Sukkot in the City

The business of the shuk has lost its allure, so today we ventured out into a new hip-checking, full contact, street-fighting environment - the lulav market. We spent an hour this morning in a humid tent nearby the Central Bus Station haggling over lulavim and etrogim (read: branches and lemons) until we found the set that suited us swell. Perhaps the most interesting part was the stratification of the products. There were a range of varieties, from Mehadrin through three stages of Mehudar down to the lowest stage, Kosher. When we asked a retailer about the difference, his response was "this is 100 shekels, this is 20." Somehow I don't think he answered the question. Or maybe it did, we were just hopeful that our religion was governed by something other than money.

TVA Break

Monday morning was my final final exam in Ulpan, so we decided to start our summer vacation. We met at the central bus terminal, and headed up to Tel Aviv.

The first thing we did was to check into our hostel. Rina had turned down my suggestion in favour of what she promised would be a cleaner option. When we arrived at the room she had booked, however, we decided that we would have to burn all of the clothes that touched the room's surfaces. Oh well - at least we got to pretend we were refugees hiding from the law in a run-down Mexican shanty.

After checking into the hostel, we headed to the beach for a few hours, then out to dinner at an outstanding dairy restaurant on the water, where our appetizer was a plate of deep-fried everything (even the ravioli!). Awesome. For our after dinner entertainment we headed to a club where we listened to the worst electronica ever performed. Imagine a dying cat being pummeled by an asthmatic elephant and you'll approach the awfulness.

Today, after eating the hostel's complimentary breakfast (instant coffee) we went over to a local artisans' fair. While there, we saw the cutlery sculptures I held back from buying at a similar fair in Jerusalem, but this time caved to their overwhelming amazingness and a pile of warped spoons striking a John Travolta "Saturday Night Fever" pose now adorns our bookshelves. We then met up with some friends for lunch, which was a bottomless supply of pita and a table full of toppings. Bliss. We then walked down to the beach to catch the sunset before heading back to Jerusalem.

Yom Kippur

For Yom Kippur we went to Midreshet Harova in the Old City (where Rina studied 7 years ago). When I studied there we had Yom Kippur in the midrasha. One of the rabbis led it and they imported 9 other guys. Surprisingly, it was the best Yom Kippur davening I had ever participated in. So, when I got an e-mail saying that bogrot were invited I managed to convince Jon that he wanted to spend 25 hours with 150 girls and 9 other guys! Apparently, Yom Kippur at the midrasha has turned into something a little more fancy than I had experienced 7 years previously. They rented out the Hakotel auditorium, had each rabbi lead a different service, and in the end there were 20 guys instead of 10. The experience was amazing. Davening went from 6:45am until about 6:30pm with no more than a 10 minute break. It sounds kind of crazy, but you definitely didn't feel like you were in the same chair for almost 12 hours. Even though everything about it was great, I think I prefer the old 'low key' style where everyone was stuffed into the beit midrash; it was more authentic.
On another note, it was fun seeing people from my year. It's crazy how it feels like no time has passed since I was last there, yet when I look at the girls who are there now, they seem so little (side comment.. one of my campers from 8 years ago is learning at Harova this year and she recognized me. It was exciting).

Atonement

As an interesting start to Yom Kippur this year, I thought I would attend the kaparot in Mea She'arim. For those who don't know, kaparot entails circling a live chicken above you head as a receptacle for your sins, then donating that chicken to the poor for their pre-fast dinner. For some reason I imagined the proceedings to look something like a cross between an ultra-orthodox synagogue and an exploding pillow factory, but it was surprisingly humane and sanitary (as humane and sanitary as such an activity can be). The proprietors of the stands wore gloves, and most participants were very gentle with the birds while they filled them with evil. Even the chickens were calm, sitting quietly atop their crate once the spinning was spun. Rina and I simply purchased a bird on behalf of the poor, and while our souls may not be any lighter or cleaner, it was still a very interesting way to open the Day of Atonement.

The Play's the Thing

Today was a day of field trips. Instead of our regular morning schedule, we had a truncated first class, then boarded a bus to Har Herzl. While I couldn't tour the cemetery with the rest of the group, I did get to visit the museum with them, and it was a real pleasure. The museum is very modern, with videos and interactive exhibits, and our tour guide was also terrific. I'm pretty certain that I would never have undertaken to learn about Herzl on my own, but the historical and philosophical backdrops to the founding of the State of Israel was actually very engaging and interesting.

Tonight Rina and I attended a play, written by two Israeli playwrights, at the Khan theater. The theater itself is quaint, with a courtyard instead of a lobby, just off of Emek Refa'im. We were a little nervous, as the website's blurb described the play, "The Winners", as something akin to a less successful version of "The Producers". By the time the innocent Russian adoptee was locked in the attic of a whorehouse halfway through the Pesach seder, however, we were sure that the two plays had nothing in common. It was a great piece of work that had the entire audience laughing throughout. The moral of the story, as sung by the entire cast in the big closing number, is that "there's a little bird in my heart, and that bird is a little bit of a whore." I fully endorse this play to anyone and everyone who isn't one of my students or younger cousins.

Shmita

Tonight I attended a lecture titled "A Practical Guide to Shmita", in which the Rabbi explained what produce we could eat this year, where to get it, and how to dispose of it. It basically boils down to paying more to eat less, and starting a compost-bin on your porch. What I found most interesting, though, was the Rabbi's response to the loud groan from the crowd when he began describing how to treat flowers grown in Israel. Rather than pacify the crowd with a joke or quiet them with a pause, he instead criticized us. "It is because of these laws that we have the Land of Israel today," he said sternly. "That our Rabbis and ancestors studied and explained these laws is what kept this dream alive. Hertzl had nothing to do with it. If you are living here because of Hertzl, you are here for the wrong reason.*" Not quite what I expected from the lecture, but still very interesting to hear a moderate Rabbi talk about.

*This wasn't exactly what he said, but close enough.

Rosh Hashana

This was the first year that Rina and I spent Rosh Hashana without visiting either one of our parental pairings, and we went into it hopeful of experiencing something new and different that would serve as an exciting beginning to our year in Israel.

We started off on Wednesday night at Yakar, where were bumped into our friend Arielle Berger and her family. We walked with them toward our hostess for dinner. Unfortunately, because we were so engrossed in conversation, we didn't realize until we were already on the hostess' street that neither of us knew where she lived. We each took one guess, at opposite sides of the street, and once we proved them wrong I ran home to check on the exact building number. Of course, the building was at the intersection we had arrived at initially. By the time we arrived, we were an hour later than expected. The assembled were nice enough to wait for us, and we settled in for an enjoyable family meal with all of the standbyes - gefilte fish, apples and honey, chicken soup with matza balls, multiple meats (including tongue - hurray!) and so on. We were hoping to see a crazy tradition, such as sheep heads or their equivalent in weirdness, but sadly there were none. What there were plenty of, instead, were characters to entertain us. Other guests at the the dinner included Leora, a non-Jewish Chinese student who will be returning to Beijing after Sukkot to complete her Master's Degree in Jewish Thought; the hostess' non-religious daughter and family, including their aethiest son; and a 17-year-old who recently graduated high school, who spent last summer in Israel with one of my own recently graduated students. The chief entertainer of the evening was an Aunt, who arrived 90 minutes later than we because she had gone to the wrong building (next door) and had to be escorted over by the police. Once settled in, she complimented the hostess on her choice of wine, having forgotten that it was she (the Aunt) who had brought it. There are many other examples of the hilarity she provided, but I think these suffice to demonstrate the fun we had that evening.

The next day we prayed at a synagogue named "Nafka Mina", which exists only for three days each year (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur) in the dilapidated Bnei Akiva main office. Even though the building was crumbling around us and the air conditioned attempted to evolve into a refrigerator, the singing was beautiful and you hardly noticed (hardly) that the service took 5.5 hours. For lunch we went to my cousins, who live nearby, and had a very enjoyable afternoon. The evening was spent with the aforementioned Bergers, and the enjoyability continued.

After shul Friday we finally got to see a weird tradition when we joined our friends the Cremas and their family for lunch. Apparently, the pagan Jews of Italy plant wheat on the first day of Rosh Hashana on a plate in the center of the table. If the wheat sprouts within a certain amount of time, they are destined to a good year. If not, they with no doubt be plundered by cossacks or something similar. The lunch was dairy, which was a nice break, and of course concluded with ice cream (in cones!) and rice pudding (real, not from a jello packet!). The rice pudding is only an "of course" moment if you know that Sima is British. Which you do. Now.

Shabbat was spent quietly, just the two of us, in celebration of the massive amount of calories we'd taken in and Rina's birthday. This evening, before Shabbat ended, we went over to the Goldstein's (Caren is in my program at Hebrew U, while Ben is studying at Pardes with Rina) for Seuda Shlishit, and will soon depart to celebrate Rina's birthday in a less Sabbatical fashion. Overall, it was a great weekend, appropriately spiritual, comedic, and pagan, as all Jewish holidays should be.

Pardes Weekend II - The actual story

This past weekend was Pardes' first Shabbaton (or Shabbi, if you teach at Tannenbaum C.H.A.T. Richmond Hill Jewish Community Center Campus North, Sr.) a retreat held at a youth hostel next to Ein Gedi and the Dead Sea. The primary purpose of the event was to begin building this year's Pardes community and to allow the students a chance to get to know each other, as well as to provide classes that mixed together students from the school's various streams and levels.

Upon arrival Thursday afternoon, Rina and I unpacked (into a room full of bunk beds, clearly meant either for travelling hordes of students or Hareidi families), then headed to the main building for our first classes, one of which was an ice breaker and the other an interpretation of Jewish texts through art. I'm not sure if the intent was to ease us into the learning, but it was a little weird to play the same name games played in summer camps, and to draw glitter and bead bespattered pictures based remotely on a text.

Friday the entire group met at 5:45 to walk down to the beach to see the sun rise over the Dead Sea, which was nice but underwhelming. Back at the hostel, we had a choice of several classes to attend, all of which were intended to prepare us for praying sacharit (I took the Rav Kook class, while Rina opted for Yoga). After da'avening and breakfast, there was a choice of more intensive classes, followed by lunch. The afternoon was free time, so Rina and I joined a group going on a hike in Ein Gedi, then went to float in the rapidly disappearing Dead Sea. We've done both before, but were still impressed with the beauty of the oasis and the floatiness* of the sea. After an afternoon of dehydrating/burning/admiring we went back to the hostel to prepare for Shabbat.

Kabbalat Shabbat was a communal Carlebach service, followed by multiple services and dinner. At 10:30 there was a tisch, replete with singing, snacks, and stories. Although it certainly didn't compare with the massive events orchestrated weekly in and around Mea She'arim, it was lots of fun and very entertaining. The remainder of Shabbat was spent in multiple study-sessions on topics like love, the High Holy Days, and others of interest. An overly dancy* havdallah concluded the weekend, and then it was back to Jerusalem for slichot and sleeping.

The study sessions and people met were all very interesting and engaging, and I would love to go into more detail, but I can't imagine that anyone would like to read about it. If I'm wrong, give us a call and I'd be glad to rehash it all in excruciating detail!

*I realize that neither of these are real words, but these make-believe words capture the intended ideas far better.

Pardes Weekend I - The Important Part

When I met Rina at Pardes for lunch on Thursday, I was nearly scared away from the entire weekend retreat. The meal provided was some sort of fusion of Mediterranean and Native American foods, with a quinoa/olive/feta salad, and a couscous/squash concoction. The foods were all good, but I don't know that I could survive another dairy Shabbat. Luckily, I didn't have to. To save time and boredom, I will simply list the many levels of deliciousness that pervaded the retreat.

Hamburgers, shnitzel shaped like rings, hummus and salads (at every meal), herring, tuna, eggs (scrambled, hard boiled, and chulented), chicken nuggets,yoghurts, cheeses and dips, shnitzel shaped like shnitzel, chulent, chicken, kabobs (beef and chicken), fish sticks, assorted cakes and fruit plates. With all this, the rest of the weekend (the company, the accommodations, the classes, and the tours) could have been a flop and I would still have come home happy. Luckily, it wasn't and we still did.

Story time

On one of his visits to Toronto, my father told Rina and I about a rabbi's recent theory that Shel Silverstein's "The Giving Tree" could be used to evaluate the behaviour and character of others. All you had to do was ask the subject what they believed to be the moral of the story. A giving person would reply that the purpose of the tale was to demonstrate that no matter the circumstances you should always be kind to others; a more closed personality would respond that the moral was to use others to your best advantage. Still others might see a parent-child relationship, dependency, or a remider to conserve natural resources. As long as your subject doesn't know that he is being tested, you should get a pretty accurate assessment of their personality using what turns out to be an amoral children's book. I tried it on the kids at school, and was very entertained. The reason I bring this up is a) to give you something to do to/with your coworkers/spouses/friends, and b) because our homework from Ulpan today was to explain to the teacher what we feel is the moral of "The Giving Tree". When we were given the assignment I was unsure if it were some sort of insidious test planned by the administration or another attempt at breaking our spirits by reminding us that we are on the same level as children, but in the end I realized that it doesn't matter - it is a great opportunity to toy with my teacher. Hurray!

Tonight Rina and I took a break from work to attend what was marketed as a dialogue between Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem, presented through photographs and stories. At a nearby shul there were two actors who presented a series of monologues meant to display how a variety of local residents, ranging from merchants who live in the settlements to Egged bus drivers, are affected by violence and terrorism. The acting was good enough that when Rina and I first sat down, late, of course, we thought that the person on stage was retelling his own true story. We realized by the end, however, that even though what we were seeing was only being performed, the emotions and realities behind the presentations were real. Overall the entire experience was very good, both because we got to think critically about our many neighbours and how we live together, and because we were immersed in an all-Hebrew atmosphere with other Israelis. I'm beginning to think that story time may be more fun now than it was in kindergarten.

Back to Youth Group

This will probably be an anomaly, but this post has been written by Rina.

Today was my second day learning at Pardes and I'm still trying to figure out the institution. Yesterday was mainly orientation, which involved every single person in the room (probably over 100) standing up to say their name, where they are from, what they were doing prior to Pardes, and something interesting about themselves that is not on their resume. As I'm sure all of you know, I really dislike this sort of stuff especially when it comes to my turn. I did however survive the 1.5 hours until we moved on to the next activity, reading the information packet...woohoo. Finally we moved on to trying out some classes which were okay, but not really what I expected. The Hebrew one was in Henglish. Today we managed to try out some more classes while finishing up with orientation. Overall, I'm still trying to decide if I will enjoy the classes. The place itself is interesting because there are people from all backgrounds with the common goal of wanting to learn. The learning has the potential to be very good. Besides the learning, the atmosphere is very camp-like or USY with lots of vague announcements which result in much confusion. I'm just waiting for someone to break out into a hard-core ruach session with people jumping up and down singing Mi-Pi-El. No joke, that will probably happen this weekend. Jon and I are going on a Pardes Shabbaton/Retreat to Ein Gedi. Should be fun, especially the Dead Sea. I'll let you know how the ruach is!

Tonight we met my cousin Ari and his wife Bracha for dinner in Nachlaot. We had a great time and afterwards got a tour of their apartment. I would have no idea how to get to their apartment again without them to guide me, because of all of the tiny alleyways, twists and turns. It's a really cute and funky area that very much reminds me of the Old City. Their apartment is newly renovated and they even have screens on their windows. Having screens is quite a privilege in Israel. The best thing about their apartment is the bathroom which has a shower head but no actual defined space for the shower. That arrangement makes the squeegee the most important household tool in the apartment.

Shabbat Adventures

Today we decided to take a break from Yakar and try out one of the other three dozen shuls in the two block radius around our apartment. We'd heard good things about a minyan named Shir Hadash, so this morning I left early to make it to their 8:30 start. As usual, I missed the necessary alleyway turn-off and had to take a ridiculous detour to find the address, which, once found, turned out to be the second floor of a school situtated behind some sort of aviary (they had at least one peacock and one quail, in addition to standard turkeys and ducks roaming the yard, and random bunnies!). My leaving early payed off and I got there just as shul started. Well, I think it payed off; Rina, who got there just before Torah reading, feels that kind of thinking is just silly. We expected the shul to have the singing and energy of Yakar but without the closed eyes, swaying, and clapping, but Rina thought that the entire endeavour seemed a little forced, as though the participants knew the sound they wanted but didn't quite know how to get there. Jon liked it. Another drawback, as far as we are concerned, is that the shul is completely Anglo, with Artscroll being the standard siddur, all speeches/announcements in English only, and more than one person in a suit. On the plus side, the gym made duchening very comfortable, as we got to stand on exercize mats, and there was a Bat Mitzvah, and along with it came a great kiddush.

After shul we came home to finish preparing our contribution to the pot-luck picnic lunch we would be attending. It (the lunch, not the salad) was a gathering of Pardes students (Rina's school year begins tomorrow at 8:30, the earliest she has had to wake up in two weeks). I was a little disappointed that it was going to be dairy, but it turned out that the attendees were good enough cooks to make it worthwhile anyway. Oh, and good company as well. Everyone brought food, blankets, and benchers, and we had an enjoyable few hours in the park meeting, eating, and singing. Not too much singing, and the sabbath prevented bongos, but enough to be pleasant. I also ran into a co-worker from camp whom I haven't seen in eight years, which was fun of course. Oh, and Ilana's friend Peter.

The one disappointment from this weekend came from a book I took out of the library on Thursday. Before hearing Eli Amir speak my class had been asked to read an excerpt from his book, which I did and enjoyed. After his presentation I thought it would be a good idea to read the entire work, so I took it out of the library. I muscled though the first five or so pages, but was confused as to why they were so much harder than the excerpt we had read for class. I took out my photocopied pages and looked at the title: "Tarnegol Caparot - In Easy Language". With those five words any confidence in Hebrew that I'd built up was dashed. I have not been reading at the level of a grade-school Israeli, I have been reading at the level of a remedial grade-school Israeli. Wonderful.