Yom Kippur

I spent Yom Kippur in my youth hostel. A chazzan was brought in to lead the services. The guy was a nice guy and had a good voice, but he had this really annoying way of laughing far too much at his own mediocre jokes. The services themselves were very good and I took a lot away from them. On Friday night I went out with a few of my friends and walked up the road towards a small community. No city in the world shuts down like Jerusalem on Yom Kippur. On that Friday night we walked in the middle of the street and found the entire neighborhood outside in the middle of the roads. There are no cars at all. We saw one car when we were out and we were out for 2 hours. Afterwards I went back to the hostel and played Rumikub for a bit and then went to bed. I woke up the next morning and went to services. I took the high holidays very seriously this year and the praying was very intense and meaningful. I was in services from 9 - 2 and then a bunch of us wanted to walk to the Kotel (Wailing Wall). On the way we found this Israeli guy who walked with us. He claims to have done the exact walk every Yom Kippur for the past 25 years with the same route. He spoke good English and was very interesting to walk with. It was a hilly, two-hour walk, but we managed and I got to the Kotel to catch the last services of the holiday. Needless to say, it was absolutely amazing to be at the Kotel and I bumped into Zach Trupp, a boy who graduated with me. I broke fast with some free food that was handed out; muffins and juice. I then took a taxi home with some friends and ate more and relaxed at the hostel. Yom Kippur, along with Rosh Hashana, was incredible.
Hope everyone's high holidays were wonderful,
Kevin

So after Rosh Hashanna I've been really busy with all sorts of things. First of all I went to visit Samaritans. The same ones mentioned in the bible ("good Samaritans"), these people are very interesting. They claim to be descendants of Israelites who never left the land of Israel. They believe in the same Jewish Torah, but not the rest of the Tanakh, the Jewish bible. Their customs are similar to ours seeing as we lived next to each other for some time and we have the same holy book. For example they don't eat milk and meat because it says so in the Torah, but they have adopted our rules for that certain law. They won't eat chicken and milk or eat milk until six hours after eating meat; two laws derived from the Torah that only make sense after a considerable amount of extrapolating the original law. So they have many of the same customs and holidays as us but they are very different. Firstly they are not Jews and have no desire to be Jews. Secondly their Torah and prayer books are all in ancient Hebrew. The Hebrew letters that are used today are different from ancient Hebrew; the words are transliterated and not translated. Also they believe that instead of Jerusalem, the holy site is Mount Gerizim. They go up there three times a year. The most interesting time is when they go up for Passover. All of the Samaritans go up this mountain and ritually sacrifice lambs as dictated in the Torah; a sacrifice that we stopped doing because the Temple was destroyed. I'm going to try and get over there for Passover this year. I'm including a picture of their Torah in this post.


After the Samaritans I went to a small town that was one of the first settlements in Israel by immigrating Jews. We went to a museum and a winery in the town and it was interesting. I'm including pictures of the winery because it looked a lot like a level in a James Bond video game. We also had a wine tasting, but I didn't like the wine very much. Afterwards we went to Tiberius and had dinner in the city and slept in a youth hostel on a mountain over looking the city. I tried this chocolate that was chocolate with little pieces of Pop Rocks in it. It was really cool. The day was nice and it was cool to see the country. The next day we went to a graveyard and learned about the second wave of Jewish immigrants into Israel. These people by and large were a group of Jews who were sick of living in Europe where pogroms and the blood libel accounted for hundreds of Jews being murdered. They came to Israel to flush out swamp lands and battle malaria infested mosquitoes so that Israel could become a Jewish state. They started farming settlements that would become the boarders of modern day Israel. To protect themselves from thieves they made a group of armed horsemen that would eventually turn into the Haganah and then the IDF. So clearly these Jews paved the way for Israel in ways they never thought possible. They also began the Kibbutz movement. After we learned about these pioneers we had a talk with a modern day Kibbutznik whose Kibbutz is in the middle of a city rather than a farm. These people focus on things that modern day Israel needs with the same socialist slant that the original Kibbutzniks had in their farming communities. They do social action projects about social problems that face Israel like racism, sexism, homophobia etc. He was very interesting in his grassroots look at socialism and changing Israel for the better.

Last night I did Kaparot. This is an old Jewish ritual that many of my readers will think is pretty awful. You pay money for a chicken and, while holding it, say a prayer over it and then raise the chicken over your head and say another prayer. The prayers say that we have sinned and that we deserve to die, but instead God should accept the chicken as a substitution for our death. Then the chickens are killed right there and unfeathered and given to poor families to eat before the fast (it's a mitzvah to eat chicken for that meal). The place that we did it stunk and there were so many dead chickens it was gross. The meaning behind the tradition is to give to charity in a way that is relevant to Yom Kippur and atonement. It was really cool and I'll put up pictures of it on the blog.

Since then I have just been taking my classes and enjoying Israel. I hope everything is well on the other side of the Atlantic and that Syria chills out.
Kevin

Rosh Hashana

So I spent Rosh Hashana with a family of orthodox Jews this year. We went to three shuls, all within walking distance of the family's house, over the course of the two day festival, or chag. It was all very interesting to see this huge Jewish community and there was a chazzan who was absolutely amazing. The family that I stayed with, the Scher's, were very hospitable and, even though I had made plans with them only a day or two before chag, they still managed to feed me well and take good care of me.
This week I am feeling much better than I have as far as my health goes. Today is actually a fast day that I'm observing. I didn't get a chance to have dinner last night so this has been a particularly bothersome fast, but I can eat in less than three hours and I'll truck through. I did laundry for the first time since I got here and, let me tell you, laundry is a serious business. Classes are going well and everything is great.

End of Week One and First Day of Classes

So Wednesday last week we left the hostel at 7 AM to take a three hour bus ride to the Galilee, the northern bit of Israel. On the way there the girl to the left of me started vomiting due to motion sickness and then the girl on the right of me totally fainted on top of me. It was crazy. We finally arrived and enjoyed a great 5 hour hike through the southern Galilee. Afterwards we set up our sleeping bags under the stars and the tour guides made us dinner and we schmoozed and went to sleep. We woke up the next morning to see more sights and do more stuff. It was all very great. I'm going to add some of the better pictures from the hike onto this blog so check them out! After I got home from the hike it was about 7 PM the next day and I wasn't feeling well so I took a shower and went to bed and slept from 8 PM till 10 AM. Ii wasn't the best sleep, but it was long and that was good. I woke up the next morning to go to the doctor's and they gave me an IV with antibiotics. It made me feel better and I went to the Kotel to pray Kabbalat Shabbat. For the less informed readers I'll explain that the Kotel, the wailing wall, is the most holy place in the world for a Jew and Kabbalat Shabbat is Friday night services. My group was so spirited that we had army guys, chasids, and some secular Jews tell us how amazing we are. It was pretty cool. The Kotel was an amazing experience. To stand next to a wall that was part of a building destroyed 2000 years ago was such a testament of the longevity and strength of the Jewish faith. It was a great service and I'm very happy about it all. The rest of Shabbat was great and I'm really liking it here.

Classes started today. First I had Hebrew class, then Zionism, and finally a class on King David. All my classes thus far look amazing and the teachers are very passionate. I'll update more regarding my classes after I've been in them longer.

Shalom!
Kevin

Just Arrived

First and foremost the plane ride wasn't great. I didn't sleep and now I'm completely disorientated, but it's alright. I've made a few friends including my roommate, a British guy named Josh, who I've been getting along with well since we met earlier today. Other friends include a girl from Boston, a few more British kids (we have about 20 in my section), and many others. The year is looking better and better as I meet these kids, a lot of whom seem to be really nice. The room I'm staying in is pretty nice. We have a great balcony that connects with all the other balconies on my floor so it'll be a cool feature to have. Besides that it's a bit bigger than a dorm room and I have my own bathroom and stuff to share with Josh. Tomorrow I'll be having a day of orientation and then on Wed. I'll be going on a big hike in the Galilee and I'll update more about those later.
~Kevin