We just had the great and joyous holiday of Sukkot. This is a very interesting holiday involving sacrifices at the temple in ancient times. It is also one of the most important holidays of the Jewish year. It happens to be a seven day long holiday. For the first two days, I stayed at a family's house. It was truly an intriguing experience. They have two kids (a boy of age 3.5 years named Ido and a girl of age 6.5 named Tal). They are both adorable and amazing and they understood very good English. Ido only speaks Hebrew but has a slight lisp so many of the sounds sound the same. Tal speaks good English but whenever she was angry, she would yell in Hebrew. The father spoke to them only in English (that would be how they learned it). The father is very super ultra left-wing and showed me around Jerusalem in a leftist sort of way (this part used to be an arab village until Jewish settlers came and swindeled them out of their land and took the rest, or something to that effect). I was taken to the grandparents' (on the mother's side) house and we had meals in their sukkah (a booth, one of the laws of sukkot is to live for seven days in a sukkah). They were very nice and exhausted me. By that I mean that they spoke only Hebrew and therefore I was straining my translation muscles to understand what was going on and to make appropriate replies. As a complete nonsequitor, I have been offered beer like it that is nothing special SO MANY TIMES (this was as good a place as any to add that in).
After those two nights, I was brought to a youth hostel (hotel) to board my groups bus. Another nonsequitor: the words hostel or hotel or hospital or hospice or other such words appear to all come from the word ushpizin in Hebrew. Ushpizin is another law of sukkot - invite the patriarchs to come and dine with you. Anyway, I boarded my bus and met up with most of the rest of my group. We then drove more and more North picking up more and more members of the group along the way (it was required that we stay away from home over the first two nights of sukkot). We drove all the way up to yam kinneret (Sea of Galillee). We had a water hike there. After the hike, we got back on the bus and were driven to a campsite. Mind you, we were not allowed to have wet things on the bus so I arranged a plastic trash bag in which was put all of our various bathing suits. My bathing suit was a pair of shorts because I left my bathing suit (I think) on kibbutz lotan where we stayed for Rosh Hashannah. I was wearing my one other pair of shorts that I decided to pack for this hiking trip. We got to our campsite and I put everyone's bathing suits (and my shorts) out on a stone wall to dry. We were then told about this program (yam le yam or sea to sea) and how it was a survival teaching thing. Therefore, for our first activity (still that first night), we were taught about stress and fear. We were set apart as individuals and were told to sit still and wait for .5 hours. In the dark. By ourselves. I tried some meditation, some reiki, some listening, some watching, some playing with sticks. That 1/2 hour passed by really quickly. I actually had fun during it. Afterwards, they made dinner for us, and we went to bed (there was a campfire, but most of us went to bed). I woke the next morning and found that all of the stuff I had laid out was drenched in dew. stupid tal (it means dew in hebrew). I tied my shorts in a plastic bag and did not use them for days.
We did lots of hiking and climbing and such. It took four days. I got scratched by two trees over two days in the same place and now have a nice battle wound. We had some REALLY good eating on the trail. Everyday we had to make breakfast and lunch for ourselves everyday at some stop on the trail. We had porridge with various additives for breakfast everyday and stir fry with various (or without various) ingredients for lunch. Very tasty stuff. I was actually put in the vegetarian group for whatever reason. I was given meat (a nice big thing of salami) but never ate it. On the first day of hiking (the day after the night activity), I was in charge of the peanut butter for the vegetarian group. It of course exploded. All over my bag. And my socks. And various other things. And it was gross. After the great long day of walking, I had to clean that thing. And it was dark. I was not having a good time with that, but it did not make my day bad. I got to hike many many miles that day, and it was good. There are really way too many experiences to relate even an iota (in relative terms of course). After a lot of hiking, we finally made it to the mediterranean sea. My pants that I had used as a bathing suit during that first water hike still were not dry! So I went into the med in boxers and changed boxers after getting out and put the same shorts on over the clean boxers. I in fact wore the same shirt and pants the entirety of the four days, with no access to showers. To enhance the effect, I didn't wear deodorent either. Amazingly enough, there were no complaints.
Enough about yam le yam. We got back and had two days off from school to recuperate. They even ordered pizza hut pizza for us last night (I only had four slices I swear!). I had green olive, black olive, cheese, and onion. Really it was all very nice.
At the end of Sukkot, there is another holiday going by the name of Simchat Torah or Shmini Atzeret. Simchat Torah is the celebration of the completion and restarting of the Torah cycle while Shmini Atzeret is when we start praying for rain in Israel. Normally, the rains begin some time after two weeks from when rain is first prayed for. What if I said that it rained today (a day after Shmini Atzeret)? It did. Not just rain, but downpour. It was wet. The sky was black. It was truly a remarkable moment. That is why I just remarked about it. I have actually never been in Israel while it was raining. It was so amazing. I can't describe the power of the moment in words. So I'll stop.
I think that is all that I have to say for the moment. I hope all is well in your comings and goings.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Friday, October 06, 2006
Quick update
I am writing this now in Hebrew class. We just finished our midterm (or at least I did) and this was the last of three installments of it. We again have this double hebrew/no j-hist nonsense and it sort of upsets me. We had to pack up last night because we are moving out today. We are to stay with a family (each of us with a different family, or if you are nice you might bring a friend or two along) for two nights and then we will go on yam l'yam (sea to sea hike). Yesterday, I had my first infusion for Crohn's disease in Israel. It was a very different experience from the two other experiences that I am used to (Stamford and Greenwich hospitals). The Isrealis who were in the infusion center did not know each other but yet started bickering about politics and this last military conflict (everyone has their own opinions of what to call it). It was really very intriguing. Becasue of the poor planning of that appointment, I missed the j-hist exam that was yesterday. I therefore had to make it up sometime after dinner yesterday. After dinner was packing though, so it was a whole balagan. On top of all that, I am on toranut (duty). This means that I am supposed to clean the office, zula (our hangout room thing, student lounge), and the classrooms. I only got to clean the classrooms that we packed our stuff into (we put all of our stuff in classrooms when we move out and then lock it up). I had to take the test at some point and did, but it was very hard to do from 9:30 to 10:30...my brain had already begun its shutdown sequence.
In other news, I have added Hebrew University in Jerusalem to my college list. That's about it. I hope you all have a chag sameach, and sorry for jumping around a lot and being hard to follow this time.
In other news, I have added Hebrew University in Jerusalem to my college list. That's about it. I hope you all have a chag sameach, and sorry for jumping around a lot and being hard to follow this time.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Yom kippur and the past 5 days
It is now 5 days later after I said that I would continue my update after dinner. Oops, is all I can say. No, that's a lie...I can also say busy. The past five days have been jampacked with a whole slew of occurences, so I'm going to conveniently forget about the second part of that update, and just talk about the last five days.
Friday was slightly special. For whatever reason, we did not have j-hist (I was simply heartbroken). Instead, we had three hours of hebrew lessons. Yes, that is in fact speaking my favorite language ever non-stop for three hours. This is not as easy as one might think (if you did not think that it is an easy feat, than congratulations). I was so exhausted by the end of it, that I was memutzah (I am always ayef here because of lack of sleep, but after something that straining, i must be memutzah). At 12:45 we had lunch (super very exciting). Before lunch but after Hebrew (from 11 to 12:45) as well as after lunch but before 1:30, I watched Israeli children's shows on television. Amazing stuff. One of them happened to be Blue's Clues, and the others were not American. I understood nearly all the words, enough to understand what was going on but enough to miss a joke or some such thing. Afterwards, the four of us who happen to be best at hebrew were to meet so as to finish the plans for the meeting of Israeli kids (for about three weeks we [the highest hebrew class] have been planning a meeting between us and the 11th and 12th grade honors kids of a neighboring town, Beit Shemesh [house of the sun]. It has been very difficult and awkward at times, but we finally decided that we would have a bingo, a scavenger hunt, and a pool party). We had to hide all the clues (we also made them, and cleverly if I might add). So we hid the clues and all was good in the world. Or Kibbutz Tzuba. Tzuba is our world. Anyway, we played bingo with the Beit Shemesh kids and it was nice and icebreaker-ish, and then split to do our scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun, and naturally the group that I was leading made it to the pool (our destination) first. We did not cheat, but other groups did. Regardless, it was lots of fun. I became friendly with one particular Israeli kid, Shmuel (not to be confused with the Sam who is in my EIE group that we call Shmuel or Shmuli). He is the son of the counselor of the kids from Beit Shemesh. He graduated last year and is currently doing the compulsory military service. He is working in the Computers and Communications unit in the army, so we got along just fine. In fact, when he asked for my email (talinuxactly@gmail.com), he gave a good laugh because he actually understood it. For those of you who don't it is Tal Linux Xactly (exactly). He gave me a high compliment saying that I am very Israeli. I did not quite understand what he meant so he explained; I have an Israeli sense of humor and personality. No need to reiterate (but I will anyway), I took that as a high compliment. That was Friday in a nutshell.
I don't recall much of shabat because it was pretty boring. However, in the evening for motzash (motzaei shabat, end of shabat, return to normalcy, allowed to buy stuff time), we went to a super exspansive mall. It was really big. I bought mouthwash if you are curious. If not, I did not buy anything :) .
Sunday, another slightly special day. Again, we had three hours of Hebrew and no j-hist (and again I was heartbroken). I don't think you understand. J-hist is the greatest, most informative, and interesting class ever (sorry to all of you who are current or former teachers of mine). Until today (the third), I did not have a sit down j-hist class in 6 days!!! That is a lot of heartbreak... Back to the topic at hand. Again, Hebrew was so physically exhausting. Again I was memutzah. Lots of agains. But a new! For Yom Kippur, we went to Beit Shmuel (the house of Shmuel, not to be confused with Shmuel the Israeli kid or Shmuel aka Sam in my group), a youth hostel that is connected to the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Let me explain that in slightly more simple terms. Beit Shmuel is a hotel where kids who are on trips like mine or others stay. It is in a very good location (as I will discuss later) and is a part of HUC (the graduate school for Reform rabbinic studies). We unpacked and were told to be ready for dinner at 15:45 (aka 3:45). 3:45 you ask? Why, yes, I did in fact say that. After dinner we had a little get together (this was about 4:30).
I feel that I must give some background. If you know what Yom Kippur is, feel free to skip this paragraph (although it may be funny anyway). Yom Kippur is a very important day to the Jewish people. Very important. It is the tenth day of the month of Tishrei. Tishrei is the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar, but for whatever reason, we celebrate the new year in Tishrei. Between the new year and Yom Kippur (ten days if you were paying attention), we must repent for our sins between man and man and then on Yom Kippur we try to finish with a good seal in the book of life. Slightly too metaphorical for such a serious thing if you ask me. Despite that, we Jews feel that Yom Kippur is a very serious day. If you did badly in the past year and are not forgiven for you wrongs, then you will not be written in the book of life and will die in the coming year. Lots of forgiveness, and I sinned and similar things. To commemorate all this, we are told in the bible to aflict our souls (that is my own translation). The rabbis have decided to interpret this as giving ourself really mean torture. For instance, we are not to eat, drink, wear comfortable shoes, put on perfume (or deoderant or brush teeth or whatever other nice things strike your fancy), and no sex. Oh, I forgot the biggest torture of all- staying in synagogue the entire day (that was some humor).
So we went to synagogue that evening after our very early last supper (Jewish days start in the evening so dinner is actually the first meal of the day). This was the Kol Nidre (all the vows) service. A very solemn occasion and usually very boring. However, the service was all in Hebrew (as in no English prayers) although it was led at the HUC (an english speaking institution). It was probably half as long as it normally would be at home. We then walked for a while (maybe three minutes) until we were in front of a Blockbuster (apparently we have those in Israel). We were then told "explore, but be in groups of at least four and be back at Beit Shmuel at 10 PM." This was really something. Especially because it was about 8 at the time. So we went 'sploring. We found two temples (The GREAT SYNAGOGUE, and some little conservative one) and lots of strangeties. For instance, there were no cars. Not only was there a lack of traffic, but all of the traffic lights were turned off! People were dancing in the street to no music at all, and there were plenty of bicycles. It is from this and some other experiences of Yom Kippur that I feel people should say "Happy Yom Kippur!", instead of this "have a fast fast" or "may you be sealed for good in the book of life" stuff. I really enjoyed Yom Kippur, and it was the easiest fast I have ever done. However, this 'sploring bit got old eventually. There is only so much you can see and do when everything is closed and its dark out. My group of seven ended up back at the hostel a half hour early (at least half an hour after I wanted to go back). We then had lights out at 11 and optional services were at 10:30 the next morning. That is too much sleep. I havent gotten more than 9 hours this whole time, and it was a shock to my body that 11.5 hours was possible. I of course (with the rest of my room) woke at 8:30. Since that is only a day after we fell back an hour for daylight savings, it was to my body only 7:30. I got 9 hours of sleep that night (went to bed about 11:30) and felt that it was too much! We had optional services the next day and I went to a sephardi orthodox shul (very interesting experience), we had a torah study at HUC (in english), then afternoon services, then memorial service, then the concluding service and we broke fast at say 6:30. Again, it was a very easy fast because everything was so engaging and interesting. I had a lot of fun this Yom Kippur so I hope that you had a happy Yom Kippur as well ;-) . We went to Emek Rafaim for our real dinner and I had a 150 g burger with lots of fries and a coke. It was very delicious but i couldnt finish the burger (I had about a bite and a half left) because my stomach had shrunk from fasting. The only thing of note at Emek Rafaim was the graffiti. One such graffiti (plastered on a burger place) said "basar = retzach" , which translated means "meat = murder". Another one was on a trash pail and it said (in English) "Welcome Americans, but speak Hebrew". I loved it.
I hope you had a happy Yom Kippur!
Friday was slightly special. For whatever reason, we did not have j-hist (I was simply heartbroken). Instead, we had three hours of hebrew lessons. Yes, that is in fact speaking my favorite language ever non-stop for three hours. This is not as easy as one might think (if you did not think that it is an easy feat, than congratulations). I was so exhausted by the end of it, that I was memutzah (I am always ayef here because of lack of sleep, but after something that straining, i must be memutzah). At 12:45 we had lunch (super very exciting). Before lunch but after Hebrew (from 11 to 12:45) as well as after lunch but before 1:30, I watched Israeli children's shows on television. Amazing stuff. One of them happened to be Blue's Clues, and the others were not American. I understood nearly all the words, enough to understand what was going on but enough to miss a joke or some such thing. Afterwards, the four of us who happen to be best at hebrew were to meet so as to finish the plans for the meeting of Israeli kids (for about three weeks we [the highest hebrew class] have been planning a meeting between us and the 11th and 12th grade honors kids of a neighboring town, Beit Shemesh [house of the sun]. It has been very difficult and awkward at times, but we finally decided that we would have a bingo, a scavenger hunt, and a pool party). We had to hide all the clues (we also made them, and cleverly if I might add). So we hid the clues and all was good in the world. Or Kibbutz Tzuba. Tzuba is our world. Anyway, we played bingo with the Beit Shemesh kids and it was nice and icebreaker-ish, and then split to do our scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun, and naturally the group that I was leading made it to the pool (our destination) first. We did not cheat, but other groups did. Regardless, it was lots of fun. I became friendly with one particular Israeli kid, Shmuel (not to be confused with the Sam who is in my EIE group that we call Shmuel or Shmuli). He is the son of the counselor of the kids from Beit Shemesh. He graduated last year and is currently doing the compulsory military service. He is working in the Computers and Communications unit in the army, so we got along just fine. In fact, when he asked for my email (talinuxactly@gmail.com), he gave a good laugh because he actually understood it. For those of you who don't it is Tal Linux Xactly (exactly). He gave me a high compliment saying that I am very Israeli. I did not quite understand what he meant so he explained; I have an Israeli sense of humor and personality. No need to reiterate (but I will anyway), I took that as a high compliment. That was Friday in a nutshell.
I don't recall much of shabat because it was pretty boring. However, in the evening for motzash (motzaei shabat, end of shabat, return to normalcy, allowed to buy stuff time), we went to a super exspansive mall. It was really big. I bought mouthwash if you are curious. If not, I did not buy anything :) .
Sunday, another slightly special day. Again, we had three hours of Hebrew and no j-hist (and again I was heartbroken). I don't think you understand. J-hist is the greatest, most informative, and interesting class ever (sorry to all of you who are current or former teachers of mine). Until today (the third), I did not have a sit down j-hist class in 6 days!!! That is a lot of heartbreak... Back to the topic at hand. Again, Hebrew was so physically exhausting. Again I was memutzah. Lots of agains. But a new! For Yom Kippur, we went to Beit Shmuel (the house of Shmuel, not to be confused with Shmuel the Israeli kid or Shmuel aka Sam in my group), a youth hostel that is connected to the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Let me explain that in slightly more simple terms. Beit Shmuel is a hotel where kids who are on trips like mine or others stay. It is in a very good location (as I will discuss later) and is a part of HUC (the graduate school for Reform rabbinic studies). We unpacked and were told to be ready for dinner at 15:45 (aka 3:45). 3:45 you ask? Why, yes, I did in fact say that. After dinner we had a little get together (this was about 4:30).
I feel that I must give some background. If you know what Yom Kippur is, feel free to skip this paragraph (although it may be funny anyway). Yom Kippur is a very important day to the Jewish people. Very important. It is the tenth day of the month of Tishrei. Tishrei is the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar, but for whatever reason, we celebrate the new year in Tishrei. Between the new year and Yom Kippur (ten days if you were paying attention), we must repent for our sins between man and man and then on Yom Kippur we try to finish with a good seal in the book of life. Slightly too metaphorical for such a serious thing if you ask me. Despite that, we Jews feel that Yom Kippur is a very serious day. If you did badly in the past year and are not forgiven for you wrongs, then you will not be written in the book of life and will die in the coming year. Lots of forgiveness, and I sinned and similar things. To commemorate all this, we are told in the bible to aflict our souls (that is my own translation). The rabbis have decided to interpret this as giving ourself really mean torture. For instance, we are not to eat, drink, wear comfortable shoes, put on perfume (or deoderant or brush teeth or whatever other nice things strike your fancy), and no sex. Oh, I forgot the biggest torture of all- staying in synagogue the entire day (that was some humor).
So we went to synagogue that evening after our very early last supper (Jewish days start in the evening so dinner is actually the first meal of the day). This was the Kol Nidre (all the vows) service. A very solemn occasion and usually very boring. However, the service was all in Hebrew (as in no English prayers) although it was led at the HUC (an english speaking institution). It was probably half as long as it normally would be at home. We then walked for a while (maybe three minutes) until we were in front of a Blockbuster (apparently we have those in Israel). We were then told "explore, but be in groups of at least four and be back at Beit Shmuel at 10 PM." This was really something. Especially because it was about 8 at the time. So we went 'sploring. We found two temples (The GREAT SYNAGOGUE, and some little conservative one) and lots of strangeties. For instance, there were no cars. Not only was there a lack of traffic, but all of the traffic lights were turned off! People were dancing in the street to no music at all, and there were plenty of bicycles. It is from this and some other experiences of Yom Kippur that I feel people should say "Happy Yom Kippur!", instead of this "have a fast fast" or "may you be sealed for good in the book of life" stuff. I really enjoyed Yom Kippur, and it was the easiest fast I have ever done. However, this 'sploring bit got old eventually. There is only so much you can see and do when everything is closed and its dark out. My group of seven ended up back at the hostel a half hour early (at least half an hour after I wanted to go back). We then had lights out at 11 and optional services were at 10:30 the next morning. That is too much sleep. I havent gotten more than 9 hours this whole time, and it was a shock to my body that 11.5 hours was possible. I of course (with the rest of my room) woke at 8:30. Since that is only a day after we fell back an hour for daylight savings, it was to my body only 7:30. I got 9 hours of sleep that night (went to bed about 11:30) and felt that it was too much! We had optional services the next day and I went to a sephardi orthodox shul (very interesting experience), we had a torah study at HUC (in english), then afternoon services, then memorial service, then the concluding service and we broke fast at say 6:30. Again, it was a very easy fast because everything was so engaging and interesting. I had a lot of fun this Yom Kippur so I hope that you had a happy Yom Kippur as well ;-) . We went to Emek Rafaim for our real dinner and I had a 150 g burger with lots of fries and a coke. It was very delicious but i couldnt finish the burger (I had about a bite and a half left) because my stomach had shrunk from fasting. The only thing of note at Emek Rafaim was the graffiti. One such graffiti (plastered on a burger place) said "basar = retzach" , which translated means "meat = murder". Another one was on a trash pail and it said (in English) "Welcome Americans, but speak Hebrew". I loved it.
I hope you had a happy Yom Kippur!
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