Challah-ween

Saturday, the girls in my apartment and a couple others were planning to go to the Kotel, but the weather proved to be a blustery mix of wind and rain. I saw all of the street cats take refuge under the lavender bushes. Because it was Shabbat, the roads were quiet enough so I could hear the droplets pinkle on the pavement. For some reason, it reminded me of Thanksgiving.

Saturday night I visited Shimon, our Brooklyn-bred, Bronfman rabbi. His house is located in Katamon, which I had only visited once, two summers ago. It was a little daunting trying to navigate the residential dark streets of Jerusalem, but thanks to this amazing free app on my iTouch called JeruBus, I had the bus time, route, and map of Jerusalem in the palm of my hand. (and I looked less vulnerable/tourisy because I was carrying a consumer electronic, not a map.)

The dinner was a post-shabbos mixer for all the Alumni currently living in Israel. Shimon had Pizza Hut pizzas stacked on the dining room table, along with veggies, chips, and dips. There were 10 of us, 5 from my year. It was nice to see familiar faces and to discuss the weekly parsha over chocolate ruggelach. I felt a little out of place because mostly everyone at the table was taking a gap year from their ivy league school to study at a yeshiva. But, hey...who can say they dined on greasy pizza with torah scholars and Harvard grads?...when life makes you a fish-out-of-water, make tuna salad.

Sunday was Halloween, but it also was class and ulpan day. I was dreading going to our Spirituality and Consciousness class because we had a substitute. And if the real teacher was uninspiring, imagine what a snooze this substitute would be. WRONG!

Rabbi Menachem Nissel is a man with a muddy accent. It's a combination of Tennessee twang and proper British. He told us of his trip to Amsterdam at age 10, when his older sister introduced him to marijuana. He loves pop music. He taught us a lesson on Jewish reincarnation based on a text called, "The Way of God" by Rabbi Luzzato. Some interesting points he made:

- Special needs people are high souls trapped in a lower body. Some orthodox traditions stand when a mentally-disabled person enters the room to show respect.

- A book called "Sefer Ha Gilgulim", which literally translates to "The Book of Wheels," gives us the Jewish take on regeneration.

- The World to Come is when body and soul are reunited, cleansed and rectified, and both body and soul have a direct relationship with God. We are given a sixth sense: the perception of spiritual beauty.

- reincarnation exists for the purpose of fixing errors or completing what you did not finish on earth.

It was wild, weird stuff. I don't know how much of it I believe, but it was eye-opening and engaging.

After that, I took a nap before ulpan. Ulpan was boring, as usual. I had a pounding headache.

So you know those signs we made for a Halloween Party outside the kvar? Maintenance tore them down. There was no one outside to share our small slice of Americana Nostalgia pie. We got back to the apartment and totally pooped out. Halloween this year was a Hallow-LOSE. BOOOOOOOOO! (not in the scary sense...but in the GET OFF THE STAGE, YOU SUCK sense)

I did dance to "Monster Mash" in my room. Hopefully, Purim will be a bit more stoked.

Today I had ceramics and actually managed to make a perfect cylinder! After class, I rushed to the bus station to get to Tel Aviv for "The Empty Space". We met up at a gallery where our teacher was featured. We ended up doing the same exhibit tours as I did with Talia. I think I am going to drop that class. There is too much lecturing in Hebrew. It's not practical, especially when I'm here to hone my skills. Here are some pictures of some kewl installations: