Pictures from Israel (First of Many)




These two Yids smiled for the picture, but that is not the only reason I included this. It reminds me of everything in Bnai Brak.



This is during the Chupah. If you look close enough, you can see Tzvi chanting, and the thing coming out of the right side of the picture is the hollywood movie camera I was talking about. I wish I had gotten a better picture of this thing. It was hilarious.



I don't know exactly what it is about this photo, but I like it a lot. It might be that it captures something about the wedding, but it could also be the gold hue that is vaguely reminiscient of Jerusalem.




This is what the dancefloor at the wedding looked like. I would say that, being there, it had equal parts ecstasy and darkness. And lots of energy.




That's me and Mr. Uzan. And a beer.


That's all for now. I'll put up more later.

Michael

Wedding---Part III

Alright, I am *really* going to try to finish this now. There are so many other things to write about, so....

I Left off at Mr. Uzan lecturing me about moderation, in English that he hadn't used in probably 7 or 8 years (at one point, his wife came over to say hello, and remarked, "Oh no! Not in English!"...I am not sure whether she was disappointed that I still can't speak Hebrew very well, or if the sound of the language brings up bad memories).

All of this was still in front of the Chupah (the wedding canopy). After a while, I had totally given up hope in following which part of the ceremony they were in, though I did catch some of the part of the "hakafot", or the bride walking 7 times around the groom to, apparently, symbolize how the groom is the center of her universe [note: I find this idea absurd]. I was trying to get a look at the bride, but the veil did its job, and, to be honest, I never actually got to see her: as soon as they broke the glass, before everyone could yell "Mazel Tov!", Tzvi and Rechele were wisked off to the "Yichud Room".

What is that? Well...according to Jewish Law, for the wedding to be completely Kosher, it needs to consumated...so to speak. Back in the day, they provided a place with some privacy ("yichud" is hebrew for "alone") in which to do this. I am told that these rooms are no longer used for this function, and that the bride and groom use this time to have a breather, have a few drinks and a few bites to eat before they have to go out again and entertain all of their guests. Of course, since I have not had a marriage myself, this is all hearsay.

For the next 45 min....we ate. Contrary to warnings from my Modern Orthodox friends in Jerusalem, the food was not bad at all...it was really amazing, actually....

Let me stop here and note that, up until this point, there has been nothing very different in my discription of the wedding from other religious Jewish weddings (besides the huge, Hollywood camera constantly blocking my view of the action).

Let me fill in the rest of the story:

I cannot remember if I mentioned it (and I am too lazy to check), but Bnai Brak (the city where the wedding was held) is not only the most relgious city in Israel, but it is also the poorest. Walking around the city after the wedding, I could really see how...slummy...the city seemed: very crowded city blocks, houses with makeshift walls/roofs, dirtiness, etc. I only note this because, although the wedding hall was a veriable diamond in the rough (it was *very* fancy), probably due to poor utilities maintanence in the area, there were "rolling blackouts" all throughout the wedding: every 25 minutes or so, all of the lights in the place would go out, the band's music would stop (besides the drummer and horns, for obvious reasons), and, most importantly, the air conditioning would shut down.

This is the most important because, even though the weather in Efrat is basically a perfect 67-80 every night/day, on Israel's Mediterranian coast (where Bnai Brak is located), it is about 95 there during the day, and pretty hot even at night. And in a room full of about 400 people, air conditioning matters.

Needless to say, after the food had been served, I headed for the Bar to see what they had in terms of cold beverages, and found Sam and Yisroel there with some Goldstar's ("The Beer the Chosen People Choose"). I joined in, and some more conversation took place that it would probably be better not to publish here. After a few rounds (and about 3 blackouts), Tzvi was ushered into the wedding hall on the shoulders of dozens of black-suited Yeshiva boys, who only wished they were in his position [note: there seems to be some taboo about recently married religious Jews attending weddings, because it seemed pretty clear that almost none of the guests his age were married, even though it would be safe to assume that many of his friends are, indeed, married]. This is when the serious dancing started. By serious, I mean SERIOUS. Besides your routine groom-on-chair dances, circle dances, fast-circle dances, really-fast-circle dances, really-really-fast-circle dances, there were plenty of the "perfom-for-the-groom-silly" dances, "dress-up-like-a-clown-silly" dances, "weird-pseduo-worshiping-the-groom" dances, dances with fireworks, and the list goes on. Impressively, Tzvi never really stopped dancing, which annoyed me a little since I never got to congratulate him. I mostly watched while the dancing was going on, commenting on the different dances with Sam, and occassionally joining in myself. At one point, Sam was asked to dance, but refused, pointing to the huge semi-automatic weapon slung over his shoulder. After a few more beers, someone prodded him again to join in, and he decided that he would need to get at least one dance in at his cousin's wedding...so he left me holding the standard Israeli issue M16. I will probably never hold a gun that big for the rest of my life (at least I hope I never have to).

(By the way, I forgot to mention that the ENTIRE wedding was seperated into male and female sections---even for eating. Though most Orthodox weddings lack mix dancing (and, no, what happens in "Fiddler on the Roof" does not actually happen at any weddings I have been to...I doubt Perchik would be able to fool any modern day Rabbis into dancing with the bride...or that they would take it with as much of a sense of humor as the Rabbi does in the play/movie), it is highly unusual for the eating part of the wedding to be seperate. I honestly think this is silly for many, many reasons, but the biggest two are the following: being at a Jewish event, where there is lots of food and happiness, is really, really awkward without having women there to put the men in their place. Sitting at the table, trying to make conversation...is just really weird without women there. I can't put my finger on it...but....whatever. Also, I feel that having more natural settings for ultra-Orthodox bachlors and bachlorettes to meet would not be a bad thing at all. Clearly, they feel that it is.)

Oy. Rather than spend countless more hours describing the wedding in an effort to convince you that this wedding was stranger than anything I will probably ever attend (besides, I imagine, how strange my own wedding will be...), I will try to wrap it up in a few more paragraphs.

The dancing DID NOT STOP, even when most of the guests were beginning to leave. Finally, Shawn emerged from the black mob that was the dance floor, and informed me that we had 12 minutes to get to another bus stop across town that would take us back to the Yeshiva. We hailed a cab, and got there just in time.

The busride back! Oh my...if you can imagine how funny the busride there, try to imagine what it was like to be on the same bus with about 80 WASTED Yeshiva students. As I sat down (next to a kid from Johannesburg, who was not impressed with my advetures in his own country that I regaled him with later), the guy sitting behind me was this British Rabbi (very, very drunk), who started asking me all types of questions. I would certainly classify this guy as a "happy" drunk, as every thing I said to him led to a new blessing on my head, and a few requests for blessing from me ("Your name is Star? You should be as important and bright and close to G-d as the stars in the sky!" and such stuff). I could only handle so much of this, and I passed out after about 10 minutes of this conversation.

Shawn was nice enough to let me stay at his Yeshiva for the night, since I missed the last bus back to Efrat.

Whew! That is all. Now I can get back to updating you on the day-to-day accounts of what is going on here. Hope everything is going well back home. Also, please don't worry about all the news items about Israel. Though everyone in the country is praying for the safe return of the kidnapped soldier (Gilad ben Aviva), everything else here is status quo.


Michael

Continuation of Last Post...

[Yeah, that post was pretty awful. I hope this one is better.]

According to the wedding invitation, the "chupah" (actual wedding ceremony) started at 6:30, and Jerusalem is about an hour away from Bnai Brak. At around 6:15, I got on a chartered bus in front of the Yeshiva that was actually going to another wedding in Bnai Brak, full of these Yeshiva students. I won't go into too much detail about this bus ride, except to note an interesting event that occured: about 15 minutes into the bus ride, the driver mysteriously pulled to the side of the road. Everyone was yelling (in Hebrew and many, many differnet English accents) to figure out what the deal was. It turned out that he pulled over to let some important Rabbi onto the bus (who's entrance onto the bus caused complete silence, and everyone stood up). After he sat down, some guy shoved a microphone in front of the Rabbi's mouth, and the Rabbi proceeded to give a d'var Torah (sermon) for about 20 minutes, a sermon I could not understand in the least.

Anyway, we finally got to Bnai Brak around 7:30 (remember, about an hour after it was scheduled to start), and, when we finally found the wedding hall, the ceremony still had not begun.

I am going to be honest: there is no way I can completely describe what this wedding was like, even if think you know since you have been to a religious Jewish wedding before; no---this had to be one of the strangest scenes I have come across in a while. The Chupah was taking place in what appeared to be an open-air lobby (open air in that it had no ceiling), but otherwise looked like a regular building. A huge, white canopy was set up in the center of the room. In front of the canopy, all of the guests were amassed in no particular formation, and in the middle of this blog of mostly black suits and hats was a MASSIVE boom and camera---like what you would see on a Hollywood movie set: it was about 30 feet long, and was moving around the room, capturing the "action" of the wedding. Add to that, that among the guests, besides men in all black, most of the women wearing what appeared to be a kind of fake-silk dress that managed to cover everything but their face, and throw in a small clump of guys in white shirts and white kippahs, and a few Israeli soldiers with their M16's slung across their backs, and about 50billion little kids running around, and you start to have a picture of what was going on.

Suddenly, the groom's procession (which really just included my friend, Tzvi, his mother and father, and 15 Rabbis) came out of nowhere and charged to the middle of the room to the Chupah, the Hollywood camera capturing the entire charge. When many of the Rabbis forming this contingent melted away into the rest of the black of the crowd, Tzvi, his parents, and what I will assume were the two Rabbis officiating the wedding were left up under the Chupa, with Tzvi chanting something, which I will completely guess were Tefillim (Psalms), since that seems to be the general rule among the very religious when they are trying to keep focused on certain things.

Soon, a second mass of people erupted out of one of the other doors in this lobby, only this group was almost completely made up of women, many of whom were crying (they were happy...?). At this point, I had already worked my way around the crowd, and had realized that one of the Israeli soldiers was Sam, the groom's cousin and a friend of mine, and added to this crew was the brother of the groom, Yisrael, a 17 year-old rebel of sorts. While all of the above is going on around us, we had the following conversation:

-Me: So, Yisrael, I am embarresed to be asking, but could you tell me what the Bride's name is?
-Yisrael: Umm. No. I don't really know it. [At this point I realize this 17 year old is piss drunk]. Hmmm. No.
-Me: That's funny. Seriously, I was just wondering...
-Yisrael: No. I really can't remember. Maybe it's Sarah or something [note: I found out later it was "Rechele"]...no....Well, I don't even think that Tzvi knows her name.
[We all laugh]
-Sam: So...Yisrael. You're going to be an uncle again in, what, 9, 9-and-a-half months from now?

I will actually stop this conversation at this point to protect him from any embaressment. Needless to say, it was hilarious and completely inappropriate---either for a wedding, or any 17 year old. But Sam and I got a kick out of it. Yisrael left, and I caught up with Sam about his venture in the Israeli army (he is serving in the town of Ramalah (in Palestinian controlled West Bank; it's actually the unofficial capital of the Palestinian Authority). A few days before the wedding, the big news in Israel was that Israel was handing over some weapons to the Palestinians (under Abbas' control), with the "promise" that they wouldn't be used against Israelis. Sam had actually been in the unit that delivered the guns.

At this point, I ran into a huge number of faces that I hadn't seen in over 6 years, some more: a few old middle school teachers (Mr. and Mrs. Uzan, Mr. and Mrs. Edelstien), a father of a friend (Dr. Friedman, father of Bezalel Friedman, who is apparently now doing officer training in Shcem, in the West Bank), and lots of other people from the past. Last time I had been in Israel, I had stayed with the Uzans for about two weeks, and really hadn't communicated with them since. As Mr. Uzan put it (in broken English): "Keeping up with people....it is....you know?...a luxury."

He proceeded to lecture me, making sure that I hadn't gone "overboard" with my religiousness, that I am still close with my family, and that I shouldn't consider moving to Israel (this probably deserves a seperate discussion of its own, which I hope to give in the future). Needless to say, he was pretty much the same.

Well.....I need to get back to doing some work. I will wrap up this wedding description in the next post (hopefully), and then move on to tell of the other interesting things that have happened since then (including the events surrounding watching the America-Ghana soccer game, running into a bunch of MIT kids in Jerusalem, trekking clear across the city with one of them, and Shabbat at my Yeshiva).

Best,

Michael

Bnai Brak Wedding/Apologies/Shabbat Shalom

To everyone who has grown to count on a regular update of this blog, I apologize for the absence of a post in the last few days. I really have been anxious to write about my experience at the wedding (which was wonderful), but have not found enough time to write about it. I am going to start now, and, if I don't finish, you will have to forgive me if I write in installments.

So....the wedding. I guess I can start by repeating the basics: an old friend from middle school, Tzvi Hasten, got engaged to a girl named "Rochele" (though I have still have no idea what her last name is...), who is from the ultra-ultra religious city called "Bnai Brak". When I told some of the more Modern, Liberal religious Jews I have met in Israel where I was going, they made faces and made comments like "I was dressed in a black suit, had a beard...and still felt like a Chilonee (deragatory Hebrew term for a secular Jew)", or "Make sure you eat dinner before you go to the wedding because the food will be awful" or other statements like that.

I can safely say that, although the wedding was unlike much of what I have ever experienced, it wasn't what I expected at all.

First of all, I really was worried that people would be pissed at me for not being dressed in a black suit and black hat (the uniform of ultra-religious Jewish men), or even that I was wearing a shirt that had color in it (again, when I find a computer that can handle it, I will post some pictures from the night, and other times)......alright. I will stop with all these preambles, and get down to what, actually happened.

To get to the wedding, I had arranged ahead of time to meet another friend who I had gone to Middle School with who was going. This kid, Shawn "Adi" Roland, also became religious in Middle School, except he went "all the way" with it, and has been holed up in a Yeshiva in Jerusalem since he graduated from Jewish High School. It's hard to explain exactly what this Yeshiva was like. It is called Chochvei Torah (not to be confused with Yeshivat Chocavei Torah (YCT) in New York, that is known for being a bastion of liberal/Modern Orthodoxy), and walking into the Beis Midrash (the "House of Study", which is basically the really big room full of benches, books, and "bochers" (people studying Torah)) was like walking into 17th Century Poland, except for a cell phone here and there. Nothing else had changed: everyone was dressed THE EXACT same way: white shirts, black pants, buzzed hair cut, and most had glasses. And there were about 120 men sitting in this room, chanting in the melodic sing-song of Talmud study. The room itself was also imposing: it was about three stories high, with very tall windows, an Aron (the place where the Torahs are kept) that was just as tall, and concrete walls that had been white-washed. There was also a smell, but it is the smell of everywhere in Israel that is packed too tightly with people (mostly buses), since, for some reason Israelis don't believe in deoderant.

Damn. I haven't even gotten to the wedding yet, and I need to go shower (and put on deoderant....) before Shabbat starts. I promise to finish this exciting story as soon as I human can.

Until then, I would just like to thank everyone who has written comments or sent me emails---as much fun as I am having here, it is so nice to hear from all of you, and remember that as nice as it is here, I have a place to call home back there.

Shabbat Shalom, and have a wonderful weekend.

Michael

My First Truck Stop Sandwich

[A note: I just got back from a day long "tiyul" (=trip), where we visited an "Illegal Immigrant's Camp" (aka the place the British holed up Jews trying to break into "Palestine" before 1948), and then went on a hike in the beautiful Carmel Mountains outside Haifa. Somewhere between Haifa and Efrat (a pretty big space, to be sure), I ran into what some might call fate, others might call destiny, and still others might call a sandwich. I call it "My First Truck Stop Sandwich".

Indeed, growing up, I found myself squished into the back of my mother's Toyota Land Cruiser, with either "Rudy" or "National Lampoon's Vacation" playing on the little TV we hooked up to the cigarette lighter, fighting over whether I had to sit in the back, or the "backee-back". Back in those days, I didn't keep kosher, but I still never ate a truck stop sandwich, a fact that I attribute to my wonderful mother, who also didn't let us eat cheeseburgers or White Castle. This had nothing to do with Jewish Law (as far as I can tell), and had mostly to do with the fact that these things were percieved as "below" "us". I would call it snobbery, but that's not half as funny as it actually was.

Anyway, most of you know the rest of the story (I fell off the deep end, became religious, and don't eat cheeseburgers or White Castle now because I think that G-d commanded a bunch of Heebs wandering the desert 4000 years ago to refrain from cooking a goat in its mother's milk....you can decide which reason is sillier). Well....maybe you thought you knew the end of the story. Because a new chapter can be added today!

TODAY, June 19th, 2006 (5766), I, Michael J. Star, ate my very first truck stop sandwich on the bus ride from Haifa to Efrat. I went into the truck stop food area innocently enough, looking from some potato chips or pretzels (normal truck stop fare for me in the U.S.), and then I saw them: back in the open refriderator section, there was a selection of 5 different sandwiches (cheese and tomato, tuna fish, baloney, omellete, and bagel with cheese and olives), all in their two-day old glory, with enough preservatives to kill a grown horse. Did the 10 shekel (~$2.50) price hold me back? No. Did the fact that they had sodium levels that the American Surgeon General has warned can cause blackouts keep me from sinking my teeth into them? Nope. All I could see was the little "kosher" symbol on the package, and the plastic wrapping keeping me from cheap hunger alleviation.

I will never forget this day. And I will consecrate it with the following poem:

TruckStop Sandwich

The open refridgerator
case. Cool. Crisp.
(Don't care about the
fresh Orange Juice).

You contain ex-forbidden fruits,
Apples of my eye,
Adam and Eve never had it so
hard.

Truck Stop Sandwich:
until this day you
avoided
polluting my taste buds
with your noxious bread
and stale cheese. Green olives:
were you always green,
or just really, really old?

And yet!
I sunk my hungry teeth into you,
I ate you all up, in a fit of
rage---(I wish I had a
serpent to blame!)
It was not so good or sweet,
but it was kosher.


On that note, thanks for all the comments. Good night.

Michael

Shabbat in Jerusalem, etc.

This last Friday I left my settler-enclave for the metropolis that is Jerusalem. The day started out normal enough: 7 AM prayers, followed by 1 hour of MCAT studying, and some fooling around on the computers. A friend (Herschel) and I took the 160 bus from Efrat to "The Jerusalem Mall" to go to a PLACE in Jerusalem that is called "The Week of Books". Well, to be precise, last week WAS the "Week of Books", but, for some reason, Israelis call the big book fair that takes place in the "Old Train Station" [note: "old" train station does not refer to the train station that was used immediately before the "new" one, but to an 150 year-old Turkish relic that may have had some train tracks running through it at some point.]

By the time we got there (a bit after noon), it was already closed. I should note at this point that Friday in Israel is like Saturday in America, in that it is the first day of the weekend---since Israelis who observe Shabbat need Friday to prepare for it, everyone pretty much gets Friday off, but---and this threw me off---Sunday is not the weekend. No love for the Christians, I guess. Anyway, not to be brought down, we walked over to what is called "The German Colony", which is a hip, somewhat bohemian, garden district-like place in Jerusalem. All of the houses are very old, and the main drive, Emek Refa'im (which apparently means "Valley of Ghosts") is full of neat cafes, art galleries, wine shops, book shops, and other various stuff. There is also an old church and lots of beautiful old trees. We found a restaurant called "Coffeeshop" which was recommended by a friend (thanks, Shoshana), and had lunch there.

I am not sure where to start about how amazing the dining experience at Coffeeshop was, but it can be summed up in this: it was a kosher restaurant with decently priced, wonderful food, and the service was GREAT. Now, to all of you who do not frequent establishments of the kosher variety, you have NO CLUE how much of a rarity this is. My head nearly exploded when the waitress was actually curteous and smiled while I struggled to order something called "Smoked Salmon Wrap Sushi" and a cheese-and-spinach bureaka (both of which were absolutely delicious; I have an weak spot for bureakas, actually) with my non-existant Hebrew. Maybe she was charmed by my American accent (read: inability to speak, coupled with an inability to admit that I have no idea what I am saying), or it could have been my dashing good looks: I really have no idea. I will just say that it is probably the best lunch I have had in a long, long time. This, coupled with a hilarious conversation with this kid Hershel, who happens to go to Brandeis, about everything ranging from our mutual recanting of supporting our current President, to how funny it was when a dog came in the restaurant, and all the old Israelis in the place started giving it food. By they way---can you imagine this happening in The States?? If a dog wandered into a restaurant in America, the place would be up in a storm---my G-d! Imagine the health code violations!

Anyway, I better move on if I don't want to be eaten alive by the bugs that are attracted to this computer monitor (and if I want to get any sleep at all). From there, we went to Mea Shearim---the ultra-ultra-ultra-Orthodox enclave in the heart of Jerusalem, where there are signs that announce the requirement that all boys and girls entering the neighborhood are required to wear "modest clothing" (knee-length dresses/pants, elbow length sleeves). We were there to buy some books for Yeshiva. Walking in that neighborhood always reminds me of Pleasantville, in that it is all in Black and White [note: to those who don't know, for some anachronistic reason, ultra-Orthodox Jews dress ONLY in black and white], as well as the fact that it is so backwards. More on that....some other time.

From there, we went to Kikar Tzion/Ben Yehudah Street, which is where all the American tourists/Israeli beggers hang out. After about 15 minutes, there, already annoyed by everything there (worst...tourist trap...ever), we went our seperate ways for Shabbat. I was staying with a friend of my aunt's named Tzvi Volk, an ex-American Foriegn Serviceman living in the gorgeous neighborhood of Ramot Bet (not to be confused with Ramot Aleph, Ramot Gimal, Ramot Dalet, Ramot Hay, and Afes Sesh). I called on a whim, as I have never met these people before, and was a bit wary to bother some family that last saw anyone in my immediate family over 30 years ago on Pesach at my grandparents' seder. But...I thought it might be something of an experience, and it was. The family was way too hospitable, especially for someone they didn't know existed a week ago. The food was amazing the entire weekend. On Friday night, they took me to what (I think) was called the "Shiuf", which is technically this clubhouse for the local Zionist youthgroup, but on Friday night it is literally overflowing with people from all over the huge neighborhood (about 300 people backed into a room the size of maybe two basketball courts, and more flowing outside), and everyone singing the simultaneously hopeful and melancholly tunes of Shabbat. Not that the tunes were new, but when you are singing with 300 strangers...it's an experience that is comparable to nothing else.

I could talk about Saturday dinner, which we ate on the family's balchony, which has an indescribably beautiful view of Jerusalem, and how gorgeous the weather was as well. That....and much else. But I need to get to bed soon, so I will run through the rest of my weekend as quick as possible.

I left their house Saturday night, and met up with my friend back in the center of town. We had some pizza (which, although better than the local kosher pizza in Boston, was still pretty bad.....all those years of Puccini's really spoiled me). And hung out at a bar watching the Italy/America world cup game. And we caught the last bus back to Efrat.

Today was like every other day: woke up early, studied Torah, fell asleep in funny places/positions, played soccer, wrote some emails. (Happy Father's Day, also).

Tomorrow we are going to Haifa to hike on some crazy trail. It will be fun, I hope. And on Wednesday, I am going to Bnai Brak (famous for being one of the largest communities of insanely religious Jews, right after Brooklyn) on Wednesday for an old friends' (Tzvi Hasten) wedding. Yes, he's my age. It's going to be...something. I was thinking of causing a rucus; ideas included dressing up like a girl and hanging out on the "girls' side", dressing up like a very religious Chasidic Jew, or just showing up completely wasted, but I realized that if I come dressed like I usually dress (nice shirt, tie, nice pants), I will stand out enough (I will probably be one of 4 men there not wearing a black hat). Fear not---I will take pictures and post them.

Hope everything is going well over there across the Atlantic.

Michael

I have a free minute so I will write.

Learning here has been a new experience. The basic philosophy seems to be, to throw us into the water, and hope that we can swim. In other words, they don't baby us here: they give us the chance to figure things out on our own, and to be on our own schedule. This can be very, very frustrating at times, though very, very rewarding when we actually figure something out.

We are currently studying Talmud in the morning, and various things, including Torah, Chassidus (lessons from old Chasidic Rabbis), and philosophy in the afternoons. Specifically, we are studying from the book of "Damages" in the Talmud, and are currently on the subject of conspiring witnesses. I know this sounds about as interesting as watching paint peel off the wall, but it is nice because I am learning, first of all, how to read the Talmud (ie it's in aramaic, and has lots of funny structural and grammatical assumptions that I don't know), and the implications of the decisions are much larger than they might seem (ie the moral and ethical implications of what the Rabbis say can apply to *much* larger ideas).

Either way, the weather here is perfect. You couldn't ask for better. It is warm, but not too warm. It's perpetually hanging around 72 degrees (fahrenheit). Tomorrow I will be going in to Jerusalem for the first time in six years, and I am quite excited to go back there.

Also, MCAT studying has been going well, and I am starting to write an essay for my apps. All I can say is, I realize why people are so afraid of this test: going over the practice tests has been murder. I'm still confident about them, though.

I hope everything is going well for all of you in the States, and I would love to hear from you if you get the chance.

Best,

Michael

I don't want anyone to think that I am just coming to Israel to post on this silly blog, but since I have some time to kill while waiting for the water in my room to heat up, I thought I would just give some first impressions of the Yeshiva that I am at (first impressions are, I believe, the most important).

First of all, this Yeshiva is quite remote. I took the bus to Efrat with all of my bags (too many, actually), and got dropped off at what I thought was the Yeshiva in the middle of town, only to find out that it was a different one, and the one I am at is about 1 mile away (which wasn't a very fun mile, what with all 100 pounds of stuff on my back). The Yeshiva is on the top of a hill, with views of all of the surrounding valleys and hills, which include some lush farm land, as well as the major West Bank highway. The view is gorgeous---it's a mix of gold, green, and greys that are especially breathtaking around sunset. The buildings themselves are quite interesting: the main "Beit Midrash" (house of study) is made of the golden brick that Jerusalem is famous for, but the majority of the buildings are basically trailers. My room is basically half of a trailer, with it's own little bathroom. One thing that startled me when I walked into the trailer was how spotlessly clean it was; the outside suggested shabbiness, but the inside is almost immaculate. The only thing that could remotely be described as "not clean" is the mattress...which, compared to the mattresses at AEPi, is pretty much new.

More important than the physical makeup, though, is the people. There was a very aplogetic guy who is in charge and greeted me named Mikey Sunshine (*actual* name). Him, along with most other people, have been very welcoming, and suprisingly diverse, at least with regard to nationality. There are Americans, Israelis, Brits, Austrailians, Canadians, and New Zealanders---pretty much every English speaking country where Jews live.

Other than that....there's not too much to say yet. Don't get used to these frequent posts, as I don't plan on doing them so often in the future. Just wanted to let you know that I am here and that it seems like a decent place.

Question of the day: What is more satisfying: physical pleasures, or immaterial ones?

Best,

Michael

Hello everyone! I arrived safely in Ben Gurion about an hour ago. Lucky for me, Rabbi Poupko (the Harvard Hillel Rabbi) was on the same plane with me, so we had some iced coffee, a boureka, and then shared a cab to Jerusalem. I am currently in the bus station in Jerusalem, which is about 100% different then it was 6 years ago. Think....the difference between where the Chinatown Bus stop used to be in Boston (in front of a pastry shop), and Logan Airport. This place is crazy. It's like a nice mall, synagogue (there is *actually* a synagogue), and a bus station all in one.

Anyway, I am on my way to Efrat. I have managed to only lose my pillow so far (left it in the taxi), which is good, considering my absent mind (I am holding onto my camera like it was my life). Take it easy over there in the States.

"I've eaten all over the world: America, Europe....everywhere. Only in Israel does food actually fill me up"----Israeli Cab Driver

Yours,

Michael

My cellphone number in Israel:
(from America): 011-972-52-569-7770
(from Israel): 052-569-7770

Call me early, and call me often.

Packing for Israel. Flight is Sunday at 7 PM. Shabbat Shalom.