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This morning, I found out that my flight home was canceled- or rather, the first leg of it was. So I called the airline company, and could either add another leg to my trip, or leave Sunday. I chose the latter, for the sake of my own sanity, even though it means getting home a few days later. I think I made the right decision- I really hope that I did. It's a disappointment not to see my family quite as soon, but better for my peace of mind in getting my work done and not worrying about packing until afterward. And it was a decision made fairly quickly, so I think it's fine. (But it epitomizes what I hate about airplane travel- train and bus trips may be late, but they're almost never canceled, rerouted or the like.)
I just took my exam for Talmud, which involved memorizing the section of Talmud we studied this semester and reciting it for my teacher. It was a really valuable experience, I think, and I don't think I did badly, although of course, I could feel every time I had to stop and think, or missed a word and had to go back for it (or just gave up because it didn't change the meaning) like a giant gaping hole. At least, I got an "excellent" at the end of it. I took the test starting towards the end of our lunch break, so when I walked out, not only did I have this giant post adrenaline-burst let-down, but everyone else is mostly in class right now. I haven't had that strong a after-I'm-done sort of reaction in quite a while- it feels rather like some of those post-concert or performance moments, when I was really invested in the performance, or a post-audition moment. Certainly, there are similar aspects involved.
It's very hard to use a book in the library that your professor has recommended to most of your class to use for their final papers when someone has Taken It Out. This is, I think, in poor taste, and is frustrating me. So I put in a request for the book- at which point, I hope to read the chapter I need, take my notes, and leave it at that- so it will be there for whomever else needs it. Am I expecting too much of humanity?
On the other hand, I'm doing reasonably with my memorization for Gemara, two papers are nearly done, and I have only one more class for Hebrew. I wanted to start my research for one of the two remaining papers- which is when I ran into this problem. As it is, I imagine that I'll need a day at a better Judaica library than the school one, it seems. Rather frustrating, but off I'll go- I guess on Thursday?
On the other hand, I'm doing reasonably with my memorization for Gemara, two papers are nearly done, and I have only one more class for Hebrew. I wanted to start my research for one of the two remaining papers- which is when I ran into this problem. As it is, I imagine that I'll need a day at a better Judaica library than the school one, it seems. Rather frustrating, but off I'll go- I guess on Thursday?
3 weeks before the end of the semester, I finally know what all my finals will be (and it seems that one of them will be done over the summer, by means of taking an incomplete for a bit, as the teacher would rather give me the test when everyone else will be taking it- aka well after I leave Israel, and I could use the time to prepare, so I'm rather happy for the chance). I've been working on one of them (but it's a halakha paper, and while I think I have nearly all my sources and just need to write about them, besides getting help finding a couple of things that I just can't actually find/can't understand what the acronym is short for, I'm sort of paranoid that I'll miss one or more...), prepping for another (it's a memorization thing) and thinking about a few more of them, but the bulk of the work is yet to come. Not the end of the world- once I get started, things tend to go fairly quickly, but I'm in that stage of alternately working and being anxious, right now.
In the meantime, I'm teaching at 2:30am on Shavuot, on some of the material from one of my finals. So once I do that, writing it up shouldn't be such a big deal. Still, it's one more thing to think about and work on. On the other hand, it's a rather exciting opportunity and chance to practice teaching something like this. Wish me luck!
In the meantime, I'm teaching at 2:30am on Shavuot, on some of the material from one of my finals. So once I do that, writing it up shouldn't be such a big deal. Still, it's one more thing to think about and work on. On the other hand, it's a rather exciting opportunity and chance to practice teaching something like this. Wish me luck!
As I was walking home yesterday, a young girl and her grandfather stopped me to ask how to get to a particular street. I gave them directions and told them I'd show them where it was, as I was walking in the same direction until their turn-off. As we were walking, another woman stopped me, looking for directions to the exact same street. It's a fairly significant street, so it isn't terribly shocking, but still 2 people asking for the same street within 1 block- an amusing coincidence.
H and I went to the park this afternoon, as we do with some reasonable frequency, to exercise- I do some hooping outdoors where there's actually room, and he does some sort of Tai Chi exercises. It's not unusual that we attract some looks, since he's standing very still, and I'm spinning a shiny hoop around myself in various ways. Generally, some group of children or random passerby will ask me about what I'm doing, and maybe about what he's doing, and occasionally some little girl will want to try to hooping. The last few times have been fairly uninterupted, though. (Especially in comparison to when he took out his sword and gave me a demonstration of his primary martial art- that got a number of repetitions of "Is that a real sword?".)
This afternoon, I guess we went out a bit later in the day, and it was the end of the week, or something, because we got an entire birthday party's worth of 8 year old girls first watching, then questioning both of us. They kept talking to me for quite a while, in both Hebrew and English, and I gave them some basic answers, and tried to just keep hooping, since the point of us going out to the park is to be able to work on some stuff I can't do in my living room, etc. Then they asked about what he was doing, and of course, I didn't have many answers- I'm certainly not involved in martial arts at all. So I told them what I could and asked them not to bother him. That only sort of worked- after a while, when they got bored with me, some of them started imitating and mocking him, which really irked me. He mostly ignored them, and then when he was done with a set, he talked to the girl who was left and asked her what she thought the right thing was to do if someone was staying still and had their eyes closed- should you talk to them? After she produced the correct answer of "no", he asked her to tell her friends.
WHen we were done, we went over to talk to some of the parents of these girls, to ask them to talk to their kids about behaving politely to other people minding their own business in the park. One of the mothers said sorry, then started yelling at H for yelling at the girls, because it's a public park and they can do what they want- if he wanted not to be bothered, he should do it in his own private garden. It was a pretty uncomfortable encounter- their kids behaved quite rudely, and they seemed to think that it was just fine, because it was a public park. I really don't understand this Israeli notion that rudeness is fine, as long as it's being done to someone else. I can see that the mother was feeling defensive, but really, saying 'I'm sorry, I'll have a word with them" isn't so hard- even if you don't end up following through on it. I don't see why it's reasonable to yell at someone who is pointing out that your child has offended them....
This afternoon, I guess we went out a bit later in the day, and it was the end of the week, or something, because we got an entire birthday party's worth of 8 year old girls first watching, then questioning both of us. They kept talking to me for quite a while, in both Hebrew and English, and I gave them some basic answers, and tried to just keep hooping, since the point of us going out to the park is to be able to work on some stuff I can't do in my living room, etc. Then they asked about what he was doing, and of course, I didn't have many answers- I'm certainly not involved in martial arts at all. So I told them what I could and asked them not to bother him. That only sort of worked- after a while, when they got bored with me, some of them started imitating and mocking him, which really irked me. He mostly ignored them, and then when he was done with a set, he talked to the girl who was left and asked her what she thought the right thing was to do if someone was staying still and had their eyes closed- should you talk to them? After she produced the correct answer of "no", he asked her to tell her friends.
WHen we were done, we went over to talk to some of the parents of these girls, to ask them to talk to their kids about behaving politely to other people minding their own business in the park. One of the mothers said sorry, then started yelling at H for yelling at the girls, because it's a public park and they can do what they want- if he wanted not to be bothered, he should do it in his own private garden. It was a pretty uncomfortable encounter- their kids behaved quite rudely, and they seemed to think that it was just fine, because it was a public park. I really don't understand this Israeli notion that rudeness is fine, as long as it's being done to someone else. I can see that the mother was feeling defensive, but really, saying 'I'm sorry, I'll have a word with them" isn't so hard- even if you don't end up following through on it. I don't see why it's reasonable to yell at someone who is pointing out that your child has offended them....
I've been having a lot of thoughts about my relationship with exercise, of late. Last summer saw the beginning of a real change in my perspective on exercise. The combination of having a mile walk to and from CPE after living in the same building that housed my classes and minyan for several years, and a wellness and spirituality component to my CPE program (as part of some really interesting research on the relationship of wellness/fitness and spirituality/religion) went a long ways towards reducing my former distrust of exercise as something that is inherently unpleasant and without any noticeable result. Exercise towards the goal of half an hour of exercise, five times a week- well, I didn't get there, but it did feel like a reachable goal. And more than anything, walking outside regularly again, and doing Some other exercise made me Feel better, very quickly. Having learned some exercises that were a little different and therefore less threatening than the traditional push-ups and sit-ups helped too.
Then I had a few months at home, and picked up hooping. I got a hoop that comes into 6 pieces, so I could take it with me to Israel. It's been a big help in exercise that isn't walking. I do Tons of walking here- it's a bit over half an hour's walk to school, so that's an hour of walking built into 4 days a week, plus walking to get anywhere else. But as was pointed out this summer, if I'm already doing lots of walking, past a certain point, more walking isn't going to do very much. So the hooping is exercise, and when no-one else is around, it's dancing too. (At some point, I'll get comfortable enough to really dance with it with people around as well- that's a goal of mine, both in terms of skill and competence as well as in terms of comfort with making myself visible and not being shy about things I can do.)
I sort of lost the other exercises I'd been doing over the summer, though. I've done some other things, various hoop tricks, that work some of the same muscles, but I have these nice exercises that I was enjoying and I lost track of doing them. So a few days ago, H and I were spending a quiet morning together, and decided to spend some time on exercise. So I did a bunch of stretching, and then one or two of those exercises from last summer. (He did some rather more dramatic and impressive sorts of exercise, involving push-ups and the like.) IT felt good to be working on those goals, rather than feeling like a burden. Somehow, those exercises have gotten associated with a certain excitement about exercise, which is still something that quite surprises me to find in my own head.
So I'm still trying to build an actual exercise habit, something steady rather than when-I-remember. And I'm not sure how I'm going to accomplish that next year, back in NYC. However, the general progress in that direction is pretty pleasing and impressive, when I look at the last year's worth of change. (It also sends my thoughts in the direction on "gosh, I really am growing into someone much more like my mother. She's been telling me for years that exercise makes you feel better, that she Needs it to be comfortable in her own skin, etc. And I couldn't stand to believe her, for years. I'm growing into a discovery that she's right- I just had to figure it out for myself.)
Then I had a few months at home, and picked up hooping. I got a hoop that comes into 6 pieces, so I could take it with me to Israel. It's been a big help in exercise that isn't walking. I do Tons of walking here- it's a bit over half an hour's walk to school, so that's an hour of walking built into 4 days a week, plus walking to get anywhere else. But as was pointed out this summer, if I'm already doing lots of walking, past a certain point, more walking isn't going to do very much. So the hooping is exercise, and when no-one else is around, it's dancing too. (At some point, I'll get comfortable enough to really dance with it with people around as well- that's a goal of mine, both in terms of skill and competence as well as in terms of comfort with making myself visible and not being shy about things I can do.)
I sort of lost the other exercises I'd been doing over the summer, though. I've done some other things, various hoop tricks, that work some of the same muscles, but I have these nice exercises that I was enjoying and I lost track of doing them. So a few days ago, H and I were spending a quiet morning together, and decided to spend some time on exercise. So I did a bunch of stretching, and then one or two of those exercises from last summer. (He did some rather more dramatic and impressive sorts of exercise, involving push-ups and the like.) IT felt good to be working on those goals, rather than feeling like a burden. Somehow, those exercises have gotten associated with a certain excitement about exercise, which is still something that quite surprises me to find in my own head.
So I'm still trying to build an actual exercise habit, something steady rather than when-I-remember. And I'm not sure how I'm going to accomplish that next year, back in NYC. However, the general progress in that direction is pretty pleasing and impressive, when I look at the last year's worth of change. (It also sends my thoughts in the direction on "gosh, I really am growing into someone much more like my mother. She's been telling me for years that exercise makes you feel better, that she Needs it to be comfortable in her own skin, etc. And I couldn't stand to believe her, for years. I'm growing into a discovery that she's right- I just had to figure it out for myself.)
Revised from a letter to my parents, because it felt like it was worth sharing more broadly.
Yesterday we had a program through our ISrael education seminar-thing, in which we were sent out in different groups to a variety of schools to see their Yom HaZikaron ceremonies, along with some discussion and processing before and afterwards. I was firmly expecting it to be a weird, alienating and not particularly worthwhile experience for me, so I went in with no real expectations (by which I mean, no expectations of being moved, or anything other than feeling awkward and bored, although I was trying to fight those expectations. There's a power in being open to experiences as they come, and I'm trying to remember that). I ended up going to a pluralistic school, grades 1-12, designed to be half secular kids and half religious kids in each class. I was really impressed at how they built a program that was worthwhile for the whole school, given the age range. They basically divided the program into two parts- for the first part of the ceremony, the little kids were the ones on stage, and the whole school was there. Then, after the siren, the littlest ones left (grades 1-4), and the high school kids took over, and the material was both more artistic and with the sort of emotional power and material that was appropriate for that age group but which wouldn't have been right for say, a first grader. It was pretty fascinating to see- especially finding out that recent alumni tend to come back to their high schools for the ceremony- so scattered among the audience were all these young people in uniforms. I really wonder what those folks were experiencing, from that sort of a program. It was mostly poems, music and short sketches about military losses, along with a couple of personal stories about family members and the like. (The littler kids had mostly shared stories about grandfathers who'd died in some of Israel's earlier wars, a few of them ending with "I'm proud to be named after him", which somehow really hit my heart.)
I found that I was not at all as alienated as I thought I would be. On a theoretical level, I have a hard time quite knowing what to do with these two holidays, which I feel like are mostly Israeli secular holidays. In many ways, this year, my way of finding a connection with Israel and Israeli's is the Jewish peoplehood concept, and the idea that all Jews are family, so a day mourning the losses of the people, even if only those losses that occured in a certain sort of setting, feels like it connects.
I'm doubting that I'll be doing anything special for Yom HaAtzmaut, about which I feel equally confused, in terms of its place in my life. At least thus far, I'm just enjoying it as a day in the midst of the week to get some extra time with H, and if I'm good, perhaps to do some more homework. Still, somehow I'm trying to wrap my head around not wanting to portray the founding of the state of Israel as a proto-messianic event, but not to deny that I think that it is a good thing that the state exists, and that had there been an attempt to found a state and it had then failed, that it would have had pretty lousy effects on the Jewish community. So for sure, it is a secular holiday here, and has some sort of religious impact- there's a notion of saying Hallel- a particular collection of Psalms- on days in which miracles or other major Jewish triumphs occured, for example Hanukkah, and I think that that's pretty appropriate. However, some people try to make it into a major religious event, and I'm really not comfortable with that- I haven't been in the past, and being here has not changed my mind.
And yet I'm aware that it's something significant to the AMerican Jewish community as well, and I don't quite know what to make of that, or what sort of programming ought to be put together for the event. I was at one synagogue a few years ago where they used the Shabbat near to these days to have congregants with different sorts of experiences with Israel speak about those experiences in place of the rabbi giving a sermon, and I found that both interesting and meaningful. That, I think, is something I could get behind. But as far as ritual goes, I just don't know at all.
Last night (for a totally different topic), H and I went out to dinner with this gentleman he's been teaching/doing research for, and his wife- folks probably in their early to mid sixties. (They're in Israel for something like 3 weeks, and he was paying H to find and work through rabbinic sources that he wouldn't have access to on his own due to a lack of strong Hebrew and Aramaic, to help him work on some book he's doing about evolutionary theory and Judaism. H has been alternately interested in the material and frustrated by how much Steve, the guy who hired him, wants to jump around from topic to topic, some of which have lots of material that htey never get to, and others of which are complete duds.) Given several weeks worth of H's reactions to their work together, I was quite unsure as to what the evening would be like, but it turned out to be pretty pleasant. They were very nice folks, and quite involved in their synagogue, which gave me something to talk to them about, besides the stuff H and Steve have been studying, which I was pretty sure was not something that actually interested Steve's wife (it did include a lot of material that interests me, and I've helped H with some of his preparations for working with Steve, so I'd have had what to say, but still...).
Yesterday we had a program through our ISrael education seminar-thing, in which we were sent out in different groups to a variety of schools to see their Yom HaZikaron ceremonies, along with some discussion and processing before and afterwards. I was firmly expecting it to be a weird, alienating and not particularly worthwhile experience for me, so I went in with no real expectations (by which I mean, no expectations of being moved, or anything other than feeling awkward and bored, although I was trying to fight those expectations. There's a power in being open to experiences as they come, and I'm trying to remember that). I ended up going to a pluralistic school, grades 1-12, designed to be half secular kids and half religious kids in each class. I was really impressed at how they built a program that was worthwhile for the whole school, given the age range. They basically divided the program into two parts- for the first part of the ceremony, the little kids were the ones on stage, and the whole school was there. Then, after the siren, the littlest ones left (grades 1-4), and the high school kids took over, and the material was both more artistic and with the sort of emotional power and material that was appropriate for that age group but which wouldn't have been right for say, a first grader. It was pretty fascinating to see- especially finding out that recent alumni tend to come back to their high schools for the ceremony- so scattered among the audience were all these young people in uniforms. I really wonder what those folks were experiencing, from that sort of a program. It was mostly poems, music and short sketches about military losses, along with a couple of personal stories about family members and the like. (The littler kids had mostly shared stories about grandfathers who'd died in some of Israel's earlier wars, a few of them ending with "I'm proud to be named after him", which somehow really hit my heart.)
I found that I was not at all as alienated as I thought I would be. On a theoretical level, I have a hard time quite knowing what to do with these two holidays, which I feel like are mostly Israeli secular holidays. In many ways, this year, my way of finding a connection with Israel and Israeli's is the Jewish peoplehood concept, and the idea that all Jews are family, so a day mourning the losses of the people, even if only those losses that occured in a certain sort of setting, feels like it connects.
I'm doubting that I'll be doing anything special for Yom HaAtzmaut, about which I feel equally confused, in terms of its place in my life. At least thus far, I'm just enjoying it as a day in the midst of the week to get some extra time with H, and if I'm good, perhaps to do some more homework. Still, somehow I'm trying to wrap my head around not wanting to portray the founding of the state of Israel as a proto-messianic event, but not to deny that I think that it is a good thing that the state exists, and that had there been an attempt to found a state and it had then failed, that it would have had pretty lousy effects on the Jewish community. So for sure, it is a secular holiday here, and has some sort of religious impact- there's a notion of saying Hallel- a particular collection of Psalms- on days in which miracles or other major Jewish triumphs occured, for example Hanukkah, and I think that that's pretty appropriate. However, some people try to make it into a major religious event, and I'm really not comfortable with that- I haven't been in the past, and being here has not changed my mind.
And yet I'm aware that it's something significant to the AMerican Jewish community as well, and I don't quite know what to make of that, or what sort of programming ought to be put together for the event. I was at one synagogue a few years ago where they used the Shabbat near to these days to have congregants with different sorts of experiences with Israel speak about those experiences in place of the rabbi giving a sermon, and I found that both interesting and meaningful. That, I think, is something I could get behind. But as far as ritual goes, I just don't know at all.
Last night (for a totally different topic), H and I went out to dinner with this gentleman he's been teaching/doing research for, and his wife- folks probably in their early to mid sixties. (They're in Israel for something like 3 weeks, and he was paying H to find and work through rabbinic sources that he wouldn't have access to on his own due to a lack of strong Hebrew and Aramaic, to help him work on some book he's doing about evolutionary theory and Judaism. H has been alternately interested in the material and frustrated by how much Steve, the guy who hired him, wants to jump around from topic to topic, some of which have lots of material that htey never get to, and others of which are complete duds.) Given several weeks worth of H's reactions to their work together, I was quite unsure as to what the evening would be like, but it turned out to be pretty pleasant. They were very nice folks, and quite involved in their synagogue, which gave me something to talk to them about, besides the stuff H and Steve have been studying, which I was pretty sure was not something that actually interested Steve's wife (it did include a lot of material that interests me, and I've helped H with some of his preparations for working with Steve, so I'd have had what to say, but still...).
The beginning of Pesakh is often a funny sort of process for me- the cleaning always gets done, but never on the schedule that I originally set out, and often I fail to really fully re-straighten things out after the cleaning gets done. This year was no exception, so we have a properly kashered kitchen and everything necessary got cleaned, but it doesn't Look cleaner, because things are still a little haphazard. I find it somehow strange that my space feels cleaner when I straighten than when I really clean and don't finish straightening, but making my bed makes my room feel more prepared for yontif than going through my closet and shelves and refolding everything properly does. I suppose it's a matter of what I can see rather than what I just know, although knowing that I have cleaned well also has a certain persuasive power.
Seder itself was large (22 people), but not as overwhelming as I was afraid that a seder of that size might be. During the meal proper, things did get loud enough that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wotyfree and I retreated to the kitchen in order to be able to hear each other, but otherwise, we managed to all stay together as a group, which was quite impressive, and made a big difference- I was afraid that things would splinter, in the manner of regular meals, into smaller conversations, and for a seder, that would be totally unwieldy.
A high point for me was that a friend brought the pesukim that are drashed out in the haggadah on note cards, one phrase per card, and handed them out to people, and we went around with one verse and got spontaneous midrash/explanation/association for each phrase. It took a while, but took the verses in new directions and felt like a really beautiful window into different people's experiences of the text and their lives. It's a tactic that I'd love to try again, maybe as a way of doing some spiritual exploration in a small group. It's one of those activities that's somewhere on the boundaries of Torah study, spiritual work, bonding and crunchy-granola that I want to play with, but feel a little uncomfortable initiating, because it's a little outside of my usual self-presentation. It's something I would have enjoyed doing with my friends from CPE this summer, and something that would be totally reasonable to do in that context. I want to bring that attitude into the rest of my life, but it's hard to do without feeling like I'm suddenly presenting a different face to the world, and worrying that my friends might not like it as much. I want to show that without implying that it changes the rest of my attitudes and values- shouldn't be so hard, and yet it feels like it is.
Unrelatedly, I read an interesting story online tonight that feels worth sharing. So I will- http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100329/somadeva-f.shtml
Seder itself was large (22 people), but not as overwhelming as I was afraid that a seder of that size might be. During the meal proper, things did get loud enough that
wotyfree and I retreated to the kitchen in order to be able to hear each other, but otherwise, we managed to all stay together as a group, which was quite impressive, and made a big difference- I was afraid that things would splinter, in the manner of regular meals, into smaller conversations, and for a seder, that would be totally unwieldy. A high point for me was that a friend brought the pesukim that are drashed out in the haggadah on note cards, one phrase per card, and handed them out to people, and we went around with one verse and got spontaneous midrash/explanation/association for each phrase. It took a while, but took the verses in new directions and felt like a really beautiful window into different people's experiences of the text and their lives. It's a tactic that I'd love to try again, maybe as a way of doing some spiritual exploration in a small group. It's one of those activities that's somewhere on the boundaries of Torah study, spiritual work, bonding and crunchy-granola that I want to play with, but feel a little uncomfortable initiating, because it's a little outside of my usual self-presentation. It's something I would have enjoyed doing with my friends from CPE this summer, and something that would be totally reasonable to do in that context. I want to bring that attitude into the rest of my life, but it's hard to do without feeling like I'm suddenly presenting a different face to the world, and worrying that my friends might not like it as much. I want to show that without implying that it changes the rest of my attitudes and values- shouldn't be so hard, and yet it feels like it is.
Unrelatedly, I read an interesting story online tonight that feels worth sharing. So I will- http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100329/somadeva-f.shtml
Shabbos meals this week were focused around the visit of some family friends of H's. They came for both dinner and lunch- parents who are in Israel visiting their son, who's spending a year in the midst of college here in yeshiva. The mother of the family was H's pre-school music teacher, and they belong to the same shul as his family, so they're a long-time connection. They turned out to be totally lovely people- very friendly and warm. The awkward part of Friday night was just that they had gone to some event at their son's yeshiva for Friday night davening, and said yeshiva is on the other side of town from our neighborhood. Then they got lost on the way over. So they didn't show up at H's place until after 9:30pm. It made for quite a late start to dinner, but since they were our only guests, we just hung out and waited for them. It turned out to be a very nice meal, just oddly timed.
They returned for lunch, along with another friend of H's from his hometown, andzodiacmg, who was looking for plans, and was pleasantly someone else who didn't know all subjects of the hometown news. (Look, I Like hometown news- engagements, babies, etc. But when I'm the only one who doesn't know the topics of conversation, it gets a smidge awkward after a while. This way, I had someone to talk to while they discussed shul politics and the like.)
Like last week, we ended up with some leftovers, but nowhere near as many (which is excellent, since unlike last week, we don't have all week to eat up said leftovers. Last week the fish soup lasted through sometime on Thursday.), and the current plan is to have some of them for lunch, as a break in the midst of our respective cleaning processes... Tomorrow will be crazy, with the shopping, cleaning, and the like. (But I have a repaired sandal- it started to break on Thursday so I took it to be fixed on Friday, and the guy said: "half an hour", so I got a sun hat, which I needed anyways, and two skirts, and now have new and exciting clothing for the holiday, something to keep the sun off my face, and a sandal that oughtn't break over yontif. All in half an hour, not too far from home.)
They returned for lunch, along with another friend of H's from his hometown, and
zodiacmg, who was looking for plans, and was pleasantly someone else who didn't know all subjects of the hometown news. (Look, I Like hometown news- engagements, babies, etc. But when I'm the only one who doesn't know the topics of conversation, it gets a smidge awkward after a while. This way, I had someone to talk to while they discussed shul politics and the like.) Like last week, we ended up with some leftovers, but nowhere near as many (which is excellent, since unlike last week, we don't have all week to eat up said leftovers. Last week the fish soup lasted through sometime on Thursday.), and the current plan is to have some of them for lunch, as a break in the midst of our respective cleaning processes... Tomorrow will be crazy, with the shopping, cleaning, and the like. (But I have a repaired sandal- it started to break on Thursday so I took it to be fixed on Friday, and the guy said: "half an hour", so I got a sun hat, which I needed anyways, and two skirts, and now have new and exciting clothing for the holiday, something to keep the sun off my face, and a sandal that oughtn't break over yontif. All in half an hour, not too far from home.)
I had another very early morning today, followed by a lovely morning nap (to make up for having spontaneously woken up at 5:20am). Other events of the day involved lunch with my roommates (gnocchi and tomatoes), a lecture on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and discussion about it and other recent speakers we've heard from in our Israeli education programing, a walk with H, finishing off 3 different crochet projects (one large lacy kippah for myself, a regular kippah that found a home with a classmate, and a doily that just needs to have its ends trimmed and then to be blocked tomorrow), and starting another (a kippah for another classmate). While doing the last, I hung out with one of the roommates while we listened to Tom Lehrer and she worked on cleaning her room. So it was a day full of tastes of different activities.
Tomorrow, there's the usual share of shopping, baking, cleaning, learning leyning and other such shabbos preparations. We'll see what else I fit into the day. Perhaps it will also involve a more interesting LJ post, we'll see. (Lately I've been doing a lot of diary writing, which takes some of the exciting stuff away from LJ, but it's so intertwined with things that really are more diary material than LJ material that that's what I need to be writing. It's an interesting balance to be noticing as I go.)
Tomorrow, there's the usual share of shopping, baking, cleaning, learning leyning and other such shabbos preparations. We'll see what else I fit into the day. Perhaps it will also involve a more interesting LJ post, we'll see. (Lately I've been doing a lot of diary writing, which takes some of the exciting stuff away from LJ, but it's so intertwined with things that really are more diary material than LJ material that that's what I need to be writing. It's an interesting balance to be noticing as I go.)
We've been 4 in our apartment for not even a week, currently, so we're still re-adjusting, but having roommate #3 (excluding myself, of course- she's #4, if I'm counting us all) is going well. I keep getting surprised to find someone else up and around in the morning at times when neither of the other roommates are generally up (unless they can't sleep). Before, most mornings I was quite on my own from when I got up until when I left for school, unless I was having a late morning at home. Still, she and I were pretty good pals, mechina year, and haven't seen anywhere near as much of each other since, so having a chance to reconnect in a serious way is something I've been looking forward to.
She and I tried out learning together for Talmud, since my chevrusa from last semester had to drop the class in order to finish up a bunch of other work (it's his last semester of rabbinical school and he's done with his Talmud requirement). It wasn't bad, especially considering that she was horridly jetlagged and hadn't slept, but she decided that the class was too disorganized for her taste (and it is pretty random, I must admit, and my teacher is not a particularly dynamic lecturer or teacher- he is brilliant, but a master of pedagogy he's not), and so she moved down a level. I was briefly pretty nervous about being stuck learning on my own, but I told a friend in the class over shabbos, and his reaction was "ok, you can learn with my chevrusa and me", which is what I did today, and it went pretty well. So I should be alright with that, at least. We'll see what happens in halakha tomorrow, since my chevruta from last semester is not at Schechter this semester. We'll also have a different teacher, so it should be a different experience. Given my very mixed feelings about it last semester, this should be an interesting change- this teacher has a Very different approach to halakha than our last one did, and I have no idea of how he's going to teach the class.
Speaking of learning, H and I are going to start doing some learning together tomorrow evening- the current plan is to make and eat dinner together, then do some gemara. I'm a little bit intimidated, it's been a while since I've been the one without as much background or text skills, but I'm also looking forward to it.
Tomorrow morning my friend whom I've been teaching to read Torah is doing so for the first time. The problem is that I have class at 8:30, which means that I can't really get to hear him and get to school on time. I am finding this rather hard, as I don't really know what to do, since I want to be there for him, and because he's also leaving Israel very shortly, heading back to Germany. Perhaps I can make it for long enough to hear him, and then run out and catch a bus towards school, or maybe just splurge and take a cab, which might make things actually sort of possible.
She and I tried out learning together for Talmud, since my chevrusa from last semester had to drop the class in order to finish up a bunch of other work (it's his last semester of rabbinical school and he's done with his Talmud requirement). It wasn't bad, especially considering that she was horridly jetlagged and hadn't slept, but she decided that the class was too disorganized for her taste (and it is pretty random, I must admit, and my teacher is not a particularly dynamic lecturer or teacher- he is brilliant, but a master of pedagogy he's not), and so she moved down a level. I was briefly pretty nervous about being stuck learning on my own, but I told a friend in the class over shabbos, and his reaction was "ok, you can learn with my chevrusa and me", which is what I did today, and it went pretty well. So I should be alright with that, at least. We'll see what happens in halakha tomorrow, since my chevruta from last semester is not at Schechter this semester. We'll also have a different teacher, so it should be a different experience. Given my very mixed feelings about it last semester, this should be an interesting change- this teacher has a Very different approach to halakha than our last one did, and I have no idea of how he's going to teach the class.
Speaking of learning, H and I are going to start doing some learning together tomorrow evening- the current plan is to make and eat dinner together, then do some gemara. I'm a little bit intimidated, it's been a while since I've been the one without as much background or text skills, but I'm also looking forward to it.
Tomorrow morning my friend whom I've been teaching to read Torah is doing so for the first time. The problem is that I have class at 8:30, which means that I can't really get to hear him and get to school on time. I am finding this rather hard, as I don't really know what to do, since I want to be there for him, and because he's also leaving Israel very shortly, heading back to Germany. Perhaps I can make it for long enough to hear him, and then run out and catch a bus towards school, or maybe just splurge and take a cab, which might make things actually sort of possible.
Today was mostly taken up with a Makom trip to Tel Aviv to meet with folk doing various sorts of social justice work. It continued my pattern of late of going new places and first seeing the worst parts of the city and meeting the people who offer services there, and encountering the rest of the city only later. (In Syracuse, we had a tour of the inner city and soup kitchens, food pantries, etc during our orientation week at the hospital, which meant that those were some of the first places I saw in town. In Tel Aviv, the first places I have now seen are south Tel Aviv, which is apprently not where people go when they visit, as it's where the bad neighborhoods are. We walked through a park that used to be quite empty until recently and was referred to as "Drug Addicts' Park".)
The speakers were quite good, and prompted an interesting discussion between one of my roommates and I afterward. The question was whether the study of Jewish texts is inherently a religious act for a Jew doing the study or not. One of the places we went was a secular yeshiva (we were there because they also do a lot of social action work, and purposefully are located in a really poor neighborhood, etc, and because for some reason JTS keeps working on building ties with them, I don't know why), and their thing was that these texts are part of Jewish culture, and one can study them without it having anything to do with religion. I felt like that was too simplistic, since they are texts written in a religious context, for religious purposes, and that is also their history and significance. On the other hand, I'm not going to tell people that they're doing something religious when they don't want to hear it.
This evening, H and I had made plans to get together for dinner and Boggle. He brought both dinner and Boggle over, and we had a very pleasant evening with scattered involvement from my roommates. So now I have leftovers, and he has a kippah I made him (the one he's been wearing is looking pretty faded, and given that this is one of those Things I Do, it only made sense...) We just missed out on making Shabbos meal plans together, but I'll swing by his place after shabbos lunch, most likely.
The speakers were quite good, and prompted an interesting discussion between one of my roommates and I afterward. The question was whether the study of Jewish texts is inherently a religious act for a Jew doing the study or not. One of the places we went was a secular yeshiva (we were there because they also do a lot of social action work, and purposefully are located in a really poor neighborhood, etc, and because for some reason JTS keeps working on building ties with them, I don't know why), and their thing was that these texts are part of Jewish culture, and one can study them without it having anything to do with religion. I felt like that was too simplistic, since they are texts written in a religious context, for religious purposes, and that is also their history and significance. On the other hand, I'm not going to tell people that they're doing something religious when they don't want to hear it.
This evening, H and I had made plans to get together for dinner and Boggle. He brought both dinner and Boggle over, and we had a very pleasant evening with scattered involvement from my roommates. So now I have leftovers, and he has a kippah I made him (the one he's been wearing is looking pretty faded, and given that this is one of those Things I Do, it only made sense...) We just missed out on making Shabbos meal plans together, but I'll swing by his place after shabbos lunch, most likely.
Today was the start of second semester, which ended up meaning me checking out two bible classes, one on the Wisdom Literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job), and the other on the stories of the prophets- i.e. on stories about them rather than the contents of their prophecy. Both were interesting, and I should really choose one, and I don't know which one to choose. The former had some nice proof texts, and was very easy to follow, but didn't feel likely to be very intellectually intense, besides being a class in Hebrew for Israelis. The latter was a bit more intellectually involved, and I think I'd have to stay pretty well on my toes to follow it- but I've spent more time on the material before.
The other class I had was a medieval mysticism class that I thought would be mostly stuff I knew, and might or might not be- he won't give us a syllabus until next week. I think it'll technically be stuff that I haven't studied before, but the first class did not really impress me. Also, class is in the Beit Midrash which is also where davening takes place, and our teacher was packing up when mincha began. His response was "oh, what is this? mincha? I'm out of here- I don't pray". It was not the smoothest or most comfortable thing to hear from someone who said at the beginning of class that he specifically was interested in teaching rabbinical students... (Also, I think he might actually be Israeli, unlike pretty much every other teacher we have, who are all English speaking olim- so of course, he's teaching in English.)
After school, I headed out to brand new territory for me in order to be part of a panel on different Jewish movements, as a favor for my Talmud chevruta's girlfriend. So I got to represent Conservative Judaism to a bunch of 18 and 19 year old Australian Jews. The kids asked some pretty tough questions, but were delightfully respectful and thoughtful in doing so. We were invited to stay for dinner, which I did, and had some one-on-one conversation with some of the kids, who were very thoughtful and remarkably interested in what I had to say. I've never been a panelist before- it was quite an experience. Invariably, someone would say something after me that I wish I had said, or that I wanted to counter or argue with. After dinner they did a creative ma'ariv service that was cute, although I very much had to put on my interfaith service hat for it to work for me.
Then I decided to walk home, because I didn't feel like waiting for the bus. On impulse, I reached for my phone to see if I'd gotten any calls, and lo and behold, H had called to see how my day was. I called him back, and it was a good thing that I did- I got a little bit turned around while walking home, and he stayed on the phone with me, with map in hand, and got me re-oriented and back on familiar turf before we hung up. I keep being surprised when he calls or otherwise does something nice- it's kind of exciting, although it also sometimes feels like I'm not quite realizing that this is real, on some level, yet.
The other class I had was a medieval mysticism class that I thought would be mostly stuff I knew, and might or might not be- he won't give us a syllabus until next week. I think it'll technically be stuff that I haven't studied before, but the first class did not really impress me. Also, class is in the Beit Midrash which is also where davening takes place, and our teacher was packing up when mincha began. His response was "oh, what is this? mincha? I'm out of here- I don't pray". It was not the smoothest or most comfortable thing to hear from someone who said at the beginning of class that he specifically was interested in teaching rabbinical students... (Also, I think he might actually be Israeli, unlike pretty much every other teacher we have, who are all English speaking olim- so of course, he's teaching in English.)
After school, I headed out to brand new territory for me in order to be part of a panel on different Jewish movements, as a favor for my Talmud chevruta's girlfriend. So I got to represent Conservative Judaism to a bunch of 18 and 19 year old Australian Jews. The kids asked some pretty tough questions, but were delightfully respectful and thoughtful in doing so. We were invited to stay for dinner, which I did, and had some one-on-one conversation with some of the kids, who were very thoughtful and remarkably interested in what I had to say. I've never been a panelist before- it was quite an experience. Invariably, someone would say something after me that I wish I had said, or that I wanted to counter or argue with. After dinner they did a creative ma'ariv service that was cute, although I very much had to put on my interfaith service hat for it to work for me.
Then I decided to walk home, because I didn't feel like waiting for the bus. On impulse, I reached for my phone to see if I'd gotten any calls, and lo and behold, H had called to see how my day was. I called him back, and it was a good thing that I did- I got a little bit turned around while walking home, and he stayed on the phone with me, with map in hand, and got me re-oriented and back on familiar turf before we hung up. I keep being surprised when he calls or otherwise does something nice- it's kind of exciting, although it also sometimes feels like I'm not quite realizing that this is real, on some level, yet.
Purim turned out pretty well this year. It's never a holiday that I find entirely comfortable, but this one worked out. I'd spent Sunday afternoon hanging out with H, finishing up some baking, doing some origami and talking. We had dinner and then I headed home to get my costume on- I went with th eextremely traditional this year and went as Queen Esther, since very few folks in my age group seem to do those costumes, and it was something that I could put together with some shabbos clothes, jewelry and a scarf. (I hung a necklace under my scarf so the pendant hung on my forehead, and did the scarf up with a sort of crown effect- I thought it was pretty nifty. Really, those sorts of costumes feel like a way for my inner child to get a chance to play dress up in a classically girly way. Hey, I'm not much of a drinker, so I've got to metaphorically let my hair down in some way for the holiday.)
The evening megillah reading went well (although I was late to davening, which given my usual tendency towards being quite early was not a good thing for me to do to the poor gabbayim). Afterward, I tagged along with some friends to a Purim party given by someone whom I thought I didn't know, and then realized I'd met at a Pesakh lunch a few years ago, in Boston. (I remembered it, she didn't, although she thought it was quite plausible.) We were there early on, so it was pretty quiet and reasonable. On the way home, we ran into a whole bunch of people I knew- Pardes folks primarily.
I messed up in a rather silly way during the morning megillah reading, and generally just felt like I wasn't quite focused enough. Still, it wasn't terrible. Afterwards, I delivered one or two mishloach manot of my own, and met up with H and we walked together to deliver a few of his. Then, after dropping some stuff off at each of our apartments, we went to a Purim party some friends of mine were having. And in the evening, almost right before Purim was over, we went to seudah at the home of an older couple that he's friends with. We were six people total, and while everyone was encouraged to have some wine, it was quite reasonable. There was good Torah discussed, and I felt quite comfortable being part of the discussion. It was a much better sort of Purim seudah for me than the big communal events, which are generally a lot of fun but also often overwhelm me. It's also nice to get a chance to be with some folks from a different generation, here and there. These folks are a bit younger than my grandparents, but very much feel like they're in that generation. So it turned out quite well.
The evening megillah reading went well (although I was late to davening, which given my usual tendency towards being quite early was not a good thing for me to do to the poor gabbayim). Afterward, I tagged along with some friends to a Purim party given by someone whom I thought I didn't know, and then realized I'd met at a Pesakh lunch a few years ago, in Boston. (I remembered it, she didn't, although she thought it was quite plausible.) We were there early on, so it was pretty quiet and reasonable. On the way home, we ran into a whole bunch of people I knew- Pardes folks primarily.
I messed up in a rather silly way during the morning megillah reading, and generally just felt like I wasn't quite focused enough. Still, it wasn't terrible. Afterwards, I delivered one or two mishloach manot of my own, and met up with H and we walked together to deliver a few of his. Then, after dropping some stuff off at each of our apartments, we went to a Purim party some friends of mine were having. And in the evening, almost right before Purim was over, we went to seudah at the home of an older couple that he's friends with. We were six people total, and while everyone was encouraged to have some wine, it was quite reasonable. There was good Torah discussed, and I felt quite comfortable being part of the discussion. It was a much better sort of Purim seudah for me than the big communal events, which are generally a lot of fun but also often overwhelm me. It's also nice to get a chance to be with some folks from a different generation, here and there. These folks are a bit younger than my grandparents, but very much feel like they're in that generation. So it turned out quite well.
After minyan this morning, I walked over to school to meet with our assistant dean (or whatever he is), and revamped my schedule for the coming semester. I had sat in on the higher level Hebrew class once at the end of last semester, and in most ways it had seemed like a better fit for me- the only thing I'm worried about is my speaking ability. But since that wasn't being pushed or improved much in the other class, we decided that it would be good for me to try the higher level Hebrew. The higher level Hebrew was, however, at the same time as the required Tanakh class for folks in both the lower Hebrew levels (a class I wasn't particularly looking forward to, since I was fairly sure it was likely to be not particularly high level itself, since they seem to have a hard time understanding that some folks are skilled with reading rabbinic Hebrew without having good Modern Hebrew skills). So I also picked a couple of options for a different Tanakh class, depending on what still has room available. One of them looked really exciting: a course on the Writings (Tanakh/Bible being divided into 3 sections, this being the last of them, the part that isn't Pentateuch or Prophets). We also talked about the Introduction to Medieval Kabbalah course, about which I am tentative, having already taken a higher level Kabbalah course last year. So I'm going to email my deans back in the states about whether or not I should get an exemption, and probably go to the first day of class and see the syllabus. I'll therefore also be trying out a class on the stories of Rav Nachman, which looked pretty exciting. Even if I end up staying in the Kabbalah course, I may keep the Rav Nachman class as well- it seems like it could be quite interesting, and it's been far too long since I've studied Hasidut.
I spent the afternoon at home and grocery shopping, and then went to teach a Torah reading lesson to a friend. While there, I found out that another friend, with whom I was supposed to bake tomorrow night, was canceling on me, but my leyning-student-friend is going to come over to bake with me and get a little extra practice in. We signed him up to do his first-ever Torah reading the week following next, before he leaves Israel, so making time for some more practice is good, and I wanted company and he's never made Hamentaschen, so it should be a good combination. And I'd been pretty bummed out, briefly, and this solved that problem. (I'm baking bread withwotyfree on Friday- it's going to be a very social baking-intensive few days.)
In the meantime, tomorrow is a fast day, and I'll have leyning and Esther reading to learn, but mostly I'll probably make it a quiet day at home. And now it's about bedtime.
I spent the afternoon at home and grocery shopping, and then went to teach a Torah reading lesson to a friend. While there, I found out that another friend, with whom I was supposed to bake tomorrow night, was canceling on me, but my leyning-student-friend is going to come over to bake with me and get a little extra practice in. We signed him up to do his first-ever Torah reading the week following next, before he leaves Israel, so making time for some more practice is good, and I wanted company and he's never made Hamentaschen, so it should be a good combination. And I'd been pretty bummed out, briefly, and this solved that problem. (I'm baking bread with
wotyfree on Friday- it's going to be a very social baking-intensive few days.)In the meantime, tomorrow is a fast day, and I'll have leyning and Esther reading to learn, but mostly I'll probably make it a quiet day at home. And now it's about bedtime.
Why do I go out for coffee, when both I and the other person order tea, but have people over for tea, even if we end up drinking hot chocolate or whatever? Not a real question, just a funny thought.
I bought a new diary today. I've been having a real desire to write with pen on paper lately, which I haven't wanted to do in ages (I didn't bring my most recent diary with me because it had only 5ish pages left, and I write in it fairly infrequently, since most things go here on LJ). Lately however, that's where I've wanted to do a bunch of processing, and doing it in a book is much nicer and wiser, so I went out and found a new diary. It's amazing how good it feels to write in a diary, once in a while. It feels very different from typing. Usually I don't like slowing down enough to write by hand when I don't need to (although I always take notes by hand; I can't imagine doing it on computer without learning less). But there's an intimacy to handwriting that sometimes I want and need. It's nothing profound, but my head feels a little cleaner afterward. Maybe I'll even get my mind clear enough for this space to turn a little more thoughtful than it has been of late.
I bought a new diary today. I've been having a real desire to write with pen on paper lately, which I haven't wanted to do in ages (I didn't bring my most recent diary with me because it had only 5ish pages left, and I write in it fairly infrequently, since most things go here on LJ). Lately however, that's where I've wanted to do a bunch of processing, and doing it in a book is much nicer and wiser, so I went out and found a new diary. It's amazing how good it feels to write in a diary, once in a while. It feels very different from typing. Usually I don't like slowing down enough to write by hand when I don't need to (although I always take notes by hand; I can't imagine doing it on computer without learning less). But there's an intimacy to handwriting that sometimes I want and need. It's nothing profound, but my head feels a little cleaner afterward. Maybe I'll even get my mind clear enough for this space to turn a little more thoughtful than it has been of late.
Iwent to Naot Kedumim (the Biblical Gardens/Forest/Zoo place) today with a friend who's been staying with me for a few days. (There were going to be other folks coming, but they couldn't make it.) The actual time there was lovely- the informational packet/self-guided tour materials were pretty inconsistent: some stops had lots of quite precise information, others were pretty random and just poetic descriptions with little information. But the assortment of quotes from Tanakh and Talmud was pretty nifty, and I got some lovely pictures of plants and the like.
However, the travel was quite adventurous. In order to get there, the directions we were given involved leaving on a bus that started in Me'ah Shearim, so we had to take one bus to get there, then another bus from a different bus company, and then we were supposed to switch to another bus from that same company. So we get off the second bus, and find the right stop at which to wait for the third and final bus to get there. Well, half an hour later, we're still waiting, and getting impatient. So my friend calls the bus company- turns out the bus only comes once an hour, and it should have come while we were standing there. So we wait for the next one. As we're waiting, we look at a bus map for the Other bus company that stops there, and find that they have a bus that goes where we are going also. In theory, the bus we were originally waiting for should have showed up first, but it did not, so we took our other option. (In fact, the whole time, both going and returning, we never saw either of the two buses that we theoretically needed going in the correct direction). The whole nonsense meant that it took us almost 3 hours to get where we were going, which is about as long as we spent at the gardens themselves. It was fun, but quite absurd. Coming home was significantly faster, but still time consuming. I still feel like there ought to have been a better way to manage it, but I haven't figured one out.
This evening I had tea with a friend. Tonight, sometime while I'm asleep, one of my roommates should be returning. I'm going to go do the dishes shortly so that she returns to a reasonably presentable home (not that there are So many dishes, just as a sort of good-will gesture).
However, the travel was quite adventurous. In order to get there, the directions we were given involved leaving on a bus that started in Me'ah Shearim, so we had to take one bus to get there, then another bus from a different bus company, and then we were supposed to switch to another bus from that same company. So we get off the second bus, and find the right stop at which to wait for the third and final bus to get there. Well, half an hour later, we're still waiting, and getting impatient. So my friend calls the bus company- turns out the bus only comes once an hour, and it should have come while we were standing there. So we wait for the next one. As we're waiting, we look at a bus map for the Other bus company that stops there, and find that they have a bus that goes where we are going also. In theory, the bus we were originally waiting for should have showed up first, but it did not, so we took our other option. (In fact, the whole time, both going and returning, we never saw either of the two buses that we theoretically needed going in the correct direction). The whole nonsense meant that it took us almost 3 hours to get where we were going, which is about as long as we spent at the gardens themselves. It was fun, but quite absurd. Coming home was significantly faster, but still time consuming. I still feel like there ought to have been a better way to manage it, but I haven't figured one out.
This evening I had tea with a friend. Tonight, sometime while I'm asleep, one of my roommates should be returning. I'm going to go do the dishes shortly so that she returns to a reasonably presentable home (not that there are So many dishes, just as a sort of good-will gesture).
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