A Pocketful of Simchas

It must be my lucky week. Not only did I get called to the Torah last week at the bat mitzvah of a super-excited 50-something, but a week later I got to hold the chuppah at the wedding of two super-excited 80-something. Nine years into the second marriage for each of them, Norma and Len decided that during their trip to Israel, they wanted to have a Jewish ceremony. A friend of theirs from Jerusalem organized it and got rabbi, and it happened to take place at my yeshiva. For weddings as well as bat mitzvahs you need 10 people, and since the couple, their friend, and the rabbi only numbered four, they asked the yeshiva students if we would help make a minyan. I think we ended up having close to 20 people, and it was a beautiful wedding. Despite the fact that this was not only the second marriage for each, but also the second wedding for that couple, they both looked nervous and excited and had tears in their eyes the whole time.

At the end, a bunch of the guys grabbed a chair and lifted up the groom (who didn't seem to either walk or talk much), as is, I guess, customary at Jewish weddings. To my surprise, his bride was overjoyed. She said it made his day. Although, adorably, he barely seemed to notice.

Skipping Class

When I got home late the other night, my roommate told me that he had been invited by a friend of ours to go to Masada the next morning, and they wanted me to come along as well. (Well, not me specifically, but additional people so that they could have ten for a minyan.) Our friend's mom is in town and her mom had a friend who, in middle age, decided to climb Masada at sunrise and become a bat mitzvah by reading Torah for the first time on top of the mountain. They had already rented a van and they just needed people to fill it. As planned he bat mitzvah woman, Anne, climbed up at sunrise, and the rest of us drove down at about 8am and met her there.

Masada is an mountain next to the Dead Sea where an entire Jewish community that lived at the top murdered each other in resistance to Roman enslavement. I'm not sure I particularly feel that it was a great act of Jewish heroism, but I do appreciate the site as iconic, think the ruins are pretty interesting, and can't really get over the amazing view. I haven't been to Masada since I was here when I was 15, and whatever I may think of the history, it has stuck out since then as story of my own heroics, since I managed to climb up before dawn (with a lot of help from my friends) despite by crippling fear of heights.

We were on a tight schedule and didn't get to climb up or down this time (though I might have liked to), but it was all worth it. I've never, ever seen anyone so excited to become a bat mitzvah as Anne was this week. I had never met her before, but when we started to service, I could tell she was nervous. As soon as she finished reading from the Torah, though, she started beaming with pride and dancing around the little room we had designated for shachrit. This is the story I'm telling to every 12 year who doesn't want to be bar mitzvah'd, and I was proud to be a part of it.

The whole thing also reminded me of what a beautiful country this can be and of what amazing things I will see if I skip class once in a while and breathe some fresh air. Despite the fact that in this tiny country everything is about 3 meters from everything else, it all seems really, really far from Jerusalem. I think if I can get out of this city and see some more of what Israel has to offer, I'll may actually learn to love it.

What's New With Me (and, you know, Israel)

I don't know if there's so much new with me, but it's been an interesting week and it's worth an update anyway. Since the beginning of the semester I've been learning at the yeshiva full-time, which is about 8+ hours a day, 4.5 days a week. The first semester I was studying Hebrew in the mornings, and now I am studying Talmud. I read it without translation (which means, in Hebrew and Aramaic) and even after I finally figure out what it says (with a lot of help from my teacher), it still really hurts my brain to figure out what it means. I'm not sure I'm a natural-born Talmud scholar, but I do enjoy working my way through it. I'm definitely set on continuing my learning when I return to the States in whatever way I can.

On other news, yesterday was the first (and, as far as I can tell, the only) secular national holiday they've had here since I've arrived——Election Day. It was nice to have a day off; it was not nice, however, to see just how far right the war has turned Israelis. Months ago, when Livni was elected head of Kadima, the "central-left" party (which was not so very left) had so many seats in the Knesset it seemed pretty clear she would be the next prime minister. At this point, even that seems unlikely. I won't say anything else you can read in the newspaper, but I will say that it's difficult for me to watch. I typically think there's a lot of undue negativity about Israel in the foreign press, but I'm disheartened by a country that takes what happened in Gaza as a sign that the oppression is insufficient and the wars are not severe enough. I'm still trying to get familiar with the subtleties of all sides, but, in my mind, the big picture is definitely not a pretty one.