Yom Kippur and the Fall Semester

Hi everybody! Hope you are all well.

I'm going to have to start this post by backtracking a little since I've let myself get behind on my updates. With Beit Nativ shutting off the internet for all the holidays, it gets even more difficult to keep up on here.

Last Shabbat (not the one that just passed, the one before Yom Kippur) was an open one, so a couple of girls and I decided to go away for the weekend. And by a couple, I mean 11 others. 12 of us spend Shabbat in Tiberias - which was an experience to say the least. I'm glad I went, just because I'm always glad to be travelling and grateful to be seeing new places and things, but it's an experience I probably will not repeat. We stayed in 3 rooms of 4 people each in a real live youth hostel - complete with a shower that was just a showerhead on the ceiling and a drain in the floor, no lights in the bathroom, and four beds that touched each other. Friday night we tried to go out, but we severly overestimated how many places would remain open for Shabbat. We ate at a very tourist-y restaurant and on the boardwalk it looked like we were the only Jews there. Saturday was much better, although a little expensive. We paid 40 shekels each to get on to a private beach, but it was definitely worth it. I've really missed the beach since I've been here. The beach was gorgeous, with lounge chairs and palm trees and music, and I spent the day reading in the sun and swimming in the Kineret. We all shared a very economical lunch of pita, pretzels, humus, and almonds. Although I loved going to the beach for a day, overall the trip was not worth the three hours there and three hours back. Next I'm just going to go to the free beaches in Tel Aviv.

The day after we returned from that adventure was the start of the fall semester at HebrewU. However, October is a very jumbled month because of all the holidays - I think we have something like 7 days of class total in the entire month. Besides the required Hebrew and Freshman Writing, I'm also taking Intro to Jewish Mysticism, Issues in the Study of the Holocaust, and Intro to Early Church History. I really like all of them, and I'm happy that I got to take all classes that are religion or Judaism based, because I figure here is the place to do it. We can only take freshman level courses, so our options are limited, and as a result there are quite a few Nativers in all of my classes. However, there are also Americans from other programs and a couple people from other places, such as Germany, England, and Australia. I've only had one or two meetings of each class so far, so I haven't made any friends yet, but I completely intend on making enough friends from all over the world so that I can travel around staying places for free =).

Yom Kippur was definitely one of my best experiences in Israel thus far. Although I wasn't used to the intense 26 hour fast (I did get a little cranky at the end - but Marcus at home was far worse), or the 7 hours of shul at a time (for those of you who don't know, that's not really how we do it in my family...) it was still amazing. The ENTIRE city shuts down - like someone flipped the 'off' switch - far more than on Yom Kippur. It's the only day of the year where there is no radio or television broadcast and no flights allowed in or out of the country. Jerusalem especially shuts down. There was not a single store open, and all the streets are closed to traffic: the traffic lights merely flash yellow. Kids take advantage of the empty roads to ride bikes and scooters down the city's giant hills.
After synagogue on Friday night, I went with a few other people to Emek Rafayim, a popular street that has many shops and restaurants, and is usually very busy. The entire street looked like it had turned into a street fair, with tons of people just walking around talking to each other. Then when we walked back up the hill to Beit Nativ, we heard singing. When we got to the top, there were dozens of Nativers, sitting in the middle of what is normally an EXTREMELY busy intersection, singing songs while a huge crowd of people stood around, sang, and watched. We immediately joined the circle in the middle of the road. It was a very unique experience to be sitting down in the middle of a major street, one we have to wait for the light to cross every day for fear of being hit by a crazy Israeli driver, just singing songs.
Although a lot of what I did this Yom Kippur I will probably never do again (including sitting through the entire service), I was really happy to be able to experience the true observance of Yom Kippur in the place where it was truly meant to be observed.

One final word, I just want to say a HUGE Mazel Tov to Dale and Ira on their wedding today! It made me very sad that I couldn't be there with them, but I heard Dale looked beautiful and I can't wait to see pictures. And I'm sure Sabrina looked adorable as always =).

Bye for now!