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

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.