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!

Somehow, another long one

Another few days, and since it’s Shabbat today, I have some time to write another update. Last night was yet another somewhat different, but fun Shabbat experience. Someone in the class with an amazingly huge porch decided to host a big group for Shabbat, and also that instead of going to one of the zillions of synagogues around Jerusalem, we would have our own services. We all brought blankets and sat on the porch in a circle and had our own Shabbat service. It was so comforting and comfortable to have a service in the style many of us grew up with or went to camp with and is often hard to find in Jerusalem. After services, we stayed for dinner, picnic style on the porch. It was a really nice, laid back Shabbat evening.

Thursday we started to get slightly more of a feel for what the year will bring. Our actual academic orientation is next Thursday, before vacation, but this week we had some workshops. All morning we had a Reform Practices workshop. We were split into five groups and rotated around five stations. Unfortunately, each of the stations could have merited hours of study, and we got a very rushed 20 minutes. My group started with tallit, and while it had promise, including the ability to tie some tzitzit, we ran out of time very quickly, dwelling instead on how to put on a tallit, when to say the blessing, and interactions people have with their tallit during prayer service…all of which is printed in the bottom margin of the prayer book we use daily. The next station was about Aliyah, being called to the Torah. We learned the traditional phrasing used to call people to the Torah, and another version of the post-Torah-reading blessing. This one was possibly the only station where I thought they tried to give us the right amount of material for the amount of time we had. Our next stop was movement: standing, sitting, bowing during services. Again, there was not enough time to begin touching on the issues, so we discussed everything in a very superficial way: we were presented with the “correct” way to stand/sit/bow for about the first half of the service. We ran out of time before we got to the rest of the service, and there was no time to talk about alternative traditions or reasons behind anything. That was not exactly my favorite station. After that one, we moved to the tefillin room. I put on tefillin for the first time, which was an interesting experience, except that we did not have time to do anything more than put them on. We had no time to pray while wearing them, no time to discuss why they are worn, what’s inside the boxes, different traditions surrounding them, or anything else. It was interesting to wear them, if only for 3 or 4 minutes, but I have so many questions, and I really hope we return to the issue during the year. My final station was in the sanctuary, lifting and moving the Torah. Everyone in the group had to take a turn doing Hagbah, the lifting of the Torah scroll while it’s open. People who do it well make it look effortless, and have it open so that 3-5 columns of text are visible. I do not do it so well. Torahs are heavy. They are awkward when open. And when they are in Deuteronomy, as we are right now, they are very heavily weighted to the right arm, which is somewhat unfortunate for lefties like myself. But I did it! I had about a column in the middle and fractions of columns on both sides, I did a full circle, and I didn’t drop it. I’ll work on that. We also had to each take the Torah out of the ark, hold it, and put it back in. The challenge here is that the HUC ark is really high up. The ledge where the Torah scrolls sit is probably at or just above my shoulder height, which is not the easiest height at which to lift a heavy, awkwardly shaped object. The rabbi leading this station told us we had to lift and hold and return the Torah in a very particular, somewhat awkward manner, but it’s apparently what works for her. Many people struggled with her method. When it was my turn, I told her I was going to do it differently, because I’m left-handed and her method just was not going to work for me. I did it well! This is exciting.

After a lunch break, we had our Introduction to Reform Liturgy Workshop. Apparently during the year, we each have to lead one (1) service. A weekday morning Torah service. (Like the one I’m leading on Monday, except with more restrictions and a larger audience.) We lead with another rabbinic student and a cantorial student. (The cantorial students have to lead 3-4 times.) We also have to do one D’var Torah, giving an interpretation of the week’s portion. We have to chant or read Torah one time (over the summer and in optional services doesn’t count). We have to do Hagbah, lifting the Torah, one time. Many of us are a little surprised that these requirements are for only one time in the entire year, but we only have required weekday morning services once a week, which is when we all take turns doing these things. I plan to continue going to the optional services, which have an amazing community of people who are some of my closest friends here, are much looser about required melodies and things, and where I get many, many more opportunities to practice leading, chanting Torah, and participating with the community. I do plan to sign up for my Torah-lifting week though for sometime in February or March, when we should be right in the middle of the Torah and therefore have a more evenly weighted Torah. It also gives me a long time to make sure I can do it more effectively than I did on Thursday! In spite of my many complaints though, it was a very interesting day and I am looking forward to learning a lot this year.

Thursday night, I ended up hanging out with a great group of people, just walking around stores and going out for dessert. It was all people who I have spent fairly limited time with, and would love to hang out with more, because they’re all really fun and just great people. It was a very laidback night, but exactly what I needed and so much fun.

Friday’s lunch was another experience. A member of the Board of Directors from the LA campus was in Israel, and first said she was taking any LA-bound students to lunch, but then she amended that and said any interested students were welcome. Lunch was at the David Citadel hotel, probably the nicest hotel in Jerusalem. (Also, it’s where Condoleezza Rice stays when she’s here.) It’s next door to our campus. I think about two-thirds of the class showed up for lunch. It was amazing. Tables and tables of delicious buffets, with lots and lots of different options. So much delicious food. All greatly appreciated by 40 students.

Tomorrow I enter the final stretch of Ulpan: I have one week left, and then a week of vacation! In the last few weeks, many of us have gone to various student travel agencies and found package-deal vacations, where the price includes airfare and hotel and several hotel meals. There are groups going to Turkey, Cos (Greece), Rhodes (Greece), and I’m going with a group of friends to Barcelona. I’m very excited to see the city, lay on the beach, sleep a lot, and spend some time outside of Jerusalem. Because while it’s a great place, I’m ready for a vacation. One more week to go!

On a personal note…
Lisa: I am the tallest in the apartment, but I was wearing little (one-inch) heels in that picture. We’re not a tall bunch. We are a curly bunch. Good company for me.
NFTY MAR Crew: Have so much fun at Summer Kallah! I’ll miss you guys a ton and I’ll be thinking of you. Hugs to my Beasty kids for me, and feel free to call my Skype number and leave messages:)
Grandma: I hope you had a great trip to New York. I’m looking forward to hearing about Becky’s new place!
Becky, Debbie, Lev: Thanks for the article (twice) and voicemail. Did you think of anything? Keep trying, eventually I'll be here when you call:)
Michael: The flowers are gorgeous. Thank you thank you thank you! October isn’t so far away.
Mom: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Have an extra piece of cake for me.
I’m forgetting lots of people. Email me and I’ll give you a note next time:)

Highlights

It’s been a really long time since I posted anything! See if you can understand that as a good thing, like when you didn’t get letters from camp (mom) and saw that as a sign that I was busy and having fun.

I’ve been busy and having fun! I don’t think I could even remember everything that’s gone on the last week and a half, nor would you want to read about it. Some highlights:

1. Our “Jerusalem Days” program last Thursday was in the Old City. We were right next to the Kotel, at the southern retaining wall excavations for much of the day. (The Kotel is the western retaining wall, more of a prayer site simply because it was closer to the Holy of Holies in the Temple.) Some of my recently posted pictures are from this day. The new (long) skirt I bought the day before was great and I love it, but the dye is less than permanent, and my legs were very blue by the end of the day. It was impressive. In the late afternoon, we also walked through the Western Wall tunnels, which are currently under the Arab quarter, but run next to currently-buried parts of the Western Wall that have been excavated. In spite of my not-love for tunnels, it was an interesting place to be. There were even people sitting and reciting psalms at the place believed to be the closest point to the Holy of Holies. When we emerged from the tunnel and made it back to the Kotel, we were surprised to see a very interesting sight: approximately zillions of Chasidic Jews, in their black suits and black hats, praying very loudly at the wall. It was war-related, but our professor couldn’t enlighten us more than that. It was a very long, but looking back, very interesting day.

2. I was chopping vegetables all day Friday, and couldn’t possibly be ready in time for services at HUC where most of my friends were going. So I called my friend Rebecca and asked her to let me know when services were over, and I’d head to dinner then. Instead, I got a call from her about 45 minutes into services, telling me that she hadn’t gone either. She came over with her guitar, and the two of us had a service in my bedroom. It was beautiful. We enjoyed each other’s company and voices, picked our melodies, prayed at our own pace, and really welcomed Shabbat. (Also: our service ran about a half hour, with some singing afterwards. The HUC service went about 2 hours.) Her roommate called us after the other service, and we went to meet the group. Someone in the class had decided that a progressive dinner would be fun, so we went over to house number one. Somewhere between 40 and 50 people participated, and we stopped at 6 different houses. The apartments in Jerusalem mostly don’t have elevators. It was a LOT of stairs by the end of the night! My house was stop number 3, salads. (Before were the Kiddush/Hamotzi house and the appetizer house. After us were the main course house, dessert house, and hang out house.) My roommates and I put together about 7 different salads. I made a delicious bean salad and an Israeli salad—hence the chopping. The food all night was great, and while many of us were nervous about the logistics of moving that many people so many times, it went really smoothly. We sang Shabbat songs as we walked from house to house and had a wonderful time.

3. I am a fan of cease-fire, and I hope it holds. War is no fun. Even though I am not near it.

4. I led (optional) Shacharit services with Rebecca. I’ve been going to the optional services most mornings, mostly because I love them. It’s a great community of about 15 regulars plus some people who come sometimes, and I have really been enjoying it at the beginning of my day. It’s all student led, at least for the summer, so I decided I should take a turn, and we led one. On Monday another friend and I are in charge, and that one has a Torah service as well, which is a part of a service I have never led. Now seems like a good time to start!

5. I got a Hebrew test back on Sunday and did really well on it. That was exciting! I tend to get frustrated a lot during class, because the oral part of Hebrew is really difficult for me, but I do very well with homework, reading, and writing. My teacher promises me it all balances out, and it does seem to, so I just have to keep reminding myself that I’m doing fine, and go over things again at home. I love that I am capable of reading stories (ok, page-long stories) in Hebrew and discussing them!
6. I crashed boys-night yesterday afternoon. (It was a boys’ night, but given our schedule, it was late afternoon so we could get to an evening program.) A couple of my friends found a (kosher!) restaurant with an all-you-can-eat meat special. The lunch special is fairly reasonable (although the dinner one, less so). Basically, you get six different courses of meat: chicken wings, chorizo sausage (except, kosher), turkey, empanadas, entrecote steak, and roast beef. They bring out small amounts of each one, one at a time, to ensure that you get to taste everything. (Also, the pace makes sure you fill up, because there’s a good amount of waiting time.) After you’ve had some of everything, they’ll bring more of anything and everything that you want. A group of guys decided it would be a lot of fun, but I was sitting there at the time, and I was invited as well. It eventually became a boys’ night activity, but I was already invited, so I crashed the party. I kept pace with them pretty well! Apparently they were impressed with my meat-eating abilities. It was a lot of fun, and then we all more or less rolled into our program. I’m working on finding a group of girls who would go back with me eventually.

7. Herb and Karen: Mazel Tov!! He’s adorable:)

That’s about all I can think of right now. It’s been a long week! I will update again soon, for real this time! There are also some new-ish pictures on my Flicker site, which will probably make more sense now that I’ve told you where I’ve been. Most of them are from the night of the progressive dinner. (Mom, Dad, Debbie, Michael: I know you’ve seen them already. I’ll work on taking more!)

at the Kotel

It’s been a busy few days, but I guess I should be used to that by now.

Wednesday night started Tisha B’Av. I decided I would get more out of the day if I didn’t fast, so I ate less, and more boring food than usual, but I did eat. The class met in a garden behind HUC for a service by candlelight (and later in the service, by flashlight light). It was a beautiful service, with some nice, sad melodies, some chanting of Eicha, the book of Lamentations, traditionally read on Tisha B’Av. Possibly the most amazing part of the service was that from our seats on the grass, we could see, all lit up, the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. So during our service commemorating the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, we could see its walls, alive and well.

After the service, we screened a movie put together locally about a family member of hers who is a Holocaust survivor. The movie was about his story and the family’s trip back to his hometown. It was a fascinating story, as they all tend to be, and then we had a long discussion about whether commemoration of the Holocaust belongs with Tisha B’Av or where it is, on its own separate holiday.

By this point in the night, it was about 11:00, and the most moving part of the night was still to come. This was the end of the required portion of the evening, but an HUC professor was going to walk into the Old City, to the Kotel, with whoever wanted to come. A good half the class went along, myself included. When we got near the gates to the Old City, traffic increased. It was crowded. We sat down on benches just outside a gate and learned a beautiful tune to the Hebrew words of “On the shores of Babylon.” We just sat there singing for a few minutes, with lots of people streaming past us into the walls. Eventually we went within the walls, but rather than take the direct route to the Kotel, he walked us around a much emptier route, along the walls, past some modern day playgrounds and basketball courts, to show us how alive and vibrant the city is right now.

We got to the Kotel area, and it was PACKED. It was a bit frightening how thick the crowds were to just get through the tight security—metal detectors—to get into the Kotel plaza. Even the metal detectors are separated by gender, although everyone comes back together as soon as they are through security. A friend and I stuck together to try to get up to the wall itself, which was not an easy task. Tradition teaches that both the first and second Temples were destroyed on Tisha B’Av, and the Kotel, a piece of the western retaining wall, is all that is left of the Temple. As a result, it is packed on this holiday, and many people spend all night there, so even at midnight, there were so many people, some standing, some sitting, and a few already laying down. These human obstacles made it far more complicated to get all the way up to the wall, as did another tradition, not to turn one’s back to the wall. Because of this tradition, many people back away from the wall. On Tisha B’Av, this is not a good idea. There are so many people trying to go towards it, so many people backing away from it, and so many people sitting on the ground. It makes for an interesting environment for sure. My friend Rebecca and I eventually got up through the crowd to the wall itself, but once up there, we were basically pushed against it, so I got up close and personal with the wall. It was really nice. I hadn’t been there for nine years, since I went on my NFTY trip, and I was almost surprised at how moved I was to be there and to be connected to so much history and so many people who had been there before me and would be there after me. I thoroughly enjoyed my few minutes at the wall, and I also was not looking forward to getting back out through the crowd! Once I did, we met up with a small group of friends, and chose to stay longer and study rather than heading back with the rest of the HUC group. Six of us had a copy of the Tanakh and read through all of Lamentations in English, stopping every few sentences to discuss it and comment on things and just talk about the text. It was great. We were surrounded by so many people doing more or less the same thing, and it was so wonderful to be with other people in my class who just wanted to learn for the sake of learning. I look forward to many such experiences in the future. I finally got home around 1:30 in the morning and collapsed into bed.

On Thursday, we did not have to be at school until noon, which was generous of them after the late night. We did group text study of some stories about Tisha B’Av, and had an afternoon service, and then a break before we met up at the Israel Museum that evening. Behind the Israel Museum is a model of Jerusalem in the time of the second Temple. It is a huge model put together with a combination of textual sources and archeological finds, and we studied second Temple Jerusalem while looking at the model of what it might have looked like. Some friends and I took a loooooooong walk home (it would have been shorter, but we took a “shortcut” hoping to find restaurants sooner, and instead we found ourselves very far away from home), got some falafel, and went to hang out and play cards.

Friday was a day of errands and cooking, as it usually is. The biggest challenge was baking brownies. It turns out that unsweetened chocolate is not available in Israel. So in addition to figuring out how much butter to use from my 200 gram block, I had to figure out how to convert a recipe with unsweetened chocolate to one with sweetened chocolate. I did a good job, and they were delicious! Friday evening, some friends and I went to check out a synagogue that none of us had been to yet. It is a Reform (“Progressive”) synagogue, but I was a little skeptical, since I haven’t really loved services at the other local Progressive synagogue. This one was actually great. The congregation skewed somewhat older, which was interesting, but the service itself felt very homey and very comfortable. The cantor had a guitar, many of the melodies were familiar, and the service included the very long Kabbalat Shabbat service that I have grown to love here. The cantor even stopped us on our way out to ask where we were from, since he had noticed a whole group of us sitting together. I am sure I will be returning there again!

Today (Saturday) someone in the class had volunteered to host a Shabbat potluck lunch, so I was at their apartment for a few hours enjoying that many of my classmates seem to be great cooks. I relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, alternately reading a book and dozing off on my bed. It was nice to not have to do anything else! This evening we had a group Havdalah service, which I enjoyed, and an impromptu song session in the park, which was fun and made us all feel like we were back in NFTY again. Then it was back to the grind, and home to do Hebrew homework and get ready for the week.

I haven’t taken many pictures recently, but as I take them from friends’ websites, I will post them on flikr. Talk to you soon!

Mid-week update!

It's been a long night of Hebrew homework, so I need a break in English! Apologies in advance...my English grammar seems to suffer when I've been working in Hebrew for a while!

I had another great Shabbat here over the weekend. Friday night a small group of us went to Yikar, a modern Orthodox synagogue with a service using mostly Carlebach tunes. I enjoyed the singing itself, but the room was really crowded, and many of the people attending services were much younger than us, probably around 18, which made for an odd environment. Also, because it was an Orthodox synagogue, there was a mechitza separating the men and women. I don't generally like praying that way, because the women's side always feels like more of a social gathering than a place to pray. It was an interesting experience though, and I was proud of myself for being able to (mostly) keep up and follow along with the all-Hebrew service! After dinner I went to a friend's for dinner and it was delicious, and as usual, went long into the night. I slept in Saturday morning, went to a friend's for lunch with a big group, stayed there for a lot of the afternoon, and then came home for a relaxing late-afternoon and a Hebrew-homework-filled evening.

This week, in addition to Hebrew class, we had our first committee meetings on Sunday. We're all "strongly encouraged" to join one of several committees to help plan events. The committees are: sports, fun, prayer, caring (to acknowledge birthdays and help sick people), tzedakah, and something else I can't remember right now. I joined the prayer committee, in part because I really want the experience, and in part because I knew several other people who would be joining that committee, and I realize that these groups really function 95% based on who else is in them. I didn't know core groups joining any of the other committees, so I went with what I knew! I have also really been enjoying the optional morning services several times a week. They are usually attended by between 10 and 20 of us, and it's just a good group and a great way to start the day before class. I even chanted Torah on Monday morning! Many of the optional service regulars joined the prayer committee. It looks like a great group, and I'm looking forward to many debates and much learning among us.

Today after Ulpan we had a tzedakah presentation by Danny Siegel, who is somewhat well known (and from Rockville) for running an enormous conglomeration of social action projects. I wasn't so excited about the presentation going in, but he turned out to be fairly inspiring, and I'm looking forward to choosing a project to get involved with! (We are actually required to do social action projects, several hours per week, for the year. I'll keep you posted on what I choose.)

After the presentation, the school had, at students' requests, organized a blood drive with Magen David Adom, the Israeli Red Cross. They came to the school to run the drive. Between being terrified of needles and having had trouble in the past with people finding my veins in my arms, I decided it was a bad idea to donate blood today, but I really wanted to help. I ended up staying for the whole three hours of the drive and just walking around, holding hands when needles went in, talking to people as they squeezed the little ball to make the blood flow, and getting juice and cookies when they finished. I was really upset with myself at the beginning for not being able to actually donate, but by the end, I felt like I had really taken part in the drive.

Tonight's other accomplishment was getting through a very long Hebrew story that we had to read for homework. I looked up a rather embarrassingly large number of words in the dictionary, but I'm feeling good that I understand the story! It's a good feeling, and I'm almost looking forward to going over it in class tomorrow.

I'm currently having a debate with myself. Wednesday night and Thursday this week are Tisha B'Av, a commemeration of a multitude of bad things that have happened to the Jews, theoretically all on this day, including the destructions of the Temples. Traditionally, it is a fast day. But I'm living in a desert, there is an optional walk to the Kotel Wednesday night (which I won't do if I fast), and there is a day of services and studying, followed by a trip to the Israel museum on Thursday. I'm trying to decide whether I should fast. (I know, I have to decide...fast.) Right now I'm leaning toward not fasting, because I may have a more meaningful day if I can pay attention to it and be alert all day, but I also feel like I'm in a city where a huge portion of the city will be fasting, so I might feel weird by not doing so. Although I'm in a smaller community where fasting would probably put me in the minority. Clearly, I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Off to make some flashcards and then to bed... I hope everyone is having a good week!

Week in Review

I know it’s been a whole week since I wrote, but it’s because things have been so busy, not because I don’t love you!

Several people have mentioned security concerns, especially with my trips to the Machane Yehuda shuk. To do my best to address these concerns: After September 11, people in the US continued going to work every day, even in high rise office buildings. After the London subway bombing, people got up and took the subway to work. Here, if someone avoided places that had been bombed in the past, there would be nowhere to go. I understand that the shuk has been a center for bombing before. While there are many of us in my class here who avoid taking buses, we all go to the shuk. Most of us avoid the Old City on Friday mornings, when there are crowded prayer services on the Temple Mount. I try to avoid crazy crowds in general. I try to avoid the shuk during its peak times; I go on weekday afternoons after class, and never on Friday mornings when it’s packed with pre-Shabbat shoppers. Security here really has increased recently, especially with the current situation in Lebanon. Please understand that it is almost impossible to live here without going to certain places, and while I am always cautious and I do pay attention, I also want to live and experience Israeli culture this year, and not spend all my time in my apartment or at school worried about walking down the street. I do appreciate your concerns, but please try to appreciate that I am living here, not visiting for a week or two, and that I have to live.

It has been a very busy week though, which is why I haven’t had time to write. I can’t believe I’m already a third of the way through ulpan! I keep trying to use Hebrew when I talk to Israelis, but most of the time they hear my American accent and respond to me in English. It’s really hard to keep talking to them in Hebrew after that! Ulpan is going well though. I’m understanding a lot of what goes on in class, which is always nice, and we’re focusing more on grammar recently, which is great for me, because I am better at grammar than at vocabulary or speaking, so I’ve been feeling better about the class. We had a test on Wednesday, which I did not think was too bad, although we haven’t gotten it back yet. There were a couple people who thought it was horrible, so maybe I’m doing better than I thought! The teacher also keeps telling me to stop looking so worried, because I’m doing well. She recognizes that people in the class have very different strengths, and she promised me that she’s taught this class before, and it always evens out in the end. Yay:)

Classes end by 1:30 every day, which always seems like I have so much time to get things done. But then there are always programs to take up my time. This past week, we had two separate “ritual seminars,” a personalized tour of another part of Jerusalem, text study and field study of the first Temple period, and probably a couple of other things that I’m forgetting. The ritual seminars seem to be a taste of the liturgy classes we’ll be taking during the year. One afternoon we studied Birkat Hamazon, the prayer after meals, and the other afternoon we studied Kiddush, the wine/sanctification blessing, and Havdalah, the ceremony separating Shabbat from the rest of the week. At each of the seminars, we studied the text of the prayer, discussed its origins and differences between different versions of it, and at least started to learn the traditional chant for each of them. There are a lot of tone deaf people here! That said, there are also many, many people with beautiful voices. It all balances out.

The tour of Jerusalem was part of the same series as the one I went to last Tuesday. One of the Israeli rabbinic students is telling us, a week at a time, about his family’s history in Jerusalem, where they have lived for about 150 years. This week, we were talking about the history of his family around the time of Israeli independence. We sat in a classroom first, while he told us an amazing family story about a lost (and then found) family member, and then we walked to the part of the city where it happened, and he pointed things out along the way, like, “this is where my mother used to play every afternoon.” It was actually really cool. We ended up at a building about a 30 minute walk from campus where his mother grew up. He had talked to the people who now own the building and run their business out of it, and they let us come inside and look around. There is so much history here!

Wednesday night we had a text study looking at the first Temple period of Jewish history. On Thursday, we walked around Jerusalem, walking through the Valley of Gehinnom, the Hebrew name for hell. It was apparently a place where child sacrifices used to be offered, making the name much more appropriate. Now it’s a beautiful valley with a nice green park. Then we walked through parts of the Old City, looked in detail at a model of Jerusalem during that time period, and saw a still surviving “broad wall” that was part of the fortifications of the city. I think you could have driven a car across the top of the wall it was so wide. We’re divided into three groups for our Jerusalem Days Thursdays, and I lucked out and got a great group, so we have a great time no matter what, even if we’re sitting in a brief movie poking each other to wake up!

Thursday afternoon I went up to the shuk with a friend. Just on the walk there, I think we ran into a half dozen other HUC people on their way back from the shuk or another shopping trip, and then we ran into another 8 people or so once we were there. It’s a big city, and an enormous market, so I’m not sure why that always happens. Friends showed us which of the several cheese vendors is the “good cheese guy” who speaks English and is very friendly. I went into his booth to get some cheese, and ended up tasting a whole bunch of samples, which was really fun. I also found tomatoes for 1.8 shekels per kilogram. I haven’t done the whole conversion to dollars and pounds, but those are some cheap tomatoes. I also have a newfound appreciation now for the shuk cart, which is basically reusable shopping bag on wheels. I bought a half of a watermelon (in addition to a whole lot of other produce) and it was really easy to transport back on the 25 minute walk home!

Yesterday (Friday) I found a good bakery to buy challah for dinner, and spent much of the afternoon chopping vegetables for gazpacho. That’s right, at home I make it in a food processor. Here, I am the food processor. It looks and smells great, but I haven’t had any yet. It’s dinner tonight…and hopefully for more or less the rest of the week.

In between programs and errands, there have also been plenty of social gatherings. A friend and I made a delicious dinner, one of the best meals I’ve had since being here, of just a chicken with a good sauce and rice, and an Israeli salad. (Yes, mom, your recipe. I use your cookbook a lot and have even had requests for copies!) I was at a game/cards night at another friend’s place, which was a great time, and have had some other nights of just sitting and hanging out and having lots of random conversations about any topic. There have been Hebrew class study sessions, with several of us sitting together to get our homework done or study for a test, which is always more fun than doing it alone, if not always more productive. I’m definitely feeling more comfortable here every day, and recently came to the realization that I’ve been here for a whole month already! Wow.

On the note of the “situation,” my roommate just came into my room to tell me that Hezbollah is considering a cease-fire. I’ll believe it when it happens, but this is a nice step. If you’re looking for better-than-American coverage, try looking at http://www.haaretz.com/. It’s an Israeli paper online in English, and gives more information, less negatively toward Israel, than what you’ll see at home. It’s a nice change. Also, for more websites if you’re still reading, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkarpay/. If you don’t have a yahoo id, you might need to register for one, but that’s where I’m posting my Israel pictures now. It takes a really long time to load them on the blog, and I can only put up a few at a time. On Flikr I can put up lots of them, and quickly, and with fun captions! Only the HUC folder is from since I’ve been in Jerusalem.

I’m trying to personally answer emails, but there are many, and as my parents can tell you, it’s nothing personal! I’ll get there eventually, and I really do love getting them! Have a wonderful weekend, and I’m working on trying to update more often!

Shabbat, again

Over the weekend, I had yet another great Shabbat. Please tell me if you get tired of reading about them! To me, each Shabbat here has been different and amazing in a variety of ways, and so different from anything I experience at home, which makes them more interesting, at least to me, to write about. If you have questions about anything I'm doing that I haven't mentioned, please let me know!

Fridays in Jerusalem are still so funny to me. I don't think the grocery store in Maryland before a snowstorm can compare to a grocery store in Jerusalem on a Friday. Everyone is stocking up for their Shabbat dinners, and also has to plan ahead a little bit. The stores close around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and they don't reopen until Saturday evening or Sunday morning! Needless to say, aisles are crowded, lines are long, and Israelis are...well, Israeli. I succeeded in preventing a pushy one from taking my place in the checkout line! I met up with a couple of friends to brave the crowds. I've found grocery shopping in a group to be more effective: it's more people to figure out what's on a label or whether what you're buying is really what you think it is. (It usually isn't. I have yet to find out whether my intended tomato paste really is. I'm hoping.) In addition to the three of us who went together, I think we ran into another 8 or 10 HUC people inside the supermarket, and that was just in the 45 minutes we were there, and only at the one supermarket! It's always nice though for making last minute plans and getting extra recommendations on food. Then it was back home to get ready for Shabbat.

I had decided for Shabbat to meet up with a group of people who I haven't spent much time with, but really had fun with during our Jerusalem Days trip on Thursday. A few of us met up before services to walk to Kol HaNishamah, where I had been on my first Shabbat but the later arrivals had not yet experienced. About 8 of us walked down there together, a leisurely 30 minute walk away. We were slightly worried about finding seats together, knowing that this synagogue tends to fill up, but we also have to keep reminding ourselves that early for an Israeli is the published start time. Needless to say, arriving 10 minutes before services were scheduled to start, we had no problem finding seats. And then we watched the door as more and more HUC people walked in. There was a good sized group of us by the time we got started. I liked the service there more this time than I had when I went a few weeks ago, possibly because it felt like a more authentic experience and less like they were performing for so many guests, and possibly because I appreciate the looser form more after having been to a few fairly classical Reform HUC services. I was also excited because the announcements and D'var Torah were given only in Hebrew, and I understood some of what was said!

After services, we went to one of the few restaurants that's open on Shabbat. We had agreed that none of us felt like doing all the work necessary for hosting, and that therefore we were really going to rest, and let someone serve us. Yes, that was the rationalization for going out to eat on Shabbat. It was enough. We ran into two other groups of HUC people there as well. Their food is really yummy, and a great Shabbat dinner was had by all...and I even had leftovers! Shabbats get late though. Services run from about 6:30 until 8, so we didn't get to dinner until almost 8:30. The restaurant is not speedy, so we left there around 10 or 10:30. It just doesn't matter though, because we really have nothing else to do for 25 hours aside from eating, sleeping, and socializing! And some services.

After dinner, we hiked (really...another half hour walk) to Emily's apartment in a part of the city I had not yet visited. Her apartment is beautiful though, and the night was worth the walk! A bigger group, probably about 10-15 of us, got together there for dessert and fun. We hung out, ate some more, played cards, and just enjoyed each other's company for a couple of hours until our exhaustion caught up with us and we all decided to call it a night. A lot of us were walking back in the same direction though, so we took a shortcut through a park. And stopped to play on the playground for a few minutes. (Yes, it was after 1 am. Playgrounds are more fun that way.)

Saturday morning services were not in the cards this Shabbat. I slept until I had to get up to get ready for lunch. Another classmate had invited my roommates and I over, so we went to her place. It turned out that in addition to the three of us, also there were her roommate, a friend from outside HUC, and two other non-HUC friends. The food was really good, and it was one of those long Shabbat lunches that covers almost every topic you can think of. I had a great time! I think we left around 4, all intending to go home and nap. I got around to the nap eventually, after some reading, some laundry, and some phone calls. It was shorter than I would have liked, but it gave me enough energy to get through the rest of the day.

We had another group Havdalah this week. I think Havdalah is one of my most favorite services. It always sounds good and starts the week off right. Unfortunately I couldn't linger for the post-Havdalah jam session that generally occurs, because I had a Hebrew essay to write.

And so the week began. Bonus: today in Hebrew, the teacher told me to stop looking so worried all the time; I was doing great! I thought that was encouraging:) That, and I really understood everything that happened in class today. It was a nice change!

More soon...keep the emails and comments coming:)