going backwards to the head of the year

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Hello everyone! I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to write on here in a while, so now I'm going to write a really long entry to make up for it! haha.

Ok, so, when I last left you, I had just spent my first week at Ulpan. The whole time in Ulpan in Netanya was a lot of fun. Kinda like the beginning of college, just because you're living with so many people your age and just hanging out and having fun all the time. Oh yeah, and having 5 hours of hebrew classes a day too. We have a lot of musicians with us, so somebody is always playing guitar, piano or singing. We also went to the beach a lot and went into the city to go to cafes and such. Not such a bad life huh? So Ulpan went very quickly, because first of all, it was only 3 weeks really, and the major jewish holidays were in the middle of that, so we were constantly on the go every weekend. So Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) was on Sept 22 (I think), friday night to sunday. So Thursday night, after our Ulpan classes were over, we all went out in Tel Aviv for the night. We took a private taxi/mini bus thing called a Sherut, which was basically like a mini party van for us, haha. So we went to a cafe on the beach, and to a bar to dance and drink. It was a lot of fun. We got back to Ulpan very late, so all slept late the next day. Then friday morning, we all went to our respective places for Rosh Hashanah. So of course, I went to my cousin's house in Rishon.

So, I got to my cousins house friday afternoon. We had a huge family dinner of like 20 people, altho most of the group was from the other side of the family (ie, not related to me). but it was a lot of fun, and I was excited that I not only understood most of the conversations but was able to have my own conversations with people. my cousins were impressed, which also made me happy. but i know i still have a long way to go. The dinner was amazing and there was soooo much food, as any good jewish meal has. Saturday morning, we were supposed to wake up to go to synagogue, but everyone slept instead. So went went in the afternoon, which was weird for me, but basically the same. My cousin's synagogue is within walking distance, as is most everyone's in Israel. There are synagogues like every 5 minutes when you're walking. So, we walked to synagogue, which was so nice, rather than the 25 minute drive at home to our synagogue in VA. So, it was orthodox, which meant men and women sitting separately. This is not something I'm used to, but most synagogues in Israel are Orthodox, even those most of the people are not, but when they do decide to go to synagogue, they pray like the orthodox. Anyway , what I did like was that rather than the women being upstairs like in most synagogues, we were instead just next to the men, separated by a wall. So we were almost equal. But of course the men's section was bigger and closer to the arc (that holds the torahs).

So, Saturday night, more food and relaxing. Then sunday, again we said we would wake up early, and again, we slept. Actually, both mornings I woke up on my own, and found everyone else still sleeping, so I went back to sleep for lack of a better thing to do. So we went to synagogue again Sunday afternoon. The whole holiday was very nice, filled with lots of family, lots of food, and lots of sleep. Its so nice that everywhere you go in the country, people are celebrating, its such a different feeling from being the in US, where normally on the holidays, I have to take off a day from school or work, and its always a big pain in the ass, and there is always makeup work. Here you are just allowed to breathe and enjoy the holiday.

So, sunday night, after the holiday was over, I took a train back to Ulpan for classes monday morning. this week, we had new classes and teachers. the rest of the ulpan, which had lots of people had no classes from rosh hashanah till oct 16 because of all the holidays, so for the first week and a half, we were in normal ulpan classes, all split up with different teachers. after everyone else left, it was just us, so we were split into 2 classes, beginning and advanced. i was put in the advanced class, with 4 other people. we had so much fun in this class, it was great. the teacher was also a lot of fun, most of the time we were just talking about whatever we felt like, in hebrew, learning tons of new words, reading the newspaper, etc. it was also great because since it was a small class, we could really have the teacher teach us whatever we wanted, so I got a lot of my grammar questions answered, which really helped me.

so thursday night, we had a midnight trip to Jerusalem. In between the 10 days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, you are supposed to ask for forgiveness for your sins from the last year, and there is a special service/prayers for this called Slichot. The reason for this is, Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the new year, G-d starts thinking about who will live and die in the next year (writing in his "book of life"), and so during the 10 days until Yom Kippur, you ask for forgiveness, and on Yom Kippur, you finish atoning for your sins, and G-d signs and closes the "book of life". So, part of asking for forgiveness is this service Slichot. People from all over Israel, and all over the world really, come to Jerusalem during this time, to go to the Wailing Wall and pray. Another thing about this Slichot service, is they do it at 4 in the morning! So, we went to Jerusalem. We left Netanya at about 1am to drive to jerusalem. When we got to the old city, the place was packed. Just think, 2am and thousands and thousands of people are wandering around the city, just to pray at the kotel (western/wailing wall). There was security and police everywhere, to keep everything under control. They also closed a lot of the streets close to the old city, which meant our bus could not get very close to drop us off. So we got dropped off in the back part of the old city, which meant a nice long walk. It was really beautiful though because it was an area I had never walked through (normally, to get there this way would require going through the arab neighborhood, but because our bus dropped us off it was ok). Anyway, it was really beautiful and it was overlooking the Mt of Olives, which is where most of the christian churches and other landmarks are, and the biggest jewish cemetery in all of israel. So, we finally made it to the kotel, and it was just so packed with thousands of people. Teenagers were just hanging out there, talking like it was the cool place to be. My friends and I made our way up to the wall, but it was so crowded you had to push your way through, and then wait your turn to get close enough to touch the wall. It was all a very emotional, beautiful experience, and we were all just in complete awe of our surroundings.
After we finished at the Kotel, we went to a old neighborhood called Nachlaot, which was one of the first Jewish neighborhoods outside the old city walls, and its about 150 years old. This neighborhood has lots of little communities all squished together, and so many synagogues within it, it was really too many to count. at this point, we had a tour guide, who took as around the neighborhood (its reaally just a bunch of little alleyways and tiny houses all together), and also a religious neighborhood of jews from all over the world. We went to 3 different synagogues in the neighborhood, to see the differences in the physical structures, the listen to the prayers, hear the shofar, and just experience the 4am services of asking for forgiveness. Each of the synagogues were different, but the purpose, and the prayers were all the same. It was very spiritual to be there, and I really enjoyed the trip. At 6am, we finished the tour, and by this point, we hadn't slept and were absolutely starving, so we went to the first bakery that had just opened, and got back on the bus to go back to Netanya. We got back to Netanya at 7:30am, and everyone proceeded to pass out immediately.

So, about half of the group stayed at Ulpan for Shabbat, and it was very nice to be together and just relax. Then Sunday morning, I left to go to my cousins house in Rishon again, for Yom Kippur. My cousin Oran, just back from Thailand, picked me up at the train, with their dog Kaya. I was very happy to see them both. And Oran was happy to be able to speak with me in Hebrew now too, hehe. So we had a very big lunch before the fastin began at 5pm (on Yom Kippur, you fast meaning you don't eat or drink anything for 24 hours while you are atoning for your sins). At 5pm, all the cell phones went off, the tv stations shut down, all the cars were off the road, and for the first time, all of Israel was quite. It was amazing. We walked to synagogue for the evening service, and there were people just walking in the middle of the streets, kids riding bicycles, and everyone just talking happily. After the services, people just hang out in the streets all night. Each age of kids has their own area that they hang out in every year, and then everyone just walks the streets all night. It was such a cool, relaxed atmosphere. We woke up Monday morning, planning to go to synagogue, but my cousins fell back asleep, so I went by myself for the services. It was strange and cool to be there by myself. I felt good being there, but strange that I wasn't with my family. I was there for about 3 hours, then headed back home. I took a nap, and then we all went back to synagogue for the last service to end the holiday. I finally heard the shofar in synagogue (which is one of the main things you are supposed to do on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and I had somehow missed it until now). This was the first time I had been to this particular part of the service, so it was a very nice closer to the end of the holiday. We all headed home afterwards, and quickly gorged ourselves on food. It was the easiest fast I remember, probably because I wasn't just sitting at home watching tv waiting for it to end, like I normally would do at home in the US. So I headed back to Netanya that night, because I had class again the next morning. It was a bit difficult getting back, cuz not all the buses were running, and the trains weren't running. But I made it back.

So from this point we only had 3 more days of ulpan. But I"ll write about that in another blog in the next couple days, because this blog is already way too long, and you probably stopped reading about 15 minutes ago! haha. ok, well, love u all!

Leah

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Photos

kotel during Slichot
at the Kotel during Slichot at 2:30am

synagogue in Nachlaot
people waiting to get inside a synaoguge in Nachlaot at 4am

Comments

[Linda]

wow!
what an amazing place to spend the holy days! Now, I not only want to go to Israel, but I definitely want to be there for the 10 days (and Slichot!) Thank you for a glimpse into your world love, cousin Linda