I just got back from wonderful Kibbutz Ma'alei Gilboa, where I spent the second half of my Chanukah break with my friend Eli. For those among my Ramla teammates who are reading this, yes, Eli is indeed the enigmatic "imaginary friend" to whom I so often refer, on account of my talking about him so frequently, in spite of nobody in Ramla ever having met him. Eli is super-smart, in additional to being a wonderful person. I'll describe our various adventures together, after briefly mentioning the earlier occurrences of this, my week off.
I've been a paleontologist before, searching for trilobite fossils in the gorges near Ithaca. It was not until this week, though, that I have come as close to fulfilling my brother Sam's dream of my becoming Indiana Jones (we all know that I'm much more like Marcus than like any other character in the series). On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I had the opportunity to volunteer at an archaeological dig site in Lod, the city where I ordinarily volunteer. School was out, so why not? The process was simple; we chose one of several small sectors of the stone building complex, dug down with wide hoes, and threw dirt over the adjoining wall. After five hours of playing in the dirt, we had dug up... half of such a small room. This might have been some kind of small shop, less than a century ago, when the stone complex was still in use. Since then, it had become more of a garbage heap, with all sorts of trash mixed in the large pile of dirt. I was exhausted, and surprised at how much effort of ours had seemingly accomplished so little, but the archaeologist with us, Lianne, told us that we had done far more work than she had expected. I was amazed at how much loess had blown onto the site in just a few decades. Every moment or so, we found another pottery shard. At one point, I noticed a small greenish object in the loose dirt, picked it up, and realized that I had found a coin. The archaeologists became quite excited, and told me that the coin was undoubtedly from the pre-1948 period, and might have been either British or Ottoman. (Carmel has since informed me that the coin was found to be definitely Ottoman, which means that it cannot postdate the early 1920s, and could be several centuries old.) The coin needed to go to a numismatics expert first (it was heavily oxidized, and caked in dirt), but it was an incredibly rare discovery in this particular site, I was told. I'm honestly just glad that I had the opportunity to contribute to the local museum. Who knows; small finds like this might attract people's interest, and motivate them to become more interested in their history. The only negative part of the day occurred when the archaeologists provided lunch, as promised, and it turned out not to be kosher, as all food on our program is supposed to be. I explained my kosher-vegetarian diet, and, when I eventually opened up my meal, it was a leg of chicken (I gave it to my roommate, so it did not end up going to waste). To make matters worse, the previous night was my first time exercising in more than a month, thanks to a relentless bout of sickness from which I'm only now fully recovered. When I returned from the dig, bleary with dust and sweat, to my apartment in Ramla, my roommate asked me if I had kept the coin, and I got to reply by throwing down my favorite Indiana Jones line:
Ahem. Now, where was I? Oh, right, I didn't return to the archaeological site on Tuesday, because I needed to run some mundane errands in Ramla, such as buying stamps from the post office, acquiring a new bus pass (the last one was in the wallet that was stolen on the bus, slightly ironically), and, yes, buying more dates from the shuk. Mother, in case, I haven't mentioned it, I can buy big, fat, beautiful medjool dates for just ₪14 per kilo (that's about $1.82 per pound, by the way) which makes me very happy indeed. I'll bring some for you and Dad when you visit, if that interests you :). I talked to Eli over the phone that evening, after I spent a fair amount of time studying Hebrew, and we planned my trip of the next day.
I got up early on Wednesday morning, and missed the 8:29 am train to Tel Aviv by a minute, literally seeing it pull out of the station just one hundred meters away. So I took the bus instead. From Tel Aviv, I took a sherut to Afula; I ended up waiting for more than an hour at the station, while the sherut driver chatted to other drivers in Arabic, waiting for all eight seats to be filled with passengers. While driving through cities with high Arab populations, such as Nazareth, I read an essay on Kemalism that Coco had sent to me a few months away. Finally in Afula, I waited another hour and a half for the minibus to arrive. We were extremely crowded; I think that everyone else on the bus was Jewish, and I see quite a few knitted kippot on the other young men. I assumed that they were yeshiva students in Ma'alei Gilboa. The drive up to Ma'alei Gilboa was very scenic. It's a very treacherous, winding path looking down on the Jordan valley. You can quite easily see Jordan from the mountain. Later that day, I saw several people with cameras and tablets photographing the view.
Eli was working in the dining hall when I arrived. The student whose job it was to work in the dining hall was still on Chanukah break, so Eli had stepped forward to do his job. Eli had also set aside some food for me from lunch, for which I was very grateful. I had a few conversations with a few of the Israeli students while I was first getting acquainted with kibbutz. Everyone was incredibly friendly, and I felt very good that I was able to speak to them as well as I could. Their English was almost undoubtedly better than my Hebrew, but I think that they recognized and respected that I was making an effort to speak in Hebrew, and bore with me. They all wanted to know what I was doing in Israel, and I explained as well as I could. My Hebrew is improving, but still very far from being good. Eli's shift ended at tefillat minchah, and he gave me a big hug, and helped me bring my things to his room, where I met his roommate Gabe. Soon after Eli and I embarked on one of the most daring and unique tasks ever to be chronicled in this blog. A couple of days before, Eli had found the body of a recently-deceased hawk by the side of the road, which he had scooped up, double-bagged, and placed in safe-keeping for preservation. So, around twilight, after procuring surgical masks from the local clinic, we took the corpse outside, beside the road on a concrete staircase, and began cutting it apart with Eli's schecting knife. Eli did all of the cutting, and I held the flashlight steady, and made anatomical guesses of just what organs we had revealed at each stage. I thought back to the class on Vertebrates that I had taken during my freshman year, and wished, in hindsight, that I had followed up with more such classes that introduced me to animal anatomy, evolution, and ecology. Sure, I could point out the sternum, tell the small and large intestines apart, and tentatively tag the gallbladder and liver, but I couldn't even remember, for instance, where the crop was actually located (I can only remember what function the crop serves because of its pivotal role in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Blue Carbuncle"). When we cut made the dorsal cut, I wasn't even certain if we had found the kidneys, which presumably would have been one of the first things we would have encountered. Eli enormously enjoyed the learning experience. Once finished, we washed our hands very thoroughly. Since then, no reports of disease reported. Later that evening at the yeshiva, we finished the evening by studying the Rif on chalav u'basar. The Rif, by the way, is the cute acronym for Rav Yitzchak al-Fasi, an 11th-century Sepharadic scholar, whose work of the same name is an abridged Talmud, with a few observations and conclusions thrown in. It's still in Aramaic, though, which makes it almost as inaccessible to the uninitiated, such as myself. Eli could simultaneously understand the sugya, guide me through the linguistic straits while explaining Aramaic binyanim, take notes and circle key terms, and cross-reference the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, which was pretty incredible. I felt much, much stupider, trying to study something that was so much above my intellectual ability, both in terms of content as well as in terms of language. Our conversation about meat involved us making a tour of the vegetarian and vegan students at Ma'alei Gilboa, in order to ask them 1) their opinions on consuming kosher locusts, and 2) whether one could eat fish, and still call oneself a vegetarian. Eli and I were up quite late, much to our mutual enjoyment.
Thursday was the very last day of Chanukah. I got up fairly late, at around 8:00 am (an hour after communal morning prayer in the yeshiva). I met Eli in the yeshiva, and throughout the day, we studied a few different things together. We continued the Rif, but switched instead to Berachot, which is a topic of which I am particularly ignorant. Also, it turns out that there is a different medieval Hebrew word for "beer" than the modern Hebrew word בִּירָה . I swear, Eli has so many gears clicking at once. As he explained to me, the Talmud is not meant to be read through linearly, understanding each line before moving on. Rather, the meaning of some words do not become apparent until the end of the sugya. We encountered such a word, אניגרון which apparently is some kind of tonic or elixir into which some people mixed olive oil to drink in order to soothe their soar throats, in order to avoid drinking straight olive oil. Apparently, people simultaneously believed both that olive oil was beneficial for soar throats, and that olive oil was dangerous when drunk straight. I'm not a doctor, but I'd be rather surprised if any doctor prescribed drinking olive oil to patients with a soar throat. We found that Rambam and the Rif actually had a disagreement about what beracha to make over straight olive oil (see Hilchot Berachot 8:2). Eli and I ourselves had a disagreement over their reasons; Eli thought that they interpreted Halacha differently, and I assumed that their different rulings stemmed from their (not necessarily explicitly stated) different understandings of human health. Just after lunchtime (did I mention that the yeshiva fed me, without asking any questions?), we cleaned out the students' apartment, and I did my best to help out, without getting in the way. A group of students started dancing in the dining hall, in order to celebrate the engagement of a fellow student. These students are all approximately my age, by the way, some older and some younger. I really can't imagine getting engaged or married at my age, at all. Later in the afternoon, we also read some of the laws of lost properties from the Mishneh Torah. I'm still quite feeble, but it stands as a testimony to Rambam's writing skills that I can understand many passages from the Mishneh Torah. At one point, Rav Bigman, the Rosh Yeshiva, stopped by, introducing himself, and I explained that we had already briefly met in Drisha last June, when he had answered my friends' questions about Agunot, and my own question on different schools of Talmudic methodology. This man is so knowledgeable and intelligent, it amazes me, reminding me of some of my better professors from university. In casual conversation, the topic of the relative shapes of marketplaces in late-antiquity Palestine and Persia came up. Eli and I read through the source-sheet that he had prepared for a class that he ended up not being able to teach, concerning (I think) Rabbinic fines. Also that night, I had a call with Rachel Silverman, and we finished Sefer Zecharyia! I'm so excited! We're going to delve back into the historical Nach starting this week, beginning with Sefer Shofetim, one of the most neglected books of Tanakh (in my opinion), probably because it's also maybe the most violent book of Tanakh (likewise my opinion).
Friday was a very lazy day at the yeshivah. The students had the day off, so only the really energetic scholars (plus, this past week, some guy from Ramla who wandered in by mistake) spend the day in the Beit Midrash. I read several of the Rambam's Shemonah Perakim, from the book that Eli had given to me as a Chanukah gift. I also kept on making progress through the Torah, which I began reading on Simchat Torah, thanks to the text skills that Lani taught me last year. I actually fell back asleep at one point, which felt quite embarrassing. Eli's housemate Olaf also needed to borrow my tefillin. I was reading when the sun set. After dinner, we went back to studying. I was completely stumped by Hilchot Gezeila v'Avodah 14:13, mostly because the key word "וָתִיק" is an adjective meaning "excellent" rather than a noun meaning "and a bag," as I had first interpreted. Frequently, the Hebrew mistakes I make are equally as laughable. Eli and I encountered another disagreement, this one about exactly how to interpret a passage in Hilchot Gezeila v'Avodah 11:3, one with very real practical implications. I went to bed very early.
On Saturday morning, the two of us attended the local Sepharadic minyan, and Eli received an aliyah (shlishi, I think), of which I was very proud. I just stood and enjoyed myself, and tried to follow along. Later in the afternoon, the two of us had more time to spend with our books. I worried throughout Shabbat about transportation, which was completely unconducive to my enjoying myself, but I really couldn't help myself. Before kiddush, we reviewed the laws of Birchat Hakohanim, and, later during the day, we read some of the laws of Pesach. I began to tear up a little bit upon reading Chametz u'Matzah 2:3 (I am probably the only human being in history ever to do so) because of the memories that it stirred up. Much to my dismay, I'm suffering slightly from nostalgia, wary as I am of the deceptiveness of this emotion. I've been thinking recently about all of the parts of the last few years of my life that I've enjoyed. Maybe I'll make a list, and post it as part of a longer blog post?
After Havdallah, Eli helped me find a member of the Kibbutz who was driving down to Afula, and could give me a ride to the train station. I think that at first, he wasn't going to drive me (and the yeshiva student in the back seat next to me) all the way to Afula, slightly out of his way, but I think that I came across as so earnest, and excited to be in Israel, that he decided to drive us both directly to the train station, which was very nice of him. He really liked Eli, too, which may have been part of it. Anyway, I took the express bus from Afula to Tel Aviv, then the train from Tel Aviv to Lod, then walked from Lod to Ramla. The whole journey took about four hours.
The next day, we had our Talpiot training, and I spent an enormous amount of time in the art room, making game cards for a version of Memory with art-relevant adjectives. Afterwards, the Ramla and Ashdod ITF groups toured the Ayalon Institute, a secret munitions factory, where 14,000 bullets a year were produced during the British Mandate period. Who knows, maybe my parents would like to visit this out-of-the-way museum during their visit here next month? Oh, and I got to Skype with Josh that night, which really excited me!
OK, it's getting late, and I need to close, but that sums up my Chanukah Break!
TZ! I miss you! Recover quickly so you can come back to school with me!
~JD
In Israel, schools are closed through all of Chanukah, meaning that I will not be returning to school until Monday, December 9th. During the second half of my break, I will be staying with Eli in Ma'alei Gilboah, in the north. It's now the fifth night of Chanukah, and I've been having an enjoyable holiday thus far.
On Wednesday night, the first night of Chanukah, I had the privilege of leading an enrichment session among my cohort of volunteers. The topic was the historical roots of and meaning of Chanukah. (By the way, if you're interested in an hour-long audio class about Chanukah, here's one from the man who has taught me more Talmud than anyone else in the world, Prof. Aaron Koller). I provided some sources on several topics, such as "Historical Antecedents to the Maccabean Revolt," "Identity and Purpose of the Maccabees," "Rededication of the Altar," etc. My friends split into groups of two and three, presenting the information in each theme in the form of a skit. The skits were quite creative and funny, and included a surrealist allegorical narrative about a cabana boy (Coco, Harry, and Noa), a Jewish father visiting a Greek doctor to have his son circumcised (Noah and Alex), speed-dating with several of the male characters of the Chanukah story (Devin and Natalie), a war correspondent reporting on the combat of the Maccabean revolt (Max, Jordan, and Gabbie), a rap about the reasons why Chanukah is associated with fire and oil (Noach and Ben), and a Capra-esque take on the "true meaning of Chanukah" (TZ, Hannah, and Perrin). We finished with a discussion about what people had learned, and whether that would affect how they might one day teach their own children and students about the real meaning of Chanukah. I think that the activity was successful (and by that, I mean that people learned without being bored or turned off). Max, at the end, reacted with a surprising about of passion about how he felt about finally having what he felt was a well-grounded understanding of the Chanukah story. We never got at all into the observance of Chanukah, or into the Roman postscript to the revolt, which in some ways is just as well. I was doing my best to keep this historical and political, rather than spiritual. Still, we missed out on one of the more interesting sources, a tale about the Roman victory, told in the Babylonian Talmud: "What
did Titus do? He seized a harlot in his hand and entered the holy of holies. He
spread out a Torah scroll and committed a sin upon it. Then he took a sword and
slashed the curtain, and a miracle happened and blood bubbled out of the
curtain. Titus thought that he killed God" (Gittin 56b).
In the process of preparing the activity, I, too, learned a whole lot. This was my first time, for instance, reading the Second Book of the Maccabees, and I also made use of Yeshiva University's Chanukah To-Go Packet. As always, the more I read, the more complicated things become. I wonder if, had I been alive in the days of the Maccabim, whether I would have been a "מתיון" (Hellenizer) or among the rebels. The extent to which pious Jews went in order to protect their values at some times seems extraordinary. In addition to the tales of the murders of those who clearly aligned themselves with the Greeks (see, for instance, the First Book of the Maccabees 2:24), and the forced circumcision of Jewish males (ibid. 2:46), there were persecutions of those who assimilated, even to a lesser extent. The Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 6, tells the story of an execution of a man who trespassed what was not even a Toraitic mitzvah, but a Rabbinic ordinance. Rambam retells the story in the Mishneh Torah, Sefer Mishpatim, Sanhedrin 24:4: "An incident occurred
concerning a person who rode on a horse on the Sabbath in the era of the Greeks and they brought him to the court and had him stoned to death... All of the required processes of
questioning, cross-examination, and warnings were not followed, nor was
the testimony unequivocal. Instead, their execution was a directive for
that immediate time according to what [the judge] perceived as necessary." The death penalty without a fair trial, because it was thought necessary; that, in my opinion, is extreme.
On Thursday night, TZ and I visited Moshe's house, and TZ met Moshe's family for the first time (I had already met them at Rivka's Bat Mitzvah). I first attended Minchah/Arvit at Lod's בית הכנסת מרכזי. After Minchah, a Rabbi stood up and gave a brief Devar Torah about Chanukah. I strained my ears to understand, and would guess that I understood about half. Not good; I remember being able to fully understand the very first French-language Sorbonne lectures that I attended two years ago in Paris. And, just as history was in French, Judaism is one of my "specialties" in Hebrew. Anyway, I had an enjoyable time at Moshe's house. I spoke English, in order to be polite (except to Rivka, whose English isn't that good). Na'amah's English is first-rate, surprisingly; she can even read Pride and Prejudice in English, which is quite impressive, given the fact that I know a lot of American anglophones who can't. The next time I visit Moshe's I hope to be able to speak in Hebrew with his wife and children, at least, and practice Hebrew with Israelis. I have so, so much to learn.
I spent Shabbat Chanukah in Jerusalem. It was my first time at the Western Wall on Shabbat, and it was quite an enjoyable experience reciting all of Shir Hashirim on Erev Shabbat among the throngs of Jewish men assembled at the Kotel. The next morning, I arrived at the Kotel before 8:00 am, and, again, had the opportunity to pray with a minyan. It's a real experience being on the men's side of the Kotel; I sometimes wonder if the experience is the same on the women's side. I slept and lighted the Chanukia at the Jerusalem Heritage House, which is a free hostel (with definite right-wing leanings), and ate at Rabbi Eli Deutsche's house. He's the Rabbi who visited Ramla just before Rosh Hashanah, and invited me back to his house. He in a very friendly way tried to convince me to study in a Yeshivah in Israel, something which I politely explained I was not interested in doing, if I can find work this coming year.
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, before I travel up north to Ma'alei Gilboa, I'll be involved in an archaeological dig, in Lod, with some of the Community Involvement Oranim people. I'm very much looking forward to this opportunity. However, I thought that I would share my Chanukah thought of the year. Although the books of the Maccabees were not canonized into the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible (to be fair, they describe events which took place well over a century after the end of the אַנְשֵׁי כְּנֶסֶת הַגְּדוֹלָה, the group of scholars to whom Biblical canonization has been ascribed by the Jewish Oral Tradition), they are of great historical importance. They were both obviously written by pious Jews, and I would go far as to assert that the Second Book of the Maccabees was written by a Rabbinic Jew (see the end of chapter twelve for an explicit reference to מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים). There is a very well-known passage in the First Book of the Maccabees 2:31-38, describing an incident in the early days of the revolt against the Greeks: "And it was reported to the king's officers, and to the troops in
Jerusalem the city of David, that men who had rejected the king's command had gone down to the hiding places in the wilderness. Many pursued them, and overtook them; they encamped opposite them and prepared for battle against them on the sabbath day. And they said to them, 'Enough of this! Come out and do what the king commands, and you will live.' But they said, 'We will not come out, nor will we do what the king commands and so profane the sabbath day.' Then the enemy hastened to attack them. But they did not answer them or hurl a stone at them or block up their hiding places, for they said, 'Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.'
So they attacked them on the sabbath, and they died, with their wives
and children and cattle, to the number of a thousand persons." What just happened? Well, one thousand Jews just died because the Greeks attacked on Shabbat, and the Jews refused to defend themselves on that particular day of the week, because work is forbidden on that day, and bearing arms is considered a form of work. In fact, according to Jewish Law, one is not just permitted, but obligated, to perform acts of labor on Shabbat, if doing so will save a human life. As codified by Rambam, Mishneh Torah, Sefer Z'manim, Hilchot Shabbat 2:25 (explaining how the Oral Tradition interprets Deuteronomy 20:20), "We may wage war with [enemies] on any day, even on the Sabbath, until we conquer [the city], even if the war is voluntary in nature... Indeed, it was on the Sabbath that Joshua conquered Jericho." Here, we have a case of Jews acting piously to the point of allowing themselves to be killed, something that the Law neither demands nor desires.
In another incident, mentioned (to my knowledge) only in the Second Book of the Maccabees, another incident occurs, involving death and Shabbat: "In the language of their fathers [Yehudah Maccabee] raised the battle cry, with hymns;
then he charged against Gorgias' men when they were not expecting it,
and put them to flight. Then Yehudah assembled his army
and went to the city of Adullam. As the seventh day was coming on, they
purified themselves according to the custom, and they kept Shabbat
there. On the next day, as by that time it had
become necessary, Yehudah and his men went to take up the bodies of the
fallen and to bring them back to lie with their kinsmen in the
sepulchres of their fathers. Then under the tunic of
every one of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia,
which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that
this was why these men had fallen" (12:37-40). According to the narrator, these Jewish men who were killed in the battle against Gorgias died because they were wearing idols around their necks, something which was only discovered after Shabbat had passed, when the Maccabees went to collect their dead.
These two stories, it seems to me, have something in common. At first glance, they have opposite morals: the Jews who allow themselves to be murdered because it is Shabbat die because of too much piety; the Jewish soldiers who die because they are carrying idols die because of too little. However, both cases seem to be to be the result of a lack of education and understanding. If the Jews who died on Shabbat had known the Law better, they would know that the Torah is a law which one is meant to live by; dieing merely because it is Shabbat is not, according to Rabbinic thought, acceptable. Again, according to Rambam, Sefer Mada, Yesodei Hatorah 5:1 "Should a gentile arise and force a Jew to violate one of the Torah's commandments at the pain of death, he should violate the commandment rather than be killed, because [Leviticus 18:5] states concerning the mitzvot: 'which a man will perform and live by them.' [They were given so that]
one may live by them and not die because of them. If a person dies
rather than transgress, he is held accountable for his life." The Jews carrying tokens of Jamnia were also most likely lacking in education. Let's not forget that they were putting their lives on the line for the sake of fighting an against-the-odds war on behalf of Jews and Judaism; they can by no means hardly be written off as pretenders. Rather, what they seemed to have lacked was knowledge of the Jewish belief that monotheism is incompatible with such forms of superstition as the belief in the apotropaic or protective properties of wooden statues. Although I am clearly skeptical about the pious narrator's assertion that it was their idols that caused these Jews' deaths, in the same way as it is obvious that the Jews killed on Shabbat were killed because of their overly pious nature, I would certainly say that the fact that these carried such images reveals their lack of strongly-founded knowledge of what they were really fighting for, and why.
Knowledge is at least as crucial today is was twenty-two centuries ago. Israel is one of the only two countries in the world which has an education arm to its military (the other is Japan), in order to teach its soldiers just why their service is so important. Sometimes, even in what seem like the centers of Jewish learning, such as the yeshivot, there is a lack of strong knowledge among the students as to what it really means to be Jewish, observantly or otherwise. One of the yeshivah students whom I met this weekend admittedly was only studying in order to prolong his time before attending university and eventually joining the workforce. As I am coming to realize, much to my shock and discomfort in the school in which I work, many of the students harbor prejudices against non-Jews. On my first day, one of the female students told me that Arabs caused all of the problems in Lod, and that Lod was not such a bad city before the Arabs showed up and began stealing things (she seemed unaware of the fact that, before 1948, Lod was an Arab town). Likewise, one of my favorite students harbors a very strong scorn of Christians and Christianity, insisting, for instance, that I erase any pairs of intersecting lines that I may have drawn on my whiteboard while trying to teach him English grammar. What is so shocking about such incidents is that I work at a school which in theory instills its students with Jewish values. Almost every morning, Rabbi Yosef lectures the males on the importance and sanctity of their tefillin, and why it is absolutely crucial that they wear them six days a week, in the correct manner, after having prepared their bodies properly, etc. Never is there any mention of ethics, tolerance, or love. All of the halachot I hear pertain to prayer, the holidays, etc. As Eli has pointed out to me before, there is a very good reason that Rambam places Hilchot De'ot, the laws of character development, before Hilchot Talmud Torah, the laws of the study of Torah, within Sefer Mada. Compassion, fairness, empathy, and respect are all Jewish values. If we lose these values, we lose our Torah. As Ben Azzai says in Avot 4:3 "אל תהי בז לכל אדם, ואל תהי מפליג לכל דבר, שאין לך אדם שאין לו שעה ואין לך דבר שאין לו מקום." (He would also say: Do not scorn any person, and do not discount any thing.
For there is no person who has not his [or her] hour, and no thing that has not its
place). The word used, "אדם" means simply "person," notably neither "אִישׁ" (man) nor "בֶּן בְּרִית" (Jew).
But, really, who am I to speak in such ways about Jewish education? I am very, very far from even knowing Hebrew, let alone knowing Aramaic, let alone knowing the law. I have a very, very long and rocky road ahead of me.
Before I close, I ought to mention that, as one of my friends who suffers from UC informed me, this week of December 1st-7th is Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis Awareness Week. Just to copy and paste a little bit: "Ulcerative colitis is a chronic [probably autoimmune] disease of the large intestine... in which the lining of the colon becomes inflamed
and develops tiny open sores, or ulcers, that produce pus and mucus.
The combination of inflammation and ulceration can cause abdominal
discomfort and frequent emptying of the colon... Ulcerative colitis may affect as many as 700,000 Americans. Men and
Women are equally likely to be affected, and most people are diagnosed
in their mid-30s. The disease can occur at any age and older men are
more likely to be diagnosed than older women. While ulcerative colitis tends to run in families, researchers have
been unable to establish a clear pattern of inheritance. Studies show
that up to 20 percent of people with ulcerative colitis will also have a
close relative with the disease. The disease is more common among white
people of European origin and among people of Jewish heritage."
Happy Chanukah!
~JD
I'm very far behind in my blogging, and haven't been as responsible as I could have been. I'm going to try to shore up my long silence by describing this week's MASA Shabbaton in Jerusalem.
Thursday was a fairly ordinary day. There is a substitute standing in for one of Rambam school's two regular English teachers with whom I collaborate at work. Sadly, the substitute does not speak any English; although this did not at all impede our own communication, I find it rather irritating that the school could not even get a substitute able to communicate ever so slightly in the language which she is teaching to my students. Anyway, I still did my best to teach my students; I do, however, miss Chani, who is not only good at teaching, but also an excellent English-speaker. Only Veta and I showed up for Ulpan, and I think that we had a very constructive session. I learned the verb "להתעטש," which is the verb "to sneeze," which I have been needing to do quite frequently all week. I've been off-and-on sick for three weeks now, and really just want to be fully healthy again. It's been over three weeks since I've exercised, and my body is feeling it; I'm not nearly as strong or energetic as I ordinarily am, and can feel myself losing muscle mass, and gaining abdominal fat. That evening, I Skyped with two really wonderful people in the U.S., back-to-back. I Skype regularly with Rachel (less than a chapter left before we finish reading Sefer Zecharya!), but I haven't spoken with Rav Ami in months, and was very glad to have the opportunity to do so.
I was up at 6:20 am on Friday. After my morning routine, I was out the door, and just barely caught the 7:57 am train to Tel Aviv, where I was scheduled to meet the Masa bus. There was no electricity running in the train station, reminding of the fact that, although Israel is in many ways just as much a developed nation as France or the United States, not everything always works as efficiently as the Paris train system, and in no way is this more clearly manifest than in public transportation. Before I decided to take the 7:14 am bus every day to work to avoid such problems, I was used to my bus to work frequently driving past my bus stop, because it was full, and the bus company did not adjust its schedules in order to compensate for that. Likewise, boarding a bus traveling to Jerusalem requires that one uses ones elbows to block others, or jab them out of the way. I'm completely serious; there is no such thing as an orderly queue in this country. On the other hand, the water system is excellent, and Israelis never need to worry about turning on their kitchen faucets and see nothing come out, as they do in Israel's friendly neighbor Jordan. The train ride was easy; I spent it reading Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Shegagot on the way (later that weekend, I finally finished Sefer Korbanot! Woohoo! Now I'm beginning Tahara!). Outside Tel Aviv's Arlozov Train Station, I ran into Coco, and the two of us located a large mob of people our age (בחורים) speaking in English, waiting outside of a parked bus. It seemed that we had found the group, but that they were confused about the bus; the bus outside of which they were standing was actually driving to a cemetery, according to the driver (I spoke to him in Hebrew, which most of the others could not do). Coco and I found the correct bus in time, as did the rest, eventually. We both read, but also tried to take in the Jerusalem landscape.
Our bus's guide, a young American-born עוֹלֶה
(immigrant) named Benji brought us to several locations in Jerusalem, in order to highlight certain security elements in place in Jerusalem. Our first stop was in the suburb of Giloh, specifically rechov Arlozov. Just on the opposite side of the Green Line from the Arabic neighborhood of Beit Jala (for those of you paying attention, "جالا ," Jala, is an Arabic corruption of the Biblical Hebrew "גילֹה"). During the Second Intifada, the apartment buildings on this road in this section of this suburb in Jerusalem were most infamous among Israelis for being the target of sniper-fire from the adjoining Arab neighborhood. The exact Arab-Israeli borders in Jerusalem had been drawn up pretty much by a couple of Israeli generals in 1967, following Israel's victory in the Six-Day War. For this reason, there were a lot of divisions that resulted in unfavorable border lines for local Arab residents; one man's orchard was cut from his house, and he needed to spend more than an hour in border-crossing checkpoints in order to visit his property. We took a look at some of the out-of-use old concrete watchtowers that had been manned by Israelis to watch border-crossings. Since the towers' original construction, there had been an attempt on the part of the Israelis to automate border security. The idea is that the fewer IDF soldiers Palestinian Arabs see actively patrolling the border, the less resentment the Arab population of Jerusalem will feel towards Israel. The guard pointed at the separation barrier; yes, the barrier which Israel insists is a temporary security measure, but which is the UN's pretext for calling Israel an "apartheid state." The holes which are meant to be used to hoist up the walls and drag them away all clearly visible, even from a distance. At one point, the course of the separation barrier made a clear swerve, in order to include Rachel's Tomb on the Israeli side of the border, which the guide described as an unequivocal Israeli land grab. Also visible from this vantage point was the shielded highway leading to Gush Etzion, the physically largest Jewish settlement bloc in the West Bank. The term "גּוּשׁ" in Hebrew means "bloc," and the Gush Etzion is geographically the largest of the three West Bank settlements, the other two being Ariel and Ma'alei Adumim (the latter of which I passed through with the rest of the Ramla Oranim folk on our trip to the Dead Sea, when our guide Stav pointed out the red soil for which the region is named, adding the apocryphal legend that the name originates from the region a place where bandits waylaid and spilled the blood of many travelers). Although Israel did bulldoze settlements following the signing Oslo Accords, much to the grief of many ultra-Zionists, the bulldozing of such cities as Ariel, with a population of nearly 30,000 people, is completely off the table for consideration, even by the far left. This of course raises the question as the eventual shape of what will likely eventually become a sovereign Palestinian state. Will it just have little pockets of Israel infiltrating it like fingers through playdough? This shielded highway that we see would make up one of the tendons of such a "finger." It is covered with sloping walls on both sides so as to protect vehicles from sniper fire. It's a sad reality that such a thing is necessary. The second location of our bus tour of the city, very close to the UN embassy, was a housing complex, נוֹף צִיּוֹן, planted very deliberately in the middle of an Arab neighborhood by Zionists. Nobody wanted to live in the buildings, but the company nevertheless resisted attempts by wealthy Arabs to re-purchase the land. There was a police station planted right next the border crossing. Just imagine all of the resentment brewing among the Arabs, who need to pass through lengthy border checkpoints, and feel as if they are under police surveillance. Whatever eventual peace settlement is reached (and I hope that it will be reached soon), Israel is, for better or worse, going to need to maintain some kind of border patrol, humiliating as it is. Otherwise -- think about it, geographically -- it would be possible to drive a car from Iran, Israel's greatest international enemy, through Iraq and the very lousy border patrol in Jordan, directly into Israel. That is simply too great of a threat; the other borders are simply too permeable for Israeli to feel safe trusting traffic to enter its borders without a very diligent border patrol. As Israelis say, "מה לעשות?," what are you going to do? The final location on our bus tour was an observation platform overlooking the old city, with the Temple Mount front and center in our line of vision. Benji, our guide, asked us to compare the state of the buildings and landscape to the wast of the Temple Mount (our right) to everything to the west (our left). The west, the Israeli side, was scattered with trees, with brighter and more modern houses, and quite a few skyscrapers. The PA side of the border, the east, had far less greenery, had very run-down looking houses, and had none of the impressive, metropolitan architecture of the Israeli side. There's an argument to be made that this juxtaposition alone should indicate to all the world that the onus of the peace process rests on Israeli shoulders. I'm somewhat skeptical as to how far this argument can be carried, but the economic disparity is quite clear, just to the naked eye. Benji explained to us that current Finance Minister of Israel Ya'ir Lapid sees economic disadvantage among Arabs as a sort of opportunity. If he can build an economy, and have individual Arab citizens prefer having good jobs and feeding their families to becoming suicide bombers, then Israel will be a more secure state. That, anyway, is a simplification of his logic.
We arrived at our hotel, ate some sandwiches (this is where I spotted Ramla's own Max and Gabbie, who had been riding a different bus, with the same script), and settled down in the hotel's library for the first speaker of the day. By this point, it was around 1:30 pm. The speaker was Colonel Bentzi Gruber, a sub-commander in the IDF Reserves who has around 20,000 soldiers serving under him. His talk was about "Ethics in the Field," and he tried to give the audience an idea of what it is like, as a soldier and officer in the IDF, to be in charge of protecting Israel from rocket fire, suicide bombs, and other terror threats. Bentzi was a highly competent communicator, and although he was clearly convinced of the importance of his work, he did not present himself as overtly emotional. He spoke on a number of points (it was very clear that he had given more or less the same talk many times in the past), beginning with some of the wilder conspiracy theories spread by Israel's unfriendly neighbors blaming the IDF for their problems. Some of the other topics that he discussed included the blockade of Gaza, Gaza's economic reliance on Israel, Israel drone strikes and the warnings it gives beforehand, Israel's policy regarding demolishing houses, the use of U.N. ambulances by terrorists, PA and Gaza school curricula, medical treatment of terrorists, Israel's targeted assassinations of terrorist leaders, the IDF's anti-suicide-bomber-car tactics, the media war, and his own treatment when abroad as an international war criminal. One particular issue, which reminded me of my time on Birthright in Sderot, was the psychological impact of missile strikes and sirens in towns bordering the Gaza Strip, and how large numbers of children from these towns suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. There were a number of video clips; perhaps the most striking, though, was one of a man with an assault weapon over his shoulder searching for a child to use as a shield, and eventually grabbing one by the loop of his knapsack, and half-dragging, half-carrying him through the street. I don't think that that video (apparently taken by a fellow Arab with a smartphone) is going to disappear from my memory for a while. After the talk, I asked Bentzi whether people were ever injured in the "knocking on the roof" policy that he had described to us, and he kind of equivocated. I kind of interpreted his response as "sometimes, but not usually."
We had time to prepare for Shabbat. I shared a room with two other men, one of whom knew my friend Veta from Birthright. I showered, changed my shirt, etc., and, after first lighting candles, walked to the synagogue-room in the hotel for Kabbalat Shabbat with the other guests. There was no Shir Hashirim, much to my disappointment. Nevertheless, I still thought of מַה יָּפִית וּמַה נָּעַמְתְּ אַהֲבָה בַּתַּעֲנוּגִים זֹאת קוֹמָתֵךְ דָּמְתָה לְתָמָר, as I always do. I really missed this as part of my complete Shabbat experience. Following services was Shabbat dinner. I sat fairly close to Gabbie and Max. I should add here that I felt completely outclassed by most of the participants. It was a feeling very similar to that which I had felt when I attended the Institut de Touraine more than two years ago. I was surrounded by ultra-smart, highly-educated, highly-mature, super-polyglot Europeans. Many of the participants spoke a few languages on top of English and Hebrew (Russian was particularly common); one woman I met, who had her Master's degree and was doing security work in the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, was a doubly-native speaker of Hungarian and German. She was rather special, but, nevertheless, I felt much, much less informed about current events, as well as much, much worse at multilingual communication, than those around me. I sometimes felt a little bit like this at Drisha Institute back in June, in the sense that my Hebrew and Aramaic skills were so deplorably lower than those of everyone around me, but the feelings of being entirely behind academically and intellectually were made up for by the fact that everyone around me was so warm, friendly, and accepting. There was no time for this kind of friendliness at the Shabbaton; most of us would never see each other again in our lives, and there was no motivation to build friendships. Some people socialized between classes (there was, unfortunately, a fair amount of unused time between sessions), and I tended to read, either the book that I had brought with me (Mishnah Nezikin, flipping around) or from the books available in the hotel synagogue. Following dinner, we had a group discussion about ethics and security, addressing questions of sacrificing liberty for the sake of security, responsibility for the lives of others through action and inaction, etc. I was thinking very hard about the odd collection of ethics that's fallen into my head over the past few years. Over the course of the evening, I think that I had scrambled in my mind the competing opinions of Socrates in Gorgias, Cornell University's Professor Matti Eklund, Hippocrates, my older brother Andrew, and Rava as quoted in the Talmud Bavli, 74a ("A man came to Rava and told him that the governor of the city had
ordered that he slay a certain man or himself suffer death,
and Rava said to him: 'Rather than slay another person, you must permit
yourself to be slain, for how do you know that your blood is redder than
his, perhaps his blood is redder than yours?'").
Later on Friday evening evening, we had what was for me one of the most enjoyable sessions thus far, optional, so that people could be free to go to bed early. It was pretty much a question-and-answer-plus-discussion with one of the seminar's organizers, Calev, whom I had coincidentally met earlier in synagogue. According to his online profile, Calev "currently works in the Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which has been tasked to plan and design long term foreign policies for the State of Israel," and I found him to be very well-informed. I shot him three questions throughout the session. The first was about a figure that Benji had cited on our bus tour, of a 90% reduction in terror attacks coinciding with the construction of the separation barrier between East and West Jerusalem. The reply was that although the figure was accurate, there were two competing narratives seeking to explain it. The first, the Israeli version, is that the wall made it much harder for would-be Arab terrorists to slip across the border, and deterred terror attacks. According to the Palestinian interpretation, however, the reduction in terror attacks was a positive choice made by the PA following the death of Yassar Arafat, and his succession by Mahmoud Abbas, who was extremely sensitive to how terror attacks hurt the Palestinian cause in the international media. My second question to Calev concerned Iran; to what extent do Israelis perceive Rouhani as being fundamentally different from Ahmadinejad. This question had special importance to me; my brother Sam has a very good friend Persian friend, and I feel responsible for collecting information about Israeli public opinion about Iran, seeing as the competing interest of those two countries in particular are playing out on the world stage. I remember that, following President Obama's threats of force against Syria and subsequent inaction, the Israelis with whom I spoke were very disparaging of his lack of a strong show of force. If he wanted to solve the Syria situation diplomatically, he should not have been so openly threatening (I, personally, blame our Secretary of State for a fair share of belligerence in this respect), and if he wanted to solve it violently, he should have carried out his word. He did neither, and attracted not only the ire of the Israelis, but also that of the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and probably the rest of the Gulf States. Calev's answer to my question was more or less what I had expected: many Israelis feel just as threatened by Rouhani as they did by Ahmadinejad. Rouhani, after all, was the chief nuclear negotiator for Iran for a number of years, and, in his 2011 book, bragged about how effective he had been at stalling and fooling the Europeans while simultaneously enriching yellow cake. I unfortunately cannot find the excellent video clip of Rouhani nearly losing his temper at the Iranian news anchor who suggested that he, Rouhani, might have been compliant with international nuclear regulations (the video was a few months before the election, and therefore presents Rouhani when he was trying to present himself favorably to the Iranian public; I saw the video with English subtitles which I hope to be accurate). However, I did manage to find this minute-and-a-half clip of the current Israel PM speaking to the U.N. about this same question of Rouhani's dependability regarding the nuclear project, and it very well presents Israel's feelings of apprehension. Calev explained that, unlike Ahmadinejad, with his blatant anti-gay rhetoric and Holocaust-denial, Rouhani charms the international media. Calev also pointed out that most Iranians do in fact support a nuclear program of some sort (I'm slightly suspicious of how and by whom such a poll was conducted). My last question regarded Sisi in Egypt, who, though portrayed in the media as a "Nasserist," has not really done anything threatening to Israel. Instead, he began his time in power by attacking Hamas's smuggling tunnels leading to the Gaza Strip, doing the IDF's job for them, it seems. Hamas does have Muslim Brotherhood ties, after all, so it makes sense, given the anger against the Muslim Brotherhood right now. The response was that Sisi seems very unlikely to threaten Israel, and is much more of a threat to Gaza. Ironic, how dictators threaten Israel's security less than democratically-elected leaders...
The next morning, I was up for 8:15 am Shacharit. I even had time to study a little bit before Tefillah, which always makes me feel good. Because of the tight schedule, following the Torah reading, I needed to recite Mussaf by myself during the Haftorah reading. I ended up not getting any breakfast, anyway, because of a misunderstanding, but I survived.
At 10:15, we had the opportunity to join one of five in-depth discussion sections, led by the different seminar organizers. I joined Benji's group on "Iran and Israel's Existential Threats." Again, on the theme of trying to get Israel-Iran relations figured out. We discussed Iran's danger to Israel, not only in its nuclear potential, but in its funding and arming of terrorist organizations, such as Chamas in Gaza and the Hizbolah in Lebanon. The concluding activity involved ranking Israel's existential threats -- corruption, delegitimization, demographics, Iran, Jerusalem, and terrorism -- in groups. It was quite interesting to see how some groups came up with completely inverted threat-pyramids. To some extent, the wording of the activity caused this. According to some, terrorism might be a constant threat, but not an existential one, capable of destroying the state of Israel, or even severely destabilizing it.
Following this was the talk that had the most potential to be amazing, but fell short the most. Omer Bar-Lev, the Labor Party MK, who is a major peace advocate addressed us. He has also had an incredibly interesting career, which included taking part as a commando in the hostage-rescue counter-terrorism Operation Entebbe, back in 1976 -- yes, the one in which Yonatan Netanyahu, the current Israeli PM's older brother, was the only Israeli death. However, despite his passion for a new peace proposal, his English was indecipherable, to the point of it being painful to listen to at times. I wanted to hear him out so badly, but the language barrier was too thick.
Finally, at noon, I had something to eat. I also got to talk to Coco a little bit. I asked him to try to read the first Mishnah of Pirkei Avot, in order to test how well someone who knows modern Hebrew at about my level can read the Mishnah. He got most of the words, although words such as "מסרה" and "מתונים" were new to him. I really can't blame him. Still, this just encourages me to work harder on my own Hebrew. I ended up playing Jewish geography with some people whom Rozeeta had met. I turns out that Michael Hollander's brother Sam is studying at Pardes thanks to a MASA grant, which is pretty cool, I think.
After lunch, I had another choice of in-depth sessions, and I choose to take part in the one focusing on the Arab Spring, which interests me intensely. We made a full course of the countries affected by the Arab Spring: Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, even Jordan. One of the speaker's arguments, though, was that the Arab Spring does not truly have an Arab origin -- that we must look to the protests in Iran to understand the revolutionary movements of the Middle East. I got a lot more information about the Egyptian Constitution as proposed by Morsi's government, and why exactly it failed. By the way, here's an excellent clip of an incredibly eloquent 12-year-old Egyptian boy explaining why he thinks that Islamism is a swindle. The presenter was an excellent speaker, and knew his facts very well, but a few, I thought, were a little bit off. For instance, he said that the border with Syria has been one of Israel's quietest, not disturbed since the Yom Kippur War, back in 1973. While this is technically true, it is also true that the IDF engaged the Syrian army in the 1980s; Syria was busy trying to conquer Lebanon, and Israel also found itself in Lebanon, trying to put an end to the strikes of Hizbolah, which operates out of southern Lebanon. Coco noticed a few holes, too.
Following Havdallah, we had our final speaker, Jerusalem Post editor Gol Hoffman, easily the most right-wing presenter of the entire Shabbaton. He positively gloated about the number of Syrians killed by chemical weapons in the process of explaining that these weapons would otherwise have been used on Israel. When I raised my question and asked about Rouhani, he told me that the only difference between Rouhani and Ahmadinejad is that the latter hates homosexuals just as fiercely as the latter, but keeps it to himself. Although I was glad that he had come, and I do believe that I learned a few things from his presentation (although more about people like him than about the actual subject-matter of his talk), he made me feel all the more acutely what was missing from this weekend -- the voice of an Arab. I mean that; not only was everyone a male, but they were all Israeli Ashkenazi Jews. Sure, some had slightly different leanings, but there was a decided lack of diversity. Why couldn't a journalist from Ha'aretz have come instead, Coco wanted to know? They, at least, are liberal-leaning, unlike the rest of the presenters.
That was the end. It was an excellent weekend. Now I'm about to have another, also in Jerusalem.
Happy Chanukah, everyone!
~JD
Ironically, the only reason that I am able to write post is because I'm home sick today with a cold. I don't know where I picked this up; as you'll read, I've been around many people recently, and I could have contracted this microbe just about anywhere.
On Thursday, I had a terrific day at school. My pupils were very attentive and interested, and had a lot of energy to work. I'm really beginning to learn the different students' personalities, and to figure out exactly how strict I need to be with whom. Usually, with most students, all I need to do is ask them once to put away their soccer cards, and when they give me the "shnia fingers," insist that, no, I mean now. That doesn't really work with the 8th-graders, who tend to be more resistant to requests than the other students, but it works with even the more mischievous 6th- and 7th-graders. When I returned home from Lod that afternoon, it wasn't the end of my day, however. Ordinarily on Thursdays, after returning from school, my day consists of teaching Tamir English, attending Ulpan, with Alex, Alex, and Veta, arvit, running and exercising in the park, and studying Trei-Esar with Rachel via Skype. This last Thursday, however, I had been invited to Moshe's young daughter's Bat Mitzvah, which was celebrated in the Ram"a synagogue in Lod. I didn't exactly know where this was, but I brought the invitation with the address on it with me to Lod, and hoped that people would know where Rechov Plomnik was. Unfortunately, nobody did, and I was directed in the exact opposite direction when I first began inquiring where to look. Personally, I would have expected groups of old Sepharadic men sitting on benches together to have the best idea of where to find a Sepharadic synagogue; not so. It was actually the young Russian-speaking chilonit Israeli mother with a stroller that correctly showed me the way. I thanked all of my vocabulary practice that allowed me to understood what she was using, when she used such terms as "רַמְזוֹר" (traffic light) and "כִּכָּר" (traffic circle) and "כְּבִישׁ" (street). I arrived about an hour after the event started, and without TZ, who was feeling incredibly sick, and was unable to attend. I handed TZ's card to Rivkah, the Bat Mitzvah girl, and found Moshe in the crowd of relatives and friends. He was very happy to see me. I realized how special his invitation had been; almost everyone else in the room was either a very close relative, or else another member of Rivka's Bat Mitzvah class.
This was my first orthodox Bat Mitzvah; at every Bat Mitzvah that I have attended in the United States, the Bat Mitzvah reads from the Torah scroll, and the ceremony and its significance are the same as those of a boy who is becoming Bar Mitzvah. This was much more like a very large birthday party, in comparison. Many of Moshe's family members are from the United States, and although some (such as his adult niece, whose daughter is one of TZ's best students) found it easier to communicate in Hebrew with me. Although I would like to eschew using English when speaking with Israelis in Israel, because an event such as this is such a perfect opportunity for me to practice my very-limited Hebrew, I was trying to be personable, and decided to speak with others in the language which was best understood by both. There were speeches by family members which I unfortunately did not understand as well as I would have liked, some so-so performers, and a slideshow at the very end. Moshe's father gave the first speak. Moshe's niece's husband, who was sitting across from me, told me that Moshe's father was a Rabbi, and a student of the famous American orthodox Rabbi, Rav Soloveitchik. Lani and JP-RP, I thought that you would be interested by that. I made certain to bring back the commemorative benchers that were handed out, one of which I set aside for TZ, and gave to her on Sunday morning. On my way to Lod, I had asked the bus driver when Bus #13 stopped running, and he replied that it would stop around 10:30. The party was out slightly before 10:00 pm, and, luckily, I had misgivings. So, I correctly predicted that the bus had stopped running, and that I would miss my scheduled chevruta with Rachel. So I ran all the way back to Ramla, and never once saw the Bus #13 running anywhere. I wasn't back until past 11:00 pm, and got into bed relatively quickly.
Friday morning, I was up at around 7:20 am, and was a little bit slow to get ready for my expected trip to Jerusalem, to be spent with Josefin, who is currently pursuing her Master's degree at Hebrew University. After my (somewhat lengthy) morning routine, I packed up, and walked to the bus station behind Ramla's kenyon, the mall. I took the 9:00 am bus northward, and didn't even need to elbow any elderly Israelis out of the way to get on. For those of you who don't understand that last reference, Israelis are notoriously pushy in crowds, and orderly lines simply do not exist in this country. I read Rambam's Mishneh Torah on the bus. I'm still working my way through Sefer Avodah, which is also where I was at the end of last summer. Although this section is of historical interest of me, understanding the functioning of the Temple is something so distant from my own life, that much of the interest flows in one ear and out the other. A few details here and there stay with me, but I really don't understand many of the rules of, say, sacrificial animals being mixed up at various stages of the process of offering them on the altar. This is the kind of text to which I hope to return when I am older and (if I am so lucky) more learned. I arrived at the Central Bus Station at around 9:50 am, incredibly happy to be in one of my favorite cities in the world. I love Paris and Ithaca, but for entirely different reasons. There is no Louvre in Jerusalem, but there is no Har-Habayit in Paris, and no Olin Library in either one.
Josefin had an allergist's appointment, so I walked along the sidewalk beside the light rail tracks to the Machaneh-Yehuda shuk. Jerusalem's shuk is several times larger than Ramla's, of course, and although both sell fresh fruits and vegetables, bread and pastries, eggs, dried fruits and nuts, etc. There is also Judaica for sale in Jerusalem, and I picked up a few items for some special people back in the U.S., although I am still looking for just the right gift for a few people, including one Special Someone. I bought some (persimmons) for a very good price, and munched on a few while enjoying being part of the crowd. It's been quite a while since I've heard English spoken by passers-by on the street; in Ramla, beyond Hebrew, one hears Arabic, Russian, Amharic, Hindi (?), or even Spanish more frequently than English. It's such a shock; Jerusalem is such an international junction. In the Judaica shop, the woman behind me was speaking in French, and I turned to her, asking her, in my rather rusty French: "Vous
parlez Français?" To which she replied, with some surprise "oui, je
suis française," to which I in turn babbled "אפרסימונים
en fait,
j'ai fait mes études en France; cependant, je suis américain." I met Josefin by the light rail station, and gave her a big hug. I hadn't seen her since the end of May, when we walked together at graduation, and I met her parents, brothers, and grandparents. Together, we picked up ingredients for Shabbat lunch and seudah shlishit. There's no shortage of good things in the Jerusalem shuk. Josefin bought everything except the bread, and the persimmons that I had already bought, because she knew about my financial predicament, the result of my having lost my wallet (no, it still hasn't turned up, and I'm planning on buying a change purse on Rechov Dani Mas in Ramla). With full bags, we took the light rail several stops. An elderly woman snapped at Josefin for being too noisy on the light rail; it's just the way things are in this country. After a stop at the local supermarket for hummus, matbuchah, wine, and a few other items, we returned to Josefin's apartment, where I met Josefin's roommate, Jannet, who is a very knowledgeable person. Eli arrived at around 3:00 pm, and I nearly jumped on him, I was so excited to see him. We only had about an hour before Shabbat fell. We all took our showers, and prepared.
After lighting candles, we walked downhill towards a synagogue, where Eli, Jannet's friend Ivri, and I helped make a very small minyan for minchah and arvit. During kabbalat Shabbat, it began to rain. Rain comes in bursts in this country, so by the time that we left the synagogue, following behind Binyamin, the Israeli man who had agreed to host us, the rain had already ceased ("וְתֵן
טַל וּמָטָר לִבְרָכָה"). We walked, right along the line that divides Jerusalem into the zones controlled by Israel and by the PA, respectively, to his house, where his wife and four children were waiting. His wife's English wasn't as good as Binyamin's and she mostly spoke to us in Hebrew, but understood our English or Hebrew responses. Again, it would have been best for my Hebrew for me to demand to speak only in Hebrew with the others, but, to be honest, this would not have been the friendliest thing to do, and I already felt as if I were taking liberties, because I'm a vegetarian, which I hadn't been able to communicate to our hosts ahead of time. No worries; I had enough to eat. We talked a lot about Hebrew language, Eli at one point getting into a vocalization debate with Ivri, as well as jokes and riddles that we knew, intrafamilial marriages, the weekly par'shah, child-rearing, etc. We stayed for a few hours, then Binyamin walked us most of the way back to Hebrew University, to ensure that we could find our way. We spoke a little bit before heading off to bed, planning the next day, but I was completely exhausted, and preferred to go to bed early, which ended up being a little bit before midnight.
The next morning, Eli woke up first, and we were out of bed at 6:40 am, preparing to take an expected 30-minute walk to find a Yemenite synagogue. We walked downhill, wearing our tallietot (I haven't mentioned it, but I've begun to adhere to Eli's more stringent definition of what constitutes an acceptable eiruv, and am therefore likewise stricter about not carrying my talleit under my arm). We kept on asking directions; one old Charedi man, who was surprisingly friendly, directed us. Then, Eli spied a man who he thought looked Yemenite, and asked him. He was spot-on; the man was indeed headed towards a Yemenite synagogue, and was overjoyed to find two additional adult men to help fulfill the minyan. As it was, a minyan would have been possible without us, but barely. We prayed in a congregant's apartment, in a room only about the size of my family room. Eli was almost ecstatic at the degree to which the minyan was Maimonidean. Let's get a (limited) list going:
- Begin with בָּרוּךְ שֶׁאָמַר; no korbanot whatsoever, and all birchot hashachar recited at home.
- Very short pesukei dezimra without even הודוּ לה' קִרְאוּ בִשְׁמו, the recitation of which I think I've read dates back to the early Ga'onic period.
- No אֵל אָדוֹן, one of my favorite piyutim, because it interrupts the berachot preceding the שְׁמַע.
- No separate chazarat hasha"tz; all congregants recite the entire amidah, including kedushah, together with the sh'liach tzibur.
- The Sefer Torah was beautifully written on reddish klaf, which is the only acceptable kind of klaf acceptable, according to the Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sefer Torah 7:4. Also, a very high diameter-to-height ratio, according to Ga'onic tradition (and, of course, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Sefer Torah 9:1).
- When one receives an aliyah, one reads directly from the scroll, rather than having another person, who has prepared, read in one's stead. Eli read sh'lishi this week.
- The corresponding verse in Targum Onkelos after every verse of the Torah.
- No additional prayers for the IDF, etc., following the reading of the Haftorah.
- No recitation of עָלֵינוּ לְשַׁבֵּחַ at the end.
- Communal cyclical readings from not only מִשְׁנֶה תּוֹרָה but also from מנורת המאור.
We finished at around 10:00. Afterwards, Yosef, the man whom we had followed to the synagogue, conducted us back to his house, where he very proudly introduced us to his wife and mother. He even invited us back for Pesach, which isn't for another few months. I think that the reason he was so excited was because there are relatively few young, engaged Yemenite Jews like Eli who had furthermore just made aliyah from the United States, and was therefore doubly a wonder. The invitation was directed towards me, too. If Eli ends up accepting, I will, too, I've decided, but, friendly as Yosef was, I know that just another American Ashkenazi (albeit one with Maimonidean leanings) spending 10 months in Israel isn't nearly as special as Eli is. Eli and I walked back to the Hebrew University campus. We got directions along the way from a man named Moshe, who happens to have been born in Ramla, and who has family living on Rechov Weizmann, which is about five to ten minutes' walk away from my house. They are Tunisian, and it is entirely possible that they attend the same Sepharadic synagogue on Bar-Ilan street that I do.
Eli and I got back to Josefin's room, where Jannet was just leaving, and she let us in. We studied for a little while, going over a passage from Melachim Bet that I had wanted to discuss, and also reading from Eli's Mishneh Torah that he had brought. Josefin appeared shortly; she had also had a good morning. We made a big salad together, then ate it for lunch, along with the other wonderful things that we had purchased from the shuk. I was ravenous, and probably ate as much as the other two put together. We had all missed each other, and realized, for instance, that we are all studying via Skype with Rachel, who never ceases to amaze us all with her energy and passion. Wow. We talked a great deal about our own experiences in the past. We've only really been close to each other beginning the second semester of our Junior years at Cornell, although we had all had varying levels of interaction before that. Josefin and I are at about the same level of Hebrew right now; hers is a little bit better, though I think, and I compound my own problems because of my perfectionist-paralysis when it comes to grammar. I try very hard to get my tenses, binyanim, and gender all correct when I speak, which sometimes results in my not speaking as readily as I might if I spoke with more abandon and less inhibition. Still, I think that I'm getting there, and, furthermore, this awkwardness in no way hurts my oral comprehension, which is sometimes quite useful.
Josefin took a nap, and I ate almost all of the cookies that were left in the tin that we had purchased together, while speaking with Eli about my experience thus far in Israel. It suddenly occurred to me that I have been feeling the acute sting of library withdrawal. In Ithaca, I always had access to a vast array of texts; I could pick up a volume on just about any era or region of the world, and study some history. Here, not so. I just really, really want to sink my teeth into some scholarly history, in print format, and can't. Iranian history is what I feel acutely lacking in right now, but, at this point, I'd take a nice, thick, well-written book on any number of topics beyond history, which if you know me you know well is a very real passion of mine. Speaking about studying history and politics in Israel, here's a fascinating New York Times article about the Hamas-printed textbooks used in Gaza.
Josefin and her roommate had invited several friends over for seudah shlishit. Again, we prepared a big salad together, this time for the guests as well as for ourselves, which was lots of fun, as expected. There were a total of seven of us, and the others made good, friendly, intellectual company. As I've mentioned before, I love being around people who are more knowledgeable than I am. After our meal was over, we recited arvit and made havdallah together (Eli recited, as expected). I had to leave almost immediately, but the Josefin, Eli, and Jannet accompanied me to the light rail stop so that I wouldn't be lost. On the ride back, I read more Mishneh Torah, and tried to listen in on French and Hebrew conversations, in order to practice my skills in both languages. At least French words and phrases still plug directly into clear meanings in my mind when I hear them, which is more than can be said for Hebrew speech, which remains something of a puzzle. I walked through the front door of my apartment a little bit after 9:00 pm, which wasn't so bad, and spent the rest of the evening working on the new-and-improved Memory game that TZ and I have prepared.
On Sunday, I went for more teacher training at Talpiot college. I didn't learn so much, but I got to use a very high-quality color printer and laminating machine, and produced a very nice set of memory cards. Also, when I expressed my thanks in Hebrew to Batsheva, the woman who helped me, she thought that it was incredibly cute, and rushed over to her colleagues to exclaim how חָמוּד I was being. Oh, well. When I returned, I was amazed at how exhausted I was, and ended up going to bed very early, getting up at 10:00 pm very briefly, then falling back asleep until the next morning, when I arose feeling rather sick, and texted TZ, Moshe, and Carmel. Since then, I've been stuck in my apartment, without very much to do. I've been drinking plenty of water, and hope that I'll be able to return to school tomorrow. I feel particularly bad, because on Mondays I'm supposed to come to the house of one of my students, to give him private English lessons, and I don't want to lose the momentum of last week. He was doing so well...
Thinking of you all, cool people!
~JD
