Jonah in the Hamster Wheel!

This morning, while my Dad went shopping with my sister, Tanya--me, my cousins Josh and Dana and my Aunt Julie went for ice cream and went to a park, and got a falafel.  I got the flavor of ice cream that I liked very, very much the last time I was in Israel, when I was four--a flavor that mixes lemon and strawberry, with gummy bears.

This afternoon and early evening, me, Dada, and my sisters, Tanya and Rosa went to kibbutz.  We went to this kibbutz, Tzuba, because Rosa used to live there and wanted to visit it.  There was a very nice park there, where I could climb a lot.  There was even a human-sized hamster wheel!

Here is a picture of me in the human-sized hamster wheel:

I'm really excited for tomorrow because I'm going to see my old friend Ben, who used to go to my synagogue.  He moved here so I haven't seen him for a very, very long time, so I am excited!

PIctures from the Zoo

It's late--we all went to watch the "Night Spectacular" sound and light show at the Jaffa Gate--and I'm exhausted tonight, so instead of a real post, just some pictures from the Jerusalem zoo, where Jonah and I spent most of the day.

It's one of my favorite places in Israel.  Not historically significant, not Jewishly significant.  But beautiful and fun.  And since so much of the world thinks of this city as a war zone populated by religious fanatics of all faiths, it's important to note that there are many places here that really are just fun.  We saw Arabs, secular Jews, and hasidim--all enjoying the animals with their children.

Holiness sometimes shows up in unexpected ways and places.

At the Zoo (by Jonah)

Today, Dada and I went to the zoo.  We saw lots and lots of animals, like ibexes, tigers, leopards, monkeys, snakes, frogs, rhinos, lions, elephants, giraffes, flamingoes, and zebras.

I had a very fun time with my dad.  We also saw an oryx, which is the animal that my shofar came from.  There were a lot of trees to climb, and I climbed them very well.  A learned a good bit about climbing from watching the monkeys climb.  We stayed there a long time.  We walked a lot because the zoo was very big.  At the end, we went to an old ark that was fixed up to be like Noah's and had a gift shop inside with a movie.

Tonight we are going to an outside movie.  

I had so much fun today!

Tourists

We've had an eventful past couple days.  Yesterday (Monday), we made our way from the Galilee down to Jerusalem.  We enjoyed a swim in the warm (sort of) springs at Sachne, a gorgeous pool set amid palm trees and manicured gardens.  Then we set out on the two hour drive through the West Bank on Highway 90.  As one heads south, down the Jordan Rift Valley, the landscape becomes increasingly desolate.  At Jericho, one catches a glimpse of the Dead Sea, and then begins the ascent to Jerusalem, emerging into the city proper through a tunnel beneath the Judean Hills.

After wandering through Tel Aviv and the north, it felt good to arrive in Jerusalem, where I actually know my way around.  And no matter how many times one makes the trip, it is always a spiritual thrill to ascend to this hoy city, which our tradition views as the center of the world.

Today, we did a lot of walking, which is really the only way to see Jerusalem.  We started out on the Haas Promenade, with its magnificent view over the whole landscape around the city.  We went on to see the bustling downtown, and key sites in the Old City, ending, of course, with the Western Wall.  I have always been a bit ambivalent about the Wall.  I feel the sanctity of the place, even as I resent the fact that the Orthodox have turned it into, essentially, an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, where women are second-class citizens.  Still, I could not help but be moved as Jonah stuck his own prayer into the cracks between the huge stones, along with the prayers of so many who have stood on this holy ground.

But my favorite part of Jerusalem is the New City, rather than the Old.  I love seeing modern Jewish life here, warts and all.  I am amazed by the number of cranes punctuating the city skyline.  The economy here is booming; they are building everywhere.  It's loud and chaotic and meditative and irritating and holy and profane and moving and frustrating and never, ever boring.  The miracle here is not the ancient stones--even those of the Western Wall.  It's the school children, the parents, the young people, going about their daily business.

As Yehuda Amichai, the late and great 20th century poet of Jerusalem wrote in "Tourists":

Once I sat on the steps by a gate at David's Tower.  I placed my two heavy baskets at my side.  A group of tourists was standing around their guide and I became their reference point.  "You see that man with the baskets?  Just to the right of his head, there's an arch from the Roman period.  Just to the right of his head. . . But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them, "You see that arch from the Roman period?  It's not important.  But next to it, left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

The Old City (by Jonah)

Yesterday we drove to Jerusalem.  Along the way, we went swimming in a warm springs.  They were very nice and deep, about eight feet deep.  After I got out, I was very cold.

The drive was about two hours long and we drove through the West Bank.  We could see the Dead Sea a tiny bit.  Then we got into Jerusalem and found a house that was pretty nice.

Today we went to the Old City and did a lot of walking!  There was so much stuff there, like wood camels, daggers, swords, smoking pipes, necklaces, and chess sets.  My Dad bought me a miniature chess set that you can fold up to bring places with you.  I love it very much.

We went to visit a church because my aunt is Christian and she wanted to see it.  We saw all kinds of people there, like priests.  Then we walked to the Kotel, which means the Western Wall.  It is one of the most holy sites for Jewish people.  There are lots of cracks in it.  That way, you can write prayers on pieces of paper and then fold them up and put them in the cracks in the wall.  I wrote my own prayer and stuck it in the Wall.  When you write a prayer, no one else is allowed to see it; that's what makes it special.  When I saw the Western Wall, there were millions of notes in it.

Here is a picture of me at the Wall, putting my prayer in it.

Then we took a taxi back to our house.

Shofar, so good. . .

We've spent the past couple of days in the north, my favorite part of Israel.  I love the Galilee: the sense of spaciousness, the verdant landscape, cascades of blooming flowers, rugged mountains, sparkling blue waters of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and the generally laid back pace of life.

This afternoon, we ate lunch in Rosh Pinna, which has become quite the upscale town.  It reminds me a bit of Boulder, Colorado, with its mountain views, abundance of fine restaurants, tasteful affluence and left-learning politics.  

Then we continued up the mountains to Tzefat, the home of Lurianic kabbalah.  One can see why Jewish mysticism took root here.  There's just something in the atmosphere that inspires spirituality and awe.  The town is perched high in the hills, opposite Mount Meron, where one finds the tomb of R. Shimon bar Yochai, the purported author of the Zohar.  With its winding, narrow alleyways, steep stairs, historic synagogues, and eclectic population, it is not hard to see the appeal of the place to visionaries--from Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Ari, to a host of contemporary artists.  Time just moves differently here.

But my favorite part of today was a trip to Kol Shofar, a family-run shofar factory in the Golan Heights.

We learned a great deal about the shofar on our tour.  It can be made from the horn of any animal except a cow (due to the association with the Golden Calf).  Our guide, the son of the founder and master shofar crafter, reminded us that the Hebrew word shofar is derived from the verb l'shaper, meaning "to improve."  The shofar calls us to improve ourselves.

At Kol Shofar, interestingly enough, most of the horns come from Islamic countries.  In those places, people slaughter the animals primarily for food, then sell the shofar as a by-product to the factory.  The horns are cut and sometimes heated and straightened, their mouth-pieces are shaped and then drilled, and then they are (mostly) polished (some Sephardi Jews, following Maimonides, prefer to use an un-polished shofar).  We saw shofars made out of the horns of rams (most common and often preferred), goats, ibyx, kudu and sheep.

I bought a very unusual shofar, from the horn of an African animal called an oryx.  Many halachic authorities frown on this rare form of shofar, since it is rather straight, and Jewish tradition expresses a preference for a bent or curved shofar.  The talmudic debate on this matter is interesting:
The Mishnah (Rosh Hashanah 26b) has a dispute between the Tanna Kamma (the first, anonymous opinion) and R. Yehudah regarding the shofar blown on Rosh Hashanah. According to the Tanna Kamma, the shofar used on Rosh Hashanah should be straight and from a ya’el. According to R. Yehudah, it should be from a male (and curved). The Gemara asks why the Tanna Kamma prefers a straight shofar and R. Yehudah a curved shofar and answers that according to the Tanna Kamma on Rosh Hashanah people need to straighten their minds and according to R. Yehudah they need to bend themselves in prayer.

R. Yehudah won the day and the curved shofar--reflecting the impulse to bow before the Creator--became the norm.

But the straight shofar from the oryx appealed to my aesthetic and, perhaps more critically, my tendency towards inconoclasm.  I like to question established norms, even as I respect traditions.  

With that said, the older I get, the better I understand this notion of bending before the Heavens.  Next year, I will proudly sound my straight oryx shofar.  But as I do, I will also think of the words of a poem that I wrote a few years ago. I'll end this post with it.

Davenning at Forty-Nine

I found it very hard to bow
in synagogue when I was young
as all my ancestors had done
I felt too proud to bend so low

but after half a century
my knees and back bow well subdued
yet one more proof that life intrudes
upon our prayers like gravity

which is perhaps a kind of grace
or yet another name for God
inexorable earthbound nod
to which we bow, surrender, praise

Jonah's blog: At the Shofar Factory

When we first came to Israel, we were staying in a very small apartment in Tel Aviv.  Then, after three nights, we went to a house that belonged to a guy named Steve.  It is in a place called Yavne'el, which is in the Galilee.  The house is very nice and cozy and very, very big.  I love it.  In the back yard, there is a swing, a foosball table, and a little pool.  The view is also really nice.  You can see a lot of trees and nice houses with red rooftops.

As I've been staying here, I've been getting more used to it, but still thinking that all of it is nice.

Today, we went to a shofar factory.   I got a long, straight shofar that came from an animal called an oryx.  Here is a picture of the animal:

The man from the shofar factory told us that they don't kill the animals.  They get the horns mostly from Muslim countries where people kill the animals to eat them and then sell the horns to the shofar factory. At the shofar factory, they cut the horn, take out the inside, and polish it.   Here is what my shofar looks like when it is done:

At the shofar factory, they had an orange tree there.  I climbed the tree and ate three oranges.  They were delicious--the best oranges that I have ever had fresh!

After the shofar factory, we had lunch at a place called "Spaghettim."  I ate four whole pieces of pizza. I really, really, really liked the pizza.

Then we went to Tzefat.  We went to a place where they made and sold candles.  Their candles were amazing.  They had candles shaped with wax of David fighting Goliath, Noah's Ark (filled with lots of Disney characters), and right when you walked in the doors, there was a candle about nine feet tall.
It was amazing.

Tomorrow we will go to Jerusalem.