Yam le yam, sukkot, and a blessing

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.