Shanah Tova!

Dear loyal "of the sands and the cliffs" readers:

Shanah Tova! From my home, to yours, let me wish you a sweet 5769, filled with lots of love, happiness, health, smiles, learning, and fun. May all of your wishes and requests rain down upon you. May you be written and signed in the book of life. I wish you all the best.

With love,

Yoel

PS I have a very busy and excited Rosh Hashonah planned in the next 48 hours. While I'm sad to not be home and with my family, if there's anywhere else I would be satisfied being for the chagim, it's here. I'll write all about it during the Days of Awe, when my internet is not longer sketchy (b'ezrat hasehm) and I'm not in a rush to get all of my pre-chag cooking and cleaning done. The phrases above are loosely translated from the RH Hebrew class I had yesterday. In all seriousness, for those that celebrate it, Happy New Year, and for those that don't, Happy October!

Rain

This weekend, it rained. In Jerusalem. In September. It’s been a very early-autumn atmosphere the last week or so, warm during the day, with some scattered clouds, obscuring direct (and sweat-inducing) sunlight; and then cool at night. It’s been a lovely change.

But Friday, in the early afternoon, I was walking to lunch with Lisa, and she kept saying, “Oh it’s going to rain today. We’re getting our first rain today. I just felt a rain drop? Didn’t you just feel that? It’s going to rain today.” I was slightly dubious, although the clouds scattered in the sky did look and feel ominous and dark, like any rain cloud that is very pregnant with rain and cannot wait to expel it’s little baby droplets. But I shrugged it off: it’s September! When does it rain in September?

Well, apparently in 2008. We’re walking through Independence Park on our way to Tmol Shilshon’s scrumptious Friday morning brunch buffet, when I see droplets on my Naot, staining my leather. Uh-oh. I look up, and get two drops right in the eye. Jerks. So, yes, it’s raining. Well, at this point rain is a generous term. It’s sprinkling; but it’s still warm and slightly muggy. It feels very much like LA weather.

The rest of the day it sprinkles a little, but nothing too extreme. Friday night, as I’m heading to bed after a wonderful Shabbat dinner, I hear a crash and an explosion of rain. Not just a sprinkling, but instead a downpour. A real raining. It’s a very pleasant sound to fall asleep to.

Saturday, Meredith and Ari come over for a French Toast/movie/challah-making lazy Shabbat, and when they walk in, they’re pretty wet – because they got rained on. And then periodically throughout the afternoon, the skies open up and throngs of rain come crashing down. It’s marvelous. Apparently it rained all over the country, and in my book this is a great sign. Israel desperately needs one wet winter to help ease its water shortage, and if this is that winter, it’s going to be a doozy.

second temple history tiyul

As part of our Second Temple history class, we went on a two-parted tiyul this past Thursday. In the morning we went to the Israel museum (which is sadly undergoing major construction this year and so the bulk of the museum is closed) to see a model of Jerusalem in the late second temple period - c. 66 CE - and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the afternoon we went to the Old City to see a Herodian-era house/museum, as well as walk around the excavations on the southern end of the Western Wall.

Before continuing, a word about the class. The period of the Second Temple lasts from c. 536 BCE, when the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonians and allowed the Jews to return to Canaan/Judea/Palestine/Israel and rebuild their temple, until 70/73 CE, when the Roman army under the command of Vespasian and his son Titus destroyed the Temple, Jerusalem, and Jewish communities (including Masada) south of the Galilee. It's an incredibly rich and complicated period in Jewish history; in those 600 years, the Jews in Judea lived under Persian, Greek, Seleucid, Maccabee/Hasmonean (self), and Roman rule. It's a period in Jewish history marked by a broad corpus of diverse literature, religious/spiritual development, and deep political strife and sectarianism. In classical Zionist thought, it's the last period in Jewish history worth discussing. It's a period I've studied in college no less than 6 times, which makes this class a 7th (or 8th, depending on how you count), and therefore a somewhat redundant review in my eyes. But I go, and sit, and do homework for other classes, or write blog entires, or gchat.

That being said, the trip itself was actually a lot of fun. I'm not crazy about the professor - he's a very scattered lecturer and has a hard time making coherent sentances. Second Temple History is a subject I find fascinating (hence the inordinate amount of times I've studied it) and he manages to make it both boring and hard to understand. Which saddens me. But on the tiyul he was much more focused and coherent, clear and concise. It was a very enjoyable educational experience. The time in the old city was also pretty interesting; by the late afternoon, when we were there, the sun was setting and the weather was perfect and the shadows on the excavated ruins of Byzantine, early Arab, and late second temple period was a fantastic setting to listen and learn.

And now some photos!


The model of Second Temple Jerusalem, c. 66 CE



Fellow classmates looking at the model



My professor lecturing under Robinson's Arch



The southern wall of the Temple Mount



The excavations of a Byzantine house

Selichot

Selichot is a service (or a series of services) that occurs the week before Rosh Hashonah. It's a series of penitentiary or apologetic prayers that get us in the correct mindset as we approach Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur and the days of awe (the ten days between the two holidays). It starts the Saturday night before RH (unless RH is very early in the week, then it's two Saturday nights before, in order to give four days of saying Selichot). Because Selichot isn't a normal service, and it's mainly Medieval poetry and hymns and sung biblical texts, it traditionally is said between the evening service and the morning service - meaning very late at night, or very, very early in the morning.

Last night, the HUC liturgy teachers took us to the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem (the "headquarters" of the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbinate in Israel and a super ultra-orthodox synagogue) for the Selichot service at 10:30PM. Since it's an orthodox congregation, the men and women sat separately - in this synagogue, the men are downstairs and the women are in an upstaris gallery. Many students - male and female - wwe upset about beign required to attend this service: "This isn't how I like to daven, so don't make me do something I don't want to."

To that I say: Poppycock! It's an educational experience. Let's learn something new by experiencing some part pof Judaism we're not comfortable with or used to. We're in Jerysalem for god's sake! Let's take advantage of that!

Ok, no more ranting. The service itself was bizarre. The cantor and choir are world renowned, and were amazing. It was beautiful music, sounding very medieval or renaissance, very Thomas Tallis-esque and a symphonic cacophony. But they sang in a very "high synagogue" style, very operatic, which made it hard to understand the words they were singing, consequently making it difficult, really for everyone in our group, to follow along. It was also a very long, and very slow service - they really dragged out the prayers, albeit in a beautiful way - and I may or may not have dozed off on a few occasions. But it was a very, very interesting learning experience and I'm very glad to have had it. It some ways, I feel much more emotionally and spiritually prepared for RH and YK and the days of awe. I'm excited and looking forward to experiencing the chagim in Jerusalem and with HUC and my friends here. I think it's going to be a very memorable year.

Adam has arrived

and it's great to have him here.

He came into Israel Tuesday morning; ironically, a few hours after I left on the New Jew Tiyul. So we missed each other, and then he was here alone for 3 days while I was gallivanting up north. When I got back Thursday night, he was here, awaiting my arrival. I hadn't seen him since early June, so we had a lot of catching up to do, and then just some "roommate" bonding.

It's strange to start thinking of Adam as a roommate, as well as a close friend, and I think it will take some getting used to. We just went shopping together and it was a strange experience. We have very different plans of what to buy and cook with and eat (I like cereal, he doesn't; I like to drink juice, he doesn't). Mostly it's me going maximal and Adam going minimal. Little things. I'm sure it'll work out over the year, but it was our first time and slightly awkward and new.

But I'm so excited to have him here for the year. I think having a close friend, especially since it's Adam, will make the year easier, more fun, and just better.

Shabbat Shalom!

In search of the New Jew

As part of our Israel Seminar, this past week we took a three day tiyul (field trip) to the Golan Heights, to learn about this part of Israel, its role in the formation of the Zionist movement and the state, and its role in Israel’s current political mire. The trip was organized around an intellectual and emotional investigation of the “new Jew” – essentially the image of a strong, youthful, worker, fighter Zionist pioneer, who came to this land at the turn of the century determined to create a type of Jew who would not hide from the Cossacks anymore.

The idea of the New Jew is essential in early (and parts of contemporary) Zionist theology, as the founding fathers of Zionism and Israel all sought, in their own ways, to refashion their own and the world’s image of the Jewish people. They sought to build a new, socialist (in the case of the second Aliyah), secular, strong society, infused with Jewish elements, but also wholly modern and nationalistic. In many ways they’ve succeeded. In many ways, the place of the New Jew in Israeli society has vanished.

The area of the Eastern Galilee and the Golan Heights was important because there, we could engage and discuss a few key elements of the New Jew theology and history. For instance, on our first day we went to the tomb of Edmund Rosthchild, THE benefactor of the first wave of pre-Zionist farmer immigrants in the 1880s and 1890s. In our second day we visited Tel Hai, the location of a minor skirmish between Zionist settlers and their Arab neighbors in 1920, but a skirmish that became a huge, major symbolic rallying cry for the development of the Zionist ethos. We spent a morning at Tel Dan, a nature reserve and archaeological site in the North, mimicking and exploring the early Zionist fascination and appropriation with archeology (our guide at Tel Dan was David Ilan, our biblical history professor, the head of HUC’s archaeological school, and the head of the Tel Dan excavations – not too shabby a tour guide!).

Our trip also examined current geopolitics of Israel’s northern borders. We visited Metulla, Israel’s northernmost city, and stood on a viewpoint mere meters from Lebanon (our view was more Lebanon than Israel). We saw Hezbollah bases from a distance. We spent an afternoon on the Golan Heights, looking down at Israel proper and our at Syria in the distance (we couldn’t see it, but we were a mere 35 km from Damascus. Damascus, Lawrence! Damascus!). We talked with members of the Golan Residents’ Council about the prospect of the Golan being returned to Syria (they’re against it). We debated issues and politics, and expanded our own worldview of Israeli history and geopolitics.

And it was beautiful up there. I haven’t uploaded pictures to the computer yet, but when I do I’ll post them.

It was also tremendously fun to get away for three days. It was a little like teen trip: we were programmed from 7AM to 10PM every day; we had numbers for a “count off;” our meals were prearranged; we had madrichim shuffling us on and off the bus. But at them same time, it was different. It was seeing the country in a new way, but also seeing the group, my cohort in a new way. It was definitely a bonding experience, and also the emergence of a little major drama here and there. And the year has only just begun.

Academics!

This past week was our first week of classes. I like them a lot. I have class approximately 8 hours a day, five days a week (with breaks in between). It’s the most class I’ve had, perhaps ever. It’s incredibly intense and rigorous, but not particularly intellectually difficult. Everything thus far has (more or less) been fascinating – I know I’m learning and I’m learning very useful and practical information: how Hebrew vowels are patterned, the typology of stories that exist within the Tanakh, a basic framework for discussing Jewish education, and the liturgical origins of Birchot HaShacar, the morning blessings. It’s all building a basic structure for a seasoned and qualified Jewish educator. Or so I’m led to believe.

For you nerds out there (no judgment; I love biblical grammar), here is a listing of my courses:

Hebrew – I have 5 periods a week of modern Hebrew: reading, writing, grammar, talking, understanding. Four periods are with one teacher on a rounded experience, and one period is with a different teacher, exclusively on modern Hebrew literature. That patter is just for our class (I guess they assume we’re “advanced” and can read modern Hebrew lit).

Tankah – A basic introduction to the Tankah. We’re not starting at the beginning and just reading; it’s a class looking at patterns of genre and various examples. The class is entirely in Hebrew, and we read verse by verse, and then translate – except not into English, but into modern Hebrew. It’s a doozy, but really awesome.

Biblical Grammar – Pretty self-explanatory. It sounds boring, but since it’s with Yossi Leshem (also our Tanakh professor), it’s incredibly fascinating. It makes so much Hebrew make so much sense. It’s also in Hebrew.

Liturgy – An introduction to the classical weekday morning service (and how/why Reform liturgy differs), and then we’ll explore other liturgy as the year progresses. It’s an analytical class, not a theological one. The class is half in Hebrew (the readings are in English, so we can’t really discuss those in Hebrew).

Zionist history – For this semester, my modern history class is on the origins of the Zionist movement. The professor, David Mendelssohn, was one of my professors at Rothberg. He was awesome then, and even awesomer now.

Second Temple History – The second part of our ancient History module (we had Biblical history over the summer), a broad overview of the Second Temple period. Since I’ve taken versions of this course, oh, 5 or 6 times at UCLA, this is my Sunday afternoon nap (or blogging) time.

Education Seminar – We three Ed students have a weekly class with Sally Klein-Katz, our amazing Ed instructor here. It’s a yearlong foundation on the position of Jewish education and our role as educators in it.

Israel Seminar – We have our normal classes Sunday-Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday is our Israel Seminar Day. We’re broken into 3 groups (roughly based on the amount/length of time we’ve spent in Israel) and look at various social and historical elements of Israel, with a lot of out of the classroom activities.

Tanakh only is in the Fall, and in the Spring I have a Rabbinics class instead. In the Fall, I’m also taking an enrichment class taught by the dean of the Jerusalem campus, Michael Marmur (who’s pretty much a Rabbinic rock star), during which we read Marmur’s Greatest Hits of Rabbinic stories and look at them through a Reform lens. I like this class a lot for 2 reasons: 1) the chance to learn directly from Rabbi Marmur is fabulous; 2) it’s helping me ground my own sense of the Reform movement’s relationship to Halacha and classical Jewish source.

It’s an incredibly full load, but a very rewarding one. I certainly see myself keeping busy this year.

Chofesh! Give me chofesh!

My week-long chofesh (vacation) between ulpan and the start of classes was great. It basically consisted of a backpacking adventure in the Western Galilee and the Golan, and then a few days of R&R at home in J'lem, culminating in a 12 hour long marathon of watching all three Lord of the Rings films. It was a pretty awesome break.

Highlights of the backpacking adventure:

We spent our first night in a Crusader castle.
We spent our second night in a farmer's fig and olive orchard (at his invitation).
We hiked through the Banias.
We played for a morning in Nimrod's Fort.
We spent an afternoon on the skaniest, gnarliest beach in Nahariya playing "Oh Hell."
We walked many, many kilometers.
We ate a buttloard of ramen noodles, oatmeal, sausages, and nuts. So many nuts.

Here are some pictures of the adventure:


The Crew



Amy and Me



Josh and Jim get us found!



Ari and I, waiting



Nimrod's Fort



The view from Nimrod's Fort



The view from The Banias



The Banias Falls



The Lookout




Sunset