Shalom, brother

The scheduled portion of our birthright trip has concluded, and we've begun our extra weekend in Tel Aviv free to spend our time as we choose. After a jam-packed whirlwind of awesome activities stacked one after the other, it's nice to be able to spend a leisurely day without a deadline for every step.

One of our guides, Sara, also chose to extend her trip beyond the scope of the official program. Now a free citizen no longer bound by the rules of being birthright staff, it sort of felt like hanging out with an old teacher after graduating. She invited everyone who extended their trip to join her and a friend for brunch by the port of Tel Aviv. Several of us did, and enjoyed a phenomenal feast highlighted by decadent mushroom falafel and delightfully refreshing mojitos. Building on the earlier metaphor, one of our cohort likened the feeling we were all sharing to that of spending the last two weeks in high school and now finally graduating to college and experiencing true freedom for the first time.

After our meal, we strolled back to our hotel and Stephen and I watched the sun set over the Mediterranean from our balcony. Smoking hookah and sipping glasses of chenin blanc from the Galilee, a beautiful calm washed over us both. We hardly noticed the traffic sounds of the busy coastal street in front of us as we chatted about our favorite parts of the trip.

As the sun dipped below the horizon and our hookah coal petered out, we headed back into the room to enjoy an evening nap. As soon as I closed the sliding glass door behind and shut out the bustling sounds of the city below us, I realized that we were getting our first moment of real quiet since leaving New York. "Ahhh, finally some peace and quiet," I said.

At some point while that sentence was leaving my lips, Stephen had reflexively reached down and pushed the power button on the tv remote.

"ACHH HALLACH BEN ZACH MAL'KAHAZACH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLACH BLAH BLACH STEPHEN HAWKING BLAH BLAH BLACH," came blaring from the talk show that happened to be on, the volume left way too high by the previous guest. Ahhh, the cacophony of the real world is tough to escape for long. We shared a hardy giggle at the irony and perfect timing of what just happened.

He turned the volume way down, still chuckling a bit, and we settled in for our short slumbers. The tv is off now, and I'm enjoying the view of the crescent moon peeking through our window as I write this post. The peace has returned, and it's time for me to close my eyes and enjoy a nice rest.

Shabbat Shalom, everyone.

Ein Avdat Canyon

To pee or not to pee

Safety Precautions in the Land of Abraham

Last night we stayed at the Q Hotel in Netenya, North of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast. It was really more of a motel, but that was all well and good as it gave us a nice campus to hang out around (we're not allowed to leave hotel grounds each night once the scheduled activities conclude). So we all enjoyed the opportunity to lounge about drinking Heineken tall-boys purchased from the beer fridge in the lobby. However, a couple of tall-boys into the evening, I found myself in a bit of a dilemma. I had developed an urgent and rapidly intensifying urge to relieve myself, but couldn't find my Israeli roommate, who had the key to our room.

I figured they must have a general use bathroom somewhere in the complex, so I set off towards the lobby, figuring that I might have the best luck there. Along the way, I noticed a sign sticking out from the perimeter fence displaying the universal symbol for bathroom, a stick figure wearing pants (or nothing?) next to another stick figure wearing a dress.

But that was it. No arrow, no indication of where the facility promised by this sign actually was. There clearly was no door anywhere within eyesight of this sign. Just a sign sticking out perpendicular to the fence line.

After concluding that there was no bathroom entrance anywhere in the immediate vicinity, I began mulling over alternative possibilities. Maybe the sign is there to indicate that we should feel free to relieve ourselves on the fence itself. While many would have immediately dismissed this as a possibility (or rather, never have considered it in the first place), it is important to note a couple of factors that lent credence to the thought, in my mind at least.

First, the Q Hotel was a bit run down, and clearly had seen better days. Perhaps establishments of this caliber just had peeing-fences. In addition, on our second night in the Galilee, we were visited by an apparently (we later found out) semi-famous Israeli musician, who, amongst many other anecdotes and guitar-accompanied anthems from his life, shared with us his initial shock upon learning of America's draconian open-container and public-urination statutes. "What do you mean I can't walk down the stweet with a bee-uh in my hand, and pees on dees sidewalk if I need to?" He recalled thinking. The flipside of this shock, one could only reasonably conclude, was that public urination law (or at least enforcement) was significantly more liberal here in the holy land. Nowhere in the Torah, after all, does it proscribe the need to mix our waste water with potable water, before flushing both away. As far as I know.

But I felt I should confirm this theory before doing any watering of the fence below this sign. I couldn't see any evidence of previous patrons having drawn the same conclusion. I continued on towards the lobby in order to inquire within. When I asked the man at the desk about the location of the bathrooms, he gave directions which seemed to lead to the general area of the aforementioned sign. I couldn't be entirely sure of the exact location, as his English was not great and there were a few words here and there that I didn't catch. I wasn't certain, but I felt reasonably confident that a fact as significant as the intended target being a fence post in the yard, rather than the customary indoor porcelain-bound pool of water, would have been given sufficient discussion-time during his response to confirm my understanding of the situation before sending me on my way. Since no such topic seemed to be covered, I was comfortable dismissing my initial hypothesis.

Before heading back out on the hunt, I used the opportunity to practise one of my Hebrew words-of-the-day, "it's...sh'iroutin, right?"  The old man nodded and smiled, happy to see a young Jew making an effort to learn some Hebrew. Had he known what I was only moments earlier considering doing to his fence posts, he might not have looked so pleased.

I followed his directions as best I understood them, and found myself once again standing underneath the sign in the fence. Having verified the existence of a bathroom facility in close proximity to the sign I was standing under, I resolved to intensify my search.

I checked out every door on the building facing towards the sign. All numbered motel rooms. I looked around the corners, checking for another sign or some further clues. Nothing. I checked carefully along the fence line. On the other side looked to be a few trailers and...bingo. The portion of the fence immediately following the bathroom sign was actually a gate. There was a small padlock, but it was unlocked and stuck loosely into the gate. Clearly the sign was there to indicate that the bathrooms were through this gate, in the trailer area. Of course! The trailer patrons need a bathroom. I pulled the lock, opened the gate, and started walking.

I ventured a few yards deep into the dark alleyway behind the gate, with no sign of anything resembling a bathroom. I peered around the corner of one trailer, which revealed even more dark, uninviting alleyways.  Then something caught my eye back over the fence where I came from. An Israeli flag was fluttering in the ocean breeze, reminding me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Granted, I was deep within fortress Israel, in the sleepy outskirts of a beach town and within shouting distance of our armed guard as well as a half dozen active-duty IDF members who were given leave to join us for part of the trip. But I was still struck by a fairly disconcerting thought. They don't build fences in this part of the world just for shits and giggles.

I hustled back to the fence and through the gate. For the third time that night, I found myself standing underneath the bathroom sign, confused, tipsy, and on the verge of peeing my pants. Fortunately, at that moment, one of the aforementioned Israelis on our trip spotted me and asked me what the hell I was doing standing there with that dumb look upon my face. I explained (using the broadest brushstrokes possible) my predicament. She laughed, and showed me where the bathroom was. It was essentially just a stall tucked into the support column for the motel's upper floor outdoor hallways. Weird. The door was facing away from the fence sign and blended into the wall, which is how it eluded me during my previous surveys of the area. I thanked her, made use of the facility, and continued my evening as before.

Have some heart

Today we had some free time to visit the souk in Jerusalem. Several times already in the trip, one of our group leaders, Ben, had raved about his favorite food here. He called it by some incomprehensible Hebrew name, but said that we could just refer to it as "Jerusalem mix." He told us the story of the second time he visited the food stall that he got it from, and the proprietor remembered his face from his first visit, even though it had been several months prior.

So when we arrived at the souk around lunchtime, I knew who to follow. Clearly a seasoned souk-goer, Ben plunged into the crowd and was quickly making his way through the throngs of Israelis in the marketplace. Not wanting to lose sight of him in the crowd, I grabbed Stephen and we took off after him.

While I may have missed out by electing not to take quantum physics at Blair (sorry, mom), I did learn one valuable lesson from my years attending the school of 3,400 that was built for 2,600: navigating through crowds. So I raised my steer-clearing forearm and dove in after him.

A few minutes of dodging, ducking, sliding, stepping, and dodging later and we had reached our destination. Ben turned to his steadily growing flock of food-disciples and asked of us, "do you all like really meaty-tasting meats?" I have no idea what this question means, but I know the answer is obviously yes. "Then order the mixed grill, and don't ask me what's in it," he preaches to us. And so we did, and it was good.

One member in our group asked if it was worth cheating on her vegetarian lifestyle for, but Ben was hesitant to weigh in on what he felt was a fairly loaded question. I interjected and assured her that any meat was worth cheating on her vegetarian lifestyle for. I reinforced the point with a deliberation-stifling, "when in Jerusalem..." She was sold.

I went about employing another skill I had acquired as a by-product of my educational experience: identifying, hovering over, and vulturing a dining table before the previous occupants had finished chewing the last bites of their meal; a skill honed over the course of dozens of Friday happy hours at Monty's during my tenure at the University of Miami.  Stephen gave the tong-wielding food-preparers his simple yet no less brilliant go-to response when faced, in whatever country, with a smorgasbord of some known and some unidentifiable foreign pita-filling options and asked, while jabbing the tongs towards each bin in sequence, "you want dees?...you want dees?"

"Just make it however you like to eat it."

So our Jerusalem mix made of God-knows-what was thrown into our pitas along with a mishmash of toppings known only to our server and to YHWH, and smothered in an ample amount of Allah-only-knows-what sauce.

And it. Was. Awesome. Juicy, flavorful, and indeed quite meaty, we devoured our Jerusalem mix meals, and it was only partially due to the fact that we were eating for the first time in 6 hours. Once we were nearly done with our pitas, Ben told us that he would finally reveal the contents of the mix. Stephen volunteered that he had already identified some bits of liver in the meal. "Yes, that's part of it," replied Ben. "It's actually made of hearts, livers, and spleens," he clarified.

"Well, that's something that definitely was not on my bucket list, that I can go ahead and cross off anyway. And never eat again," responded one of our fellow diners. Based on his reaction, we realized that it was probably best if we didn't share that information with the vegetarian, who fortunately was not at the table for the big reveal.

Our hunger sated, and our culinary horizons sufficiently expanded for the day, we set off to explore the rest of the market.

Hope springs eternal

The story of how I found myself naked, wet, freezing cold and alone in a cave in the mountains of northern Israel.

Yesterday we left our hotel on the shores of the Galilee and headed north for the center of Jewish mysticism, the ancient city of Tzfat. For thousands of years, Tzfat has been the largest hotspot for studying the Kaballah.

Upon arrival, we were immediately divided up by gender. We men were introduced to our guide, Yonas (soft J as in "going for a light Yog," a forty-something Hasidim. He took us up to the study room, and shared with us his story.

Yonas was originally born as Jonas (hard J, as in jockstrap), to a secular Jewish family in Brookline, Massachusetts. At age 25, after graduating college, he set off to travel the world in search of greater meaning in his life. His first stop was Israel. Before he left, his mother asked of him one favor: Don't come
back religious.

Obviously, judging by the fact that he was standing there talking to us, sporting the curls and the tassels and the whatnot, he had not listened to his mother.

Yonas engaged us in a discussion on what we wanted out of life, and began to tell us about the history of Tzfat, and one of the things that makes this place so special. He explained that the Hebrew word for hope is mechovas (or something along those lines), and the Hebrew word for natural water source is michva (similar uncertainty re: spelling). In Semitic languages, related words share consonant structures with different vowels. By this logic, collections of naturally-sourced water have some sort of spiritual connection to our inner hopes and dreams.

Yonas then took us to the michva house to further explain the concept, both from a spiritual and earthly logistical sense. As with many modern implementations of ancient biblical concepts, the interpretation of "naturally sourced" can be stretched as needed. There is even an exhaustively-defined concept of "second-best," where tap water is pumped through hoses that run alongside the rain water collection barrels, for replenishing the bathing pools when the rain that normally supplies them is insufficient.

Yonas segued from this discussion into an outline on the different cleansing practises of men and women. In Hasidic households, husbands and their wives go through a period of separation during and immediately following the woman's period. He asked the group for their guesses as to the original purpose for this separation.

One guy proposed the most obvious reasonable possibility, that it had something to do with fertility. After general nods from the group affirming the reasonableness of this explanation, Yonas replied that this was not the TRUE reason for the custom. Stephen then proposed an explanation which our guide later admitted had not been proposed before, in all the scores of similar birthright tours he had given:

"Perhaps it's best for the relationship if there's some separation during that particularly, uh, tumultuous time for the woman."

After the raucous laughter stopped echoing through the michva-hall, Yonas clarified that it had something to do with absence making the heart grow fonder or whatever. We then got back to the business at hand. For while the United States is littered with mundane michvatoriums such as the one we were currently chauvanising in, it is only in Tzfat that one can be spiritually cleansed by the holy waters of the ARI michva.

Fed year-round by an underground spring, the ARI michva in Tzfat has been universally accepted as the best michva in all the world. By what divine or physical measures the competing michvas have been assessed and found wanting, I do not know. All I know is that this one trumps them all. Men (and women, in a separate stream, of course) have been cleansing themselves and re-purifying their relationships with God in this exact spot for centuries. So when offered the opportunity to try it for ourselves, none of us could refuse.

So it was that the dozen of us men entered the cave that houses the ARI michva, and removed all the articles that separated us from God. We took turns dropping our modesty towels and taking our cleansing plunge. When my turn came, the shock of the icy cold water hitting me was so intense I could feel my heart palpitating and my lungs gasp for air, despite having taken a deep breath before submerging. It was for this very reason that our guide suggested at least 2-3 dunks to really feel the michva. Once I had done this, I think I felt some of the refreshing, cleansing purity he was talking about.

When we left the cave, the sun was a little brighter, the fog a little thinner, and our steps a little bit livelier.  Perhaps it was the energizing jolt of the cold and the natural progression of the morning into afternoon. Or perhaps it was something a little bit more than that.

Daniels first letter to the Zurichians

Please, extend your free WiFi period to 65 mins. Or make your Wi-Fi unlimited, like manna from the heavens, as it does in the promised land. Either scenario and I would have been able to publish the last post while still in Zurich. Thank you.

In other news, made it to Israel!

The long walk for Wi-Fi

We've landed in Zurich in time to see the sun rise over the Alps. Obviously, the first move for  forty 20-somethings is to pull out our phones and try to find Wi-Fi. The Zurich airport promises 60 minutes of free WiFi once you register. Click register, enter your phone number, and we'll text you the code you can use to login.
Great! I'll appreciate that code when the text message arrives once I'm back stateside. Then I'll be sure to use it next time I'm in the Zurich airport.
But then along comes a member of our group who claims she had found the fountain of Wi-Fi. She has the connectivity to prove it. Facebook, the Twitters, even trivia crack. All working, all updated. She even had the score of the national championship game, proving this was no hoax.
Where did she find this Wi-Fi, and how did she come by it?
"Over that way," she gestures down the terminal. "There is a machine.  A machine with CODES."
"Free WiFi codes?"
"Yes, those codes."
Some of us who heard the tale first begin wandering down in the direction of her gesture. We see machines, but none of them look like they're capable of dispensing codes of any sort, and their are no Swiss around for us to ask. We keep going. There are probably at least a half dozen notifications just floating around the internet, desperately looking for their home in our status bars.
Finally, one of our scouting party sees something that looks internet-related. We make haste in the direction of the sighting.
Upon closer inspection, it seems that this indeed is the fabled Wi-Fi-giving machine of legend.
But how to make it work. The one who first spoke of the Wi-Fi machine told us of the need to scan our boarding pass as an offering before being granted the modern-life-giving Wi-Fi. There's a laser scanner of the type used at the gate, but it makes no flash, no affirming color change, when the first of our party attempts to scan her ticket. Angles, heights, steady, sliding, swiping. No permutations of scanning motions yield any different results for her. Growing impatient, as the unread reddit posts continue to accumulate, Stephen reaches over and attempts an offering of his boarding pass.
The light flashes green. The printer spits out a code. He tries another ticket, belonging to a female member of the group for whom he had chivalrously offered to make the journey. Another green flash, another code. I try mine, another code is granted.
Confirmation that the machine does work inspires our fellow traveler to even more desperate hovering, swiping, sliding motions. I suggest that Stephen attempt to make an offering of her pass. Perhaps his touch is favored by the machine. His attempts are no more successful. She resumes rotating, bending, pressing her ticket against the glass.
Stephen and I slowly back away from the machine, unable to aid our companion in her plight.
"We must leave this one here. There's nothing more we can do for her. Someone needs to tell the others of what we have found..."