Shavua Tov from Yerushalayim

My first Shabbat in Jerusalem was amazing. I'm not sure if this will be a typical Jerusalem Shabbat for me, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. For Friday night services, a few of my classmates and I ended up going to a Progressive synagogue called Kehilat Har-El. I LOVED the rabbi, and she gave the most fabulous d'var Torah on parshat Chukat. If you have no idea what that means, you can highlight that last sentence, right click on it, and if you have an awesome browser like Chrome, click "search on Google." The rabbi chose to focus on Miriam's death. Basically, throughout the Torah, Miriam had grown in importance in terms of her leadership among the Israelites. It is no coincidence that the Israelites complained about thirst directly following her death. After all, they were no longer able to partake of the waters of her well. Miriam had taken on such a central role that the Israelites were lost without her. What was really awesome is that she tied this into the growing leadership roll of women in the public sphere, especially in regards to Jewish life. She specifically talked about Rabbi Miri Gold. I'm not going to make you Google her. I did it for you:

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/for-first-time-israel-to-recognize-reform-and-conservative-rabbis-1.433171

Yes, I'm making you work to understand my blog. I can't type forever! Anyway, just as Miriam was a central figure in the Israelites and has become more and more of a central figure for liberal Jews, women are slowly starting to be able to take on more leadership roles in the Jewish community. She also talked a lot about the courage that both Miriam and Rabbi Miri Gold have displayed and said that we could all stand to have a little bit more of that. I wish I could explain more of what she was talking about, but we all know that explaining things is not my forte. Want to know the most awesome part about the d'var Torah? It was entirely in Hebrew, and while I certainly didn't understand every single word, I understood the d'var as a whole. Rock! Afterwards, we went to the potluck dinner at Rachel's apartment, and the food was delicious.

For Shabbat morning services, I went to HUC, as two of my classmates who have been here for a while, Jen and Richard, were singing a couple of pieces. They were wonderful. I have some talented classmates, and I can't wait to learn from everyone. Rabbi Na'amah Kelman's sermon was very similar to the one that I heard on Friday night, except she also talked a lot about the war on women and the constant fight for equality. Loving the feminism. If it is not clear, I am a feminist. Not of the bra burning variety, but definitely of the pro equal representation variety. So the whole focus on Miriam's role in this portion and in the Torah as a whole has been quite satisfying for me. I realize there may have been some slightly esoteric stuff thus far in this post, but again, that is what Google is for :)

Anyway, after services, we went to lunch, and then I went back to Jen's place, where we decided to annoy her neighbors by singing. After that, since we didn't think it was fair to only annoy her neighbors, we went back to my place and sang some more while Carly cooked us a super delicious dinner. We did havdallah with the whole HUC community behind the King David Hotel overlooking the old city. What a way to bring in the new week! Shavua tov, y'all!

Good Times

I am loving Jerusalem so far. On Wednesday, we purchased a lot of things for our apartment, including food, which means that I now do not have to eat out all the time, even though it seems like I have many excuses to eat out since I keep meeting up with people. I also got a set of drawers, which means that I was actually able to put my stuff away, which means that my room is clean! I will definitely have to take pictures in the next couple of days.

One awesome thing about Jerusalem is that it has great nightlife, even for people like me who don't really like nightlife. On Wednesday night, Carly and I met up with Brent and Sam, which was totally awesome because I haven't seen Brent in a year. He took us to this restaurant that I went to with a friend last time I was in Israel. I think it's called Tmol Shilshom, and it's sort of a combination of a bookstore and a restaurant. Very bohemian, and very delicious. Then, we went to this sports bar which is a pretty cool hangout place

Yesterday, Carly and I spent about half of the day sleeping, and most of the rest of the day doing nothing. This was nice. We also got internet, though no WiFi yet. That's today's project. At night we met up with a bunch of HUC people and went to this restaurant called Fortuna. It didn't have anything tzimchoni (vegetarian), but that wasn't too big of a problem because the fries were delicious. I must have had an entire bowl. I am hoping not to turn into a carb monster while here, so I will search for tofu when we go to the Super Sal today. Also, my classmates are wonderful. After dinner, some of us went with our Israeli intern, Udi, to this place called Gan HaSus (literally, the horse garden, it was a plaza with a statue of a horse), and we learned all about the cost of living protests last summer. Apparently, when Jerusalem residents want to protest, this is where they go.

After that, we went to a super classy wine and cheese bar atop a hotel overlooking the old city. Wow. Wow. Wow. The wine was good, but the view was breathtaking. This was also an excellent chance to quiz Udi about what we should do and see. He told us some things that sound awesome. For instance, there's this thing called the Shvil Israel, which is this long hiking trail that runs from the top of Israel to the bottom of Israel, and you can do parts of it. Definitely something I would like to do. When we were done with the wine bar, Carly, Jen, Udi, and I stopped for ice cream on the way home. I feel the need to post this fact because my mother went on a trip to Israel when she was sixteen, and the only thing she seems to remember about it is the glida. I had Mekupelet ice cream. Foodgasmic. If you don't know what Mekupelet is, you need to go to your local Israeli market (for those of you who live in LA, there are a lot of them) and buy this:

Seriously. It's tasty.

And now, I am off to have bagels with a few of our cantorial classmates and one of our instructors who is named Mikhal. Other plans for the day include figuring out WiFi, going to the Super Sal, cooking with Jen and Carly, and then going to a Shabbat potluck at the house of one of our classmates named Rachel. Eep!

I'm Alive

That obligatory "I'm alive" blog post? Here it is! And not only am I alive, I'm doing great. The flight was pretty uneventful, and the layovers weren't even that bad because I met up with my awesome roommate Carly. Our apartment is pretty nice. I will post pictures once we are fully unpacked. I started unpacking yesterday, but quickly realized that I do not have nearly enough storage space. I hope to remedy this today. I also started putting stuff in piles and realized that Sam has my pajamas. Oh well, I'll them today. There are three balconies in our apartment, one of which is connected to both my room and my other roommate Emily's room (she's not here yet). This might call for some outside studying once in a while.

Jerusalem is okay so far. Israelis have a very aggressive way of driving, which is funny to see. Also, it appears to be quite easy to get lost in Jerusalem. Carly and I were walking around for about an hour trying to find HUC before we finally decided to hop in a cab. Turns out it's about ten minutes from our apartment. To get there, we have to take this street called Lincoln, which Israelis pronounce "Lin-co-lin." Yes, that's really how they pronounce it. This is good to know, because I need to go back there today to get my cell phone. Speaking of which, they seem to have wifi pretty much everywhere in Israel, which means that I should be totally okay with my decision not to route my Droid and buy a data package.

There are many cats in Jerusalem. Call me crazy, but they are cute. For instance, my awesome friend and cantorial classmate Jen, Carly, and I saw this one outside our apartment building just last night.

It really, really wanted us to pet it, and two of us who shall remain unnamed found it quite hard to resist the urge. Unfortunately, I don't think my roommates would have appreciated if I had taken it home with me.

I still have yet to eat hummus. That's today's project. For those of you who don't know this, I really, really like hummus. Last night, we went to this restaurant called Cafe Chakra and I had an eggplant and labneh sandwich. I am kind of in love with Israeli cheese. And Israeli stuff in general. Today for breakfast I had yogurt with chocolate balls. Carly's friend Shir told us that we should buy it. AMAZING.

Like I said, this was just supposed to be an "I'm alive" post, so I'm off for now!

Tonight!

I can't believe it's finally happening. I'm going to cantorial school!!!!!!! This has been over six years in the making, and I'm so glad that I finally decided to take the plunge. I am leaving for Israel tonight and getting there on Tuesday morning. I am pretty much packed. Considering how I usually travel, this is pretty much a miracle. One of my rabbis was joking on Friday night that the entire congregation should come over and help me pack. That would have been nice. Fortunately, I have a friend who is taking some of my stuff, since it turns out I have a clothing problem. And also a shoe problem. Who'da thunk?

This honestly hasn't felt real until now. I've felt like I've been living in a dream world. But seeing all of these piles of books and clothing has made it real. I'm not quite sure what to expect of the year to come. I'm looking forward to getting to know my classmates and learning from them. I hear that I will have many, many classes, but I'm looking forward to getting out there and just enjoying Israel. Other than that, I don't know what to think. We shall know when I get there. I'll make sure to write my obligatory "I'm safe"/"first impressions" blog posts. But until then, signing off. So long, America!