Preparing for Pesach

The Yom Nativ before Passover was 'Yom Mayim' (Yom Water), and the day was spent to talking about water conservation in Israel. We walked down to the Yerucham lake (a huge man-made lake that is actually really nice) and learned all about water in Israel and the problems that come with trying to make inhabitable the 70% of Israel that is the Negev Desert. The afternoon was then spent enjoying the water by going to a beach in Ashkelon, which was absolutely amazing and gorgeous, and being able to sit in a bathing suit on the beach on April 1st is a luxury I definitely am not used to from home.

Passover in Israel is a very big deal - so much so that schools have 3 entire weeks off for break, which include not only the 8 days of Passover but also a week before hand to prepare. Thus, I was done with volunteering on April 1st, even though technically my break (according to Nativ) didn't start until the 8th. So for that entire week, we were set up with alternative volunteering around the community along with a little bit of programming.


The day after Yom Mayim was dedicated to the Negev, and we visited Ben Gurion's (Israel's first Prime Minister, and a man whose vision was to see the Negev inhabited) grave and his home on a Kibbutz, where he lived and worked to cultivate the Negev during the last years of his life. I've been to these places before, so mostly I was just enjoying a day outside in the sun.

The following day was our first day of alternative volunteering. We were put to work making packages of Kosher for Passover food that would be given out to the needy residents of Yerucham to ensure that everyone had something to eat over the holiday. We spent all morning unloading huge boxes of fruit and vegetables and breaking them down into smaller amounts, and then packing them all together into different boxes to be delivered. It was a lot of fun, with all of us working together in a huge assembly line to get everything done. That afternoon, each Nativer was paired up with a volunteer from Yerucham who had a car, and we drove to the appropriate houses to deliver the packages. During this delivery, 2 significant things happened to me:
1. While I was unloading a package in an old woman's house, my favorite little girl from gan appeared behind me in the kitchen, and all she could do was look at me and smile and follow me around. When I explained to the woman that I work in her gan, she explained that that was her granddaughter. I was so happy and excited to see her, and I picked her up and played with her for a few minutes. About 10 minutes later, I was delivering a package at a different house in a different neighborhood, and the same girl was sitting on the front porch of the door next door, WEARING A DIFFERENT OUTFIT. I swear, I thought that this girl had a twin that I didn't know about or something. But after confirming her identity I just asked her 'HOW did you do that?' So the significance of this incident is that I discovered my favorite girl from gan is magical.
2. I met Uri. Uri was the man who I delivered packages with. We talked a little bit while we were delivering - he had lived in Boston for a few years so his English was good. He's married with a young kid, and he was really nice but we were only together for about forty minutes total. As I'm about to leave, he asks me for my phone number so he can invite me over for Shabbat dinners, which I really appreciated since having a place to go for a free meal is always nice. He then proceeded to ask if I had anywhere to go for Seder. After telling him I did, he asked if I had anywhere to go for Yuntif - the holy day that marks the last day of Passover. When I told him that no, I didn't know yet where I was going, he invited me to come with him, his family, and the families of his two brothers to his parents house outside of Jerusalem. Although I didn't end up there for Yuntif, this incident reminded me why I love Israel so much and what made me want to come here in the first place. The fact that I had talked to this man so briefly, yet he had invited me to come with him to celebrate the holiday with his entire family, is so typical of Israeli hospitality that it's reminders like these that constantly force me to appreciate how special it is to be able to live in a country where that is the norm.

That weekend Ashley and I went with some other friends to Tel Aviv. It was a really nice weekend - we went out to eat and spent two lovely days relaxing on the beach.

The following week began with more alternative volunteering - I spent one morning tutoring English students at the secular high school, and one afternoon completely scrubbing down, inside and out, the synagogue across the street to prepare it for Pesach.

Tuesday was Yom Passover, our Yom Nativ for the week. Most of that day was devoted to cleaning our apartments and Kashering them for Passover - which is not a simple process. In order to have an apartment be Kosher for Pesach, all chametz (all bread products and things that have come in contact with bread products) needs to be removed. This means that not only does all the chametz need to be put away (it all needed to be locked into a special cabinet, which was then ritually 'sold,' so that technically we didn't own it anymore), but all our regular dishes needed to be put away, and the entire apartment had to be cleaned, including the refrigerator, oven, and microwave. This is a process that I've never experienced before, so a lot of the rules and regulations regarding what was allowed and what wasn't were totally new to me. Our whole apartment worked really hard, scrubbing down everything and making sure everything was ready for the holiday, and we bought a few Kosher for Passover foods (most of us would be out of the apartment for most of break, so we didn't need to entirely re-stock our kitchen) and plastic plates and utensils.

Up next...the Seder and Pesach break!