East Jerusalem on a Friday: Mount of Olives, Tomb of the Virgin, and more...

Today was our first free day since we've been here, so we went sightseeing around Jerusalem.  We've all seen the Jewish quarter of the Old City many times, but we saw all the Christian stuff in East Jerusalem and ended up at a mosque right when it lit up for Shabbat.  It was really cool.

Hiking up the Mount of Olives when the sun set was surreal.  You just look out and see something like the picture above, and you see all these tour groups walking around - French, Korean, Russian, to name a few - and you realize it's all for the land.  The Tomb of the Virgin, where Mary Magdalene is supposedly buried, was so cool to walk into.  It's in a cave so you walk down a bunch of stairs, turn a corner and duck under this hole in the wall and there she is.  Still hard to believe I'm living here.  It was high 60's today, sunny and warm, so I was just relaxing in the student village in shorts and a t shirt and then Isaac and Mike came by and were like "We have to go explore!"  It's so easy to forget that everything is around you, and to just fall back into the school pattern of napping, going online, and having a routine.  I have to remember to keep seeing things.

There's a huge Shabbat dinner tonight at the Hyatt Regency, so I'm gonna head over there.  Probably not going to do a shomer Shabbat tonight.  Things are still going by in a blur; Ul-pan really packs the day in and makes things hectic.  But I feel like people are starting to get past the constant introductions and actually know who people are; it's a slow process.

First Day of Class...

...and I don't know how I ever did it in high school.  Over four hours of Ulpan, with 2 short breaks, and I was KO'ed for like 3 hours after.  It's so much Hebrew in such a short time, it's exhausting but it's also good because I need to learn Hebrew while I'm here.  We covered a lot of stuff and I still have homework to get to, it's intense.  The teachers don't speak English, they just point to things and use drawings and props to show what they're talking about.  You really have to pay attention to keep up, which could be a problem when we start waking up at 8 am for class.

I have yet to go shopping for food, but I've gotten by so far.  That and the gym membership are goals for tomorrow.  Last night I went to the student center to watch the Jets game (and got free Chinese food and drinks!), the weather was too crappy (ok, it was only raining...) to go out.  Tonight there's basketball from 8-10, salsa lessons around 9:30, and a party after.  Seems like there's always gonna be a ton of organized stuff going on, which is good.  Still meeting tons of people each day, but Ul-pan today was nice because the classes are small (less than 20 students) so there's some consistency.  I'm still trying to find my feet, it's been a whirlwind but a fun one.  Gonna go grab dinner and I need to catch up on 24 still so nobody say anything!

Moved in!

Don't have a ton of time but today was the big move-in day, the building is unbelievable and I have so much room I don't know what to do with it.  It's very nice.  My roommate Isaac is really cool, he's black and not Jewish but he was able to get a really good deal at the gym for us both, so I'm gonna sign up tomorrow.  One of the girls, Meena, is Israeli but speaks perfect English, she also brings in food that her mom cooks for her but unfortunately she's leaving soon so we're getting another roommate.  The other 2 roommates are girls who aren't on the same program we're on, one is from Russia the other is from Korea, and their English is very limited.  They keep to themselves, but it's fine because Isaac is very outgoing so I'm overall pretty happy with the room.  And the view is UNBELIEVABLE, I'll try to get a pic up.

I have orientation in an hour, but we've already talked to tons of people on the program, they're all awesome.  It takes a lot of initiative to go abroad and live somewhere for a semester, and of all the places to go abroad, going to Jerusalem over major European cities or even Tel Aviv is a big decision.  Everyone I've talked to so far has been very down to earth, intelligent, curious, and proactive.  It sounds like a glowing overgeneralization but it's true - it's very easy to get along with everyone here.  Everyone just has this unspoken bond even though we are from completely different cities; most people are secular but curious like me, so it's just a lot of good talks.  I keep forgetting that not everyone has been here for a month like me so I guess I'm going to have to show people around town tonight; nobody has any clue where anything is.  I'm still finding my way around campus because it's pretty big, we all live in this giant beautiful Student Village with 12 different buildings all nearby each other, and it's like a 15 min walk from classes, and about a 5 min walk from the gym.  There's a ton of comaraderie here.  I really like it.  Gonna be an amazing semester.

Just because I don't know where else to put this, here's my address:

Daniel Cohen
Scopus Student Village
2 Lohamei Hagetaot St
Building 2, Floor 4, Apt. 2, Room 3
97880 Jerusalem, ISRAEL

One other thing: I heard the honors program I signed up for has the students taking 2 classes through Hebrew U instead of Rothberg International School, which means classes won't end until the end of June.  It's completely voluntary if I want to do it, and there's orientation on Thursday so I'll find out more info then, but it could be tough because I'd need to get back home earlier if I wanted to work at camp over the summer.  I'll keep you updated.

LOVE IT HERE!!!

JCPA

I got the internship at JCPA so from now on I'll be linking to any interesting stories from their site.  JCPA stands for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and while I'll mostly be doing social networking/marketing to get people to visit their site, I'm also going to be sitting in on some very cool lecturers and learning a ton about Israeli politics.

For anyone who wants to learn a bit more about what's going on in Israel, I highly recommend you check out their site.  The amount of information there is mind-blowing:

www.JCPA.org

Why Not Be Good?

Why Not Be Good?

*This was written in a rush so sorry if it's unclear at parts

After a week of lounging around at Ohr Sameach, I finally decided to go to class.  I sat in on a lecture by Rabbi Gottlieb, an internationally renown Jewish scholar, a few days ago.  He talked about reward and punishment; specifically, the utterly incapable way that justice works in our world.  Evil people, serial killers, get off scot-free while horrible things happen to truly good people.  We are left with two options to confront this dilemma: dismiss morality entirely as being a societal fabrication, basically a lie we tell people to keep them in line – or – we can choose to believe that g-d is ultimately in control of the reward and punishment for our behavior, leaving the good people to be rewarded in the afterlife and the people who aren’t as good to be… not as rewarded (Jews don’t believe in the punishment of Hell, only less reward, which is a punishment in itself). 

These two different explanations have vastly different consequences for our behavior.  If we dismiss morality, citing all the injustices in the world as examples, then we are left with nothing.  We are just insignificant beings on a floating rock in space, scrabbling with the other primates for a bigger piece of the pie, and none of it really matters in the end.  The other way of looking at morality, from the traditional Jewish perspective, is to have faith that good and bad will be meted out in the end, according to some system.  We don’t necessarily claim to know how it all works, only that there is justice in the end apportioned by G-d.  Interestingly, even Hitler noted this philosophy as being strictly Jewish: in Mein Kampf, he writes, “The Jews have stained the human race with conscience and morality.”  Hitler saw morality and social conscience as a weakness to be exterminated.  However, we see that 60 years later, the Jews are still around, just like we have been for thousands of years, while every other government rises and falls around us.   Perhaps Hitler wasn’t the most astute historian, as it certainly appears from the record that morality is a strength.

We have the freedom to make up our own beliefs.  Take that as an assumption, and if you disagree, then talk to a Rabbi or someone smarter than me, because I don’t know how to handle that.  Now, practically speaking, do you want the monkeys on a rock pointlessly floating through space philosophy or the be a good person, do the right thing, it will all work out in the end philosophy?  We all have a purpose to our lives.  Many of us spend it either relaxing and enjoying life’s pleasures or working hard for material success.  Why not have the development of ourselves as a person, as a good person, be a priority?  Why shouldn’t the goal of your life be to be the best person you can be?  What is so wrong with that?

Why not be good?

From what I’ve learned, there are 4 big things not to do and 2 big things to do in order to be good.  There’s a lot of extra stuff in the Torah about what it means to be a good Jew, but a lot of that seems kind of superstitious to me.  These are the 6 Big Things.  If you follow these 6, you’re good.

4 Things not to do: Kill, Steal, Lie, Gossip.

2 Things to do: Keep Shabbat, Keep Kosher

Gossip is said to be just as bad as killing/stealing/lying.  Gossip is bad because, especially in today’s day with the Internet, you can do a huge amount of damage to a person in a short period of time with virtually no effort.  L’shon Hara is gossip, and you are supposed to avoid it all costs, even if it’s true and warranted.  This part was really hard for me to accept – if someone does something horrible, shouldn’t everyone know about it?  After all, reputations have to be earned, and if someone is clearly a horrible person, then talking about it actually serves a purpose.

The reason why l’shon hara is so bad is because there are always 2 sides to every story, and it’s not in our hands to mete out punishment.  Often times, emotions cloud the issue, and other times, the gossip doesn’t actually serve a constructive purpose – for example, telling people that Dave wets the bed every night isn’t really doing any good, especially not for Dave.  Examples of the rare exceptions when gossip is permitted are: when someone is entering a business agreement with person X, who has been known to be deceitful and a cheat in business dealings, or when someone is preparing to marry person Y, who is indisputably having an affair.  But these cases are few and far between, and most times, we just like to gossip because it creates a social camaraderie among the gossipers.  However, it is causing the subject of the gossip a lot of harm, a lot of which can be irreparable.  In a way, you are killing them – you are destroying their reputation, their life.  When a person gets embarrassed, the blood rushes from their face and they turn very pale before blushing red. Even physiologically speaking, it’s not unlike murder.  So, it all comes back to treating people how you’d like to be treating and loving your fellow man.  Gossiping is very bad, and if you hear it, you are supposed to tactfully change the subject.

Keeping Shabbat and keeping kosher serve important communal roles as well as providing for the dignity and humane treatment of the animal.  Shabbat is just awesome, and I think anyone who gives it a decent shot would agree that it’s just fun and you don’t really need to subscribe to a higher belief to enjoy it.  Keeping kosher can be inconvenient and costly at times but it also has benefits, like knowing the meat is of decent quality when there’s food scares about Mad Cow disease.

Basically, I think everyone should have morality in their lives, regardless of their religious beliefs.  The 6 Big Things are things that anyone can follow that will enable them to have this morality in their life, again regardless of their religious beliefs. 

Why Not Be Good?

A logical look at orthodox Judaism

I'm way too far behind with what we did, but by far the most interesting thing since Hebron has been Shabbat a couple days nights ago.  Two speakers came in, one was a former karate black belt/promising rap phenom/secular guy who converted to Orthodox Judaism (yawn) and the other was a Harvard educated lawyer who promised a logical argument in favor of Orthodox Judaism.  His talk went for an hour or so, from 11 to 12, and I dozed during parts of it because we were all exhausted.  He hung around afterwards answering questions and it turned into an intense 4 hour discussion in this other guy's kitchen who was hosting the Shabbaton.  Since it was Shabbat, the lights were programmed to shut off at 1 am, so we kept talking for 3 more hours until 4 am in the dark.  I'm going to outline his argument here, because if it was interesting enough to keep me from bed after being completely exhausted, it should be interesting enough for you (it's pretty intense stuff, this guy's a genius, so don't be scared off):

Evidence in support of g-d

-Einstein proved that time is directly tied to matter and space.  Space, time, and matter are all physical properties and therefore, by definition, finite.

-We can trace any finite thing to its limit.

---Spatially, the known universe has limits.  The universe is expanding, so space is expanding, but space is not infinite.

---Time wise, the known universe has limits.  We know this from the third law of thermodynamics: that temperatures will eventually reach an equilibrium.  For example, if you put a cup of hot coffee in a room, and come back in 10 years, the cup of coffee will be room temperature.  If you look at the universe like a giant room, and our sun as a cup of coffee, it's evident that the universe hasn't been around forever, because if it was, the sun would be at "room temperature".  In other words, it wouldn't be giving off massive amounts of heat in an otherwise frigidly cold universe.  The concept of a starting point for the universe isn't anything that revolutionary, its accepted among most scientists as the Big Bang.  Thus, time has limits because time hasn't always existed.

---Finally, matter has limits.  If you trace any physical object back in time to see where it came from, this will become apparent.  Look at a tree.  Where did the tree come from?  From a seed of another tree.  Where did that seed come from?  From the other tree.  Where did that tree come from?  Ask this question enough times and you'll realize there has to be a first tree.  You can break this down even further by asking where tiny particles of matter come from.  Atoms haven't been around forever.  They started with the big bang.  So, since matter hasn't been around forever, matter has limits.

-This brings us to the logical point that if you trace finite things back far enough, you encounter a breaking point.  At some point. space time and matter must have been created.  Something came from nothing.  Even Einstein, a devout atheist, acknowledged this fact before he died.  This isn't saying anything about g-d, only the fact that it is logical to believe in a creator who started everything.  Just ask the question: Who started the big bang?  The act of creating something from nothing is, for these purposes, g-d.  Nothing more.

Evidence in support of the Jewish interpretation of g-d, or the Torah:


This is what I was most interested in.  It doesn't take much to believe in g-d, or acknowledge the possibility that some far-off creator once jump-started the universe.  It's not really going to change your life.  But if we start believing in the Jewish interpretation of g-d, then that has implications in virtually every facet of your life.  If you believe in a literal intepretation of the Torah, it's time to start wearing tzit-tzit, a kippah, davin'ing 3 times a day, keeping Shabbat, and about 600+ other commandments.  It will change your entire life.

There are a few main reasons why it's logical to believe the Torah came from G-d:

-Mount Sinai.  This is the single biggest piece of evidence.  In the Torah, it says that g-d revealed himself to 3 million Jews at Mount Sinai.  No other religion in the world makes a claim so bold.  The Torah says that g-d talked directly to 3 million jews.  Christianity, on the other hand, claims that g-d showed himself directly to one person, Jesus, and that one apostle knew this, and that everyone else is taking the apostle's word.  Islam teaches also that g-d revealed himself to one person, Mohammed, and that everyone else is taking Mohammed's word.  Mormonism: Joseph Smith was the only one who heard g-d, and everyone else took his word.  No other religion states that 3 million people were spoken to directly by g-d.


This is a huge deal.  We have two options about the Torah: either it was written by man, or it was written by G-d.  If it was written by man, we have to explain how man could get away with a lie that big.  Way back when, if a guy writes the Torah with that piece about the 3 million people in it, and he goes around showing it to people, what are they gonna do?  They're gonna ask: where are these 3 million people?  Sure, maybe he could get a few people to play along and vouch that g-d actually did speak to them at Sinai.  But 3 million???  It's virtually impossible.  Not only did all 3 million people agree that g-d spoke directly to them, they all describe the exact same experience.  You can find old Torah scrolls all over the world.  They are all identical.  Bibles have thousands of different versions.  There is only one Torah.

So maybe this man who wrote the Torah didn't actually find 3 million people to go along with his lie.  It'd be pretty preposterous, and you'd have to think there'd be some shred of historical inaccuracy somewhere along the line.  At some point, you'd think just ONE of the 3 million would come clean and admit that they were lying, and then that would be a huge deal because it'd undermine the entire religion.  There is no historical shred of evidence about this.  All 3 million people actually believed they were spoken to by g-d, directly.

What if there weren't 3 million people?  What if this guy just buried the Torah somewhere, and it surfaced years later, and by then everyone figured the 3 million people must have died off?  That's definitely possible.  But to the society where the Torah was introduced, why would they have any reason to believe it if there's no trace of the 3 million Jews?  The 3 million Jews told their kids, and they told their kids, and they told their kids, and this is how Judaism survives: through the oral tradition of the Torah.  But if there were no 3 million people, then how did this oral tradition ever begin?  Just think about it.  This "lie" has never been repeated throughout history.  No other religion or cult has been able to pull of the claim that 3 million people were spoken to by g-d.  Not one.  If it was possible to make up, other people would have done it.  Try a thought experiment.  Try pulling this off yourself.

Just think: how could you go around convincing people that 3 million people were talked to directly by g-d?  You can get people to go along with the lie... but could you really get 3 million people to do it, down to the letter, with no trace of inconsistency or indication that they were lying?  Or, if you are going to go the route of saying that the 3 million people already died.. how do you get this lie introduced into society?  How do you explain the virtual disappearnace of all 3 million people - and all their ancestors?

The truth is, there are ancestors to the 3 million.  They're the Jewish people.

I probably completely butchered the discussion: we were all really sleep-deprived, and it happened a few days ago.  But I'm still thinking about it and I'm pretty sure I got all the big points down.  There are entire classes about why the Torah is logically not written by man, such as the fact that there are commandments which would be counterproductive to a people's survival (telling all able bodied males to come to Israel 10 days a year, leaving all the women and children defenseless), prophecies, and things that no man back then would have been able to know (like the idea that there was once one Pangaea that split into 7 continents and one imposter - the imposter being the North Pole, which is all ice).  But the single biggest proof, the one thing that separates Judaism from every other religion, the biggest claim in the history of the world that nobody has ever been able to duplicate, was:

3 Million Jews claimed to be spoken to directly by G-d at Mount Sinai.

This Harvard educated lawyer, Rabbi Windel (spelling probably wrong), said that the goal isn't to convert people.  I'm not converted (yet?).  The goal is to simply provide the evidence and let people reach their own conclusions.  What he has to say was definitely thought-provoking and I just thought I'd share a tiny sample of what we've been learning about.  It's really cool stuff.

I'm sitting in a park outside Ohr Sameach, where I just moved in, and all these kids keep running up to look at my Macbook.  I don't speak Hebrew though so I can't really say anything to them.  For the next 2 weeks I'll be at Ohr Sameach, a yeshivah (Jewish school), but I'm taking very few classes so I'll have a ton of free time to explore the city and hang out on Ben Yahuda street.  Everyone on Hamerkaz is leaving later today, which will kinda suck, but my friend Max who's a Free Mason will still be around so maybe I'll finally get to become a Free Mason during these 2 weeks free, and then I'll be awesome like those guys in the Lost Symbol.

I hope this was interesting, it took me a long time to type out and I really have to do laundry.

-Dan

Hebron, or: The coolest ghost story ever

I'm way behind on updates but I'll catch up soon because I'm gonna have a ton of free time starting in a few days when Hamerkaz ends.  It's crazy how fast it's all been going but enough about that, let's get to the good stuff:

We went to Hebron on Sunday.  Hebron is a city on the West Bank that's been the site of a ton of Palestinian/Israeli conflict, so much so that Birthright trips aren't allowed to go there.  However, in recent years Hebron has been pretty calm, as the Palestinians in the surrounding area outside of the IDF control have accepted the Israeli military presence.  When we got there, we took a huge armored bus and actually drove through the Palestinian neighborhoods, and we were surprised to see a bunch of Jews wearing kippahs walking freely throughout the streets.  We found out later that these were the Na-na-chmans.  Not just any Jews.

The Na-na-chmans are crazy.  They are basically Israeli's beatniks.  The whole movement started about five years ago when Rabbi Nachman, a very holy and esteemed Rabbi, passed away.  Rabbi Nachman's star pupil was very distressed at his passing and searched through all of Rabbi Nachman's books for some kernel of lost wisdom.  He found a note, written by Rabbi Nachman just before he died, which read: "Be happy.  Live a happy life.  Be happy."  This inspired this student so much that he wrote a song dedicated to Rabbi Nachman, and started driving around the streets of Israel blasting the song and dancing in the streets and on the roof of his van.  In recent years the guy has gotten a HUGE following, so much so that you can't go anywhere anymore without seeing a Na-na-chman van blasting the Na-na-chman song, with crazy hippie Jews dancing.  They are everywhere.  We've seen them on Ben Yahuda street, in Tel Aviv, and even, yes, in the West Bank in Hebron.  The Palestinians are actually scared of them because they are so crazy and always dancing.  I'm not kidding.  Their song has become the theme song of our trip, check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4TEh6rtzOE&feature=related

The only lyrics to the song are Rabbi Nachman's name (Nachman) broken up into Na-Na-Nachman, and "Meuman" which means "from Uman", the place where the Rabbi lived.  The star student may not have been the best lyricist, but the song is extremely catchy. We danced with the Na-na-chman in the fortified area of Hebron and even got up on the van, I have a video of it which will be up soon, and it was a great time.  But dancing with the Na-na-chman at Hebron got us into a really good mood, which made what we heard at Rachel's tomb in Hebron even more jarring.  It is the coolest ghost story ever.

The picture at the top of this post is a picture of Rachel's tomb.  All the forefathers of the Torah are said to be buried in Hebron deep underground in a cave, from Abraham and Rachel to Isaac and Jacob... and even Adam and Eve are said to be buried there (Adam's body was so big it supposedly had to be folded 8 times to fit in a normal grave!).  Way back when, a king built a huge castle on top of the cave where all the forefathers were buried to make it even more holy, and the site is said to be the gateway to heaven where all souls must pass before ascending to the afterlife.

Sounds pretty holy, right?  Actually, this castle was one of the freakiest places I've ever been at.  You can walk around at the top of the castle and see symbolic coffins for Rachel, Abraham (the first Jew), and all the other forefathers of Judaism, and their bodies are supposedly buried far underground, directly below their respective coffins.  If you're like me, you're wondering... what are the chances that their bodies are actually there?  I mean, Adam's body had to be folded 8 times to fit, which would mean he must've been basically a giant.  Why haven't we tried to dig down there and see what's there?

Well, it's complicated.  For one, it's generally forbidden in Jewish law to disturb a grave site, even moreso for the forefathers of our religion.  For another, the site is important to people other than Jews - the Palestinians also view the tombs as a holy site, and 10 days a year the IDF actually opens up the border control and lets Palestinians come into the castle to to the tombs.  The Muslims constantly have someone watching the site to make sure the graves are not disturbed, and even if the state of Israel were to go against Jewish law (which would be a crazy thing in itself), disturbing the 5,000+ year old grave sits could start another intifada.

But people are inevitably curious, and there have been documented times in which people have tried to descend into the cave and find the tombs of the forefathers.  This is where you should start playing creepy music.  Back in the 1600s, a Turkish king visiting the tombs accidentally dropped his sword down into the cave.  Upset at losing his sword, the king demanded that it be retrieved.  Hundreds of soldiers were sent into the cave looking for the sword, but none came back.  It is said that the spirits of the cave were too great and they simply passed into the afterlife, their bodies not even decomposing.  Finally, after losing hundreds of men trying to find his sword, the Turkish king sent for a very holy Rabbi to get the sword.  The Rabbi was so holy that he was able to walk around in the cave without passing into the afterlife, and he picked up the sword and brought it back to the Turkish king, averting a huge political crisis.

If you're like me, hearing these stories from several centuries ago is like hearing a folk tale.  Who knows if it actually happened.  But even in the 20th century, this cave has been at the center of controversy.  If you go to the castle today like I did, you will see there is a tiny, tiny hole nearby the tombs in the castle, too small for anyone to fit through except for a small child, but the hole goes down to the cave.  The hole is constantly on guard by Israeli soldiers, and when I tried to peer in, they wouldn't even let me do that.  Well, if the hole's too small for anyone but a small child to fit through, and it's constantly on guard by Israeli police, why am I telling you about it?

In 1969, a little girl descended down that hole.  She was sent down there on a rope, armed with only a flashlight and video camera, in a quest to discover exactly what was down there.  This incredibly brave girl walked down an ancient staircase and came to a hallway, taking pictures along the way.  There was an exhibit with the pictures at the castle, but I haven't been able to find them online - I'll ask my tour guide to send me a link to them and put them up later.  Suffice to say, the pictures are really creepy.  Anyway, the girl was stopped halfway down the hall by a huge rock; there had been a cave in and she couldn't go anymore.  The girl returned safely to the surface, and that was that.

In 2005, a group of 12 crazy Orthodox Jews decided they wanted to find out what was down in the caves.  Risking a huge political controversy (remember what I said about the Palestinians seeing the site as holy too), they somehow wormed their way down the hole into the cave in the dead of night.  They went down the same creepy ancient staircase, walked down the same hallway, and were stopped by the same boulder before getting to any of the tombs.  They turned around and came back.

That's where the story's at today.  The spirits of the place are said to be so great that nobody can go down and return alive, unless they are as holy as that Rabbi who retrieved the Turkish king's sword.  Perhaps the cave-in is serving as a warning to any would-be trespassers, maybe it's even saving their life.  But it's believed that the tombs of Abraham, Rachel, all of their children, and even Adam and Eve are at the bottom of that castle in the ancient cave.

I need to find the pictures of the ancient staircase and the hallway and the boulder stopping the girl from going any further.  You see them, and you really get the sense that this is something very very eerie.

I wish we could just send a SWAT team armed with some dynamite down there to figure things out, but it's impossible given the current political climate.  Until then, we are left to wonder what's going on down there, but I'll tell you, walking around above the spot where THE Adam and Eve and THE Abraham were said to buried definitely gave me goosebumps.

Maybe the Na-na-chman have it right.  There's a lot of mysterious, creepy stuff to get wrapped up in in that castle.  We came out and they were still dancing on the van, in the dark of nightfall with Palestinian homes all around.  In a world with biblical tombs, haunted caves, modern political climates so heated that even orthodox Rabbis in Hebron are walking around armed to the teeth, they were keeping it simple and dancing on the roof of their van, being happy.

A lot of cool stuff left to post, hopefully I'll get caught up soon.  Headed off to Tel Aviv tonight.

-Daniel

Tzfat/Tsafed/Safed/However you want to spell it

Tzfat was awesome.  We got back earlier tonight after spending two nights there, including New Years and Shabbat.  Tzfat is one of the four holy cities of Israel, the other three are Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberius (I think; I fell asleep during part of the tours).  The 4 holy cities represent Earth, Air, Fire, and Water - Tzfat is Air, and every barrier, like doorway, railing, etc. is all blue because it's like air.  Tzfat is located high in the mountains and there are amazing views almost anywhere you look.  The air is very clean and it's said in the Torah that the air in Tzfat makes you smarter, so that's good.

Walking around in Tzfat is like walking around a resort.  Everyone is so laid back and nobody wants any more than they need to support themselves financially.  You won't find any beggars on the streets canning for change, or any opportunistic businessmen like the bar owners on Ben Yehuda street hustling American tourists wearing Illini hoodies inside for business.  Everyone just lets it be, and even the candle shop we went to donates any extra profits to charity.  People are ok with what they have.

Tzfat is a holy city.  We heard a story of one lady who waited outside at 5 am every morning for the messiah, with both vanilla and cinnamon flavored tea, because she wasn't sure which flavor the messiah would prefer.  It sounds pretty crazy, but these are these people's lives, and they're ok with it.  The actual city is very small and over half the population at any given time is tourists just passing by.  But the general air of how relaxed it is, coupled with the amazing location high in the mountains in the northern part of Israel, and the fresh air, make it a very unique experience and very refreshing.

Shabbat is something else in Tzfat.  I wish I could adequately describe how amazing it is.  Basically, everyone gathers outside in the town squares and instead of lining up in the pews in synagogue, with a monotone voice rabbi saying "Now we turn to page 452...", everyone is dancing and smiling and just so happy.   They are so welcoming of strangers.  I forgot to bring my kippah but when we stopped by one of the town squares where everyone was dancing, this one guy just gave me his (it's a very nice one) and told me to keep it with a smile on his face.  He had no idea who I was.  Everyone sings and dances in circles around the town square as the sun sets, and you look at anyone's face and they are just ecstatic to be there.  Half of them are tourists from around the world, but it's an amazing experience to be that united for that time and it's one of the coolest things I've ever done.

The meals were great and we later went to the mikvhah, which is the traditional Jewish bath, and it was the personal mikvah of a famous Jewish Rabbi and he said that anyone who bathed in his mikvah would redeem his sins before leaving this world.  So our rabbi jokes that that means we will live forever.  The mikvah itself is a very small pool of water, and you get completely naked before jumping in because you are supposed to be in contact with it everywhere.  It was so cold so I just did my 3 bobs and jumped out, but it was cool to do.  Then we went to this gravesite of a famous rabbi and it's said if you pray there you will be happy in life and meet your soul mate within a year, I went in but after I came out we saw a sign that said in Hebrew "Cohain are absolutely forbidden", so I shouldn't have gone in because I'm a Cohain (Cohen) and we aren't supposed to be around dead bodies.  Oops.  I guess it just means I'll live longer since I went in the mikvah.

We met a ton of very cool people in Tzfat, anyone walking around will stop and talk to you, especially on Friday when the whole town slows down to a crawl.  It's very relaxing and a nice change of pace.  The only problem was our "hotel" was basically a hole in the wall so it was nice to get back to Jerusalem and have a chance to shower tonight.

I'd like to go back to Tzfat some day, it's like a resort and everyone there is just so peaceful and happy.  It makes you wonder what we are missing in America, that people can't just be that happy.  For all their crazy superstitions and blue railings, maybe there's something to it because these people have genuinely found peace.  Also, the age gap is nonexistant.  You will see grandpas and great grandpas teaching young kids who they don't even know about the Torah, and there's a huge amount of respect for them, and it's cool because they will be the ones going crazy on Shabbat dancing and going wild.

I lost my "Donate Life" wristband I wore for Pa at the mikvah, I took it off and I forgot it in one of the lockers, but I figure if there was a place I was going to lose it, that's probably the best place to lose it at.

We are off to Hebron and the West Bank tomorrow, where the kids play on swings with soldiers armed with rocket launchers and snipers behind them.  Should be another amazing experience, but that's all only after class at 9 am, and it's already close to 5, so I should go to sleep.  It's all good in the holy land.