It's a small country

Thursday I went to Tel Aviv and stayed with AH. I met up with him at his house, and we went out to meet up for beer with another friend of his (H). AH and H each ordered a hetzi (one half liter), I ordered a shlish (0.3 liter or one third liter). As we got to talking, we realized that H is currently teaching some of my former students - students I taught last year at a dual-curriculum, community Jewish high school on the Upper West Side. The students are on a year-long program of some sort, here in Israel.

After beer, we were hungry, so we went to an Indian restaurant that functions on a unique basis...There is a buffet and you pay as much or as little as you think you should. There is a little more to it than that, actually. There is no host to greet you and explain the unique system, so when you walk you see a bunch of regulars raise their heads and look at you as if to say, "Who's the new guy?" A server hands you a card with a lot of different zones and incomprehensible bubbles and multicolored options on it, with a few holes punched through it apparently at random. You are told not to lose this card. On the buffet, there are no prices, but certain dishes have signs that designate them as "special dishes" - the implication being I suppose that if you take some of the special dish you should pay a little more. Also, there is a chalk board with some suggested price ranges on it, but those guidelines were pretty vague (basically saying you should wind up paying between 10 and 70 shekels, depending on what you take) and I didn't understand much of what the board said. Drinks and desserts are bought on an a la carte basis. After taking our food, we went to the upstairs seating area and joined up with some of H's other friends, so that we were now a party of 6 Americans. I wish I could have relaxed and enjoyed the food and conversation more, but I just couldn't stop worrying about how much I was expected to pay. The atmosphere was Hindu-chintz. Big soft dirty sofas, beads and hamsas on the walls, along with psychadelic posters of many-armed deities. Most of the clientel had dred locks. (The Jewish people has a rich, ancient, cultural legacy of its own; why do so many Tel Avivim feel the need to appropriate the superficial elements of buddhism, hinduism, rastafarianism, islam, chinese culture, tibetan culture, take your pick? The cultural watch word of the city might as well be, "Cast down the kippah, pick up the Che Guevara T-shirt.") During dinner, some people (the band?) were setting up odd props, turning on and off lights, and knocking things over. Two people had brought their dogs into the dining area, naturally off leash, this being Israel, and in the middle of dinner the dogs got into a snarling, growling fight. Honestly, I have never been so uncomfortable in a restaurant before. When it came time to pay, there was no check. The server collected our tickets and then we each took turns agonizing about how much we should pay, making change, trying to do mental math, wondering about how much to tip and when. Someone only had a large bill, and the server was totally unprepared to make change - there seemed to be no cash register. "Well, um, let's see, I guess I could, like, ask around and see if anyone has small money or something...?" she said. It took a long time to pay, and at the end I still wasn't sure whether we had overpaid or underpaid. I learned later that it is a socialist restaurant, that it has stayed in business for at least six months (miraculously, to my mind), and that it is a big hang out for the younger activists in the labor party.

On the way out, I walked right into two other new Jerusalem friends of mine, R and J, who were having dinner together. I was dumbstruck. "I didn't know you were in Tel Aviv tonight." "We didn't know you were." (Actually, I didn't even know they knew each other!) All I could say was, "What a small country." If they were surprised by this chance meeting, they didn't show it.

The thing about it being a small country is that you can't really gossip about people - it will quickly get back to them. Nor can you keep secrets very well. If you want to leave your past behind and reinvent yourself, you can't just move to another state, like in the US. You have to leave the country, because there will always be someone around who knew you when. This situation, AS explained to me, gives rise to a colorful Israeli saying: Anachnu rokdim et hatango, mechazkim ze et ze bebeitzim, which means, in polite language, "He and I work together closely, and neither of us is able to pull away from the relationship, not because there is great affection between us, but because each of us holds incriminating information about the other and could publicize it out of spite."

And as long as I'm on the subject of how modern Hebrew can sometimes sound shockingly vulgar to someone whose primary introduction to the language has been the bible, here is another gem. Kol hazayin, which as an interjection means "tough beans," or "what a mess," but can also have a connotation that cuts a little deeper. Something like, "Do not elaborate too much on the details, lurid though they may be, of how you feel you have been unfairly treated; it begins to give the impression that you secretly relish the abuse."

The most stereotypical Israeli cab ride ever

The other day I was waiting for a bus to the Israel Museum, since I wanted to catch an English language tour of the Shrine of the Book. After 20 minutes of no bus, I hailed a cab. I told the driver where I wanted to go. "20 shekels" he said. I said, "No, start the meter" (in Israel, cabs have meters but passengers often forgo them and just haggle over the price of the ride - a yellow cab and a gypsy cab all in one). "Then get out!" the driver yelled, "20 shekels or get out! It's not so much to ask. Just 20 shekels, what's your problem? You think 20 shekels is so much?" I should have gotten out at this point, but I thought I was going to miss the tour. "OK 20 shekels," I acquiesced. As we drove, the driver continued on this theme. "You know, it's a sad day." (It happened to be Israeli Memorial Day.) "How can we think of using a meter on a day like this - on Yom Hazikaron? Also, I'm not feeling very well," he began to kvetch. "I think after this I need to drive home. I have really got something. I need to rest." When we got to the museum, the driver drove up to the parking lot kiosk and told the attendant he needed to drive into the parking lot because his passenger worked at the museum, and had a very important job. I tried to say it was fine he could let me off and I could walk the remaining 50 feet to the door, but he shot me a look. The attendant gave up protesting after not very long, and as we drove into the parking lot the driver turned around and gave me a wide grin, the kind where one of his teeth twinkled, the kind that says, a bad man like me, it's good to have on your side, eh? I was not reassured, and I later figured out he had totally overcharged me for the ride. And there was no tour because of Yom Hazikaron. But, the museum was very enjoyable anyway.

What the name of my blog means

This is a plaque from the sea shore in Jaffa. It bears the emblem of the ministry of tourism, which is an image of two men carrying an enormous bunch of grapes on a pole. I took a picture of it because it is a good opportunity to explain the name of my blog. The image is from the bible. The spies Moses sent to scout out the land of Israel came back with an enormous bunch of grapes. It was so big it took two men to carry it. The phrase "latur et haaretz" means "to scout out the land" and it is the phrase Moses uses to instruct the spies what to do.

As I think about this image, I wonder what prizes I will be bringing back from Israel. Certainly there will be some souvenirs. (The shuk doesn't have any enourmous bunches of grapes, but they do have some pretty huge loofahs.) But what really meaningful things do I want to bring back? Knowledge of the country. A little better knowledge of Hebrew. Self-knowledge. New friendships. These are the things I want to take back.
















A couple of pictures of me atop the Tower of David in Old Jerusalem. Above you see the church of the Dormition in the background. Below you see the Dome of the Rock.





























Cats of Jerusalem.

Second Shabbat in Jerusalem

When I got back to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, I really had to scramble. From the central bus station, I had to catch a bus out to Ora, where AS and SC live. The bus stops at the bottom of the hill that Ora sits on, so then I had the now familiar hike up the hill to A & S's. Carrying my big pack and listening to Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams on the iPod, I fancied myself an extreme sportsman. All the time, I watched the sun sink slowly west, knowing that at some point before it set the busses would stop running and I would be without transportation.

A quick shower and shave at A&S's, and then back down the hill with my big bag, headed to the bus stop. Mercifully, I was in time to get a bus back to the city, and when I dropped my big bag off at MA's, and began rehydrating from a long, dry day, I said to him, "I think now I can transition into a shabbat consciousness." We talked for a bit about the relative merits and possible unfairnesses of a public transportation system that observes the Jewish sabbath. I like it because it sets a tone for the city. Even a completely secular person can understand the benefits to wellness of taking a break from hurrying and worrying. Having a day of the week when economic activity stops publicly expresses a value that everyone can believe in: we are not just producers and consumers, we are people. Put another way, it expresses a value often obscured in modern life: convenience is not our highest value, nor is it an end in itself, but rather it should lead to a fuller and more enjoyable life. If the religious overtones of a "SABBATH" are too hard to look past, think of the French, who take relaxation and leisure seriously for utterly secular reasons. The average American worker is far more productive than the average French worker, and he is rightly proud of the contribution he makes every day to an ever more efficient marketplace, but he is dumbfounded when a Frenchman asks him, "What do Americans do with all the time they save?"

Shabbat consciousness, for me, is the idea of taking one day a week just to be, rather than to do. A day to stop worrying so much, stop trying to change everything, and just appreciate the people in your life and the blessing of rest and relaxation. Ideally, in that mad Friday rush one gets all the food ready for shabbat, gets the house reasonably clean, and gets the table set, so that during shabbat everyone can just relax comfortably. On shabbat, there isn't supposed to be any rush to go anywhere, the idea is to enjoy where you are.

Like most ideals, shabbat often plays out imperfectly in reality. From MA's, I walked to the apartment where Kol Zimrah was meeting. I brought along two cartons of a lentil dish I had prepared on Wednesday for the vegetarian potluck following the service. The service itself consisted of lots of spirited singing, with branching, improvized harmonies, led by someone with a drum, and lots of clapping. There was some dancing, but mostly in place, since the apartment was crowded. In attendance were probably 40 people, mostly between the ages of 20 and 35, but with one family with young children, and a small contingent of high school students. After dinner, the singing picked up again and lasted long into the night.

In Israel, the familiar text of the prayers comes alive in a way that is both rapturous and scary. Speaking first of the non verbal parts of the ritual, at all the points in the service where we "rise and turn toward Jerusalem," we are already in Jerusalem, so we turn toward the Kotel, the Western Wall. The physical act is the same (it's still turning west), but the act of picturing the Kotel, and the knowledge of how close it is, really changes the experience. It's much more immediate, less abstract. As for the text, all the references to Jerusalem feel very different when you are physically in the actual city of Jerusalem. From outside Israel, the word "Jerusalem" connotes far away, mystical place, but in Jerusalem, "Jerusalem" means here. (Imagine praying, "May Orangevale be rebuilt speedily and in our days.") It's so obvious and yet so jarring. In fact, the psychic dissonance that attends on the juxtoposition of the idealized Jerusalem of one's imaginings with the reality of the city of Jerusalem, is one explanation for why people who visit here sometimes become convinced they are the messiah.

Going beyond this, the text starts to sound political, and can even echo a rather bald and obnoxious nationalism. When the text speaks of "rebuilding Jerusalem," instead of hearing a rosy metaphor for creating a more just and compassionate society, I think of all the factions of society here, with all their different visions of how Jerusalem should be "rebuilt". I think of the construction that hampers my navigation through the city, the new train line that would be so helpful if only it were complete, and the new shopping mall that feels like it could be anywhere, offering the Jerusalemite a taste of Sacramento. I think of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is falling apart because the various denominations cannot agree on how to renovate it, and the ramp Israel is building up to the Temple Mount, a ramp that makes the Arabs nervous because it will be wide enough for a vehicle to drive on. I'm nervous too, if only because the second Intifada started when Ariel Sharon went up the the Mount with some troops. All sides are struck with the irony that Palestinian labor is building much of Jewish Jerusalem, including that ramp.

When the psalmist praises God for leading us upon the heights of our enemies, I can't help but think of Lebanon, where we did walk on the heights of our enemies last summer, and where Hezbollah is even now amassing weapons to attack us again. When the text urges my soul to be silent to those who curse me, I think of my classmates who refused to mourn the victims of the Holocaust and the Sephardi chief rabbi who this week blamed Reform Jews for the Holocaust. When the grace after meals thanks God for giving us a good land, I can't just think about arable land in general, because it's talking about this Land of Israel, which the Jewish nation reacquired only recently in our long history, and which we hold onto through our soldiers' continual sacrifice. When Deuteronomy talks about how we need to follow the commandments or else we will be driven from the land, I think about all the unfriendly neighbors who stand ready to do just that.

As for the bald nationalism in Scripture, it is not hard to find. The bible is a very nationalist document. The use of scripture by Religious Zionists is thus not hard to understand. What's interesting is when secular Zionists use it. For example, I can remember a certain secular Zionist, who never attended synagogue, didn't keep the ritual commandments, and had a demonstrated lack of knowledge of the rudiments of Jewish worship tell me that the Temple Mount is the place where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac. She didn't say it was the place the tradition ascribes to that legend. Proudly and unreflectively irrational, she said it was the place where it happened. I wondered if in her heart of hearts she liked to imagine that we would discover the Tablets of the Covenant, Indiana Jones style, hidden under the Temple Mount and enshrine them in a brand new, multi billion dollar recreation of the Second Temple. In the same vein, my Muslim classmate T (who is not entirely secular but definitely does not pray five times a day) proudly told me that the Noble Sanctuary was the place where the Koran fell on Mohammed. Thus the religious establishments induce societies at large to fight and die over a hill.

The text turned dark during mincha when we prayed for the Temple to be rebuilt. From far away, it is easier to reason this prayer away as a metaphor, but the fact is that the rabbis wrote it with the idea that God would destroy the temple of Jupitor that the Romans had built and reestablish the Jews on the Temple Mount. In our day, how can I pray the the Temple be rebuilt? Isn't that just doing what the Muslims accuse us of doing, i.e. hoping someone will destroy the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque so we can put our own real estate up there? I began to feel sympathy with the early Reformers, radical anti-Zionists so suspicious of the particularizing effects of Jewish nationalism that they declared Judaism to be no longer a nation, but only a religion, and struck passages about rebuilding the Temple from the prayer book. (The Reform movement has since changed its stance and embraced Zionism, but it still rejects a return to the days of priests and animal sacrifices.)

Back to shabbat, and how it fell short of the ideal, my lentil dish was bland and limp. Fortunately, there were also some really great dishes at the potluck. At last, after lots of eating, talking, and singing, I left and went to the home of my host for the night. It took 45 minutes to walk there, and when I got there her door was locked and repeated knocking yielded no response. There was a miscommunication, I assume. Feeling cold, alone, exhausted, and still somehow dehydrated, I hailed a cab back to A&S's in the 'burbs. Lesson learned: when staying on someone's couch, borrow their extra key.

At least I finally got to do some sleeping. And really Ora is a good place to spend a contemplative afternoon. The wind blows in the pines, the views are great, the neighbor's kids are washing the car and spraying each other with the hose. I hope you are all having a peaceful sabbath, wherever you are.

While the laundry soaks...

I'm at an internet cafe in Tel Aviv while my laundry spins next door. Last night I went to a dance performance here. It was OK but I think their main act is on the road at the moment. The choreography emphasized chaotic shaking...maybe it was a show about epilepsy? I'm sure it took a lot of energy to execute (almost all the dancers were on stage almost the whole time), but there were few moments that were expecially graceful or (aside from the endurance factor) especially athletic. I spent last night with JB in Bat Yam. I admired the way he carried on with the cab driver on our way back from the bars. They both spoke slowly, but naturally, with simple vocabulary. I understood everything they said, yet I knew that I would not have been able to speak readily enough to have that conversation, at least not yet. JB is, as they say, quite a fellow.

The bus on the way back to Tel Aviv this morning made an impromtu route change, so I had to get off and walk a bit. I passed a shoe store called "Gentile Shoes," an old woman playing accordian, and millions of Israeli flags.

Just a quickie

Hi Readers,

I'm at an internet cafe in Jlem waiting to catch a bus to Tel Aviv, so I only have time to write a quick note. On the way over here, I stopped at a little store to buy snacks-some nuts and crackers. There was only one person in line in front of me, but it still took forever because he disputed the total and insisted that the cashier meticulously go through every item's price. In the end, the cashier's total was right, but the amount in question was about $1 on a $30 purchase. This is the second time I've been in line behind someone who did this, and the second time that the cashier was right.

What else is new? Yesterday we had some mean winds. I think they blew in from the south because the air was dusty, as though someone had clapped two giant erasers together. Now things are clearing and warming up, and billowy clouds are riding low over Jerusalem. On Sunday, the ulpan class is taking a field trip to the supreme court. That should be interesting.

And tomorrow is Kol Zimrah, Jerusalem!

Yom HaShoah

Today was Yom HaShoa, Holocaust rememberance day. On Yom Hashoa, at 10 am, a siren sounds in the city, and everyone is supposed to stop what they are doing and stand silently for the duration of the siren. I am told that even cars on the street pull over and the people get out to stand. I was in ulpan what the siren sounded.

Some minutes before the siren, three Arab students got up and left class. This is because the teacher told us that everyone had to stand for the siren. They left so they would not have to stand for the siren, and they came back as soon as the siren was over. These three surprised me: they are good students and speak Hebrew much better than I. They are always attentive and respectful. I suppose leaving the room was less disrespectful than remaining and not standing, but it was insulting nonetheless--to refuse to mourn a crime against humanity simply because the victims were Jewish. Some of the goofier Arab boys in the class waited for the teacher to prod them before they stood, and one made for the door once the siren had started. The teacher breathed fire and said in Hebrew: "You do not leave; you do not move." He stayed. As soon as the siren was over, the goofballs went back to goofing around. All in all, the experience left me feeling pretty uncomfortable in that class.

As an exercise, we read a short text on the Holocaust. First we listened to the text being read on headphones. Then we read it again to ourselves and underlined words we didn't know. For me, every sentence contained words I didn't know, yet I understood perfectly. The story is , of course, very familiar. Finally, we raised our hands to ask the teacher the meaning of words we didn't know. For me, there were many of these, but there were also many words I definitely DID know, words I would know even if I didn't know a word of Hebrew. Therefore, I was shocked to hear Arab students ask the meaning of...

shoah ghetto Treblinka
gaz anti-shemiut

On a happier note, today I got a haircut, IN HEBREW! I came in, said hello, explained what I wanted, asked how much it cost, paid, and said goodbye, without ever asking the barber, "Can you say that in English?" Granted the haircut I wanted was pretty simple, and the barber was the least talkative beauty professional in existence, but still, it's a milestone. Usually I don't get too far into these kinds of transactions before I have to switch to English.

Ulpan and Bible Lands Museum

This morning I went to an ulpan to ask about when classes start, etc. They just sent me to a class! Presumably if I decide to stick around they will ask me to pay some money, but if they don't say anything...

The class was fast-paced. I was exhausted by the end.

Interesting note, the ulpan is held in the same building where Eichmann was tried and hanged. The classroom where we met today was his holding cell. Creepy, huh?

Most of the class was Arabs, which surprised me. I talked to two Arab girls, A and G, after class. A asked me, "So, are you going to emigrate to Israel?"

"I don't know. Maybe many years from now. Not soon," I said.

"But why would you come here? You are from the United States and you want to come here? If I could go to the United States, I would."

I thought about this for a bit, then said, "Well, there are not many Jews in the United States."

"There aren't?" A seemed shocked.

"2 percent. But here there are a lot of Jews. It's hard to be the only one of something."

"I understand that."

After Ulpan, I went to the Bible Lands Museum. It houses a collection of ancient Near Eastern artifacts. The idea is to give information about the many peoples and places mentioned in the bible. It was a good idea on the part of the curators, I think, to organize the museum around a familiar text. There will be a short quote from the bible, for example mentioning the spears and axes of the tribe of Simon, and then a whole section of spears and axes. It gives the pieces some cohesion. The danger, of course, is that the visitor will draw the erroneous conclusion that Simon's axes looked like these, or that Simon necessarily existed at all. The museum did nothing to counter such inferences, and, on the whole took the bible text at face value in a way that seems to me ahistorical.

But, even when the pieces are well organized, you can only look at so many ancient pots and reliefs. I sometimes wonder what the point is of presenting so many "facts" in a museum exhibition. The exhibition inevitably has to gloss over lots of scholarly disputes to get to a smooth presentation of the facts, and in the end it only presents them according to one scholarly opinion. A lot of conjecture goes into history (especially ancient history) and you don't see the conjecture in a museum exhibit unless you go with a very critical eye and probably a lot of background knowledge. What if there were a museum NOT dedicated to presenting loads of historical facts? I mean, the dry facts of history are usually boring and forgettable. What if there were a museum that focused on the questions? Wouldn't it be so much more interesting and engaging to come out of an exhibit with a sense of the broad historical questions that motivate the study of these old helmets and tablets? If you could allow the viewer to see how that same helmet could serve three different theories, you've made the helmet three times as interesting. But I digress.

I liked the section on Tu Bishvat. An ancient Babylonian cunaiform tablet described how the priests would look for Venus in the evening sky on the 15th of their month corresponding to Shevat. If Venus did not rise, that meant the lunar calendar had gotten out of sinc with solar reality, and they would announce the addition of an extra month (Second Adar) to compensate. If Venus rose, no extra month. The exhibit claimed that the Jews first began observing Tu Bishvat after Babylonian exhile, the implication being that they imported the holiday along with the Babylonian calendar. (It did not explain what the new year of the trees had to do with Venus.) Wouldn't it make a cool Tu Bishvat tradition, though, to go out side and observe Venus?

First full day in Jerusalem

I think I said to AS yesterday that I thought I was over my jet lag...I spoke too soon. Spent most of the night wide awake. I took a pill and everything, but I just could not sleep. Finally the sun came up and I figured I might as well just get the day started early. So, full of determination I did stretches, calisthenics, made tea. And then I sat down for a second on the couch around 7 and felt suddenly sleepy. I remember A waking me up to say he was going to work. I remember my phone alarm going off. I woke up around 1 pm.

But I woke up full of resolve! I took my first hot shower of the trip (the hostel only offered cold). I took in the views of Jerusalem from A & S's front yard (see pictures above). I took a bus into the city and spent the day walking around. There was a lot more action compared to yesterday, now that Pesach is over. My guidebook describes Tel Aviv as "down right sexy." It doesn't describe Jerusalem as sexy. Certainly the style is less revealing here, but that doesn't necessarily mean it can't be sexy. For example, I saw several shoe stores doing a booming business in those tall, black leather boots for women. Under a knee-length skirt, they don't show anything, but they are suggestive.

I took a detour around a block that was closed off. Quite a crowd gathered to watch the police blow up a bag that had been left unattended at a bus stop. Turned out to be just clothes inside, to the surprise of no one.

I think it will take me some time to get used to the security presence. Seeing police on the street with big assault rifles is the obvious example, but really it's the less visually obvious stuff that I think will take longer to get used to. For example, just about every cafe and restaurant has a security guard. I ducked into McDonald's just to use the bathroom, but first I had to have my bag searched. There is good reason for it of course, and it is reassuring, but, as I walked down the street today my eyes just kept being drawn to the guards: There's one, there's one, there's another one. And the guards for the most part don't just sit there sleepily, they look back, not threatening, just observing. One is watched as one walks down the street. I'm sure I'll get used to it.

The other two pictures above are a sculpture that I thought looked like a big goldfish mouth and a lovely arbor. To get the full effect of the second one, you have to imagine the smell of barbeque, because there were several families having cook-outs in that park.

I asked for directions twice today. Once I was answered in Hebrew and given wrong information. Once I was answered in English and given correct information.

More Pictures!

I took all these today in Jerusalem. Top left-guy in red
was playing this instrument that looks like a turtle and sounds like a steel drum. I asked him what it was called and he said something like "Alfa." Anyway, it had a very pleasant, exotic sound, so I stayed and listened to him for quite some time.
The rest of the pictures are from my walk today along the ramparts of the old city (in full gear, as you can see). I think my legs are going to be sore. But there were some great sites. If you look inward, you see people's yards, their laundry drying, their kids' toys, their trash. Old Jerusalem is built on so many levels. Except for the main streets, there is no sense of "ground level" universal to the whole city. New was built on top of old, so one is always stepping up and down. It's like a city designed by MC Escher. I had a hard time capturing all of this depth in a photo, though, and I got the sense that people in their yards didn't really want to be on display. I did attempt a picture of a camel through an arrow loop (the walls were built to keep out crusaders).

Pictures!

OK whoops a couple of these are sideways...
sorry about that. To the left is me when I first arrived at the hostel in Tel Aviv. Below is one of the trippy paintings found throughout the hostel.


Then here is a picture of some grown men who were gleefully climbing into the fountain in Jerusalem.

First Post From Israel

I've been in Israel for a few days now, but this is the first chance I've had to blog.

I spent my first two nights in a hostel in Tel Aviv. Actually, I spent my first night partying in Tel Aviv, and I spent the next day in the hostel recovering. So, I have seen what Tel Aviv has to offer at night. Soon I hope to see what it has to offer during the day.

Today I checked out of the hostel and took a shared taxi to Jerusalem. On the way to the bus station, I had to ask for directions a couple of times in Hebrew, both times I was answered in Hebrew, and both times I got the gist of what they were saying. Yay! When I reached the bus station, I went to where the shared taxis were parked and stood there looking quizzical. Immediately, a driver pointed at me and said "Yerushalayim?" I nodded and hopped in. I guess he had already recruited 9 passengers, I made the tenth so we all got in and were on our way in no time. Paying was another thing. The ride cost 25 shekels, I tried to pay with a 100 shekel bill. The driver was stopped at a light at this point, he open his change drawer and said, in English, "Here, take change." I reached in to take my change and he swatted my hand a way. "Don't be primitive!" he said in Hebrew. Then he handed me my change.

When I try to speak Hebrew to people, I am usually successful. If the conversation continues past the opening stages, it generally switches to English. Still, though, I get a kick out of the fact that I am understood at all in Hebrew.

Disburdening

Each stage of my journey, I clear away another responsibility and shed a bunch of stuff. For example, when I left LA, I sent a bunch of stuff home with mom and dad. When I got to New York, I made a major shlep across town in the rain and ditched a bunch of stuff in a storage locker. Then to Connecticut yesterday to get good and rested at RSCF's for today's interview at a well-known educational institution. Class visit...check! Lunch with students...check! Interview...check! Then back to New York, back to the storage locker to ditch more stuff, including my suit. I actually changed out of it in that 3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft metal cube 7 feet up in the air. I walked out of that storage facility, into the cold New York night, DISBURDENED. I am now just a backpack. Everything I need is in a 30 lb bag I can carry anywhere. I was smiling at strangers I passed as I walked through the shadows on that post-industrial Chelsea street, as if to say, "Isn't it cool that I'm totally FREE?"

I am blogging right now from SG and IG's apartment in Brooklyn. Tomorrow I depart for Israel.

Packing for Dummies

I feel like all I've done the last two days is pack and unpack, pack and unpack. I suppose I should get used to it, since that's what I'll be doing for the next two months! Here is all the wisdom I have about packing:

Step 1) Start by packing everything you think you want to bring. Stuff it all into your backpack, then put on your backpack and walk around for a few minutes.
Step 2) Have a back spasm. Nearly fall over backwards. Put the bag down, throw up your hands, and walk away.
Step 3) Take everything out of the bag. Carefully consider each item and only put back the ones that are absolutely essential to life.
Step 4) Put on the backpack. Notice how light it feels. Walk around the neighborhood wearing it, thinking, "Yeah, I could do this!" and get weird looks from people.
Step 5) Compartmentalize! Inside the big bag there should be NOT a bunch of clothes and books and wires all mixed up in each other, but rather a bunch of littler bags. One sack for electronics. One sack for writing utensils. One sack for socks. One sack for underwear. One sack for books, etc.
Step 6) Step back and admire your compartmentalized bag.

I feel like the compartmentalizing represents giving in to the reality that I will be constantly packing and unpacking. By having lots of little bags, I can find what I need and put everything back with a minimum of disruption. That's the idea, anyway.


Last night, I went to a seder. (Happy Passover, everyone.) It was at UCLA Hillel. It was your typical, reform, institutional seder. Lots of 10-person, round tables. Too-salty food. Suspiciously moist brownies. Matzo balls the size and consistency of golf balls.

The seder was led by a rabbinic intern from HUC, rather than by students, which does not speak well of UCLA Hillel, IMO.

I might offend some of my readers by saying this, but in some ways the seder typified reform practice at its worst. The rabbinic intern reminded us several times that asking questions was integral to the seder and to Judaism, and that everyone was encouraged to ask questions and discuss. After each of these reminders, we were instructed to turn the page and hurry on to the next phase of the seder, so that it would not take too long. So, there was really no time for questioning. The readings in the seder packet did raise questions at times, but generally these readings immediately answered their own questions with pat, politically correct sentimentalism. The singing, such as there was, was perfunctory, not joyful. E.g. "Now it's time to sing Dayeinu, but we're only going to do three verses so we don't get bored." By the end, the leader resorted to cheap tactics to get people to sing along: "The mitzvah of singing chad gadya is not complete unless you make animal noises." When the photographer would wander by, we'd try to look interested. Well, it was an institutional seder, so I should not have expected too much.

And, don't get me wrong, I'm not writing off the UCLA Hillel community just because they couldn't muster some students to lead the seder. For all I know, there may be a very dedicated circle of student leaders there who were all home with their families for seder.