^^^out on Monday night (night off) with my friends Dalia and Klez for dinner at Waffle Factory on Emek Refaim (yes, Israel is obsessed with waffles, in case you haven't noticed)
^^^Doing Chessed (charitable work) with an organization that provides food for the needy. We organized food/non-preservatives into bags for hungry families.
^^^out to dinner for my friend Rachel's birthday on Thursday night.
^^^ before we made our way down into the Kotel area on Thursday, our friend Jared took us onto the roof of his Yeshiva to look out at the Kotel. It was unreal.
Sunday was a minor fast day called the Fast of Gedalia, or in Hebrew, Tzom Gedalia. ***
***In Orthodox Judaism, we have two types of fast days-major fast days that span 25 hours and generally come with a slew of restrictions-no showering, teeth brushing, wearing leather, etc.) These are Yom Kippur, the Day of Antonement (that's tomorrow!), and Tisha Ba'av (the 9th day in the Hebrew month of Av, in which we mourn the loss of both the first and second temple). There are also minor fast days, scattered throughout the yearly calendar, 3/4 of which commemorate various stages on the way to the destruction of the temple-the siege of Jerusalem, the collapse of Jerusalem's outer wall, and Sunday's fast, which marks the end of Jewish autonomy in the state of Israel with the assassination of Gedalia, the last Jewish king to reign before puppet kings/non-Jewish kings took over for nearly 2,000 years. Minor fast days are sun-up to sundown fasts, and you are allowed to do everything you cannot do on major fast days, excluding drinking and eating.
To be honest, it wasn't the best day, because it was very disorienting to come home from a long three day holiday at 11:30pm, only to wake up the next morning to a fast day. The whole day had an aura of gloominess, that, while fitting to a mournful fast day, isn't exactly conducive to fun times. Still, Slichot on Sunday night brought me back up and I finished the day on a good note. Monday was a much better day-I spent the bulk of my day in class, then went running (something I try to do 3-5 times a week here), got dressed and went out to dinner with two girlfriends. After dinner, we walked 2 miles to Ben Yehuda street, and took the bus to a friend's family's house in Ramot (neighboorhood in Jerusalem) where a bunch of kids my age, boys and girls, were hanging out. It was very crowded but it was nice to be out, see friends from school, and get to see boys (I sometimes feel like I live in a nunnery). Tuesday we got to do our first chessed project (Chessed=charitable acts. Every Tuesday afternoon we have time to devote to a Chessed project of our choosing. I will be working with young children this year, as it is one of my favorite things to do), and then after dinner, went to a speech delivered by Rabbi Riskin, a great Rabbi in Israel, on the topic of the T'shuva (repentance and return to God, as is the theme of High Holidays). The speech was actually pretty boring, scattered, and difficult to follow, so didn't really love that, but it was good to get out. Last night (Thursday night), I went out to dinner for a friend's birthday in the early evening, came back for my last class, and then went out with my friend Yaela. Our plan was to make it to the Kotel for Slichot, but as we got closer and closer, our friends kept walking toward us telling us the Kotel was "closed". Turns out, it was not closed, but the Old City was extremely crowded. I wish you guys could've seen it because it's impossible to describe except to say that it was absolutely insane, I was barely walking toward the Kotel, I was really just being pushed along in a stream of people. The Old City has tiny, winding streets, so you can imagine that the walk down wasn't exactly pleasant, plus lots of the men were smoking and I kept bumping into soldier's guns (ah, Israel). But we made it!!!! We spent about ten minutes on the roof of the Yeshivat Orayta roof overlooking the Kotel, which is an amazing sight. There were thousands upon thousands of Jews there, Chassidim and secular Jews and everyone in between. The people looked like tiny ants. It would have taken us 45 minutes on line to get into the Kotel area, so we didn't actually go all the way in, but got as close as possible without getting trampled. It was a pretty awe-inspiring sight, in the most overwhelming way possible. The walk back was 10x worse because we walked out of the Old City at about 12:30AM, which is considered "prime time" for Slichot, so we were walking against a pretty powerful crowd. We ended up walking through the Armenian quarter to avoid a lot of the crowd, but it was still utter chaos and we had to sit down and get a cold drink when we finally exited because both me and Yaela were so overwhelmed. It was an amazing thing to see and I'm glad I got to experience the Kotel on Erev Yom Kippur, but I think it's the kind of thing most people only do once.
As I'm writing this, it's Friday morning. We have cleaned up our spots in the Beit Midrash (the place where we learn and pray, I will try to enclose a picture at some point because it is stunning), eaten brunch, and now most people are hanging out and just relaxing after a long week *(we didn't sleep this week at all, as we had an amazing Chazzan come to lead Slichot, they were the most beautiful thing, but didn't finish till past midnight). I hope everyone who is fasting has an easy and meaningful fast, and for those of you who aren't, have a great weekend. Until next week---Rebecca
***In Orthodox Judaism, we have two types of fast days-major fast days that span 25 hours and generally come with a slew of restrictions-no showering, teeth brushing, wearing leather, etc.) These are Yom Kippur, the Day of Antonement (that's tomorrow!), and Tisha Ba'av (the 9th day in the Hebrew month of Av, in which we mourn the loss of both the first and second temple). There are also minor fast days, scattered throughout the yearly calendar, 3/4 of which commemorate various stages on the way to the destruction of the temple-the siege of Jerusalem, the collapse of Jerusalem's outer wall, and Sunday's fast, which marks the end of Jewish autonomy in the state of Israel with the assassination of Gedalia, the last Jewish king to reign before puppet kings/non-Jewish kings took over for nearly 2,000 years. Minor fast days are sun-up to sundown fasts, and you are allowed to do everything you cannot do on major fast days, excluding drinking and eating.
To be honest, it wasn't the best day, because it was very disorienting to come home from a long three day holiday at 11:30pm, only to wake up the next morning to a fast day. The whole day had an aura of gloominess, that, while fitting to a mournful fast day, isn't exactly conducive to fun times. Still, Slichot on Sunday night brought me back up and I finished the day on a good note. Monday was a much better day-I spent the bulk of my day in class, then went running (something I try to do 3-5 times a week here), got dressed and went out to dinner with two girlfriends. After dinner, we walked 2 miles to Ben Yehuda street, and took the bus to a friend's family's house in Ramot (neighboorhood in Jerusalem) where a bunch of kids my age, boys and girls, were hanging out. It was very crowded but it was nice to be out, see friends from school, and get to see boys (I sometimes feel like I live in a nunnery). Tuesday we got to do our first chessed project (Chessed=charitable acts. Every Tuesday afternoon we have time to devote to a Chessed project of our choosing. I will be working with young children this year, as it is one of my favorite things to do), and then after dinner, went to a speech delivered by Rabbi Riskin, a great Rabbi in Israel, on the topic of the T'shuva (repentance and return to God, as is the theme of High Holidays). The speech was actually pretty boring, scattered, and difficult to follow, so didn't really love that, but it was good to get out. Last night (Thursday night), I went out to dinner for a friend's birthday in the early evening, came back for my last class, and then went out with my friend Yaela. Our plan was to make it to the Kotel for Slichot, but as we got closer and closer, our friends kept walking toward us telling us the Kotel was "closed". Turns out, it was not closed, but the Old City was extremely crowded. I wish you guys could've seen it because it's impossible to describe except to say that it was absolutely insane, I was barely walking toward the Kotel, I was really just being pushed along in a stream of people. The Old City has tiny, winding streets, so you can imagine that the walk down wasn't exactly pleasant, plus lots of the men were smoking and I kept bumping into soldier's guns (ah, Israel). But we made it!!!! We spent about ten minutes on the roof of the Yeshivat Orayta roof overlooking the Kotel, which is an amazing sight. There were thousands upon thousands of Jews there, Chassidim and secular Jews and everyone in between. The people looked like tiny ants. It would have taken us 45 minutes on line to get into the Kotel area, so we didn't actually go all the way in, but got as close as possible without getting trampled. It was a pretty awe-inspiring sight, in the most overwhelming way possible. The walk back was 10x worse because we walked out of the Old City at about 12:30AM, which is considered "prime time" for Slichot, so we were walking against a pretty powerful crowd. We ended up walking through the Armenian quarter to avoid a lot of the crowd, but it was still utter chaos and we had to sit down and get a cold drink when we finally exited because both me and Yaela were so overwhelmed. It was an amazing thing to see and I'm glad I got to experience the Kotel on Erev Yom Kippur, but I think it's the kind of thing most people only do once.
As I'm writing this, it's Friday morning. We have cleaned up our spots in the Beit Midrash (the place where we learn and pray, I will try to enclose a picture at some point because it is stunning), eaten brunch, and now most people are hanging out and just relaxing after a long week *(we didn't sleep this week at all, as we had an amazing Chazzan come to lead Slichot, they were the most beautiful thing, but didn't finish till past midnight). I hope everyone who is fasting has an easy and meaningful fast, and for those of you who aren't, have a great weekend. Until next week---Rebecca
I enjoyed your recounting of Jewish history - specifically Gedalia being the last Jewish king during autonomy. I guess Herod would have been one of the puppet kings, right? Recently I've been re-watching "I, Claudius", one of my favorite BBC history series, in which Herod has a minor role as a childhood friend of Claudius. He was raised in Augustus' palace and educated with Claudius and other Roman nobility.
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