Title: Postcard from Jerusalem

[lethargic_man]

Wow, it's been a whirlwind so far. This really has been the first chance I've had to sit down and write a e-postcard. I'm writing it sitting in the Independence Park on Agron street, watching the sunlight vanish from the tips of the highest buildings around (all built of the beautiful white stone Jerusalem is famed for), and the flag flutter on the top of the American Consulate. (I really ought to find out a bit more about Gershon Agron, after whom the street is named. Would researching him, I wonder, constitute Agronomy?)

(I then continued this post whilst standing in the queue in Supersol (or, strictly speaking, Shufersal)—that's how bad the checkouts there are chronically understaffed!)

Anyhow, I arrived in Jerusalem on Wednesday evening, and spent Thursday settling in and meeting my new flatmates. Much to my amusement, the flat where I'm staying is at the corner of Zamenhof Street (named after the inventor of Esperanto—and if you don't know me enough to know why that's relevant to me, why are you reading my blog? :o)) This city has way too many English-language secondhand bookshops; the only thing that's saved me from them is knowing anything I buy here I will have to shlep home.

On Friday (which is weekend in Israel), I and my flatmate Clara met up with dhole to go to Ein Gedi. dhole is a professional archaeologist, and supplied a fascinating stream of information, both at Ein Gedi itself and on the way there, pointing out the likes of a Hasmonean slipway (now well above the level of the Dead Sea), where the Hasmoneans would launch biremes to wage war on the surrounding nations.

On the way from Jerusalem, passing through the Judaea (part of the West Bank), the bus passed chopped-down olive groves. Other than this, I'm going to stay apolitical in this post, but I felt I had to mention this. Those were someone's livelihood once.

Anyhow, on to Ein Gedi. I've been to the lower parts before—the waterfalls in the oasis—but today we went up higher, to a chalcolithic settlement on the peak of one of the hills (which are splinters off the plateau of the Judaean hills where they fall away into the East African Rift Valley. The settlement was six thousand years old, or, as dhole put it, two hundred and fifty years older than the universe. dhole pointed out the temple, with its central circular wall that would once have ringed an ancient holy tree—then proceeded to saunter over to the spoil heap from the century-old archaeological excavation, and pick up there fragments of pottery to show us.

The others saw a hyrax at one point. I didn't, but at one point dhole said "Shh! You hear that? That's the sound hyraxes make when they're letting the others know about an alarm." Me: "No, it's the sound of me closing my water bottle." :o)

Afterwards, we stopped to refill our water bottles from a pool fed by the spring, and then descended to have a look at the Byzantine-period synagogue down below, complete with an elaborate mosaic (inter alia) warning of a dire curse that should fall upon anyone giving away the community's secret. That secret, dhole suggested, had to do with the processing of אפרסמום afarsamum oil (not persimmon, but the same word), which this community had a monopoly on.

Now I've been hiking in Israel for years, mostly with groups, and I know how to take care of myself hiking in the desert in the blazing sun and temperature in the mid thirties. I wore a hat, I covered up with sunscreen, and I drank and I drank and I drank, until I was in the sherut on the way back (when I stopped because my bladder was filling up)... and I still ended up with hyponatraemia (low salt levels caused by raising water throughput without raising food throughput to match).

Really, it was rather galling (and indeed, the doctors reported raised bilirubin levels)... and I ended up missing the Friday night meal that the CY had organised for its students. But the good news is that by the next day I was back to normal. I got an morning visit in hospital by the Rosh Yeshiva, R. Daniel Goldfarb, who had walked an hour and a half to get there, davening on the way; and then my flatmate turned up to take me home.

(R. Goldfarb's quite a comic character: "Here's the handouts. Hopefully we don't have enough—we wouldn't want to waste any!")

Shabbos was mostly spent sitting at home recuperating. An amusing moment came when it came to bentshing after Shabbos lunch: two of us kept starting off on one set of tunes, and the other two on another set. Curiously enough, the split wasn't how I'd have expected: it was the Brit (me) and one American against the other American and the Canadian. But then the Canadian changed sides leaving Doug the only one not joining in. "Call yourself a cantor?" I said; "You don't even know the tune for bentshing!" :o)

On Sunday the CY course proper started. There's quite an LJ crowd here—wub, spin0za1, awful_dynne and myself, and rav_hillel on the staff. Most of the people are American, but there's quite a few Canadians, a handful and more from the UK, and the same also from Prague. The CY itself occupies a beautiful compact campus in the heart of Jerusalem, with a little stone amphitheatre, and gardens nestling between the buildings. The site itself has a little history, having been, amongst other things, the Hagana headquarters before the establishment of the State of Israel.

After an introductory breakfast and orientation ("Is that where you show us which way is מזרח?"), we launched into the learning. My first class was Introduction to Rabbinics. I took this because rav_hadassah told me she found Advanced Talmud last year too difficult, but I didn't find the Introductory class really stretched me. The texts studied were in English, and whilst that was appropriate for the likes of the Marom Beit Midrash or Limmud, I felt in a yeshiva I should be grappling with the original Hebrew and Aramaic. My problem was that I forgot fifteen years ago the little Aramaic I once knew. But then coming out of the class I bumped into Joseph WINOLJ, who said "sure you can cope, Michael", so I decided to transfer up to Advanced Talmud the next day.

Advanced Talmud turned out to be really meaty. Whilst the Beginning Talmud bumped up to Hebrew on the second day, the Advanced Talmud was mostly in Aramaic. Fortunately, on the first day, I had for chevrusa partner (it's just like pair programming ;^)) someone who could read it fairly well... and on the second day, a person equipped with Gemara with English translation. Now this, I felt, was the Real Stuff. The subject (יבמות ס״א דף ב and onwards, and associated Tosefta) was the halacha of the מצוה [commandment] of פרו ורבו [go forth and multiply]: how many children must a person have, and must they be married or not?

I'm also studying משניות ברכות and its influence on Jewish prayer, a class on the structure of Jewish prayer, and one on the Problem of Evil ("not bloody theodicy again," groaned rysmiel—yet how could I not?).

I put myself down for a slot on prayer nusach, but that turned out to be weekday prayer nusach, and astonishingly this was what eleven out of the thirteen in the class wanted. Me, I've never encountered singing of any kind in the weekday service (Torah service aside) before now; and in any case, until I started attending שחרית and מנחה here, the last time I attended weekday services on a regular basis was during the shiva for my late grandmother.

Attending all the services here is something I am doing more because I feel this is what one should do in yeshiva than from a deep feeling that I should. Maybe if I continue doing it, it might go on to have an effect on me, but at present, I'm a little overwhelmed by the length of the full weekday service, תחנון, extended concluding section and all. I don't look forward to the prospect (the first time I have to sit shiva) of having to do that on a daily basis.

Anyhow, R. Goldfarb is going to see if he can set up an arrangement for me and the other dissenter to learn Shabbos nusach, but in the meantime I did a little independent study (slightly ridiculously from the Encyclopaedia Judaica—I could have done this sitting at home!) to see if I could find something to teach me how to predict the trop from the grammar of a Torah reading, which might make learning leyning easier for me. (Upshot: in the hour and I half I had, I didn't manage this, but did find something explaining how to break each verse down into recursively into ever smaller musical phrases, and what the notes that can go in each are.)

Right, I think that's more than enough for a first report; time to plunge back into the whirlpool.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Fascinating stuff, thank you for sharing. You sound as if you're in your element!

I'm a little overwhelmed by the length of the full weekday service,

Strangely enough, that's how I feel about going to the gym. I'm not opposed to the exercise, but it's finding an extra hour in the day that seems difficult, and there's only so much time in the day, and everything else is *also* important.

[dhole.livejournal.com]

Ouch -- sorry I got you dehydrated.

Next time, I'll try and take you somewhere not quite so inappropriate for the season.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

It wasn't just dehydration; it was also hyponatraemia: because I was drinking lots but wasn't keeping my salt intake up to match it. Next time I'll know to drink more.

You shouldn't feel bad; you did a good job of looking after us, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the day.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

No, you know to drink _the right stuff_.

Ein Gedi sounds utterly fascinating. Any pictures?

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

In due course.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Compared to you, I'm merely a geekling, but I've just purchased a Palm-with-wifi on ebay which will hopefully allow me to upload my photos from anywhere in the world.

You need to keep up better with technology ;-)

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

I need to process my photos first: strip out the useless ones, crop out the ones with my finger in the top left (whose idea was it to put the lens at the top-left of the camera?), and stitch together the panoramic shots.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. And you're right, the lens position sounds stupid.

[(Anonymous)]

"Afterwards, we stopped to refill our water bottles from a pool fed by the spring"

"... and I still ended up badly dehydrated—or something; the doctors weren't entirely sure of what—and wound up in hospital on an IV drip overnight."

anyone else notice a theme here !?

-dg

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Not so; see my response to dhole above. This is the spring which the Ein Gedi bottled water is fed from.

[snjstar.livejournal.com]

Glad you are better and enjoying CY.

thoughts on your p-card

[(Anonymous)]

1) I see people have beaten me to this comment, but I'll throw my lot in anyway: Its not just how much you drink, but _what_ you drink that counts. Electolytes, son! (and you thought it was "plastics" - spot the tenuous film reference, Michael). My tip is that on your next outing in the desert, carry a sachet or two of Diorylite (sp?) or its equivalent, and lots of food!

2) I'm also bemused to hear about nusach for weekday services.

3) I'm interested to hear that you have such a different attitude towards the halachic obligation to daven every day, and the obligation to daven when sitting shiva (pu pu pu..., or thu thu thu, or the the the but using a breathy th sound...) Why is this? Incidentally, Lindsey gave a fascinating shiur during Tikkun Leyl about the orignins of mourners kaddish... it all goes back to a medieval ghost story, apparantly.

4) I do a bit of leyning now and again, and I can tell you that there are certain patterns of correspondence between the trop and the grammar. However, they mostly seem to be surrounding the end of the sentences. I have been able to use the trop to help in translating, as they give a clue to the grammar, but generally, I haven't been able to do this the other way round. i have also noticed that within short passages of text, there are very frequently patterns of repetition, or repetition with variation, which can help with learning the leyning. However, the patterns seem to be localised and I have it on authority from much more experienced leyners than I that there isn't really a short cut to learning the trop.

Paul

Re: thoughts on your p-card

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

thoughts on your p-card

"p-card"?

Electolytes, son! (and you thought it was "plastics" - spot the tenuous film reference, Michael).

?

3) I'm interested to hear that you have such a different attitude towards the halachic obligation to daven every day, and the obligation to daven when sitting shiva (pu pu pu[...]) Why is this?

I don't think it's so much an obligation to daven during mourning so much as an obligation to attend a minyan so one can say kaddish. Having to daven every day in general is something between me and G-d alone; if I don't do so, I don't feel particularly guilty. By contrast, if I don't attend services when mourning, I will feel guilty because it reflects an implicit social contract between me and whomever it is I'm sitting shiva for.

But now you mention it, I realise there's also a factor of my having unwittingly absorbed from the surrounding culture the prevailing concept that davening whilst mourning is something people do even if they do not daven regularly the rest of the time.

Of course, possibly because when people are bereaved, they feel the need to reach out to religion as a support, or feel guilt-tripped into attending services regularly, and the prevailing concept I mentioned above is therefore merely a description of what people do without considering the reasons. I don't know.


4) I do a bit of leyning now and again, and I can tell you that there are certain patterns of correspondence between the trop and the grammar. However, they mostly seem to be surrounding the end of the sentences. I have been able to use the trop to help in translating, as they give a clue to the grammar, but generally, I haven't been able to do this the other way round. i have also noticed that within short passages of text, there are very frequently patterns of repetition, or repetition with variation, which can help with learning the leyning. However, the patterns seem to be localised and I have it on authority from much more experienced leyners than I that there isn't really a short cut to learning the trop.

<nods> Rabbi Diamond says it took her five years to fully get to grips with learning leyning. Nevertheless, I shall at some point show you the table I came up with.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Of course there's a nusach for weekdays. It's not singing as such, but it's a specific chant, rather than plain reading.

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't take six hour-plus lessons to learn, though, surely?

[zsero.livejournal.com]

What it should actually take is attending daily minyan for several years, and picking it up subliminally. Or attending for a shorter time, and deliberately paying attention to the chazzan's chanting, instead of tuning it out as we tend to do. That's the same way to pick up the Shabbat nusach. Yomtov nusach is a bit harder, since there aren't as many opportunities to hear it. And of course in each of these cases there is not really one nusach but several, and different chazzanim will use different ones, unless it's the sort of shul that insists on all chazzanim using one specific nusach (e.g. German shuls are well-known for this).

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

Some people are better than others at picking up something through hearing it repeatedly. And some people can pick most of it up; but you would want to learn it separately in order to be certain you've picked it up.

This looks so cool

[(Anonymous)]

Will read this properly in the morning as I need to sleep, totally sleep deprived. Looks really interesting. :-)

Oops that was me

[(Anonymous)]

Oops that was me

Sorry

SW

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

I did not see your post. I haven't checked my LJ so often. My mum always tried to persuade me drinking a yogurt drink with sold in it. Meanwhile I like it. I am not sure if you can actually take it on a trip. Since I had my food poisoning and was dehydrated for a while I have some dehydration powder from the pharmacy. You mix it with water. I am sure something like that you can take.

I was very busy today. I cooked for my relatives. They didn't want to come first because there was lack communication. The wife was stuck with the tube. The wife didn't tell the husband my second cousin about visiting me. When I said I cooked for them they came. He gave her a lift because she came late from work. I had now the chance reading your blog through. It is late and I ought to go to bed.
I hope you are better now. You properly have lots of advice from others.

Questions...

[(Anonymous)]

Hi

First of all sorry you ended up on an IV drip, thats no way to start off your time there. Thats always been my greatest fear when I went to Israel or in any hot climate for that matter, to the degree that I drank SO much water when going up Masada once that almost got myself into a pickle as my friend and I couldn't find the toilets up there for ages. It was a horrible situation, I'll spare you the details. Luckily I have never ended up on a drip. I hope you wore sunglasses to protect your eyes from the sun as well.

Also I have a question - whats a hyrax? Also another question - I never quite got what the notion of trop was,is it something to do with the intonation when you pray, sorry for my ignorance, I didn't go to that talk at Limmud of which there were many and also haven't been reading your blog properly.

Also I think the e-postcard is really well written :-) You sound like you are enjoying the learning and really getting into it and making new friends, getting on well with your flatmates, I know you were a bit worried about that.

Take care and enjoy Shabbat, I am having a quiet one, I had a busy few days and I have a busy Sunday so I am just at home but I will go to shul this week as I think its important to pray with others and I love the idea of tefillah. I want to get some private learning/ and novel reading done on Shabbat. Take care,

SW

Re: Questions...

[lethargic-man.livejournal.com]

A hyrax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyrax) is the creature called in Hebrew שפן; the KJV renders it "rock-badger". It's also the closest living relative of the elephant after manatees and dugongs.

And trop is the name for the system of notes used for the cantillation of the Torah and haftarah.

Re: Questions...

[curious-reader.livejournal.com]

Oh, did not know that. I always wondered what sort of badger it should be. I did not know it is completely different animal. I actually wanted to correct something. I meant "salt". I was too tired to think about correct spelling.