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!