A Tiring Vacation

Rather than post short updates that were just recaps of our daily activities, Rina and I decided to smush them all together into one big recap recap of out Sukkot vacation. Enjoy!

Thursday
We spent the first night with David Resnick and family, some strangers who got our number through the Melton Center. They were very friendly, good cooks, and we had a great time with them. The next day we guessed at the starting time for a nearby shul, and guessed horribly wrong, showing up halfway through the service. We made it in time to do some lulav shaking, but since we are only keeping one day of yomtov this year we were mostly out of luck. Lunch with our neighbours made up for it, though, as they have an adorable daughter and made us feel at home. Once yomtov was over we headed out to the city's most publicized attraction, the Sukariah (the word being a combination of the hebrew words "Sukkah" and "candy"). We expected a Hansel-and-Gretel-esque gingerbread house, teeming with insects and salivating children, but were met with a standard Sukkah (albeit a very large one) with gumball machines and candy themed decorations. Harumph. Everyone else we spoke to was also misled in the same way.

Friday
We took a guided tour of the City of David, the area thought to be the original capital of Israel, before King David captured what is currently called The Old City. The tour guide was excellent and really made the history interesting. We finished off the tour with a crawl through Hezekiah's Tunnel, a man-made underground passage that brought water from a spring outside the city's walls into a pool within them. The spring, and therefore the tunnel, are both still active, making the pitch-black 30 minute trek quite wet, and therefore quite fun.

Friday night we went to Yedidya for services. Yedidya's setup has varying levels of mechitza, ranging from 6 feet tall to none at all. Once finished there we attended a pot-luck dairy dinner on the roof of Pardes. The evening was very nice, aside from the fact that everyone is operating on a student's budget, and therefore brought only a parve side dish or a bottle of wine.

Saturday
Shul at Shir Hadash, where there was an amazing kiddush afterwards (chulent!) of which we could not partake because we were headed to a dairy lunch with a childhood friend of Rina's (lasagna, sushi, and cheesecake!). After shabbat we attended a randomly selected concert at the Yellow Submarine. The band was called Marsh Dondurma, and had an outrageously fun sound that was something like a brass marching band conducted by George Clinton.

Sunday
By far our busiest day, we woke up at 6:30 a.m. so that we could get good spots at the Kotel for Birkat Kohanim. In Israel the bracha is given far more often than in the diaspora, but Sunday's was special because it was organized so that all of the Kohanim present would bless the assembly at once. Jonathan was within arm's-reach of the wall, while Rina chose a spot behind a fence to best capture the circus on film. The experience of praying and blessing with thousands of people was nice, but at the same time disappointing. The pre-blessing blessing said by the Kohanim mentions that they are to bless "b'ahava", with love. Hundreds of men, draped in linen, standing in the Jerusalem sun for hours, throwing elbows in every direction to gain better positioning is not conducive to a loving environment.

Once the hours-long service was over, we went on the Ramparts walk. The guided section took us through the Armenian and Jewish quarters and explained the history of the various sights, while the unguided part took us through the Christian and Muslim quarters, where we had only three stones thrown in our vicinity! Our tour let us out in the Arab market, where we looked unsuccessfully for a backgammon board for $5.

On our walk home we stopped by the Inbal hotel to marvel at their sukkah, whose drapings and chandeliers make it more of a ballroom than a hut. Once cleaned and fed, we got on a bus to Beit Shemesh for their holiday concert, where a number of Jewish/Israeli performers of various styles played for the assembled crowd. And Rina ate cotton candy (candy floss/se'arot shel savta).

Monday
In the morning we walked to the Tayelet, a point from which most of Jerusalem, both old and new, is visible, and went on a guided tour of a tunnel used by the Hasmoneans to transport water from a distant spring. This tunnel has been out of use since the British Mandate, so was dry, but was still very interesting especially because we convinced the guide that our cell phones could be our flashlights (it was more fun that way). At night we enjoyed "Tastes of Jerusalem", a gathering of 20+ restaurants selling their most popular dishes at discounted prices. It was the most wonderfully aromatic event we have ever attended. There were also cheerleaders performing to current pop music on a stage, as well as a Mexican guitar trio playing Spanish and Israeli tunes. Not simultaneously.

Tuesday
We are calling today the "Un-Gloria", which only makes sense if you know Gloria. We began by taking a bus to the central bus terminal, where we bought tickets on the bullet-proof bus to Gush Etzion. We disembarked at a stop in the middle of the highway and walked to the Gush Etzion winery, where we took a short tour and many free samples (including really yummy dessert wine and chocolate liquer). We then hitchhiked/tremped to a nearby kibbutz, Kfar Etzion, where we got directions to a hike that had been recommended by our guide the day before as having "many beautiful springs". The hike was a on a dirt road frequented by roaring 4x4s and vans full of children. We saw two springs, both of which we were sure couldn't be the right ones, as they were built up with tile and steps and benches, completely unlike the magnificent sights and pools at Ein Gedi. Once we were resigned to the fact that the sand/dirt and child filled frigid basins were our destination, we plunged in and had a good time. On our way out we found a wild fig tree, from which we ate, then hitched back to the highway, climbed aboard a bus and came home to some much desired down time (and fish from the shuk).