Yesterday: The Shuk

Yesterday I took (along with my roommates and one's sister) my first walk to the shuk (rather a long walk, but a nice one).  We caught the end of the Israel Day Parade (I think that's what I was told that it was) on the way, which slowed our progress, but which was rather interesting- mostly what we saw were people representing other countries, marching in the parade.  The proportions were interesting- several countries had a few people dressed in costumes of the typical traditional apparel (almost always women), and then a lot of people with banners, small flags, and smiles.  A number of small children tried to get small flags from the people in the parade- the only one I saw trying it was not doing well, but I saw a few other children leaving the parade with quite a stash.  The people in the parade were not marching, just sort of walking in quite disorganized blobs of humanity.  The rest of the walk was fine, although I was looking around quite a bit, which meant that by the time we got there, I was already fairly "full up", and was not really able to process being at the shuk in a productive way- I was just looking, rather than being able to functionally grocery shop, which we need to do, especially for vegetables and the like.  By partway through the walk back, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed.   Hopefully I'll try it again sometime soon and be more successful, but I'm thinking that it is going to take some time and practice.  Still, the prices were visibly cheaper than the fruit and vegetable stand that we walked by on the way home, so it's going to be something worth the effort in the long run, I imagine.  

We came home and sort of approximated dinner, since we don't have much in the way of "real food" yet, and we were all quite exhausted.  Sadly, the things that we have in the house mostly require bread, and I don't know if the sukkah in front of our building is open to all of us to use, or if it belongs to someone in particular.  It's very awkward, being somewhere new during this holiday- everywhere else I've been, I've known where there was a sukkah I could use without being uncertain.  Perhaps I will go out for a meal today- most of the restaurants have their own sukkah.  

Baruch Dayan HaEmet, or How Do I Respond When I Didn't Really Quite Know the Deceased

Last night, I was up for quite a while in the middle of the night.  I woke up and was feeling too awake to get back to sleep, so I took advantage of that, and rather than trying to wake up very early, as had been my plan, so as to be able to call m parents and  jakal88 , I just called then instead.  It worked out just fine, and I felt much better, emotionally, after getting to talk to them and see them (the webcam isa wonderful thing for this purpose).  However my parents let me know that Ben Sklaver, the older brother of one of my Hebrew School classmates was killed in a terrorist bombing in Afghanistan recently- he had been in the service (I don't know which one) and had served his first tour of duty in Uganda, and then had been called back up to work on some sort of village restoration project in Afghanistan.  While he was doing that, there was a terrorist attack, and he was killed. 

I didn't know him nearly at all- as a kid he was a familiar but distant face among the older kids.  His sister was a classmate of mine in Hebrew school, and one of the nicer ones, although we were never quite friends.  His father was the synagogue president for a while, and since that was during the time when we were the most active at that synagogue, we saw him rather often, and I think he was president when Dad was on the board.  They're not people I ever knew really well, but they were, as a family, a visible part of the backdrop of my life for a long time.  The only story I remember my classmate telling about her brother was that when he was in college (we were, I think, in middle school at the time, but I'm not quite sure- they had a fairly substantial age gap, but I don't remember how much- having now read a couple of the articles about his death- he was about 7 years older than his sister and I), he and his friends made wild efforts to reduce their electricity usage, and saved up the money to buy some luxury item instead- I think a jacuzzi or something of the sort.  Of course, they used a number of battery-powered items instead of ones on the regular wires so as to reduce their electricity bill- I remember objecting that that was just another way of spending the money, not really saving it as much as it seemed.  But it was a rather enchanting story, and until now, it was the first thing that came to mind when his name was mentioned.  

Both this and the recent death of a JTS student whom I knew really only in passing and as the son of the rabbi who had been the Hillel chaplain at Brandeis while I was there have left me saddened but rather confused as to how to respond to the deaths of people whom I don't really know- but who are significant parts of the communities to which I belong.   Rather like the deaths that I encountered this summer in CPE, they both touch me and do not- they are not people with whom I had a lasting connection, but the pain of their loss still reaches out to some extent.  I don't want to be trite and talk about how we are diminished by every loss to the human community- it may or may not be true, but I certainly don't have the sensitivity to be aware of it like that, and I doubt that many people do.  However, at the same time, I cannot pass by these losses without any feeling.  I just don't know the proper way to respond.