New year: Wedsday night is the beginning of Rosh Hashana!! We have some exciting plans for the day before, including going to a water park and being part of the audience for the first auditions for Israel's version of "The Voice." Then for the holiday, I know I will get at least 1 home-cooked meal (but I do not yet know who's home) and I hope to find people to give me other meals so I don't have to eat so much Beit Nativ food. I'm very excited for my first chag in Israel!
New semester (I): Before Rosh Hashana is the end of Hebrew U's mini-semester. Most Nativers are busy with homework and preparing for finals right now. After Rosh Hashana, they will have new classes. Of greater concern to Yeshiva and Ulpan students, the new semester will bring such changes as a stipend (mostly for food, as we will have fewer lunches at Beit Nativ) and Nativ scheduling.
New semester (II): Do you recall how I said I would be going to Kibbutz Ein Tzurim after winter break? Well, no longer is that the plan. We kibbutzniks have become kfarmers, as we will go to the youth village Kfar Chasidim. We will do the same jobs we would have at the kibbutz, but we will be around more people our age who live there, or spend most of their day there attending the agricultural school. We'll be close to Chaifa and not too far from Karmiel (another track's location), but we'll be farther from Yerucham (the 3rd track's location).
New thoughts:
- A cashier at a clothes store on Jaffa looks eerily like a Jewish Lauren Lopez, and she argued about prices eerily like Taz would. (Someone, please ensure Chloe reads this.)
- Not that the Talmud is to be considered a reliable source for scientific information, but how did they decide 3 years and 1 day? (If you want to know, see the first perek of Mishnah Ketubot.)
- Tarzan is a really great movie.
- Clouds are not to be taken for granted. (I've seen them twice since arriving in Israel.)
- It's okay to spend 3 hours studying 2 lines of text.
- Free yoga in the park is fun- if only it did not interfere with classes.
- At some point I realized how I'm around so many people who view and observe Judaism extremely similarly to how I do. I noticed this a few times before, but it was like a baby discovering his feet and that they're connected to him- it didn't stick for a while. A couple days ago during a discussion in a learner's minyan, I realized this again and I think I will no longer forget it. I recall feeling this when at Ramah, but not to this extent. It's a great to feel like I belong here so much. I don't think I've ever made a better decision than to come here.
Trivia: Why don't we make shofarot of cow horns? Proposed reasons: cow horns are only ever called "keren" (not shofar); they are in layers, so it is like 2 or 3 shofarot, and we are commanded to blow but one shofar; it will remind G-d of the sin of the Golden Calf.
Rivka imeinu was 3 years old when she married Yitzchak. Now the better question is how do we know that Rivka was 3 years old? That is a much more complicated question that has to do with specific calculations based on the death of her monther-in-law and intervening time before Yitzchak's marriage.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I do not condone marriage at age 3.
Interesting...
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help but notice the "Freudian slip" in Josh's comment. Did he intend to write mother-in-law or monster-in-law?
ReplyDelete