24 hours in the life of Lauren

24 hours in the life of Lauren, Motzei Shabbat (after Shabbat ends) to Sunday evening:

5:28pm:  Shabbat is over, too early as always.  I make Havdalah with Evelyn and her friend Susan from New York, reconnect with the wider world of email and cell phones, and head home to shower and scrounge up dinner.

6:00pm:  Call from Miriam - time to plan something for the evening.  They'll provide me with dinner (soy tofu!!) if I can bring a vegetable.  Can't be too hard, right?  This should be a good time to plan the family's week in Israel at the end of December, catch up on some knitting, and generally relax.

7:03pm:  After speedily showering and cleaning up, I head up the road toward Miriam and Naomi's, by way of Super Deal, which I think is my favorite grocery store here.  And of course, it's closed.  Time for plan B.

7:15pm:  Run into liquor store to see if they have vegetables - no.  Stop by ATM, reach for wallet, open it up to find... no bank card.  This is not good.  Maybe I left it where I had coffee on Friday morning?  I remember taking it with me though... (panic panic panic)... maybe I'll call the person I had coffee with and see if he remembers.  Nope, don't have his number.  Wait a second... I put it in my pocket when I went shopping on Friday afternoon because I didn't want to carry a purse... and I'm wearing the same pants!  Reach into pocket, find card, Halleluyah!

7:30pm:  Arrive at makolet - small grocery/convenience store.  The search for a vegetable that isn't sprouting things commences.  After twisting around corners, arrive at veggie section which is blocked by all of the coolers that would normally be outside during the day.  Green beans - success!  Ask store owner to climb over cooler to get the beans, which look edible.

7:32pm:  Woman approaches me in makolet, asking for 10 shekels (about $2.50).  Instinct is to say that I don't have money, but the words don't come out, and I realize my instinct is wrong.  I reach for my change purse, pull out the coins, and hand them to her, with a tired smile.  She smiles back, almost deviously, and puts her finger to her lips in a "shhh! don't tell!" motion.

7:36pm:  As I approach the counter to pay (for green beans, muffin mix, muffin papers, and a bar of chocolate, of course), the same store owner says, "Want some advice?  Don't give her money.  She's a pest."  I see the woman on the street now, still looking devious.

7:45pm:  Arrive at Miriam and Naomi's.  Drink wine.  Knit and plan interesting things to do in Jerusalem for the next few weeks.  Bake blueberry muffins for the egal minyanaires to surprise them for arriving on time to minyan in the morning.

10:30pm:  Start to head home.  Get call from Evelyn saying that my laundry's done (since I don't have a washer of my own and have to rely on the generosity of others) and I should come fold it.

11:15pm:  Leave Evelyn's, very sleepy.  So much for 10:00pm bedtime - oh well.  Start to get ready for bed, chat with roommate about her Shabbat at a Hasidic teacher's house.

12:00pm:  Sleep.

5:00am:  Wake.  Contactsbrushteethrunningclothesputuphairfindwarmjacketfindkeys and out the door.

5:34am:  Run with Dan, while listening to Blur and Nada Surf and trying to keep up.  Slow run, but I feel amazing.

6:15am:  On the way back to my apartment, I look up at the sky - apart from the sunset, I think the sky is the most beautiful at this time of day.  It's a gorgeous cornflower blue (that's what Crayola would have called it), and I see a huge wispy cloud that looks like a butterfly with a broken wing.  What does it mean?

6:17am:  As I stretch after the run (my favorite part of the day), a huge dog on a leash comes up behind me, wanting to be scratched.  I give him a good scratch behind the ears, and the three of us (me, dog, and owner) are much happier.

7:25am:  Minyan.  I write the following line from Masechet Brachot of the Talmud (19B) up on the board:     Come and learn:  Human dignity is so important that it supercedes even a Biblical prohibition.  Think about it.
I lead Pesukei D'zimra, singing a couple of the psalms and switching up the Hebrew with English a bit, to keep people on their toes.

8:10am:  Minyanaires get their muffins, we congratulate Marcie on her first time leading Shacharit, and I rush around making breakfast and getting my books so I can be on time for class.

8:30am:  Gemara.  What are we discussing again?  Oh right - whether there can be shlichut (appointing someone else to do a religious task for you) in the case of an averah (a general category of sins and misdeeds).  Through a complex series of logic, rabbinic proofs and formulations, we indeed establish that shlichut is NOT possible in the case of an averah - so don't go around trying to tell people to burn down barns for you, because they're just going to get in trouble.

12:00pm:  Biblical Hebrew Grammar.  Compensatory lengthening, dagesh kal, and something about the letter nun that makes the dagesh kal appear in the final letter of the word.

1:00pm:  Announcements and Mincha - Carra leads Mincha for the first time.

1:30pm:  Burekas Ima for lunch - zatar pita, tomato pita, and cheesy burekas.  Not the most healthy of lunches, but it's hard to beat the price - 8 shekels!! ($2!)  Plus a chocolate/butterscotch muffin from our wonderful chef.

2:00pm:  Trip to the Israel Free Loan Association with Social Justice Track. As Eliezer Jaffe, the founding director, put it: 

•  This is Jewish microlending, not tzedakah (charity).  We don't charge interest, period.
•  We can't save the whole world - only half.  Our work is target at those who make more than 3,000 NIS (New Israeli Shekel) a month but less than 13,000, because then they'd be able to get a loan from the banks.
• Only 0.2% of the recipients of loans end up defaulting on them.
• We're not crazy - it's Jewish!

3:00pm:  Back to class.  Discussion about the Agriprocessors kosher meat packing plant scandal and the Jewish obligation to follow the law of the land.

4:30pm:  Still discussing with my group, but starting to get sleepy, and very distracted by the gorgeous sunset out the window of the Beit Midrash.  I'll take pictures next time.

5:00pm:  Maariv - I lead, and pull in some slow melodies to help people wind down after a long day.

5:17pm:  Done... or at least I could be.  But I choose to stick around and attend a shiur (lesson) given by a friend on "Can G-d Change His Mind (Or did we change ours?)" and end up being part of a great discussion on reward and punishment in the Tanakh and rabbinic literature.

And that, my friends, is 24 hours in the life of me.

LIVE: Challah Baking!

Watch the challah-baking process unfold!

Of course, it all starts with a mess....

It's pretty cold in my apartment and I couldn't find a warm place to put the dough so that it would rise, so I got out the platta - to keep foods warm on Shabbat - and rigged a system with a pot lid so my dough could benefit from the heat without being directly on the heating element.  And sure enough... it rose!

Next:  the braiding.

Batch #1:  Four-stranded braids.

Batch #2:  Six-stranded braids!

In the (toaster) oven they go!

Here's how the four-stranded braids turned out.  They probably could have gotten a little browner on top, but I was worried about the underside getting burnt.  Not too shabby!

The six stranded ones are out of the oven! 

Shabbat shalom!

Home

In the past week, fall has abruptly arrived in Jerusalem.  One day I was wearing a t-shirt and skirt, and the next, I was bundled up in all my winter gear.  I'm putting extra blankets on my bed, getting up early to turn the hot water on for the shower, and finding lots of soup and chili recipes.

The onset of fall makes me a bit wistful, nostalgic, and sometimes homesick.  I was reflecting today on this time of year in years past - during the last four years in Houston, fall hasn't really existed.  It's like one long summer that goes until Thanksgiving, then gets cold and rainy, then turns to summer again in late February.  I missed REAL fall - leaves changing colors, football games, Boy Scout popcorn...  Jerusalem fall is a little bit closer to South Carolina fall than Houston fall, in that it's colder here, but it's not the same feeling.

I was thinking of particular fall memories today... like wearing a turtleneck to school and having to hold onto the cuff of the sleeve when putting on a jacket or sweater over it so that the sleeve doesn't bunch up on your arm.  More memories rushed in when I got an email from my mom:

"I just saw that it is Sesame Street's 40th anniversary so thought you might like to sing a few old favorites like “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz”   or “put down the duckie”

It's the little things... Don't worry though, I'm not homesick.  I'm just enjoying the contrasts, the change in season, and the memories.

Volunteering

(Note:  I'm blogging for Pardes now, and I just put this post on their blog as well.  If you want to read it on there, as well as the contributions of other students, go to theseandthose.pardes.org)

On Tuesday afternoons a number of Pardes students volunteer with organizations throughout the Jerusalem area, and I’m working with a community called Yotzer Or.  Yotzer Or is composed of mostly immigrant families, many from Ethiopia, who are living in housing projects in the neighborhood of Talpiot directly across from the wealthy neighborhood.  They come to Yotzer Or for community, for help finding jobs, for after-school care for their kids, for bar mitzvah tutoring, for Jewish holidays, and much more – it’s really hard to label them as a synagogue in the traditional sense, but the rabbi, Uri Ayalon, is presenting a vision for how expansive Jewish community can really be.

Anyway, all of that background is to tell you about my particular experience today at Yotzer Or.  We’re tutoring kids ages 6-16 in English, one-on-one, and my student’s name is Batel (or Betty, as she likes to be called).  She and her four siblings are from Ethiopia, and they’re all involved in the tutoring program.  Many of the kids in the program have pretty minimal English speaking skills, but Batel’s English is amazing – she’s 12, and more or less fluent.  I help her with her homework (which she breezes through), and then we talk – about boys, music, annoying teachers in school, and of course, boys.

Today Batel asked me if I had ever been in the army, or if I would ever be.  When I told her that in America, high school grads aren’t required to join the army like they are in Israel, she was a bit shocked – how did they get people to serve if they weren’t required to?  I asked her if she would join the army one day, and she said “Of course!” and already knows what unit she wants to serve in – מגבניקות, or border patrol.  She’s already learning Arabic (in addition to her Hebrew, English, and Amharic), which she’ll have to master in order to serve in that capacity.  I thought back to the 12 year-olds that I know in America, and I’m not sure if I could find one with these same kinds of life experiences and questions.

Later on, Batel asked me what I was going to do when I got back to America.  I should be used to this question now – I’ve been getting it practically every day since I arrived here – but still, I stalled:

“Well, I’ll go see my family, of course…”
“And then?”
“And then…I’m going to start studying to be a rabbi.”
“A what?”
“You know, a rav.”
“Ohhh, you mean a rabbanit!  So wait…will you wear pants?”
(I was wearing pants today – it was pretty cold.  I do wear a lot of skirts though, here and at home.  But of course, I deflected with a question.)
“Do you think I should?”
“Well, I know a rabbanit who wears pants… but she knows EVERYTHING about the Torah, and can answer any question I ask her.  I think it’s more about the person you are on the inside, and if you’re true to yourself, that’s what matters.”

I’m beginning to think that I’ll be learning much more from her this year than she’ll be learning from me.

Week in review

For this post, I'll present you with a series of random images/thoughts/experiences that will showcase what day to day life in Jerusalem and at Pardes is like for me.  Be forewarned.

Couscous, Falafel, and Chocolate.

I eat couscous probably three times a week here, and I have yet to get tired of it.  It's the perfect combination of inexpensive, quick to make, versatile, tasty, and amazingness.  My general couscous meal includes feta cheese, lemon juice, and random vegetables, either raw or sauteed.  Shira, my roommate, made a pot of couscous this evening, and I ate 3/4 of it.  Mmmm.





And of course, my week wouldn't be complete without a trip to the falafel stand.  Well actually - it probably would.  But every once in a while, falafel is just the thing I'm craving.  "Chetzi falafel b'laffa" is half a piece of fluffy wrap bread stuffed with falafel balls, "salat, betzalim, techina, chumous, and chips" - salad, onions, techina (sesame sauce), chumous (no explanation required, I hope), and circle cut french fries.  Today,  they mistakenly put "charif" (spicy sauce) on my laffa, much to my dismay... but I finished it anyway.

Another food favorite:  mini chocolate bars.  Sometimes during day at Pardes I just need a little pick me up, and these are so perfect.  David Berman, the in-house amazing caterer, keeps a kiosk stocked with lots of little goodies, and these chocolates keep me coming back.  I think I have a reputation at Pardes for the blissful faces that I make when I take that first bite.  Some things about me haven't changed since I was 5.

(Photo from http://www.strauss-group.com/Documents/Para/popup%20pics/snack_para_mini_jumping_candy.jpg)

Weeks of Firsts

Everything starts up very quickly in Jerusalem after the chagim (holidays), and Pardes is no exception. We've been back in classes for a week and a half, and I don't think I've gotten to bed before 11 any night (which is tough when I have to be at minyan at 7:10am!).

Last week was definitely a week of firsts. I'll list, then go into more detail:

• First time leading Shacharit in the minyan
• First time giving a d'var tzedek
• First time visiting a dump
  

1. As one of the gabbaiot of the egal minyan and consequently a regular attendee, leading services should be a skill I pick up fairly quickly. I finally decided over Sukkot break to go through all the liturgy on my own and brush up on the parts that I had never recited out loud. And here's a shameless plug.... www.zieglerpodcasts.com is a HUGE help for anyone wanting to learn nusach (chanting melodies for the particular sections of the service) or melodies for particular prayers. Or just about anything Jewish. Anyway, the way our weekly davening works in the egal minyan is as follows:

7:25 Sunday Shacharit
7:10 Monday Shacharit and Torah Service
7:25 Tuesday Shacharit
7:10 Wednesday Super Singy Shacharit!
7:25 Thursday Shacharit and Torah service

I led Super Singy Shacharit (that's not its official name, but it should be), with lots of great melodies from Jewish communities in my past like Coleman and BCI. Ever since then, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a shaliach tzibur - the prayer leader, but literally, the representative of the community. It's quite a challenge, pacing yourself, remembering different melodies and nusachot, but the real challenge is feeling fit to convey the needs of the community to G-d. In the traditional halakhic view, the shatz has the power to fulfill the obligations of others in prayer, and this was a concern in places where the community didn't know Hebrew and didn't understand the prayers they were reciting. Obviously this is still a concern for us today when davening in "lashon kodesh" (the holy tongue), but now that most siddurim have the translation of the prayers readily accessible, we can understand the words that we're saying to G-d and find ways to connect one's individuals thoughts and feelings with the fixed words in the liturgy.

2. In the Social Justice Track, each person is asked to give a "dvar tzedek" once over the course of the semester - literally a "word of justice," or a short talk on a topic of social justice that you're particularly passionate about. It didn't take me long to come up with a topic - I spoke about my mom and her role in the fight against child abuse. I try not to write out my speeches verbatim beforehand so I can't provide the exact text of what I said, but I would like to include the text that I ended with that I think sums up the issue - a letter that my mom wrote to the editor of the Spartanburg Herald Journal two years ago:

We have been into the new century for almost seven years now, and things have certainly changed. Cell phones have become universal, MP3 players are playing our favorite tunes, and the Internet connects us to everywhere.

So far so good, but from my perspective the future doesn't look quite as bright. Child abuse has clearly entered into every arena - the streets, the home, the church and the school. Children are being abused by their guardians, their grandparents, their neighbors, their teachers, their ministers and even their older siblings. Sound crazy? Who needs to watch reality TV? The stories I hear every day far surpass those shows.

I often wonder why people are so quick to believe that adults tell the truth and children lie. Oh, and as for our advancement in technology, our cell phones are now used as cameras for pornography, folks are waiting for DNA and don't want to hear what their children are saying, My Space.com has become a common arena for adults to have sexual conversations with children, and young teens are experimenting on their younger siblings.

Unless we are willing to realize that these situations are happening every day, everywhere, which also includes our community, we will never have a healthy society. The Department of Social Services and local law enforcement are inundated with these cases to investigate. We all need to open our eyes and work together to try to get a handle on this monumental problem.

Our future depends on it.

Nancy Henderson

Medical director,

Spartanburg and Greenville Children's Advocacy Center

3. The dump. Or Har Chiriya, the mountain of beauty (in Arabic). Here, I believe pictures speak much louder than words.

Soccer field area where small trucks from cities bring the trash and large trucks take the trash away to its final resting place in the Negev.

Big truck pushes trash from one side to the other.

Cats jump in and enjoy the free dinner, just as they do in dumpsters all over Jerusalem.

And on that note... it's bedtime!

Poll Time

Tomorrow's my last free day of Sukkot vacation (Shabbat being, well, Shabbat and Sunday consisting of a trip to a dump turned park with my Social Justice class), so I'm debating how I should spend my morning. I'm a bit torn and could use some help, so here goes:

Option A: Davening at Kedem for Hoshana Raba. It's the last day of waving the lulav and etrog, plus there's going to be music with instruments! I haven't done enough davening in a minyan this week and Sunday's egal minyan was really lovely, so this sounds like a great option. Starts at 8:30am.

Option B: Soup Kitchen. I try to volunteer at the soup kitchen every Friday morning that I'm in town, so obviously I'll still have this opportunity next week, and the following week, but it's not about me - it's about those people who will have more to eat if I'm there peeling and chopping potatoes. Meet at 9:00am.

I could also do both, going to the soup kitchen a bit later than I normally would, which is probably what I'll end up doing. However, this points at a much larger issue that I spend a lot of my time thinking about, and goes back to that post that I wrote a few weeks ago about the speaker we had in the Social Justice class. How do we best serve G-d in this world? If we have to make a choice about how to spend our resources, whether time, energy, or money, which mitzvot do we fulfill first - those bein adam l'chavero (between human beings and their fellows) or bein adam l'makom (between human beings and G-d)? I once heard that in prioritizing mitzvot, you do the ones that only you can do first, and if there are others that could be fulfilled by someone else, you let others fulfill those - but what if no one else shows up for the soup kitchen?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Quote of the Day

The refusal to acknowledge how Judaism reappropriates symbolism to make it relevant in a contemporary context flattens Judaism and takes away the crucial reason why it has survived for 4000 years.
- Grace Wichmann

The Amazingness of Sukkot in Israel, continued

I've come to the conclusion that Sukkot in Israel is without a doubt my favorite holiday here. I'm saying this without having seen Hanukkah in Israel, or Purim, or Pesach, so this assertion could very well change with the seasons, but for now I'm pretty enamored with Sukkot.

Point one: Extra-long vacation. Having taken a serious account of your soul in the weeks leading up to the Yamin Noraim (Days of Awe - RH and YK), everyone needs a break, especially to enjoy the beautiful weather in Israel right before the rainy season begins and it starts to get yucky.

So to continue where I left off in my account of the Galil Adventure, last Wednesday the five of us drove to Rosh Pina, a little north of Moshav Almagor where we were staying, to find dinner. Let me first mention that we got a rental car for the three days, and without it, we really wouldn't have been able to get around from tiny town to tiny town. That being said - "Zaki," as we named him, wasn't the most dependable vehicle. His ability to accelerate up hills was pretty nonexistent, so there were many times where we got stuck behind huge trucks on the highway for miles because Zaki couldn't muster the strength to pass them. We cajoled him on and he continued to run, but he definitely could have used a more powerful engine (and some better shocks).

Dinner was at this amazing little restaurant called Indigo that we found in a Frommer's guidebook. If you're ever in Rosh Pina, go here - they have amazing dishes, served with an abundance of goat cheese.

We returned to the Moshav, satiated and smiling, and spend the evening drinking wine, eating mangoes and chocolate, and singing along to the tunes from Evelyn's guitar.

The next morning, after letting ourselves sleep in a bit and then davening facing the Kinneret (and back toward Jerusalem, of course), we consulted our buddy Dan, the son of the moshav hostel's proprietor, about where to go for a hike in the area involving water. He suggested Nachal Zaki (that's where the car's name originated) - a hike along a river, we assumed, with parts where we could refresh ourselves and get our feet wet. We drove to the spot, walked along the dry, sandy path for a while without seeing much water, and took lots of pictures of groves of pomegranate trees and other desert foliage.
After a little ways, we came upon a fork in the trail, and followed the green and white striped trail marker. Around the bend, it pointed us not along the road, but to duck under some brush and wade into the river. This was it! I led the pack, excited to finally wear my Chacos for their intended purpose as river-walking sandals. We were in water up to our knees, making our way over rocks and mud, enjoying the cool shade, until we noticed that the stream widen, and we could no longer see our feet. Evelyn scouted ahead and discovered that we could still walk through the river, but the water came up to our shoulders! We slowly trekked on, backpacks carefully balanced on top of our heads, feeling VERY adventurous as we meticulously stepped from rock to rock so as not to trip and soak everything in our bags.

This went on for a while, alternating between deep and not so deep water, and we took frequent breaks to rehydrate and refuel. At one point, we got passed by a bunch of very experienced-looking (or at least fearless) Israelis, who didn't seem to notice or care how slippery the rocks were. My shoes began to not be as ideal as I once thought as I started to slip more and more and bang up my uncovered feet on the rocks. Although we were still seeing trail markers, many of us were getting pretty tired and ready to call it a day (since by this point, we had been hiking for 3+ hours), so at the next available junction we disembarked from the river and began looking for a parallel dry trail to take us home. We ran into some almost-naked Israeli men, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes in their skivvies (a sight to behold, unfortunately), but no trail.

So - Dan to the rescue. Turns out we were only a few hundred meters from the end of the river, but the walk back to the car probably would have taken an hour, so we were grateful to smush into the back of his truck. He brought us fresh pomegranates to munch on as well as many thoughts about the state of his country for our brains to munch on. While he believes that Iran does present an existential threat to the state of Israel with its nuclear capabilities and ambitions, the real problem for the future of the state isn't the Arabs - it's the Israelis. This was said after passing a dumpster used by former campers and hikers that had been utterly trashed, with refuse flung over the entire area.

We were tired enough to go home and take a nap, but instead we wanted to soak up the last bit of our afternoon by visiting the Golan Height Winery in Katzrin, where they bottle Yarden, Gamla, and Golan wines. We arrived an hour before they were set to close so we couldn't get the full tour, but we DID get to watch the incredibly cheesy video dubbed in weird English and taste three of their wines!
Very, very tasty, especially the Sauvignon Blanc and the Muscat! I have a feeling I'll be returning here...

We ended the evening (after returning to the moshav to shower) by driving to Tiveria (Tiberias) to take in the splendor of tourism and grimy waterfront town. We had heard that St. Peter's fish was a local specialty, so most of us ordered the fried fish and chips, and this is what we got:
Definitely a fish. Once I figured out how to get around the bones it was rather tasty, but this is one of those times where being someone who calls herself a vegetarian but eats fish becomes challenging.

So in sum, 48 hours in the Galil was an incredible experience of good food, good friends, and embracing the beauty of nature. One of the most challenging things about studying at Pardes full time is not getting to breathe fresh air enough or being able to appreciate the magnificent setting we're in. That's point one of why I love Sukkot here - a break from our daily lives to remind ourselves why we do what we do and a chance to renew our energy for the weeks of intense study to come.

Point two: Almost all the restaurants here build sukkot for their patrons to dine in during the holidays, ranging from the ordinary to the elaborate:




These are gorgeous, but the best Sukkot that I've dwelled in over the past week are the ones of friends who have invited me in. It's a mitzvah to welcome Ushpizin - guests - into one's sukkah, and I've been the recipient of such wonderful hospitality, not having a sukkah of my own. Here's the sukkah rundown so far:

Friday night: Shabbat/chag dinner in Anna's sukkah, with beautiful acapella music and inspiring conversations
Saturday lunch: The Friedman's sukkah with interesting thoughts on aliyah and politics
Saturday night: Dessert in Katie and Matan's sukkah, with as many people packed in as possible, reading aloud Israeli and American children's books, and spontaneous niggunim (wordless melodies) (plus awesome chocolate pecan pie!)

Sunday morning: Davening in the Pardes sukkah, first time shaking my lulav and etrog, and Dalet and Hey classes bagel brunch with sukkot-themed 20 questions!

Miriam and I with our arba'ah minim (four species)!

This is Baruch, one of my teachers, trying to ask questions to figure out what it says on the green thing on his head (it says Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), which we read on the Shabbat of Sukkot).Sunday afternoon: Sukkah visiting in Mea Shearim (ultra orthodox neighborhood) and Ben Yehuda street area (pictures above), dinner in the Sukkah at Tmol Shilshom

Monday night: Dinner in Sheryl's sukkah, sleeping in the Pardes sukkah!
Melissa and Queen Esther

Queen Esther braves the sukkah!
Tuesday: Day trip to Tel Aviv with Shira and Naomi, dinner in Katie's sukkah

Only in Tel Aviv would you see this sign...

The Mediterranean
So that brings me to my final point:

Point three: Sukkot in Israel is amazing because of how it brings people out of their homes and into temporary dwellings together. So often we get stuck in our routines, grabbing a bite to eat at whatever place is quickest and then sitting in our apartment wasting away the evening, but Sukkot encourages us to host others and to be good guests, preparing food, offering company, and sharing a physical and spiritual space together.

Moadim l'simcha (festivals of happiness) and chag sameach (happy holiday) to everyone, and I hope that you all find a place in your lives where friends and family come together under one roof to celebrate what's most special.

Chagim in Yerushalayim - Yom Kippur and Sukkot

This past week has been one of the most adventure-filled of my time so far in Israel - this summer included!

Yom Kippur in Israel (and Jerusalem especially) is incomparable to any other YK observance anywhere in the world. The entire city comes to a halt for 25 hours - all businesses and restaurants are closed, and most strikingly, no one drives their cars. The streets are blocked off and the traffic lights are set to flashing. Teachers and long-time Jerusalemites told us what this would be like, but experiencing it first hand was awe-inspiring. Shira, Sarah, Evelyn and I went to Kol Nidre services at Shira Hadasha, and while Evelyn had a reserved seat, the rest of us fully expected to be standing the entire time in the unofficial "young mothers with crying babies section" in the back. I wouldn't have minded standing so much, but when a few seats opened up in the front, we gladly took them.

Alick Isaacs, who spoke at Rice back in April (he was a guest scholar at the Houston JCC for a few weeks and spoke about his new book on the theology of peace), led services, and it was exactly the spirit I was looking for. The worshippers at Shira Hadasha create such beautiful harmonies whenever they open their mouths, and the music really put people in the right mindset to spend the next day taking account of their souls and their actions. I had spent the last few weeks really taking stock of my life and the person I want to be in the coming year, and Kol Nidre really helped me focus more closely on the work that I need to do.

So back to the uniqueness of Jerusalem - when we stepped out of services and onto Emek Refaim, we were floored - the entire street was filled with people, when normally it would be flooded with cars. Men and women and children dressed in all while, laughing and talking and remembering together - it was absolutely surreal. My friends told me about a group of teenagers that they saw sitting in the middle of a huge intersection on Derech Hevron playing a game of cards - where else could that happen? And while for the secular Israelis (chilonim) this day is referred to as "Chag HaOfanayim"- the biking holiday for bikes, skates, and scooters in the street - everyone is taking this chance to somehow take a break from their routine and reflect.

Another fascinating thing about YK in the Jewish state is that the clocks changed back one hour the day before, solely for the purpose of making the fast easier! Apparently in the West Bank, the clocks had changed back even earlier, for Ramadan! It certainly helped when the fast started at 4:45 and ended at 6:05 - you don't get those crazy evening hunger pangs like you do during Neilah (the last service of YK) in the States - but now it's weird for the sky to be getting so dark so early, and I wish they could just change the clocks back to the way they were for a couple more weeks. One nice thing though - it's lighter in the mornings, so it's easier to run by myself, and my morning showers are a little bit warmer because they're solar-heated!

The day after YK we had a Yom Iyun (a topical learning day) about Sukkot at Pardes, and after a couple of really interesting shiurim (lessons) about the laws of the lulav and etrog and the commandment to be happy on Sukkot, Evelyn, Naomi, Miriam, Laura, and I planned our mini-vacation to the Galil (Galilee).


We stayed on an incredible moshav, which is like a farm cooperative, called Moshav Almagor. It's a few kilometers above the Kinneret, and we could walk out of our cabin and see the Kinneret lit with beautiful sunlight and moonlight.

Those sunset pics were taken right outside a really dumpy "Mini Market", but you'd never be able to tell.

The rest of this saga, plus the beginnings of Sukkot in Jerusalem, will have to wait for tomorrow b/c I'm pretty exhausted, so stay tuned!