Rosh Chodesh Adar ... Purim is on its Way!

We thought we stumbled upon the twilight zone on Sunday when we showed up at school and discovered faculty acting like clowns and preachers, students wearing crazy hats and costumes to class, and the morning services being led to tunes like "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer," "Joy to the World," and "A Whole New World!" I guess we should have known something was coming since for the last week or so, "April fools" type of jokes were appearing all over the bulletin boards ... one teacher even posted a full-out schedule for the celebration of Rosh Chodesh (new month) that involved the students participating in ridiculous activities like communal mikveh dipping and praying in togas on the roof! Several of my girlfriends and I did not catch the joke so quickly and were pretty mortified at the idea that our school was planning these types of activities!

In reality, Sunday actually marked the first of the month of Adar, the last month of the Jewish (lunar) calendar, in which the holiday of Purim falls. So we didn't really enter the twilight zone per say, but rather we started the month of Adar, which is celebrated as sort of the "jokester" time of the year. The Book of Esther, which is a book in the Writings section of the Hebrew Bible that tells a story of Jewish survival in Persia and which we read on the holiday of Purim, describes that the fate of the Jews was "turned on its head" after we were miraculously saved from the evil decree of destruction. As such, the month of Adar has come to be celebrated as a time to turn everything upside down! Basically, if you were ever into the "trick or treat" aspects of Halloween, then this would be your hay day!

Growing up, especially as little kids, we celebrated the holiday of Purim (which actually comes in the middle of the month of Adar) by dressing up in costumes and going to the synagogue to hear the Book of Esther being read, but it wasn't common in our community to really celebrate the beginning of each Hebrew month, so the concept of turning the whole month of Adar into a joking time is new to us. As with all of the holiday seasons on the Jewish calendar, this one has also been so much fun to experience here in Jerusalem as everyone is in the spirit of the celebrations! The bakeries are overflowing with humantashen, which are triangle shape (like the evil Haman’s hat) cookies that we eat this time of year, and many other stores are filled to the brim with costumes, masks, wigs, hats, glitter, etc. It is so amazing to walk around and experience a whole society that is marching to the tune of the Jewish calendar. And not that it was ever so difficult to live in the U.S. and abide by the Christian calendar with the Christian holidays sort of dictating seasons of celebration, but it is just so amazing to really experience the holidays in an environment where everyone is on the same page. Just to note, Israel also uses the January to December calendar just as we do in the US to organize dates, but it seems to co-exist with the Hebrew calendar - so most things are listed with both sets of dates so that it is always clear when the new months and Jewish holidays fall according to both calendars. As a fun fact, we learned that you can actually write-out either date on your bank checks - so cool!

Interestingly, Max and I have actually spent much time this year learning about the holiday of Purim. As it turns out, we learned all of the Mishneh (first codification of Jewish oral law in 200 AD) of Massechet Megillah (the tractate that describe the laws related to Purim) in one of our morning classes, and we are now studying the Gemora (further documentation of Jewish oral law from around 300-400 AD) on the same subject. We have also studied the laws of Purim in our Halacha (Jewish law) class, and I even took a class last semester just to learn the trope (musical notes) for the reading of the Book of Esther on Purim. Further, my Women and Mitzvot class is currently discussing the role of women in the reading of the Megillah - the Book of Esther - and whether women and men are able to equally fulfill each other's obligations in reading the story on Purim. So, not only is Purim the culmination of this festive month of Adar and the finale of the Jewish calendar, but it will serve as a sort-of marking point for our studies as well. It might seem odd that we would spend so much time in so many different classes studying a holiday that came relatively late in our history - the story is thought to have happened between 586 and 516 BCE - and that this holiday was entirely created by the Rabbis and not discussed in the Torah. But as we have learned, it is these aspects of Purim that specifically make it quite relevant for us to study today as we are asking questions like - How did Rabbinic Judaism come to be the type of Judaism most Jews are practicing today? And how did the Rabbis create laws during the time that the 1st and 2nd Temples were being destroyed? And how do we specifically practice today the components of the holiday that were established hundreds of years ago? In other words, as Purim has sort of become much of the bane of our existence here at Pardes, we are really looking forward to actually celebrating the holiday in about a week and a half.

As a tidbit, today, the holiday of Purim is celebrated on a different day in Jerusalem (one day later) than in every other city in the world! So instead of doing the 4 mitzvot (commandments) of reading the Megillah, having a seudah (feast), giving gifts to the poor, and giving gifts to each other on the 14th of Adar, this year we will do these things on the 15th! So, as we make our way towards that day of celebration, we will keep you updated on our preparations and experiences. And in the meantime, I am persistently practicing my chapter of Megillah that I will be reading for Purim and we are counting down until my mom and her friend Robin arrive next Thursday!

4 States at once? Try 4 countries!

Last week we traveled with Pardes to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel. Although we didn't actually spend much time in the city proper, we hiked a great deal in the mountains of the area and we stayed at a kibbutz about 30 minutes north of Eilat. I tried for a while to write a description of what a 'kibbutz' is, but found that I was babbling and going on for far too long. So check this article out if you want to learn more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibbutz



Kibbutz Ketura, were we stayed, was founded in 1973 by a dozen Young Judea (a popular Jewish youth movement) eighteen-year-olds. Today it is the home of over 40 families and the kibbutz primarily produces dates. It is an incredible story in of itself, (as you can see from the picture, who would think that you can make things bloom in the desert?)
In addition to prestine date palms (picture), the kibbutz agriculturists also maintain an "experimental orchard", which we were able to tour. The woman who runs it is a world-renoun Ph.D., who is obessed by the question, "What will grow down here in the desert?" One of the kibbutz's claims to fame is that they are currently sucessfully growing a 2000 year old seed which was found at the archeological site of Masada!

There is much more to say about the Kibbutz, however I again refer you to its website for a more eloquent and accurate summary:

http://www.ketura.org.il/hist.html

The best things about staying at the kibbutz were the opportunities I had to speak with different kibbutz members. The first night, I joined a friend of mine, Matt, who is a student with Jenny and me at Pardes, to the home of Matt's uncle, Steven. Steve was a very nice host (in the home that, of course, he didn't own) and we spent several hours grilling him about why he had chosen, as a twenty-year-old, to move from Brooklyn to the middle of a desert in the middle-east in order to farm for the rest of his life. We also inquired about how life works on a kibbutz, with respect to work, family, finances, etc. The second day I met another member of the kibbutz named Michelle. She had spotted me in the dining hall at breakfast and was transfixed by a black, glow-in-the-dark, constellation t-shirt that I was wearing. Michelle must have been really into astronomy, or more likely, astrology, because she couldn't stop looking at my shirt and asking about it. I told her that if she really liked my shirt then I would be happy to trade it to her for a 'kibbutz ketura' t-shirt. Needlesstosay, my constellation t-shirt has made aliyah.


The hiking was astounding. That's me, very small, in the picture. We traversed canyons, cliffs, gorges, and wadis - all of which displayed a variety of limestone, sandstone, granite, sulfur, and more geological compositions that I can't recall.
Along the trails we encountered archeological inscriptions, wild ibex, sand dunes (see video),
and best of all, a view over the Gulf of Eilat which included the Red Sea, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia together. Take that, Four Corners!



By the way, this is my beautiful wife during her first time at the shores of the Red Sea!