Shabbat was beautiful. I went to Friday night services at Yakar with Shara and I just loved it. The melodies, harmonies, passion, expression, excitement, rawness, awareness, hospitality-it was perfect. Then I was still recovering for the rest of Shabbat so I got to sleep a lot and just rest. We did yoga in the park and stretched out together and it was all great.
Saturday night, everyone returned from their families or trips and we all went to Selichot services together to get ourselves in the High Holiday mood. I went to a cool shul with instruments, visualizations, and a lot of intensely spiritual people in a small and oddly sponge painted area. I don't know if I would go back, but I enjoyed the time I spent there. I was trying to think a lot about how I want to improve myself in the coming year but since it was late at night and I was getting dizzy from standing up and I couldn't follow the Hebrew that well (no English in the books here!!) I didn't succeed all that well in my introspective quests. That will be my goal for the coming weekend.
Today we got up early of course and went to school and learned so much Hebrew and got a tour IN HEBREW of the University and then we went to Jerusalem class and we had a long lecture on several parts of Jerusalem history that still don't really seem like a cohesive unit and then we went to the Southern Wall and learned cool things about the buildings and ruins there which I liked. The best part was that there was a mule just straight up chillin in the sidewalk as we walked back to our bus and I made friends with the mule.
Thennnnn after dinner a bunch of us walked to the Kotel for a swearing in ceremony for Tzahal. It was a very crowded big-deal kind of experience. It really affected my friend and me because there is a certain sense of obligation that comes with caring about Israel so much and also the ultimate question of that could me be because the people getting sworn in to the army are our age. That all makes me wonder about what my role in supporting Israel is and what it will be in the future and if I ever decide to make Israel my permanent home, what it will be like to go to one of these ceremonies for my own children or whatever the case may be depending on where my life takes me.
The attitude about the army is so different here than in the states. The army is ubiquitous and expected and normal. I am tired right now (maybe my ten thousand run-on sentences hinted to that fact) so I can't really articulate my opinion about what it all means to me but know that I am on the edge of something profound so be ready.
No comments:
Post a Comment