Bikkur Holim

The term Bikkur Holim means "visiting the sick" and is a very important mitzvah (divine commandment) in Judaism. It is something that I appreciate doing for others because having been in the hospital once for over a week - I know how important visitors can be.

Unfortunately, several of our friends need to be visited currently.

Chaya has her wisdom teeth removed on Monday and has been resting at home since then. She's not able to get around much and can only eat very soft foods. We visited her after class one day and have been calling to check up on her.

Jean got sick on Tuesday and has not been well since. We've called and visited when she's been awake and today were able to take her some DVDs to help stem the boredom. But, she might be contagious because now...

Eve started feeling sick today and thus operators are standing by, ready to bring whatever she needs (albeit in a Level A HazMat suit!)

Being sick right now isn't good because Yom Kippur is coming up and no one wants to go without fasting and bathing (among other things) for 25 hours! Nonetheless, for those who are sick, they must not fast on Yom Kippur because their health is of utmost importance.

Thus, Jen and I are having a quiet Shabbat dinner ourselves tonight (what it really means is we didn't get invited anywhere at all) and just trying to take it easy in anticipation of Sunday's fast and exceptionally long day of services.

An Update

I'm sorry for not blogging recently - my 7 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. schedule at the yeshiva and the High Holidays has kept me pretty busy.

So, here's a full update, to the best of my knowledge...

Last week was the second week of classes at the yeshiva and I did attend just about everything. However, by the weekend rolled around, I discovered that I just couldn't maintain such an intensive schedule. Thus, I'm cutting back on some of the afternoon classes and will only take one afternoon class each week. This leaves me, nonetheless, with classes until 3:15 p.m. every day but one day I'll stay until 6:15. 7 to 3:15 is plenty of time to be in school four days a week. Certainly, college had much shorter hours and 7 to 3:15 is a longer day than high school.

Today was my first afternoon off so Jen, Eve, and I went to the Old City and it was Eve's first trip to the Old City in many years. It's an awesome experience to go to the Old City and so very much fun to take a friend who hasn't been there before. While there, I had to buy new items in anticipation of Yom Kippur (YK) this upcoming Sunday. White is the color of the day for YK so I splurged on a new tallit and kippah. I'm going to be so very fashionable!

Friday night began Rosh Hashanah (RH) - the two day Jewish new year's holiday. Friday morning started the holiday with a morning service at the yeshiva (Friday is not a yeshiva class day but one of the head rabbis suggested we meet for morning prayers since the morning before RH in quite important. We spent the day cooking because we hosted a larger dinner that Jen and I hosted (Jen promises a thorough description and photos very soon). The evening services which began RH were at 6:30 and then afterwards, we hosted our guests.

Saturday morning was the first day of RH services and they lasted from 8:30 until 2ish. Unfortunately, since it was Shabbat, there was no shofar blowing. We were entirely exhausted from dinner the night before so we fell asleep pretty quickly for most of the afternoon (although it's tradition not to take a nap on RH because it's the new year and thus symbolic of how one's year is going to go so you don't want a lazy year so you don't nap but I in fact would enjoy a lazy year so I'm glad I was asleep for much of the day.)

We woke up Saturday afternoon with barely enough time to get ready and run out the door for the evening services. I was pretty groggy after the nap so I don't really remember much of what happened but after services, we had a great dinner, hosted by several friends. THe dinner kept us up late again but it was so very much fun not to be cooking!

Sunday morning was an fantastic service that included the shofar blowing by an amazingly talented shofar blower. It's not easy to make sounds come from a ram's horn and to make every note perfect was incredible.

We went to Eve's after services on Sunday for a fantastic lunch with lots of great folks. After a nice warm Sunday lunch, we went to the botanical gardens for the ceremony known as Tashlich where one casts bread into a body of water in a symbolic gesture of casting one's sins away. It's great if the water body where you cast your bread contains fish and it must've been an especially good omen that fish gobbled my sins up! They loved eating my sins - they tasted good to the fish, ducks, and even a turtle!

Speaking of casting one's sins away, there's an "interesting" ceremony known as kaparot that involves swinging a chicken above one's head. After swinging said chicken, the chicken is slaughtered and given to the poor for food. I was invited to participate in this event yesterday but declined the invitation. Some nameless friends did participate and once they put their photos online, I'll have to link to them (update: here's a link to Eve's post and photo on the topic. I'm glad I missed it.

We were so excited the other day when we received a package pickup notice from the post office. They have the coolest automated package pickup system. It's a kiosk outside the post office and you simply place the bar coded slip under the scanner and within a few seconds, the package is delivered at a window. It's open 24 hours a day and very convenient. Unfortunately, the package was not for us. While it was our building number and our last name, the package was a large collection of disposable contacts. I'm going to have to go to the eye care center from where they were mailed and take them back. Fortunately, it's not far away.

YK is just a few days away and I'm just not ready but at least I have some afternoons off to prepare.

Out of Town for the Shabbaton

The yeshiva took us away for the weekend. We climbed aboard the bus on early Friday to head east to the Dead Sea. Our first stop on Friday was the Ein Gedi National Park. It's an oasis in the desert near the Dead Sea that is fed by springs and streams. The area is gorgeous and we had a nice hike there up to some springs and waterfalls.

With my background, I was chosen to carry the first aid kit. Fortunately, I only needed to use the first aid kit on myself. Unfortunately, in an area of steep steps that were soaked with mud and water seeping from springs, I slipped and my legs flew out in front of me and I bounced on my butt down several of the rock steps. I've been in pain ever since and my left arm is full of scrapes but I'm feeling better every day since. Fortunately, the first aid kit contained ibuprofin, which I took advantage of regularly throughout the weekend.

Needless to say, it was pretty hot near the Dead Sea and hiking didn't help one bit. Jen and I were sweating profusely and eventually, it was lunch time in some great shade. After lunch we visited an ancient synagogue near Ein Gedi and davened mincha there. A while later, we ended up at our accomodations for Friday night - a hostel at Masada.

While we didn't actually climb Masada nor did we physically go to the Dead Sea, we were near both. The hostel was at the foot of Masada.

I was really looking forward to the weekend because the hostel has a nice pool. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to use it because as soon as we arrived on Friday after the hike, Jen and I fell fast asleep in our room. I also fell asleep right after lunch on Saturday and missed relaxation time them. I decided to skip a lecture on Saturday afternoon but when I arrived at the pool in my bathing suit and with my towel and book - the pool was closed for the day. I was very sad.

Those who were unlucky enough to be unmarried had to share rooms with four to a room - Jen and I were lucky and didn't have to share (except with each other). There were a few upset engaged couples on the trip. All the rooms had their own bathrooms, which was nice.

After the scheduled pool time on Friday (when we were asleep), it was time for Friday evening Shabbat services. The hostel had a synagogue of its own, which was incredibly convenient. I really enjoyed living a feed doors down from a synagogue. Currently, I have to walk more than five minutes to my nearest synagogue but it's Orthodox and I don't usually go there but we turned the hostel synagogue into our own yeshiva synagogue.

For the Shabbaton weekend, I was given the responsibility of not only the first aid kit but also to pack up and transport all the ritual objects we'd need for services. Thus, I had to scavenger hunt around the yeshiva for various items - prayerbooks, chumashim (books of the weekly Torah readings), candlesticks and matches for Friday night, a Havdalah candle for the end of Shabbat on Saturday night, a yad (the pointing device used for Torah reading), and a bunch of other miscellaneous objects. It was fun to have this responsibility and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

We woke up early on Saturday for services and then had a nice lunch but as mentioned above, we fell fast asleep. I missed some afternoon activities in order to try to swim but instead ended up reading in the room.

We packed up right after Shabbat was over and boarded the bus back to Jerusalem. The bus was late and we were a bit late for our arrival because we arrived just a tad late for the 10 p.m. Slichot services at the synagogue next to the yeshiva. Those were over at about 11 p.m. and so I finally headed home and got ready for Sunday classes (which nicely started at 8:30 a.m.).

Nonetheless, since then, classes start at 7 a.m. each morning and I'm there until 6:15 p.m. Many lunchtimes are filled with lectures and guest speakers so it makes for a very, very long day.

OK, I've gotta go prepare for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Toodles!

More Honking

Honking has bothered me since shortly after our arrival. The other night was an exceptionally bad honking night. There was excessive honking going on at a large intersection not far from us from about 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. The honking was continuous and much of the honking was in the form of purposefully musical honking, as though the drivers were attempting to play songs. It was late, we were tired, and the honking was annoying. We also heard some shouting that sounded like it was coming from the honking area.

The next day we asked some people who lived near the honking about it. Eve said that people were approaching the intersection, honking, and getting out of their cars and dancing. She didn't know the cause.

A rabbi who lives near that intersection didn't remember the honking (?!?) but told us that there was a football (i.e. soccer) game and Israel had won so thus there was much rejoicing, literally in the streets, it seems. Ah, Israel.

92 Days Later...

Our books arrived! It's been more than 13 weeks since we mailed our first batch of books to ourselves but now they're here and it's like winning the book lottery! Four boxes of books is quite a lot. All I want to do is read but I don't have time. Maybe during the holidays...

I Can't Blog

I can not blog because the yeshiva has sucked all my brain cells out of my head. It is intense but I love it! Plus, the High Holidays are coming up. If you need something to read, here's something.

Back to School

On Tuesday, we had a welcoming BBQ and all day Wednesday and Thursday was orientation. Since we'd been here during the summer, there wasn't a lot we didn't know so the orientation wasn't overly helpful but it was informative.

I really wish the yeshiva would've held a short orientation for those of us staying all year at the beginning of the summer but the seem to treat the summer and the year-long programs totally separate, even though there are students who attend both (albeit not a lot of students - there were a total of seven of us continuing in some form or fashion, either part-time or full-time).

Much of the time of the orientation was spent with various faculty members giving summaries of their classes or just giving mini-lectures to show what their teaching style is. That was helpful because there were a few faculty who weren't here during the summer so we didn't really have much exposure to them.

I'm somewhat in a state of flux in regards to my afternoon classes because I might have to leave the yeshiva to take a Hebrew class elsewhere because they don't offer enough Hebrew on campus. That would be a shame because I really want to fit everything in and will really regret having to miss a few afternoons each week to go elsewhere. However, the director says he might offer a Hebrew class four days a week that would meet our needs.

At the end of the day yesterday, each of the incoming students took a Hebrew placement exam. It's the same exam they mailed us prior to the summer session and thus the same exam that I had to email about and say, "I don't even understand how to take this test." That, of course, resulted in me being placed in lowest level Hebrew. But, yesterday, I was able to confidently complete about a third of the test, which made me very excited to see how far my language acquisition had come since late June.

The end of the day today was spent selecting courses with a faculty advisor. I'll tell about my classes once I'm settled and can see what's going on with my afternoons.

The Western Wall Tunnels

The portion of the Western Wall that you see on postcards, pictures, paintings, and books is the place where thousands of people come to pray. This is the location of both the women's and men's sections. This is the area that weddings, bar mitzvahs, and IDF ceremonies take place. Within the cracks between these stones, visitors place small scraps of paper with prayers on them.

Although many think of this portion of the Western Wall as "the Wall," it is in reality only one-eighth of the total length of the entire Western Wall. The rest of the Western Wall still stands, although much of it is underground. However, over the last thirteen centuries, Muslims have built homes throughout the area, with some of these homes abutting the Wall itself.

After the Six Day War in 1967, the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs decided to begin a project to expose the entire length of the Western Wall. It took them 20 years of digging to create the tunnels under the Muslim Quarter.

These tunnels are now open to the public, but only on pre-arranged, guided tours. During the early portion of the summer we heard that it can take up to two months to get reservations; by the end of summer, two-to-three day notice seemed to suffice.

Yesterday, we went on the tunnel tour and both the tour and the tunnels were awesome. A guide escorts you (in small groups of 10-30 people) through the tunnels. The guide did a wonderful job explaining the history of the tunnels, the history of the Temple, and your location in comparison to the Old City and the location of where the Holy of Holies once stood.

Many of the hallways were very narrow, but lighting and fans in the tunnels helped alleviate any claustrophobia. Also along the tour was a relatively large model of the Second Temple that has portions that move with a push of a button (held by the guide).

Along one side of the tunnels, you can see (and feel) the stones of the Western Wall. They were amazing because you can see the detail and care that was put into each of the exceptionally heavy stones when they were first created and placed in the Wall. The guide also points out the damage done to many of the stones by the Romans and you can see through a glass floor-plate how the Romans had shoved many of the stones off the Wall, shattering them when they hit the ground.

People pray at the well-known portion of the Western Wall, not because it is a wall or solely because of its history. They pray there because it is as close as they are allowed to get to the historical location of the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctum of the Temple. On the tunnel tour, visitors get to stand at the section of the Western Wall that was the very closest to the Holy of Holies. An amazing experience.

Once we reached the end of the tunnels, thus the end of the Wall, we turned around and headed back. Apparently, during the daytime (we were there in the evening), visitors can exit the tunnels into the Muslim Quarter and then walk back to the Jewish Quarter with an armed escort. I think I'm glad that I didn't have to make a decision about this for it was much nicer to just head back the way we had come and re-emerge from the tunnels at the very familiar section of the Wall where thousands of people were waiting to watch an IDF ceremony.