Back into the swing....

Although it's been two weeks since the end of Sukkot vacation, a lot has happened in that time. Jenny assigned me to do this blog entry because there is a lot to cover, and I'm a little more concise than she is. :)

Several of our teachers live in a neighborhood called Gush Etzion, on the east side of the green line. We were invited to a day of hiking to learn about the settlement and to eat dinner in the sukkahs of our respective teachers. The hike was in and around many arab villages, which were full of olive tree plantations. The path we walked was also very ancient as it used to be the path used for pilgrims to Jerusalem, and we saw remnants of Roman mile markers and other structures.

During Sukkot vacation we spent two days at the beach of Netanya. Some friends of ours organized it and we spent a good deal of time relaxing, Israeli style. We lounged in the sun and played paddleball by day, cruised the outdoor Netanya city center by night, and navigated the Israel inter-city buses in between. I remember the beaches of Netanya from my trip here 9 years ago, and I'm happy to report that the Mediterranean hasn't lost any of its splendors.

Jenny's parents visited during the last few days of Sukkot and for about a week after.

Despite not having many things planned for them, we actually did quite a bit, including walking all over the city, visiting the newly rebuilt holocaust museum Yad V'Shem, touring The Israel museum, riding in a city-circumscribing bus tour, seeing the biblical zoo, and probably the highlight of their visit: having them spend a full day with us in classes at Pardes. That day during school they attended our Mishna class in the morning, our Niviim (prophets) class before lunch, and elected to join Jenny in her afternoon class on modern Jewish thought (Instead of my Midrash/Aggadah class? Well, I can't blame them.) From what I gathered, they were very impressed with the school and the quality of the faculty, which felt very good and a little redeeming to hear. In addition to being so active during their visit, we actually had a lot of downtime together to relax, play cards, and catch up in person.

Last week we went on a train ride to Akko with a large organization called Masa. Masa is a very large and generous program that helps to fund a variety of year-long Israel programs for students around the world. This trip was a kind of rally for Masa, and despite the day being very long and the traveling a little arduous, the trip was fun and it was cool to see the old city of Akko and to travel a bit. The following picture is up on their website. Perhaps you can sense a little hesitation in my expression?

The next bit of news that we can report is that we finally have our washing machine. After many conversations with our landlord, the awkward conclusion that came was that I had to install it myself, without any prior experience, without tools, and with the knowledge that my tampering was going to void the warranty on this new machine. Nevertheless, some of the instructions were in English and I successfully installed it. Due to the European size of the washer, we have been running it constantly for the past week in order to get through our laundry. However, it can’t be understated how good it feels to have that project crossed off the list.

The last week of classes contained two afternoons of special programming. The first was a Yom Iyun on Exploring Jewish Identity (The word Iyun comes from Iyin, or eye, so a Yom Iyun is a day of focused, or special learning). We watched a documentary film about people who had left far-right Hassidis communities. There was a guest speaker, Steve Cohen, (you may heard of him - he wrote the book “The Jew Within”) , who gave a very interesting lecture on his research on American Jewry. And then we had breakout sessions. Having Yom Iyuns are typical of any Yeshiva-like schools and we had one last month on the topic of the high holidays, but I felt it was very Pardes-like to have one specifically devoted to such an abstract topic as Your Jewish Identity. The second special afternoon was devoted to the Yartzeit (annual memorial) of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995. That afternoon consisted of a video presentation and a faculty panel, of which (and to our interest) some political opinions were revealed by people we normally only see in classroom settings. So that was fun. :)

Finally, last night Jenny and I went to our first reconstructionist/renewal Friday night service. The service moves locations and this week it was a potluck in someone’s home (we made a sweetpotato pie and a salad) During Kabbalat Shabbat they played guitar, drums and sang a lot of one-line, trancey, spiritual songs. I felt a little uncomfortable because I felt like I was in the presence of a shaman or something. But they also had invited a Christian pilgrimage group from France and some Sufi leaders to the meal, and it was very interesting to hear them speak (mostly in Hebrew) and to have a comfortable cross-cultural experience.

Ok, that gets you up to date. We will try to be more punctual about blogging in the future – two weeks is too much to report on at once!