| Judah Kerbel | | Print | |
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Judah Kerbel
Nope, Nothing's Broken! בס"ד Our second semester in Yeruham has kicked off quite eventfully, which, while maybe a little bit stressful, has been very exciting for everyone. We arrived at around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, after our booster shot adventure in Be'er Sheva, quite a few hours later than planned (also much darker than planned) . The bus dropped everybody at their respective residences, and the truck, which had been waiting for us for a few hours as well, came by, and we unloaded and brought everything upstairs. Our apartment number is 11, and we're either three or four flights of stairs up – I can't remember which one but I think the former. When we entered, things were chaos – we immediately identified a broken table, there was a table awkwardly positioned behind a couch, and things quickly ended up all over the place. One of the first moves we made in my room (which is Seth, Jesse Lender, Ethan (MoMo) and me) was to move a bunk bed against a different wall to create a more open area in the room. We didn't do too much when we arrived at the apartments. At around 8, we went to the Afikim schul right down the block from my apartment for Ma'ariv, pizza, and a quick orientation. The pizza came from right next door, and we were happy to know that there is some good pizza in town. I don't remember too much what I did for the rest of the night – I was definitely tired, didn't unpack too much, and we also didn't have our laptops because while Yossi was planning on bringing them with him from Jerusalem, he didn't want them in the car while we were all in Be'er Sheva with the mumps issue. We had an apartment meeting to discuss shopping lists and general apartment issues (the other room in the apartment is Gelb, David, and Seffi). A little bit about the apartment: not the nicest living accommodations in the world. A medium size living room, a small but decent size kitchen, small rooms (though other apartments have smaller rooms), and cheap bathrooms. With a bit of decorating and cleaning up, however, it's much better. Thursday was a good day in accomplishing stuff. We all davened together in the morning, and then we had most of the day off from then on. Yoram, our Yeruham liaison, brought us around to our worksites. I'm working in the Yeshiva high school in the English department; other people are working in other schools doing English, as well as in a graveyard, soup kitchen, kindergarten, Magen David Adom… I feel like I'm forgetting something. We basically saw the school, met a couple of people there, and left – and of course learned the way to get there. I'm hoping to have a bike to get around, especially for work. I unpacked, bought more drawers for my clothes (I had very little shelf space), had some pizza, Cori came to talk to us about kashrut, and we did our first shop (including grilled cheese/waffle maker, cereal, bread, pasta, eggs, mac 'n cheese, chicken, other essentials – 700₪ bill). Our first dinner was chicken breasts in pita with BBQ sauce and was delicious. Yoram and Moshe stopped by at various points throughout the day to check out the issues in the apartment, of which included: minimal hot water, a broken refrigerator, a broken table that I already mentioned, not working lights… Friday morning, we met at the park (about a minute walk from my apartment) to flesh out some details about the upcoming days. Shortly after that, Yoram took us to a storage place to pick up a new refrigerator. We loaded it onto the truck and rode with it back to the apartment. I'd like to keep this blog as politically correct as possible, so I won't mention the connotations apparent to us as we road in the back of the truck. It was a bit crazy back there – we were flying everywhere (we includes the refrigerator, too) and we caught a few good bumps in the road. Crazy fun in Yeruham. Getting it up to the apartment wasn't any easier. We cleaned things up and made grilled cheese for lunch. I'll end this post here, for length's sake. Kol Tuv, Judah Sunday, January 17, 2010
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 Jules Visits Nativ Our first session with Jules was at 9:45 a.m. (I’ll outline all of the sessions at once, since I don’t have too much to say about each individual session.) The first session, on Friday, consisted of a discussion of a survey we had taken at Erev Nativ on the preceding Tuesday night, which asked if we define ourselves as Conservative Jews, why or why not, and what we believe Conservative Judaism is. People asked solid questions, and it was interesting to see the realities of perception among Conservative Jews. But here’s regarding the rest of the weekend: Friday night, we welcomed Shabbat together as Nativ at K’hilat Moreshet Yisrael (part of the Fuchsberg Center), and I led Kabbalat Shabbat. It was a definitely a spirited service, and people expressed liking of the service. We had Shabbat dinner together; I sat next to Jordana and mostly talked to her, I think something related to Judaism. After dinner I had a fantastic heart-to-heart with my friend Razie about things on our mind about Nativ experiences and beyond. We’re both going to Maryland next year and are excited about that. Afterwards I went to the Nativ tisch, which was mamash sababa. People picked some awesome and very high-spirited songs, and it was great to see everyone go crazy for V’yitnu L’cha Keter M’lucha.
Thursday, October 29, 2009 For the first time since I've been here (as far as I know), it's rained multiple times in one day. It was raining a little bit as I left Talmud. But then it rained at what would seem like an inconvenient time later tonight. Since the yeshiva ends at 3 p.m. on Thursday, we do not daven ma'ariv as a tzibbur, so I generally daven alone. When I daven alone, I often like to daven at the top of the ampitheater outside Beit Nativ, at the railing facing the Old Beit Midrash of the Yeshiva. As I was davening the Amidah, I felt a few drops. Slowly, the rain increased as I continued and it was raining fairly hard. The thing about the Amidah, though, is that it is forbidden for one to move at all, even if a snake is crawling up his leg or a king greets him according to the Mishnah. So one who holds an animosity towards rain definitely cannot move.
But I was all the more so happy to be davening in the rain tonight. People often talk about how neat sunrises, scenic views such as cliffs overlooking valleys, and nature inspire their praying – all of those are creations and powers of God. Likewise, we recognize at the beginning of the Amidah, when we say "mashiv ha-ruach u-morid ha-gashem," that God has great power in allowing it to rain. It was also shortly before I said the prayer "v'tein tal u-matar livracha," asking God to let it rain for the good, that it began to rain. When it rained tonight, I was praying in the midst of God's great power. Rain in Israel is a huge blessing, and I hope that the prayers of all of Israel will be a source of blessing just like the rain God provides for us.
Thursday, October 8, 2009 A Week’s Worth of Events
I’ll start off with Wednesday night. I started taking the Jewish Educators Training course with a guy named Mark Lazar. In essence, the goal of the program is to train us to use creative, innovative, and informal techniques to be Hebrew school teachers who are engaging students effectively. After one class, it seems the potential is great and I’m looking forward to opening my eyes in many different areas of informal Jewish education that will engage the young crowd.
Thursday was an interesting day. The day of learning was dedicated to Rafi Lehmann z”l, who had been a student at the Yeshiva a few years ago. Students from JTS studying Mechon Schechter were there for a good chunk of the day, during which a few of them who knew Rafi delievered some words in his memory. Reb Shmuel’s sicha, dedicated in memory of Rafi, was about tefillah, which brought it home for me, since I knew Rafi most in the context of tefillah. This sicha was one of my favorites so far: he described the discipline involved in tefillah, building our lives around it, the practice it takes, and the relationship between the inward and outward notions of tefillah. I’m extremely looking forward to the next few weeks, when he will go into more detail about certain parts of tefillah. Part of what made Thursday interesting for me, however, was that while we were honoring the memory and involved in dealing with death, it was also Abba’s birthday, and much of my mind was concentrated on celebrating his life (though of course I am very far away from him). At any rate, I got a haircut on Thursday afternoon that cost me only 35 shekel, and many people commented on a job well done – Misperei Rafi, I salute you. I also went to Mister Zol (“mister cheap”) to stock up on food – some snacks, pita, cheese, sauce (all for pita pizza), and pizza burekas. I spent a little more that I anticipated, but it’ll last me a while, I hope.
"How great are your works, Hashem, all of them you made in wisdom, the land is filled with your"
If only we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we piled onto the busses to head down to Mitzpe Ramon for desert survival – or better put, what Nativ was getting us into. We were scheduled to leave around 6:15, so we probably left around 6:30 – I don't remember exactly. I had a nice nap on the bus and woke up as we got into Be'er Sheva, where we Be'er Sheva track people will be in February (that's a joke, Be'er Sheva track no longer exists). We stopped at the Masorti beit k'nesset there for Shacharit; we essentially made the minyan. I was shaliach tzibbur – it happens sometimes. We ate breakfast, I put some paper towels on my aravot, and we got back on the bus to finish up our journey down to Mitzpe Ramon. As we got closer there were many times where it felt like we were going to get off but we didn't; we began to muse whether survival was surviving on a bus for three days.
But we got off, and survival in fact was not surviving on a bus for three days. To be honest, I don't remember much of the details of the first half of the hikes. I do remember that I had a great time hiking and enjoyed the company of my friend Sophie. Classic Judah Klutz Moment: I was wearing hiking boots, and the loops on my shoelaces were pretty big. At the top of shoe there are two extra hooks to use to tighten the shoelaces, and one of the loops got caught in a hook on the other shoe while I was walking so that I suddenly was walking one legged. I didn't trip though – instead Sophie and my friend Lainie made fun of me plenty and called me Twinkle Toes. We stopped at some scenic places along the way to catch some shade, rest for a little bit, and it was very nice. As we approached the campsite, we played "don't drop the beat," our favorite game from pilgrimage. I didn't do so well – was a little rusty.
We got to our campsite about 45 minutes before dark. As night rolled around I wasn't in the most social mood, so as people were having soup I lay down and then I had a fantastic conversation with my madricha Cori about life and also some Jewish stuff. It's great talking to Cori about that stuff, since she grew up non-religious, became Modern Orthodox in college and made aliyah, and she hasn't had so much exposure to Conservative Judaism. So we talk a lot about that and it gives us both a lot to think about. Dinner was great, then – excellent chicken. Afterwards we had a bonfire and Josh played guitar; we had a beautiful time. Given that we aren't surrounded by other distractions and artificial time, it was natural to go to bed at 9 and wake up at 5 or so.
Monday's hike had lots of ups and downs – climbing up mountains, coming down them. The morning was much easier than the afternoon. It was also the longest of the three days, since we hiked the whole day through, from 7-5 (or 17 in world time). I remember hiking for lots of the morning with my friend Ally (whose parents my dad married, it's like we were destined to be friends J) and I carried the water jerry (or whatever it's called). At around 10:30 or so we passed the Kibbutz Track coming the other way and said hi to them for thirty seconds. We sat down at a "tree" to have mid-morning snack. As we were about to play a game, someone picked up a rock and said "hey, a scorpion!" That was the end of that. The afternoon got increasingly difficult with all of the descents; sometimes going up was easier than going down. I wasn't so hungry when we got to lunch and was a bit worn out. We stayed at our lunch location for over an hour, as people napped. It was sort of humorous the way people dropped dead asleep.
Then we got to the afternoon campsite, again a little before sunset. It was a windy afternoon there. I davened mincha on my own and then cut up some vegetables for dinner. Dinner that night was hot dogs, turkey, and fries. The turkey was not quite to my liking, but the others were good. I went to sleep shortly after dinner, after I studied some Mishneh Torah (which I had stopped to do a couple of times throughout the tiyyul), but I woke up a few times during the night.
As morning approached I started feeling sick. While they asked us not to tarry in getting up so we could get started early, before the sun would come out, I didn't have much energy. At the beginning of davening, I didn't put a tallit on and had a hard time concentrating and even saying the words. But luckily, as davening progressed, I started feeling better, and put on a tallit and all. Just some, or actually a myriad, of stupid flies invaded our makom t'fillah and swarmed us.
Our hike Tuesday morning consisted essentially of a three-part ascent of a mountain. We had a very easy trek at the beginning, where we were walking and having fun on flat land. When we got to a shaded area to relax before the major ascent, our guide Michal told us that we had traveled halfway, which was a huge relief to us – it just meant we had an hour and a half of a difficult climb up, but that was it. It was also Michal's birthday, 21 actually, but it doesn't mean anything in Israel really.
The first ascent was a lot of fun – we were actually climbing up stuff, so that was fun. The next two kinda sucked. The harder part for me throughout the tiyyul as a whole was that I have asthma. I went slowly with Sarah and Lainie and Jesse Lender.
We reached the top to find ourselves on a huge plateau and celebrated a little bit, took some pictures. Then we had to do a trust walk – perhaps off of the cliff for all we know. I didn't really do it right – wasn't quite in the mindset. The next part was fairly powerful, though. We sat in silence as Michal passed cards around explaining the power of silence. Each card cleverly built up the intensity of the exercise, and culminated with everyone lying on their backs, pondering in silence. I found that in the desert, in general, silence was a very powerful thing because there isn't other sound interfering; silence was truly complete.
So then we ate and descended from the mountain. Cori and I continued our conversation from the other night, with other participants weighing on what we were saying. At a certain point we stopped because we would not be continuing together. One by one, we were sent off to walk a significant distance by ourselves to think about the tiyyul. We then met back together to discuss what we thought about.
Then came our jeep ride, which is mentioned in the title. I was in the last jeep. Immediately we were off to a bumpy ride and were riding not really in our seats but rather wherever we were thrown around in the jeep. The driver drove fast and bumpy. Sarah screamed in excitement the whole time. Then came the best part: we see someone on the side of the rode, and the driver pulls over. Yossi says "Ahlan," and the guy asks if there's a seat for him. So the driver says, "ta'aleh la-gag," get on the roof. I laughed because I thought he was sorta being, in your face, I have no room for your sorry bum. But the guy got on the roof. The driver slowed down, but it was still a bumpy ride, and we kept looking out the window to see if he would fall off. We got to a main road eventually, though, and he got off safely. We survived the jeep ride, yes indeed.
What was most significant for me during this tiyyul? One, the desert brings an opportunity to distance ourselves from the daily hustle-bustle and computers and focus on the people around us. I got to know some newer people, and even people I knew, or even knew fairly well, I got to know better. That was great. It was also in the desert for me that I could truly appreciate the vastness of God's creations. The mountains, the valleys, the beauty of it altogether with the sunrises and sunsets gave me an added appreciation for God's ability to create wondrous pieces of nature. It's something I thought about often during the hikes.
V'zehu zeh. Kol Tuv.
Monday, September 21, 2009 Friday night must have brought one of the most special moments of Rosh Ha-Shannah and Nativ so far: after dinner, a group of 15 of us walked to the windmill overlooking the Old City in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood. What did we do there? Sang niggunim, and eventually songs. Tourists there took pictures - I chose not to ask them not to photograph us on chag. I said a few words on how the holiday we were celebrating is known as a "siman tov" and it's a happy time because of the hope that comes with a new year, and the hope associated with Jerusalem. Shortly after, an older man comes up to us to find out who we are. His name was also Judah (Yehuda). He says he was a paratrooper in the Six Day War - he showed me from our location how he entered Jerusalem. That hour was a true moment of k'dusha, of holiness, of creating the time to be spiritual overlooking the holiest city of Judaism. Shabbat morning, the Kehilla track went to Talpiyot for services - many people were at a synagogue called Mayanot, and some of us were at Moreshet Avraham. Both are Masorti (Conservative) affiliates. I really enjoyed Moreshet Avraham - first of all, the building was beautiful and I loved the spacious and heimish feel of the sanctuary. Other than the content of the liturgy, it didn't even feel like an extraordinarily different day, since I'm used to a more formal and slower-paced service. We got there towards the beginning, a little after 8:30, and we were done by 12:30. The rabbi gave a nice, short (15 min or so) sermon about the differences between Soloveitchik and Heschel regarding intentions in t'shuva. Sunday morning, we had... you would be surprised if you haven't already heard... rain on Rosh Ha-Shannah! Rain rarely happens in Israel at this point in time, and Esther, who I had dinner with last night, does not recall ever seeing it. It rained fairly hard on the way to schul. And we got a little lost. But we still got their a little earlier than necessary. Did I just say we got to schul to early? We went to Kedem, which is a Conservative (but unaffiliated) minyan on Emek Refa'im. There was lots of good singing, and especially Musaf was nice. Though the repetition took nearly two hours, they did tunes to t'filot that I would have never thought of. Especially as the crowd filled up (and we definitely saw it fill up), it got nicer and nicer. I'm glad I went. Oh, and especially when we got to V'yitnu Lecha Keter M'lukha I got excited, since that was our favorite song at the Ramah Darom staff tisch. It got wild - people got so into it, I loved it.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I forgot to mention a good experience I had last night. After we finished auditions for Kol Nativ a capella, my friend Garret wanted to have a minyan for his grandfather's yartzheit. It was a touching moment that over 10 Nativers took a couple minutes before dispersing for the night to be there for a friend's spiritual need. I hope that in the future we'll have plenty more spontaneous miyanim. After Chumash this morning, I had an errand to do. I bought a tallit in Me'ah She'arim last week but bought one in the Old City that I liked better after the fact, so I went back today to return the first tallit. At first it was easy - just walk down King George Street. On King George Street, a frum beggar looked me in the eye and started walking over to me, and I kept walking but he decided to talk to me. I didn't use much common sense here - I decided to give him 2 shekel. Then he asked me where I learn - I said the Yeshivat Masortit (Conservative Yeshiva - this conversation took place in the Holy Tongue). He asked where it is, I said just down on Agron Street. So here's something chutzpadik - he asked about me getting money there or something, at which point I said Shanah Tovah and walked away. So I was walking down King George St as I said and was doing fine. However, once I got to Me'ah She'arim, finding the store I needed to find wasn't as simple as I thought it would be, and I had to ask for directions. Being Israeli, the couple of residents I asked weren't so specific - "ehh, just take a right here and ehh walk a little that way." Once I was on the street I had a hard time finding the shop, when I finally developed some common sense to look for the address. Not that these stores have clearly marked numbers, but once I was in the right zone I found the store. I found a nice tallit bag that I liked, and when I explained that I wanted to return a tallit and buy the bag, it turned out that the bag was the same price for which I bought my tallit, so that was easy. By the time I got out, I managed to stop at a pizza shop that I had discovered last week that's good and got a couple of slices to go, walked back to Agron, put my stuff away, wolfed down my lunch just in time for class. That was my first time walking past SuperSol by myself in Jerusalem. Modern Jewish Thought this afternoon was wonderful, especially since I kept awake this time. We talked about Shmuel Ha-Nagid as a Soul of Chaos, in Rav Kook's terms, sort of a person that feels constrained by order and needs adventure, to reshape the world even. We compared him to Rabeinu Bahya who wrote Hovot Ha-Levavot, which lauds the aesthetic value of order. Aryeh, our teacher (who is learned in many different fields, very impressive), asked the question "does the world we live in prevent people from rising," and we talked about equality - whether it is the revenge of the weak. That was a long discussion. We discussed Shmuel Ha-Nagid's influence on Yehuda Amichai, and then started talking about Friedrich Nietzche and his views on morality and aristocratic society. It was an eye-opening afternoon. After that, I ran over to Pomeranz - third day in a row making a purchase - to buy a couple of books I lacked that I didn't realize I lacked until the other day after he did his yeshiva sale. But he now knows who I am, he's a very cordial guy. Unfortunately they didn't have the Albeck Mishnah set, which I especially wanted for my Mishnah Bekiut class, so they said they hope to have it in by Monday, since it's already a week late. I also got a copy of Masechet Sukkah (I hate loose papers, if I ever study it again I won't have the notes I need and all), chumash with Rashi, and a Tanach. I left and then I saw my friends Tyler and Seth walking towards the pizza place at which I ate today - given that Agron food isn't my favorite, however, I went with them. So that was essentially my 2nd experience walking alone in Jerusalem. At the beginning of Modern Jewish Thought this afternoon, Aryeh asked us how we like things so far. The first thing I mentioned is that I love not traveling by car. As time consuming as walking around town can be so far, there's something liberating and experiential by walking, and it gives me much to appreciate as I spend my semester in Jerusalem. I look forward to walking around town more soon. Kol Tuv!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Shavua Tov to everyone, Given the late hour and the lots I have to report, I will report on some details from Wednesday and Thursday, as well as a unique experience on the Conservative Yeshiva shabbaton in the near future, b"h. Tonight, however, I would like to share an experience that could easily be blown off for those who do not understand the experience.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 ברוכים הבאים!
I sit right now in the new Beit Midrash of the Conservative Yeshiva in Yerushalyim Ir Ha-Kodesh as I wait for classes to begin. Today is my 2nd day of classes. While yesterday, having been jet-lag and coming off very little sleep, I had a hard time keeping focused, today should be good |
