A few recent adventures

On a happier note than the last post, we recently went on a few Tiyulim (hikes). Naomi and I were only on one together while my school decided to go on two within two weeks of each other.

The first trip was to Emek HaEla (the Valley of Ela) which happens to be the name of a movie with Tommy Lee Jones but I have no clue what the connection is - I haven't seen it.

It is the historical place of the Battle between David and Goliath. I took a bunch of pictures and you can see the area described in the Book of Samuel. Our tour guide-Rabbi-Friend Dani even thought us how to use a slingshot like the one David used.



The next Tiyul was to Tel Aviv with Naomi's school - Nishmat. The city of Tel Aviv recently celebrated it's 100th birthday. We went to where that all happened a neighborhood called Neve Tzedek - the spring of justice. It was a really nice trip and a chance to spend some time with the people that Naomi sees every day. Despite the fact that it was the end of November, I was wearing short sleeves and was still sweating.



I also found a micro-brewery across the street from Independence Hall that I have to go back and check out.

The last hike was a week and a half ago. The weather in Israel had just started to get a little colder and we decided to make the most of what warmth was left so we went on a water hike. A water hike is exactly like it sounds, a hike through water. Israel doesn't have many rivers or streams so they tend to be very popular places for hiking. This hike was one of the more beautiful hikes I've ever seen in Israel (and one of the hardest - which may explain why I had never done it before).



We found a few places were we could jump off into the water, even though it was warm the water was basically freezing. And there were a few places where you had no choice but to swim. We were hiking through a ravine with a stream at the bottom, sometimes you can't hike around.

The end of the hike we found ourselves hiking up a 60-degree slope (no joke) for close to an hour which was a pain but worth it for the view of the Kinneret that we had at the top.

Last Friday's Unfortunate Events

This past Friday Naomi and I were unfortunate enough to be placed in a difficult situation. By now I'm sure many of you have heard about it, but I wanted to let you all know in my own words.
On our way back from Jerusalem to Efrat, last Friday, we were on the bus when the traffic stopped due to a car accident. Naomi looked down the road (a bridge between two tunnels) and saw smoke and then some flames. Then a guy on the bus screamed for fire extinguishers, one of which was right next to us. After the bus driver broke the protective glass covering, I grabbed the extinguisher and ran down the road to help.

A car had been crushed by a passenger bus and the car was aflame - the bus was on top of some of it. The driver was obviously already gone, and there was nothing that I could have done to prevent that, but the sight of the body was the most horrific sight I've ever seen. I tried my best to put out the fire, but since the extinguisher was not a large version it was gone rather quickly and the fire came back.

The bus itself was up against the protective wall, but that blocked both of the doors. All of the buses in our part of Israel are bullet proof and you cant just break the windows all that easily, the only escape for the passengers was through the back window. I couldn't help any more there as, thankfully, there were others doing what they could to help. Another car was also involved in the accident - the woman driving that car seemed to be okay and the first set of emergency vehicles were just then showing up so there really was nothing more that I could have done.

As I walked back to the bus it only then hit me what I had just seen and taken part in. Needless to say I was an emotional wreck.

Naomi tried her best to comfort me, and she did a fantastic job of it too, but only time really helped. When we found out that the bridge would be closed for the next four hours until they could clean up the accident (and Shabbat was coming in about 3 hours) we needed to find a way to get to Efrat. So we started walking up the road, and met a guy who was going towards Efrat willing to give a few of the passengers a lift around Bethlehem and to Efrat.

I've been speaking to a bunch of people here - the Rabbis, and other students who have had similar traumatic experiences.

I think that I'm doing okay, the first few days it was nearly impossible to get the image of the accident (the body) out of my head and sometimes it does come back to me now, but it's not inhibiting my need to move on.

Haaretz has a description of the accident (the picture shows only the car of the woman who was doing okay).

The Last Three Weeks

Since we last posted on the blog our vacation ended and we started school again. During the last week of our break we decided to spend a day in Jerusalem doing some things that we've been meaning to do but haven't yet.

Our first stop was the Jerusalem Zoo, much like any other zoo in the world this place has a lot of exotic animals, but unlike all of those other zoos this one one has a Biblical animal section. All those animals that you read about, the ibex, etc. they're all here. That night we finally were able to spend some time with Eudice Ben-Or which has been a long time coming.

Here's a slide show from the zoo:



Yes, Mom, the Flamingos are for you.

Naomi went back to school that week and I had a few more days off being a House Husband which was a lot more tedious than I thought it would be.

We spent the past few weeks back in school, I'm still in the same level that I started out in, but it looks like I'll move up in December at Channukah break. Now that I have a time frame it's much easier to bide my time.

I'm taking bunch of interesting classes, most of them are continuations from the previous semester, but I have two in Rav Kook (I posted about him before) and a class in this book written by the Piasencza Rebbe (don't worry I can't pronounce it either). He was a pedagogue which is interesting to me on an education level since I'm interested in pedagogy, but more importantly he was the main Rabbi in the Warsaw Ghetto and continued to do his thing despite the terrible conditions there. His writings are so beautiful even without keeping his history in mind. We're reading his book B'nai Machshava Tova which is about a group of people that get together to learn together to perfect their ability to get close to God.

This coming weekend we're going back to Hebron to spend Shabbat with Naomi's school. This week's Torah portion is Chayei Sara - which is the portion that describes Abraham's purchasing of the cave in which he buried her, and eventually his entire family is buried in. It's supposed to be one crazy experience.

A Peaceful Shabbat

This past Shabbat we spent with the Derovan family in Ramat Beit Shemesh. This was just what the doctor had ordered. It was so restful, so family oriented, and so full of beautiful singing and enjoyments of Shabbat. We have been very much enjoying hosting guests, but for the past 5 weekends in a row Nate and I have had at least 2 people staying in our home. As enjoyable as that is, and as much as we hope to see many more guests in the near future, it has been very exhausting. Further, since we arrived to Israel we have not had the opportunity to go away for a single Shabbat or Chag. Basically we were very much in need of this little get-away.

We have to say Ramat Beit Shemesh is a very beautiful place. It has landscapes you could never imagine to see anywhere but in a National Geographic's magazine (unfortunately because it was Shabbat and when it was not it was dark we could not take pictures) and a community that seems so pleasant. The community appeared to be primarily anglo- we did not hear as much Hebrew speaking as we are used to, but you do not necessarily feel like you are back in America (except the part were I saw many boys who just graduated from the Hebrew Academy that were in my brothers class). We davened at Lev Hatorah- a yeshiva for boys after high school, and I have to say the ruach (spirit/ excitement) in the room for both the evening services and the morning were beyond amazing. It was actually shocking how much excitement there was because most of the boys were finishing up their third three day holiday (Rosh Hashana, first days of Sukkot, and now last days which all ran into Shabbat) and most would assume by then they were "Yom Toved out." But this was definitely not the case, these boys sang with full voices and danced as if it was still Simchat Torah. Further from sitting with the Derovan daughters- Orit and Nechama, and their Cousin Chava one could feel the holiness of the women's section as well. Following services we attended two very large meals, one of 10 people and another of 18 people, where Nate, for the first time since we arrived in Israel was displayed with home made brisket. We were both in heaven because the food was amazing, but I think Nate may have been on cloud nine (or whatever the phrase is).

The Derovan family is a very close family, two of their married sons live near by with the grandchildren and you can tell the daughters do not stay far from home that often (we did not meet their middle son). Despite the closeness of their family Nate and I felt so comfortable, and felt like we were right at home in one of our families homes. Listening to the conversations about Torah that take place in their home was also a very exciting point of the weekend, especially when trying to get one of the Derovan grandsons (who is 6 I believe) to give a bit of a Dvar Torah on Parshat Lech-Lecha (he had skipped Breishit and Noach in school so that was the first one he knew). And then there was the singing. The beauty of the words and the harmony of the voices just absolutely amazed us.

Basically we really had an amazing weekend, and we are so thankful to the Derovan family for that. We hope to spend many more Shabbatot and times with them. Thank you so much!

I go back to school Tuesday (Nate goes back on the 14th), and do not have a break until Chanukkah (in two months) so now it will be time to really get a real feel for what it is to sit and learn day in and day out. I am very excited! Further I am now in the process of applying to grad school. I am definitely applying to the Pardes Institute educators program and most likely applying to Wurzweiler's School of Social Work's block program and to Hebrew University. We will see what happens. I am trying to figure out what is the best path for me, since I know I want to work in schools, but I want to work in guidance counseling/ administration. Anyway, until next time!

More Sukkot Activities

[Blog Maintenance: We will try to make it obvious in the text if there are pictures to be seen or not, either way when you receive your e-mail click on the blue title and you'll be linked to the web page and then you can see all of the pictures.]

As Sukkot comes to a very quick end tonight, we are getting geared up for another holiday Shmini Atzeret. It is the last in the long line of holidays that we've been celebrating for the past month. Here in Israel it's only one day long which makes it packed full of activities.

Anywho, we had guests for the first few days of Sukkot, which was really nice. On Friday the local synagogue that we go to decided to do a musical service the way Shlomo Carlebach (see below) used to. It was a really really special time.

Our friends Doni and Anna stayed until Friday afternoon (festival started Wednesday night) and Shmuel (Naomi's brother Ari's best friend) stayed with us until Saturday night. Doni is seven months into his Army service where he volunteered to do 1.5 years and has just finished learning how to drive a Tank. Anna is in an International medical school program in Be'er Sheva which seems to be very intense.

Since Sukkot is a national holiday here in Israel most people have the week off, so there are lost of activities everywhere. On Sunday we went up to Moshav Mevo Modi'in near Modi'in - famous for being the village that Shlomo Carlebach founded back in 1978. Every year they put on a music and arts and crafts festival. This year they decided to scale it down so it felt very much like the June Fete from home. Really nice music and arts and crafts. Some of our friends from the Yeshiva were there selling their goods.

We really wanted to do hit some more festivals but we both managed to find a 24-hour stomach bug that wiped us out. Now we're feeling much better but it kind of ruined our plans for the week. Oh well there's always next year.

Here are a few pictures from our recent adventures:

Blog E-Mail Problems

I've found out that some people have not been receiving the pictures in the e-mail updates that are sent around every time we write something new for the blog. I'm not sure how (or even if I can) fix this. If you haven't actually seen the website in a while, you probably should since I've been posting pictures and slide shows of our recent adventures.

If I need to change the e-mail subscription forms either I'll take care of it automatically or you might have to re-subscribe; but I'll keep you updated.

Oh and by the way, my finger is healing nicely and we're hopeful that it won't even leave a scar.

Yom Kippur, Rav Kook, and Sukkah Building

The first semester is over for both of us now, we've got a few weeks off until the next (and much longer) semester begins. Now for story times: A few posts ago we mentioned the Selichot services which between Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur become especially important. This past Wednesday night Naomi's school took a trip to Hebron to visit Marat HaMachepela (The Tomb of the Patriarchs). This is the cave (the building's built on top of it) that Abraham bought to bury Sarah. Here too are the graves of Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah.


Naomi's school hired a bus to take us there - I'm pretty sure I've never been there myself before - and it was quite an experience. Hebron is a major Arab town, there is a large Jewish town next door (Kiriat Arba) but for the most part Hebron is completely Arab. Anyway, it's one of the oldest towns in the country - that's saying a lot for Israel - and it showed. Lots of windy narrow streets that a tour bus is navigating only to show up in a large parking lot where thousands of other people have assembled trying to make their way into the building.

I took some rather poor (due to the lighting) pictures inside, but the link above will give you a great idea of what it looks like. It really was very cool, Hebron reminded me a lot like across between Madaba (a city in Jordan) and Istanbul (Turkey); because it's a very large city but has a distinctly Arab flavor. I think we will be going back there in the day time sometime this coming week to get a real tour of the Cave.

Maybe then I'll have some better pictures to show you guys of the inside.

For Yom Kippur we were here at my Yeshiva. Naomi cooked a feast for the holiday beforehand - since it's a fast day we traditionally have a major meal ahead of time - she went all out for this one, we had a bunch of friends over for it; including Adam R. The davening (prayers) on the holiday itself were just outstanding. We spent all day there, a totaling close to 15 hours there in total over the 25 hour day.

The Rosh Yeshiva (Head of School) gave a very interesting class about how there are two types of Tshuva (usually translated as "Repentance"). The one we normally think about is atoning for our sins - a major theme of the day to be sure - but there is another type. Tshuva for being a good person. He read us a Talmudic tale about two people one called a righteous man and the other called and evil one. What was the difference between them? In fact they are both righteous just one only went over his religious studies 100 times and the other one 101 times. The point being is that most of us - deservedly I think - consider ourselves to be descent human beings, but even we are required to do tshuva because we aren't progressing. If we stay as the same decent person we always were it's basically a waste of talent, we need to find more ways to continue to grow or else we're considered to be evil.

I found the class to be very interesting and is very similar to a class I'm taking this year on the philosophy of Rav Kook who was the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine nearly 80 years ago. He is very well rooted in the Kabbalistic school of thought meaning that for him tshuva is progressive process. When we do tshuva we are progressing towards the divine ideal. He explicitly states that social revolutions are progressive - a worldly tshuva that will eventually bring us into harmony with perfection.

The four days between Yom Kippur and Sukkot are very hectic days. So far we've gone into Jerusalem to buy me a Lulav and Etrog set; and we bought items necessary for our Sukka. Just behind our apartment is an abandoned Sukka structure so today we spent a long time cleaning it up, adding a new pole, putting up the walls, making ceiling beams - quite fun. Again Adam R. helped us and we're still not quite done yet but it's coming along quite well. Sukkot doesn't start until Wednesday night so we have some time before we really have to get things together.

Here's a slide show of our Sukka fun.