First and foremost, I am sorry for not writing in such a long time. Things got busy, but they always are busy, so that is no excuse. I apologize.
So, let’s quickly cover much ground and catch up.
The final highlight of October (wow that was so long ago) was….
Simchat Torah, which fell on the 26th of October this year, is the celebration of the children of Israel receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. It also marks the full and complete end of autumn’s High Holidays. I celebrated it with Alon and many of my classmates on a kibbutz named Gezer (which means carrot, go figure…). We danced, we sang, we drank apple cider. It was good.
November is a sad month this year, as it did not have any official Jewish holidays, other than the usual celebration of the beginning of the month and Shabbat at the end of each week. So, most of November was marked with school work and more school work. (Alon and I only got to go rock climbing a couple of times, which is disappointing.) Also, I gave my first “rabbinical school” d’var Torah (sermon). It was on the portion Lech Lecha, where God commands Abraham to leave his home and go to a land which God will show to Abraham. I used this as a jumping off point to discuss discovering God in different places and the importance of inner search and growth, a topic which no one else had discussed yet and a big topic for a first sermon. Nonetheless, I thought it went over relatively well and was more or less happy with the whole thing.
Despite all of the work, the end of November was fantastic, as I got to travel and see Mom, Dad, and Ben.
The Saturday before Thanksgiving, I flew into Paris where I met Mom, Dad, and Ben in the airport. Ben needed to travel with his university program during the first few days that we were in Paris. So, Dad, Mom, and I determined to visit many of the sites that Ben had obviously seen before our arrival.
During our first few days in Paris, Dad, Mom, and I visited the Musée D’Orsay, wandered around the “Ancient City” of Paris, which includes the Palais de Justice, Ste-Chapelle, Notre Dame, an assortment of little markets, and Pont Neuf. We took a boat ride up and down to the Seine River – during which we not only saw a variety of palaces and grand museums, like the Louvre, but also stopped off to explore the Eiffel Tower. (We were adventurous enough to walk down from the second floor to the first floor, but did not walk all of the way up and down the tower. Instead, we took the elevator all of the way up and all of the way down.)
Once Ben came back, we began exploring other parts of Paris and started using the Parisian subway system (which is terribly confusing if you are just used to the relatively uncomplicated DC Metro). As a side note, Paris has one of the oldest public transportation systems in the world. But during the late 1800s/early 1900s, before the idea of underground train systems took off, Parisian architects considered constructing a system of elevated canals to ferry people throughout the city. Can you imagine walking under one of these raised rivers just after it had sprung a leak?
Back onto the task of summarizing the Paris trip, after Ben’s return, we visited the Louvre (concentrating on mainly the Italian wing, which includes not only Winged Victory and large collection of Greek and Roman statues, but also famous works like the Mona Lisa), the Marais (which is the old Jewish quarter that is now filled with wonderful little shops and restaurants), Sacre C’ur Basilica, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Avenue des Champs-Elysees and the Arc du Triumph, and the Picasso Museum. We ate at the café where the movie Amilie was filmed, and generally consumed enormous amounts of pastries and excellent multi-course meals. We visited the Pompidou, and we saw a fantastic exhibition on Dadaism there (the largest that has been gather together in Paris since the 1920s, when Dada was in its hey-day). We also met Ben’s host mom, Catrine, and hung out with Mom’s student-exchange sister from the Netherlands and her husband, all of whom were very nice. I also ran on the banks of the Seine, the Louvre courtyards, and Jardin de Tuileries. It was terribly cold, but lovely. And on Thanksgiving Day, Mom made mashed potatoes and pecan pie in the little apartment that we rented for the week. It was delicious.
Mom and Dad left Paris a day before I did. Since I left very late the next day, Ben and I had two full days to hang out in Paris. We made the most of it. We went to the Louvre for an entire day. We visited the two other main wings, which I had not touched on my previous visit. Ben, who studied French art during his semester, gave me a tour of the French wing. While Ben did work for one of his term papers, I meandered about the wing with an audio guide – it was so enjoyable. After that, we proceeded to get thoroughly lost in the museum and wandered into the other wings and some very interesting exhibitions (including the Egyptian one – I have never seen so many mummy cases or sarcophagi in one place… it was so cool). The next day, Ben and I toured around Paris, revisiting some sites, enjoying cafes, Paris, and especially time with each other. All in all, it was an unbelievable and fantastic trip. I was sad to have to return to school.
But return I did. Most of December was spent in a furied attempt to catch up with all of my class work and then study for finals. However, right after I returned from Paris, HUC conducted a trip to Haifa and smaller northern cities such as Sefad and Tzippori. We also visited one of my favorite places in Israel, Caesaria. Caesaria was an ancient Roman port, turned palace-city by King Herod, turned fort by invading Crusaders. It is a beautiful and interesting place. (You can also go scuba diving in underwater ruins there.) However, most of our time, we spent in Haifa, learning about the blossoming Reform community there. There are two major centers for Reform Judaism in Haifa, namely the Leo Baeck Education Center (which includes a synagogue) and Synagogue Or Hadash (which includes an after-school education program). It seems like they are doing excellent work at both of these places. And it is always intriguing to learn about the relative absence and growth of the Israeli Reform Movement.
Alon and I went climbing on New Years Eve Day with our friends Naomi and Shachar. That evening, we threw a party at Naomi’s place in Raanana. Many of my (and Alon’s) closest friends (from Israel) were there. It was really a blast; we drank and ate and danced and talked. It was a great way to welcome in 2006.
And on the first of January, I returned back to the United States for a short break. But that brings us up to the present, so all of that will be in the next (not as long) blog.
Much love
l
