments on it. Boooo.
12. My Sundays have gotten better in the last two weeks. It’s football season! I think a group of us will be getting together at 8:00 Sunday evenings to watch, regardless of which game is on TV here. It’s better than no football! (That’s the 1:00 game at home. The others are a little late for me on a school night.) They replay night games the next day. I got a piece of last night’s disaster while I was at the gym today. I got the good part! As soon as I turned it on, I saw the 100 yard kickoff return. My friend Mara and I were on side-by-side arc trainers and both started cheering out loud. We got funny looks from the Israeli men. We cheered again after the replay. Mara is a Giants fan. I don’t hold that against her. Especially because she likes the Redskins better than the Cowboys. I’m happy that it’s football season.

I suppose that’s enough random thoughts for now. And also, I still haven’t started my history class reading for tomorrow. Talk to you soon!

Tiyul up North

I’m back from the north! I actually got back Thursday evening, but I don’t think I was caught up on sleep until today. Which is good, since tomorrow it is back to the grind. It was a great trip. Read this one when you have some time; it’s a long one. Pictures will be posted soon, so keep checking back!

Tuesday

We met at HUC at 7 am, which is a very early time to meet. This was morning one that I was up before the sun. I know I should get used to it before the winter, but I’m not so excited about that. We all piled onto the two buses and headed out of Jerusalem. Right as I drifted off to sleep (I’m a champion bus/car sleeper!), the tour guide started talking. This was a theme. He was great and had a million interesting things to tell us, but it did infringe on my bus sleeping tendencies. We drove north, along the border fence with the West Bank. He told us a lot about that fence. The big ugly wall you see on TV on the time is only what about 4 percent of the fence looks like. The little part where it runs right next to a road and people used to occasionally in ugly times shoot at passing cars, they made that fence solid to stop that sport. The rest of the fence is hard to see. It’s all wire, with electric sensors that tell the guards when someone touches it. Our guide was very adamant about telling us several times that the ugly wall is all they show on CNN because it photographs better and it makes better news. The wire fence is what they have on Israel’s other borders as well.

We drove up to Zichron Yaacov, one of the first Jewish Zionist settlements in Israel, and walked around and learned about the first Aliyah, the movement in the late 1800s when Jews started moving in larger numbers to this area. We were talked to by an Israeli Reform rabbi and learned about their synagogue. We got to walk around the town on our own (it’s cute!) and find lunch. They did show us the apparently somewhat famous ice cream place. It was delicious! I like ice cream. We made another stop to learn about the founder of the Shomer movement, basically the first person who pushed to have Jews guarding Jews. It was the first time in the region that Jews were allowed to bear arms, and therefore a big step forward.

Then we got to Kfar Blum, where we changed into bathing suits for an adventure in the Jordan River. (Aside: much of the Jordan River is not so large. It trickles in places, especially in late summer, the driest time of the year.) We were given the choice between “kayaks” for two people and rafts for 4-6 people. The kayaks were basically smaller rafts. I decided on kayak, which turned out to be a great choice. The rafters were given two paddles, one for the front and one for the back. The kayakers were also given two paddles. This left the middle of the rafts unarmed, and easy targets. That’s correct, we had splashing fights all the way down the river. Sometimes a few rafts/kayaks would team up, create a river blockade, and splash at anyone who tried to pass through. Sometimes we spotted someone in front of us and paddled fast to catch up and soak them. Sometimes they were moving so slowly that it didn’t require so much work to catch up. My Valley Mill kayaking days served me well; I was a competent paddler. I was also soaked by the time we were done, as was most of our group. It was so much fun!

After that, it was back to the buses to go to the Kibbutz where we were staying to check in and have dinner. I was rooming with Emily, Laura, and Jessica. Emily and I roomed together in Barcelona as well, but Laura and Jessica I had not spent much time with until this week. We had a great time! I love that we’ve been here for almost three months (!) and I’m still making new friends. Yay. I think Kibbutz Gadot accommodations were nicer than any of us expected them to be. Especially the showers, which had impressive water pressure, which is always a nice find when you least expect it! Even their food was decent, which is always a nice surprise. After dinner and evening services, I stayed up for a while hanging out with friends and playing cards, and then headed back to the room exhausted to collapse into bed.

Wednesday

Morning two of up before dawn. Early morning Shacharit and breakfast, and then to the buses to head out for the day. We went first to Kiriat Shmona, a border town that was originally settled by many of the Northern African Jews. It was also one of the towns hit hardest by this summer’s war. As we were driving there, our tour guide pointed out that along the hills bordering the town, there were a lot of black patches. These were places where Katyushas hit the hills and burned the land. We were also looking for signs of the destruction in the town. It turns out, Israelis usually fix these things very quickly. We did see a few buildings with severe damage, or in once case completely destroyed, but most places had already been repaired. We were also supposed to help rehabilitate a park this day, but it turned out that they had already fixed it up by the time we got there! In Kiryat Shmona, we met with a psychologist who works in the local emergency room. She was busy during the war, when more than 100 rockets were falling on this town every day, and people would wander into the emergency room because they didn’t know what else to do. They also handled some of the soldiers who were serving on the border.

After this meeting we went to “help the Israeli economy” by visiting the Naot Shoe factory store. They make great shoes! Unfortunately for me, the other bus had been there first, so the sale rack was picked over and there was nothing I felt like I needed…that they had in my size or the color I wanted. I was ok with that. We then traveled to the border town Metulla, which is really (REALLY) on the border of Lebanon. We went up a big hill to a lookout point, where we met with the mayor of Metulla who talked to us about life on a border. For a long time the border was much friendlier, with people from Lebanon coming into Israel daily to work on farms, and going back to Lebanon each night. That doesn’t really happen anymore. Looking at the border from above it is fascinating. The fence is wire, so you can’t see it from far away. You can see the road, but more obvious is the contrast. Especially because Israel has a town and farmland right up to the border, there is a huge color difference. We were standing there and our guide told us that where it turns from green to brown, that’s the border. It was amazing. Also, while Israel uses the land right up to the border, there was nothing in Lebanon in the land anywhere near the border. (Well, except for a base that has been occupied by Hezbollah until recently.) It was all unpopulated desert, with towns a bit farther away.

After our border experience, we went to the Kiryat Shmona mall to grab lunch, and then headed up to the Golan. Our first stop was a winery. They make a lot of wine in the Golan Heights! As we drove around this area, our guide pointed out several times that now we were entering land that used to be Syria. The life of a young country is amazing. The winery tour was of course a lot of fun. We saw a brief movie on winemaking, which we mostly laughed at for the English dubbing that was so incredibly obvious. We saw the barrels where they make wine and talked about the process for a little while, and then we got our very own wine tasting. We tasted three different wines, before they let us loose in their store, and it was interesting. I enjoyed it, and like all three wines we tasted, including a red one! (The last one was my favorite. Mmmmm, dessert wine.)

After the winery we went to a lookout point on the Golan Heights. We talked more about Israeli history, and how it was so important to keep the heights because previously, Syria would shoot at the towns below fairly frequently, and there was nothing that could be done about it. We walked through some old bunkers (that are now tourist sites) and looked at the view. From this point we could see into both Lebanon and Syria. Again, the border was marked mainly by a color change from green to brown. Our guide told us some stories of his army days. So did one of our professors who was with us. He had been in a unit laying mines. It’s easy to forget here, at least as an American, that all Israelis serve in the army, so everyone we meet, from tour guides to professors to rabbis, has been in the army for a few years and has amazing stories to tell. It was also interesting to be so close to the borders that were so ugly and unsafe and scary only a few weeks ago. I guess it’s a great sign that things are under control and peaceful for now!

We headed back to Kibbutz Gadot again for dinner, and also to make breakfast. We were planning to leave so early the next morning that we were packing breakfast the night before. Uh-oh. After dinner we met with a member of the Kibbutz, who talked to us about how it had changed in the more than fifty years he had lived there. For example, everyone has always received the same salary, regardless of whether they were managing a factory or doing gardening work, because that is the original kibbutz model. However, he told us they were trying to change that. He was not happy about it. Also, children used to all be raised in a communal children’s house, where they lived mainly with the other kids. Now they live with their individual families. He said he thought the children’s house model worked really well, and he would do it again if he could. It was really interesting, but I also wish we could have heard from someone who embraced the changes, to hear a different perspective. After the talk, we had a wine and cheese party! People brought some of the wine we had bought at the winery, and the kibbutz provided cheese that they made on site. The cheeses were AMAZING! I was a very happy person, even without the wine. It was a really fun night of just hanging out and eating cheese and drinking a little wine…we had a really early morning coming up.

Thursday

We had to be completely packed and out of our rooms and at the buses at 5:45 in the morning. Needless to say, it was still dark out, and mighty early. We were going hiking! They warned us at the beginning of the hike (in one of those “this used to be Syria” areas) to stay on the path, and to ask before wandering off to pee. We looked around and saw areas nearby fenced off with barbed wire and labeled “Danger: Mine Field.” Awesome. Except that as far as we could tell from other ones that we had passed, there are probably few mines left, and it’s a precaution. We definitely saw cattle grazing in a couple of the mine fields the day before. In any case, we stayed on the path and the hike was gorgeous. We saw some beautiful parts of the country and a great waterfall. We were a little disappointed when the hike was over after about two hours, since they had originally told us we were going on a four hour hike. Oh well. We then headed to the Kinneret, where we got time to swim! It was so nice. The water was warm, so it didn’t take me the whole hour to get in. We were all swimming in the roped off, fairly shallow swimming area, but a few people decided to swim out of the area, to the floating platform a ways off. I eventually decided this was a good idea, so I swam over there also. It felt so good to swim! At the platform, there was the expected diving off, boys pushing each other off, and just playing in the water. It was definitely a good break, but it was hard to go back to the learning part of the trip afterwards.

We met with someone from another Kibbutz who told us about his life and kibbutz life and Judaism on many of the fairly secular Kibbutzim. Once we got the air conditioning working so we could sit and breathe and not melt, he was a very interesting speaker. After the speaker, we went to discuss the Zionist settlement of the Galil, and visited what is best described as a Zionist cemetery. Buried there are people who were influential to the Zionist movement and people who were associated with one or two specific Kibbutzim, including basically a women’s kibbutz nearby. Many tourists visit this cemetery; among others buried there are the poet Rachel and the songwriter Naomi Shemer. Both were associated with the women’s kibbutz. We had a short service overlooking the Kinneret, piled back on the buses, had a short snack/bathroom/early dinner stop at a local mall, and then we were finally headed back to Jerusalem.

I somehow stayed awake on the drive, looking out the windows and watching the beautiful scenery. But all of us were startled when the tour guide announced, “we’re slowing down because we are going through the checkpoint to enter the West Bank.” What?! He assured us that it was a safe road, or else his wife would not let him go this way. It is definitely the most direct route back to Jerusalem, but I don’t think any of us expected to go that way. We drove mainly down the eastern side of the West Bank, along the border with Jordan, where our tour guide told us another story about his army days and tracking someone who had crossed the border. It turned out to be a cat. Driving down the West Bank we saw mainly miles (or more appropriately, kilometers) of empty desert, some Israeli settlements, and some Bedouin villages. We did not see much of Palestinian life until we were almost all the way back into Jerusalem. At times it felt like we had traveled back in time. We saw lots of shepherds with their herds of sheep. They rode on donkeys. We saw villages without electricity. It was sort of fascinating, and then I would remember that we were in the West Bank, and it was all a little nerve-wracking. We made it back to Jerusalem safely, of course, and thoroughly exhausted.

Bonus points for making it to the very end of this very long blog! The trip was as packed and exhausting as it sounds like it was, but it was a ton of fun and I learned a lot. I am looking forward to our next one in November!

Creative Title Ideas? I'm out.

And I’m done with a second week of classes! I know it’s only Monday, but here that’s already Yom Sheini, the second day of the (work) week. And tomorrow morning we leave for tiyul! So I thought I’d write once again before I disappear for a few more days.

This very short week at school, things were somewhat common, both because it was the second week instead of the first, and because we only had two days! But I worked far more effectively in radio/newspaper day in Hebrew this morning, so I consider it a week of progress! I also realized that Sunday’s 1:00 football games are 8:00 in the evening here, and Sunday night seems to be a lighter homework night for me, so I should be able to watch at least some football weekly, even if I’m at the mercy of whatever FOX Sports decides to show internationally…plus whatever game we choose to watch on Colby’s NFL-subscribed computer! Last night was Eagles-Texans (on the computer, with the sound on) and Falcons-Panthers (on TV, muted). I decided I needed sleep more than another six hours of football, so I passed on the rest of the night of football. The 4:00 game isn’t on until 11 here, and that’s a little late to get in the habit of watching. (No, I think I’m passing on tonight’s Redskins game as well. It won’t start until 2am, and I have a feeling I’ll enjoy our Tiyul much more if I’m awake for it. But don’t think I won’t be getting up a few minutes early to catch myself up on it.)

Shabbat was great this week. Friday night, much of the class was going to a Kibbutz for a program and dinner. I decided that after the first week of classes, I’d prefer a quieter night in, so I rounded up whoever I could find who wasn’t going to the Kibbutz, and I made dinner here. First we went to services, at Shira Chadasha. I have now been to this congregation twice for services, and really enjoyed it both times. The part that surprises me so much is how much I do like it. It is an Orthodox community, but stretches to be as egalitarian as “halachically possible.” This means that there is a mechitza separating the men and the women. However, they have a woman leading services during kabbalat Shabbat, and then a man leads from about the Barechu forward. The mechitza is more of a gauze-y material than anything else, so you can still see the other side if you want to. The two sides are about equal in size, although the women’s section might be slightly larger…and also more crowded. And while I am sure it exists elsewhere, it is the first place I can remember going with a mechitza where the women’s side was actually praying. My usual complaint about separated services is that when there is a mechitza, the women by definition don’t count, so there are often many, many people talking or otherwise not praying. In this congregation I have not gotten that impression at all, and instead, the women sing loud and clear, and the service sounds beautiful. It is full of singing and harmony. While I definitely do not agree with the presence of the mechitza, in this particular congregation, I do not find that it hinders my own praying, as I have at other divided congregations in the past, and I even enjoy praying there. The traditional services are a nice contrast from the very classically Reform HUC, and I prefer something in between, so it is nice to be able to go back and forth.

After services, I had a small group here for dinner, and I was quite proud of the evening! I spent much of Friday preparing: I got up really early Friday morning to get to the shuk before it was crowded, and went to the supermarket on the way home. Then I had breakfast again. I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, realizing that the first time I cook anything it takes me much longer than it takes my mother. She also gets the convenience of pre-chopped mushrooms and a food processor. I not only have to chop the mushrooms and BE the food processor, but since I don’t much trust shuk cleanliness, everything also gets washed quite thoroughly before I even start the chopping. I also had to fight with our anti-lefty, anti-speed can opener, which took more time and effort than I can explain. Happily, there will be a new American one tucked into the bag o’ goodies that Michael’s bringing me in just over 3 weeks! I also had a new experience while cooking. The chicken called for some wine, and I had just bought some, but I was in the apartment all by myself. And then I realized that while I have watched a million times, I have never opened a bottle of wine myself. Luckily, our corkscrew here is about a thousand times better than our can opener, and I got it open without a problem. I felt so accomplished. Yes, opening three cans and a bottle of wine all in one afternoon is a huge accomplishment for me. Go with it. Dinner was delicious and fun!

Saturday was just what it should be: lazy, relaxing, and quiet. I didn’t do a whole lot, but I enjoyed that immensely.

I’m off to the Galil first thing in the morning, and I’ll be back before Shabbat, hopefully with lots of fun stories and pictures!

New Classes, part 2

I finally made it to Shabbat! The rest of my classes:

Tuesday
Hebrew, again.

Rabbinics (class twice a week): We’ll see how this one goes. We all got a very official, holy looking book, Avot d’Ravi Natan, basically the Fathers According to Rabbi Natan. I don’t think there’s an English letter to be found in the book! But we read and translated the first part in class Tuesday and Thursday, which was a pretty cool thing to be able to do. I’m thinking it will be interesting, as long as I can ignore how easily distracted the professor sometimes can be. He gets sidetracked by little irrelevant things, so we don’t get nearly as much accomplished in class as we should. I’m trying hard to ignore it. Oh, it’s also all in Hebrew. Except when we’re translating text, in which case it’s a mix. We directly translate into English, but when we’re discussing the translation, it’s in Hebrew. (As in, “does that suffix refer to the mountain, to Moses, or to God?” That discussion was all in Hebrew.)

Modern Jewish History (once a week): I’ve been referring to this class as remedial history, because we all have to take a history class, either this one or “Zionist Idea to Israeli State,” and that one is only open to people who have taken college-level European Jewish history, which I have not taken. But we have a great professor, and a great, small class, so it should be a good one! We do have three expensive, slightly hard to find books though, which did not start it on such a positive note, but I have all my books now, so I’m ready to go.

After history, there is the 80 minute lunch break, followed by a period when I don’t have class, plus the 20 minute break after that class, so I had 3 hours off. I went on a much-needed school supply shopping trip and then to the gym, and I was showered and 5 minutes early for the last class of the day. I like the breaks!

Jewish Thought (once a week): This is an optional “enrichment class,” meaning that it is not for a grade, just for our own knowledge. But this particular enrichment class is taught by the Dean of the Israel program, and is entitled “Why I am a Reform Jew.” About 90 percent of the class is currently signed up for this one. (In contrast, the other enrichment class this semester, Parshat HaShavuah, discussing the weekly Torah portion, has 10-15 people in it right now.) Rabbi Marmur is a great speaker, and especially while living in Israel where Reform Judaism is an anomaly and often criticized and misunderstood, it is a great and appropriate class for them to offer.

Wednesday: Israel Seminar.

Every Wednesday for the year we have Israel seminar, which is a class designed to learn about “the changing nature of Israeli society.” They divided us into three classes, so we finally get out of our Hebrew class groups for the whole day, and they divided us based on past Israel experience. So my class is made up of people who have never been to Israel and people who have been on a short, touristy trip, mainly Birthright, NFTY, or a family trip. The other classes are people who have spent more time here, one of the classes is mostly summer study program graduates, and the last class is people with extended stays here, either with family, on semester- or year-long programs, and other real living-in-Israel experiences. It is an interesting way to have divided us for this seminar, and I like it. I think it’s good that people who have lived here for a year before will not have to have the same discussions or go on the same trips as people who have not been here ever. Some days we will be in the classroom, discussing readings and articles and learning about Israeli society. On most days, however, we get out of the classroom and go experience life. We have scheduled day-trips to Tel Aviv, Yad Vashem, Mount Herzl, and lots of other places. We watch movies, we have speakers, we visit schools. Three times during the year we go on overnight trips to different parts of the country. This coming week is our first tiyul. We’re leaving early (EARLY) Tuesday morning to head north, to the Galilee and the Golan. I’m psyched that we’re going, because this tiyul has been scheduled for a long time, and for a while during the war it looked like we weren’t going to be able to go. But the bombs have stopped and the trip is on! We’ll get back Thursday night. I’m excited! This should be a very cool seminar, and I look forward to learning and experiencing a lot of different things about Israel.

Thursday
Hebrew, yet again.

Rabbinics, again. I already told you about this one. Same as Tuesday.

Hebrew, but with a different teacher. At least, that is how it is listed on our schedules. It turns out, it’s not just a different teacher, but a somewhat different topic. We’re basically learning about ancient Hebrew and the development of the Alef-Bet. At least that’s what we did on Thursday and what it looks like we’ll be doing for the immediate future. It felt a little bit like arts and crafts, since we were writing in ancient script and learning rules for vowels and things from then. We were deciphering things written in ancient script and translating them into Modern Hebrew. Yes, this class is all in Hebrew too. I’m going to learn a lot of Hebrew this year, which I am very excited about, frustrating though it may be at times.

And that’s it! Our schedule is set up so that all of us (except Cantorial students, who have a ridiculous number of extra classes) are done with classes at lunch time on Thursday, which is really nice.

Thursday afternoon Sara and I decided to go on a quest for books, since some of our books are not available at the bookstore where we buy most things, and HUC could not tell us where to get them. And Amazon does not ship to Israel. Awesome. So Sara and I walked around the city for a good two and a half hours, going into every bookstore we found. There are a lot of bookstores in this city, and we were mainly in one area. Eventually I got everything I needed, although a couple of them were from the main bookstore, where we went last. She is still lacking a couple.

And now it's Shabbat! It's been a good one so far, but I'll talk about it in a different post, since this one is long enough.

New Classes, part 1

While everyone at home has been enjoying a holiday weekend, I went back to school. Classes started this week! I was going to save this blog to post at the end of the week when I’ve had all my classes, but I’ve written a lot and I don’t want it to get way too long, so I guess I’ll post tonight and again soon, with impressions of the rest of my classes. It’s not like college where you have similar schedules Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday. My schedule is different every day. Some of my classes I have once a week, some I have twice, and some I have five or six times a week. (Yes, there are two days when I have Hebrew twice.) Wednesdays I have Israel seminar, and I will let you know exactly what that entails when I find out. My overall impression of classes so far is that my greatest challenge will be Hebrew. Of course, most of my classes are conducted in Hebrew, so this is not a surprise. A rundown of the classes I have had so far follows.

Sunday:
Hebrew (twice on Sundays, for a total of 2:40, and 5 times during the week): I have a new teacher this semester. She’s not nearly as smiley as my ulpan teacher, but I think I’m going to learn a ton of Hebrew this year. I had heard that she was more of a tough love kind of teacher, and I think that’s an accurate description. She spends much less time joking around with people in the class and is very difficult to get off topic. I’m excited to learn a lot from her, and I am hoping she will soften up at least a little, since I will be spending a LOT of time in her class this year.

Liturgy (once a week): It’s hard to tell so far. It’s surprising how little you can tell from an hour and twenty minute class, but the first one is always hard, because nobody has done any reading, so it’s all introductory stuff. The class is all in Hebrew, but we write tests and papers in English, happily. I didn’t have much trouble understanding the teacher, which is also nice. It looks like we’ll be spending a week or two on each prayer/section of the service. I’ll let you know more as I figure out exactly what we’re doing in this class.

Rabbinics Lecture (once a week): Again, it’s hard to tell from the first week. It’s a lecture class, and in English. We will be talking rabbinics, but right now the professor is setting it up for us, so we talked about the Second Temple Period. This class looks like it will be the closest thing I have to a straight-up lecture class this year. I’m not used to taking so many notes! We have break-out classes (precepts/labs/discussion) twice a week with a different professor and in Hebrew, but apparently they’re only related in that they’re both called rabbinics. There will be different readings and everything. I hope that means we’ll learn a lot more, but I’ll keep you posted.

I forgot how much I dislike course packets. I have a zillion already: three for Hebrew, one for each of the other classes, with plenty more to come.

I also ordered a new gorgeous tallit yesterday, which will hopefully come in before Rosh Hashanah, but they don’t promise that. There will of course be a picture when it arrives! I went to the Gabrielli store with Ilana after classes on Sunday and spent a long time trying on different tallitot and deciding what I wanted. I ultimately picked one that they didn’t have there, the design they had in dark blues, but in purples instead. It should be beautiful!

Monday
Reform Liturgy Workshop (once a week, usually): We each have to lead one service during the year, give one D’var Torah, read and translate Torah, and have several other service roles. These sessions usually take place on Monday mornings. This morning was another service led by faculty, followed by discussion of the service.

Hebrew (again): Our Hebrew teacher has declared Mondays (yom sheini) to be radio/newspaper days. So we spend the entire hour and twenty minutes listening to radio news (a tape of it, over and over until we get it) and reading a newspaper article or two. As I have previously mentioned, I’m not such an auditory learner. Listening to the radio in Hebrew is really difficult for me, and it gets incredibly frustrating when we listen to it over and over and I still pick up very little of what’s being said. I left class pretty unhappy today, and I just hope I can get better at this, or there will be a lot of unhappy Mondays ahead.

Biblical Grammar (once a week): I was surprised to enjoy this class today. I really like the professor, he explains things thoroughly and well, and I find his Hebrew quite understandable. Today we learned about when to use which vowels, how to accent words, and various other related things. They all (ok, mostly) apply to modern grammar as well, but I am pretty sure they are more important biblically and that we will be building on today’s lesson. It was also encouraging after a frustrating Hebrew class, because I do pick up grammar concepts faster than some of my classmates, so I felt good at the end of this class.

Break! With the long lunch they give us, and an off period after lunch, I had enough time between classes to have lunch and hang out with friends for a little while, get to the gym and shower, and get back to school and check email and do some things around school before my last class of the day. I like that.

Rabbinic Forum (once a week): This class changes weekly, doing various things related to professional development. This week we had our “reflection groups,” which are groups of 5 or 6 students and two faculty members who meet about 6 times during the year to discuss issues we are facing. I was very excited about my group, as it is all people I like and/or want to get to know better, and all people I am comfortable talking openly in front of, which is great, because I feel like I could get a lot out of this group. We had great conversation today about our expectations and impressions so far…but that’s all I’m allowed to share!

I’m exhausted (and I have a huge stack of flashcards calling my name), and I haven’t had any other classes to summarize! More soon…

Barcelona

Barcelona! It was an amazing trip. I have pictures posted on flickr, and I will add from my friends’ pictures soon, but right now I have some blog catch-up to do!

Eight of us went to Barcelona together: me, Emily, Rebecca, Mara, Josh, Phil, Jamie, and Anna. I do not have very many group pictures posted, because we agreed that we weren’t going to take the same picture with eight cameras, so we will all be trading pictures in the near future. I’ll add some soon! A summary of the trip, which explains many of the pictures…

Sunday
Our airport shuttle picked us up at 3:50 in the morning to get to the airport three hours early for our 8:15am flight to Barcelona. Needless to say, it was dark out and we were tired! The flight was happily uneventful, and we landed in Barcelona around lunch time. We found our ride to the hotel, a bus chartered by an Israeli company and filled with Israelis! We were a little surprised (and not entirely enthusiastic) to land in Spain and still have to speak Hebrew. But we made it to our hotel, and immediately changed into bathing suits and headed out in search of food and beach. We found both quickly, and felt like we had really started our vacation! The rest of the day, we did lots of relaxing, dinner at the hotel, and we hung out in our rooms before going to bed early.

Monday
Most of us got up early, had breakfast at the hotel and ventured out in search of the train station. Our hotel was in Costa Brava, an hour up the coast from Barcelona. The train station was a fun 20 minute walk across the center of town, and then there were frequent trains running into the center of the city. We got to Barcelona, and immediately started taking pictures at Placa Catalunya, a big plaza in the center of the city. I promise I’m spelling things (mostly) right; they actually speak Catalan more than Spanish in Barcelona, so spellings and whole words are somewhat different than expected. We started walking down Las Ramblas, a touristy street featuring lots of shops, restaurants, and street performers. Many of the street performers would be completely still, and then when someone gave them money, they had a prepared response or act that would follow briefly, before they went back to being statues. It was fun to walk past and watch them all! After lunch, we made our way to Barrio Gotico, the Gothic Quarter of the city. First we found the one Jewish area, a synagogue that was recently reopened to the public; it was a working synagogue in the 1300s and probably earlier, one of the oldest known ones in Europe! It was two rooms, including a sanctuary where they currently hold occasional Shabbat services. We were all touched and excited to find such an old Jewish landmark in a city that is not exactly known for its Jewish population. Barcelona’s Jews mostly disappeared one hundred years before the expulsion in 1492, from a series of pograms in the 1390s. Unfortunately, the old attitudes have not disappeared entirely. A few buildings away from the synagogue, there is a replica of a Hebrew (or Ladino, we couldn’t decide) engraved stone. We did not discover until we took pictures of it that there had previously been graffiti on the stone, both of a swastika and “free Palestine.” The graffiti had been washed off, but with a camera flash, it showed up on all of our pictures. It made for an interesting contrast. After seeing the Jewish side of the city, we went to the cathedral, although some of us were not allowed inside because we had worn shorts that day. None of us thought about clothing restrictions outside of Jerusalem! We then went in search of a street that had been noted in the guide book for having several shops which loosely translate to “chocolaterias.” Obviously, I was leading the hunt! We found the street, and we were not disappointed. With the help of some locals, most of us ordered a dessert that we were promised was very Spanish: hot chocolate and churros. Except that the hot chocolate was not the drink, but melted chocolate served with a spoon and churros (soft butter cookie sticks?) to dip in it. That was one of the highlights of the trip! We then wandered back through the city and eventually to the train station to go back to Costa Brava for dinner at the hotel. Later that night, most of the group went out, but I was very excited for a quiet night in the hotel reading and going to bed early!

Tuesday
We got a late start Tuesday, possibly because of the going out the night before. We all slept in, and did a little exploring of Costa Brava and grabbing of lunch as we made our way to the train station. We split up when we got to the city, since we all wanted to do different things. Mara, Rebecca, and I braved the subway system, and went to Parc Guell. Parc Guell is a park designed by the architect Gaudi around the beginning of the 1900s, and it’s a pretty crazy place. We were trying to decide whether it reminded us more of Alice in Wonderland or Candyland. I don’t think I can explain it any better than that, but there are lots of pictures. The whole bottom part of the park, including a couple of buildings, is decorated with brightly colored tiles and interestingly shaped structures. The upper part of the park is much more like what I expected out of a park, but mixed with creative landscaping and carved columns and other interesting features. We only had about an hour to explore, but I could have spent so much longer there. After the park, we went to Temple de la Sagrada Familia, the Church of the Sacred Family. The church was also designed by Gaudi, it was started in the 1880s, and is still under construction. The main facades of the church are mostly finished, and amazing. We sat staring up at one side of the church for over an hour, and we were continually noticing new things. There are still more spires being built, the inside is completely unfinished, and there is not yet stained glass in any of the windows. It is estimated to be completed in about 2020, but I’m not sure I believe it will be done by then. It was amazing. The whole group met up again that evening for dinner, and we found the best food we had the whole trip (aside from the chocolate, obviously). It was a small tapas bar, and their food, and their sangria, was delicious. After dinner it was back to the hotel and off to bed.

Wednesday
We split up again Wednesday morning, with half the group going to Montserrat, a monastery outside the city, and half of us heading into Barcelona again. Mara and I went to the Picasso Museum when we arrived, where part of the group had gone the previous day. I never knew that Picasso could really draw! I was impressed by his earlier work, which shows that he really had a lot of traditional artistic talent, drawing and painting landscapes, portraits, and anything else. It was not until later in his career when he started with the super-abstract and somewhat odder paintings. While I definitely appreciated seeing the whole transition through his life, and the late stuff is somewhat interesting, I’m a fan of the early stuff. After Picasso, we split up and finished out Barcelona on our own. I was sort of excited to navigate the city on my own and meander wherever I wanted to go. I walked around more alleyways and narrow streets of the gothic quarter, looking at a lot of the little shops. I bought myself a lithograph of one of the streets in the gothic quarter, and I am very excited about it! I had ice cream. I went back to Las Ramblas and walked the rest of the way down it that we had not done the first day, all the way to the port, and I was rewarded with a beautiful view. It was a great afternoon! The group met up again to find dinner in the city, and then headed back out to Costa Brava. After showering and a siesta, we headed out to explore the nightlife in our town. We started with a drink outside at a local bar, and then headed to a club to dance for a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun, but check out was mighty early in the morning.

Thursday
We had to check out of our rooms by 10 am, but they let us extend one room very cheaply, so we put all of our bags in one room for the rest of the day, since our airport shuttle wasn’t until well after dinner. Once again, we pulled out the bathing suits and headed down to the beach. We all laid on the sand for a few hours, very happily reading, napping, talking, and enjoying the sun. Then we headed to lunch, and then a while down the beach to have some water-fun. Josh and Phil had scouted the beach and found where we could rent a banana boat, a long, skinny raft where we all sat one behind the other, with handles to hold onto. The raft was attached to a speed boat, and the driver’s goal was essentially to make sure we had a good time and fell off a few times. Mission accomplished! It was SO much fun. After that, we played in the Mediterranean for a while longer, and then took a long, slow, meandering walk through Costa Brava and back to the hotel. We somehow managed to have no problems rotating through 8 people’s need to shower, we had dinner at the hotel, and waited for our airport shuttle. Our flight back left Barcelona at 2 am. We landed in Tel Aviv at 7 on Friday, overtired but relaxed, excited to be back, and happy to realize that Jerusalem is feeling like home!

An amazing vacation. School started today, but I’m out of typing energy! Coming soon.

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!