להיות עם חופשי בארצינו

Classes are back in full swing, and I am back to having very little time for myself. I have upped my coffee intake to at least two cups per day, but I am glad to be settled into all my classes and feeling like Jerusalem is really becoming home, whatever that means. The end of my break was nice, and I will include a few pictures of the Simchat Torah celebrations on Ben Yehuda street at the end of the post.

Last Saturday night, Amalia and I decided to go to Tel Aviv to see the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra perform Brahms Requiem and another Brahms piece that I didn't like as much (though I really loved the Requiem). Since we got student tickets the night of the show, we sat in the very last row, smack dab in the middle. Just as the musicians took their seats, everyone in the audience rose for HaTikvah, Israel's national anthem, which for whatever reason came as a surprise to both Amalia and I. We stood in awe, singing under our breaths with hundreds of Israelis.

Whenever I sing HaTikvah, I always seem to get a little choked up, but this time I did not. I felt a real sense of pride, especially when we got to the words להיות עם חופשי בארצינו, to be a free nation in our land. I realized that the reason I did not get so outwardly emotional is because when I sing HaTikvah in the US I realize how far away I am from Israel, and I become conscious of how badly I want to be there. Being here and singing HaTikvah is always a reality check for me, and I can't help but smile.

* * * * *

I also want to briefly share a little bit about what I'm learning in my classes for those who are interested, and end with a blurb about something I learned today that has stuck with me more than anything else I have learned thus far. I am taking Talmud, 8:30-11:45 on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday with an amazing, young teacher who moves fast in the class and really knows what she is talking about. We are learning Masechet Ketubbot, marriage contract laws. 12-1 on Sundays and Thursdays I am taking Women and Mitzvot with the same teacher, and though it sounds dry it is great and the class just isn't long enough. From 2:30-5 on Sundays and Thursdays I have Introduction to Halacha with a great, soft-spoken teacher who gives a lot of insight in a methodical, easy to understand way (he is also an architect). We are learning from the Mishna Berurah, presently focusing on Shabbat. Mondays and Wednesdays, I have Chumash with a great teacher. The class moves quickly, but I love learning it and working on all the nuances of the text. We are learning the book of Shmot, or Exodus. 12-1 I have Parshat HaShavua with an incredibly friendly South African, and the class is a great break from the intense Hebrew studying to look at the Torah portion from the week. I get a lot out of the class and am really enjoying spending a fair amount of time on a smaller chunk of Torah in each class. Last, but certainly not least, is my Introduction to Rambam (Maimonides) class from 2:30-5 on Mondays and Wednesdays. My teacher is a theatrical, amazing person who is also the rabbi of a congregation in Tzur Hadassah, just outside of Jerusalem. His insight into the texts we read is incredible. He keeps the class spellbound; he is a genius and knows when to be funny and when to be serious. I have a lot to learn from him as a future educator. We are learning Rambam's Mishneh Torah, Sefer Meda.

Lastly, I want to share with you a halacha I learned from my Rambam class today. We have been studying laws of the foundation of the Torah, which are found at the very beginning of the Rambam's book. The chapter we have been studying over the last two classes deal with Kiddush HaShem, the sanctification of G-d's name, versus Hillul HaShem, the desecration of G-d's name. The Rambam ends his chapter with a beautiful summation of my problems with Judaism, especially in Israel. I have noticed that many of the Orthodox Jews here, though surely pious in their reverence towards the Torah and Mitzvot, tend to not be overly nice to the people they encounter in everyday life, especially towards women. The Rambam says that a person who is steeped in Torah and is well known for his piety must be careful in all his dealings with others, and though he is not necessarily transgressing any mitzvot, he would be desecrating G-d's name to do things such as speak to people ungraciously or embarrass them. According to Rambam, this is all according to the person's stature as a learned Jew, and the more well-known he is, the more he must be constantly checking his actions and going above and beyond what the laws of the Torah actually say. I thought that this was a beautiful summary of what I could not quite put into words about my frustration with following only the mitzvot explicitly mentioned in the Torah.

Best,
Sam

Nachalat Benyamin, the arts and crafts fair in Tel Aviv















Neve Tzedek, the artist colony in Tel Aviv






















Simchat Torah celebrations in Jerusalem

הרצליה

Though much of this break has been spent purely relaxing (read: doing nothing), we have tried to stay busy for at least a few hours a day and take a couple day trips. Some of these things have included meeting our old roommates at a bar for a fun Flamenco concert, and doing laundry. Last week Amalia had a lesson in Tel Aviv so we spent part of the day there, and yesterday we wanted to find a place that we had never been to before, preferably a place that spoke little English (we have been a bit frustrated with how American Jerusalem is, but I will save that for another post). After much thought and research (including our old roommate Dotan who told us to just go to the bus station and get on the first bus we saw), we chose to check out Herzliya because it is pretty close, had a good weather forecast, and has a beach. The beginning of our day was a bit rough, as Amalia was trying to figure out some banking matters and wanted to practice, so we didn't end up leaving Jerusalem until about 2. This got us into Herzliya around 4, after a quick transfer in Tel Aviv. We did some aimless walking around in the city center before grabbing a slice of pizza and heading over to the other side of town, where there were supposed to be some really nice houses and a beach. The bus ride gave us ample views of the nice houses and dropped us off right in front of the beach. Unfortunately, the bus took longer than we had hoped and we only caught the very end of the sunset. I proceeded to take about a million pictures of Amalia, which I think was fun for both of us. Then we walked the length of the beach until the end, and got on a bus headed back towards the city center for dinner and festivities we had read were happening throughout the city during Sukkot. Peering out the window from the bus on the way back to the city center, we didn't see many restaurants, but we did see a lot of people out on the streets watching some smaller musical acts. As we walked around for about a half hour in several different directions, we saw that there were, in fact, only pizza restaurants in town, which would have been fine had we not made it our afternoon snack. We were seconds from resigning ourselves to pizza when I remembered that we had passed a burger place earlier in the day, so we booked it there and had a fine dinner of a burger and fries. After dinner we walked around a bit and saw a few musical acts, and decided it was time to head home. Of course, no one had invited us to the underground hip-hop-happenin'-DJ-break-dancing party at the bus station, and worse, no one had warned us that there would be smelly teenagers waiting for a bus to Tel Aviv as well. Needless to say, it was an interesting (and luckily short) ride back to Tel Aviv and a fairly fast, though seatless ride back to Jerusalem. Today we are taking it easy and cleaning the house/doing laundry and tomorrow we will head to Tel Aviv again to explore the arts and crafts fair and we will head on to Gan Yavneh to spend Shabbat and the end of Sukkot with some of Amalia's family.

A final note: We have been constantly reading the news lately and noticing the world around us as things have been getting quite tense around here. The police and army presence has gotten larger as the gates in and out of populated areas get smaller, and we constantly hear the circling of a helicopter overhead, presumably monitoring the Old City. Other than that, things haven't changed much. People still go about their business, and we haven't heard much talk about what is going on. Still, it is troublesome to think what could become of the situation, and I hope that things don't escalate beyond what they are now. Let's hope that talk of the "third intifada" remains talk and that the current situation is resolved quickly and peacefully.

Shabbat Shalom,
Sam

חג סוכות שמח

Sukkot means many things, but most importantly for me it means some time off. Things have been crazy since I arrived in Israel a month and a week ago, so it's been great to have some time off to relax and get some things done. Nearly every restaurant has its own Sukkah for the holiday so that people can eat there while still performing the mitzvah of sitting in the Sukkah, and everyone carries around their lulav and etrog in protective bags and boxes. Since I've been on break, Amalia and I have been doing some miscellaneous things, from finishing up our Israeli bank account process to getting things for our apartment at the good ol' Malcha mall. We have also been doing quite a bit of relaxing in our apartment and cooking various wonderful things with the cheap fruits and veggies we get downstairs at the shuk. Today while Amalia was practicing I decided to take a walk down to the Old City to see what the haps were down there, and I ended up exploring some great little streets I hadn't been down before, as well as some great views of the Kotel. This evening, we decided to check out a concert near the municipality building, which ended up being mostly young religious families listening to a funny aging man "sing," so we headed down to the Old City (again) and there were surprisingly a lot of people there. Anyway, I will stop rambling and show a few pictures I took tonight that have little relevance to what I have been blogging about.

Chag Sameach,
Sam

Disclaimer

Don't get your hopes up. In order to get the most out of this blog, I plan to use it as a virtual dump-- a place to show some pictures, organize some thoughts, and let some people know what I am up to here. I'm not sure how frequently I'll be posting, but be sure to check back often and I will try my best to update as much as possible.

Yours Truly,
Sam