Fools in America and Thailand,
I have a couple of things. First is a couple of personal shout-outs:
Lilly: You have the most. You would love all the madrachim. Like too much. I can picture you being obsessed. I played my kazoo for the first time today. My friend and I put out a bag for money and almost got someone's shoe. Pretty impressive. I woke up today to Casey Jones. So I woke up today thinking of you. Don't interpret that creepily.
Joe: I probably spend a sizable amount of time talking about you. Someone asked if I had a crush on you.
Brennan: I played my Jesus Loves Me harmonica. It was great.
All Jews and gentiles in Dallas: I love you.
Allison Dejulius: My kazoo comments go to you too.
Anyone I play the random fact game with: Israel is the only country with more trees in 2000 than in 1900. Biyah!
Jake: I'm trying to sleep more and eat some vegetables. Today I had some gross pea and carrot mess but I ate it anyway AND at dinner I had some cauliflower salad stuff.
To any Rabbi I know who might stumble on this Blog: If you're going to conference in a couple weeks, contact me so we can meet up.
OK, I had my first full day of classes on Thursday. I have the lowest Hebrew, Jewish History with David who I think is awesome. Then I have Pre-Cal, Physics, AP Language, and APUSH. All my teachers are pretty nice. Some are kind of out there, but I've only had one class with each so its hard to make judgments yet. David, my Jewish History teacher, though, is really cool. He is American and now lives in Israel. He is always very enthusiastic about teaching and the material and seems to really enjoy his job. I've only had two classes with him but I'm excited for more. I started to fall sleep in Physics because I was so tired and by the end of my last period I was just exhausted. I took a nap before dinner. Napping is always a great thing.
Today, Friday, we went to the Kotel (Western Wall) for Kabalat Shabbat. The Kotel is one of the most powerful places in the world. It represents a couple thousand years of Jewish History and heritage and culture and can be overwhelming. I didn't bring a note but am going to next time. I want to spend time to think of a good and meaningful note. We arrived there at sundown to welcome Shabbat and once we left the immediate area around the Kotel, all the guys got in a huddle and sang the Shechyanu. The girls did too, but we did it first. Copiers! And in case anyone is wondering, guys and girls have to be separate when at the Kotel out of respect for the more religious people. But the singing was very cool. We then boarded the buses to go back to Tzuba where we had Shabbat services, and a song session led by the students and hung out till about 1. Today has just been a lot of fun. One more thing that I just remembered about the Kotel. When we were walking there we walked past the Zion Gate and it had bullet holes in it from 1967, when Israel got back Jerusalem. Amazing!
For our tzedakah project, my group went to a soup kitchen to volunteer. I spent my time peeling potatoes and carrots. But what was really funny was that another volunteer next to me was from Memphis and knew my cousins in Memphis. What a small world the Jewish world is. I'm in Jerusalem volunteering at a soup kitchen and the guy next to me is from Memphis and knows my cousins. Really funny. About the soup kitchen though. Many people in Israel are in poverty because of the mass influx of immigrants that were unable to find jobs. Another problem is that many people, Holocaust survivors, have very poor Hebrew and are unable to find jobs, which puts financial restraint on them because they also need medicine. A Holocaust survivor shouldn't have to pick between medicine and food. But the soup kitchen was a good experience and it was fun to be with a different group of people than who I am usually with.
Yesterday, we had a speaker named Danny Seigel. He was amazing. He's the kind of person I get really excited just thinking about because they're so cool, for those of you that know what I mean. He talked all about volunteering and tzedakah projects and how people can make a difference. Completely amazing. He talked about how we, the EIE students and anyone else, could start a drive for a number of things. One example was car seats because many families cant afford them for their children. It is a simple thing and we may not think of it as a necessity but it really is.
I had to check my last post to see if I talked about the archaeological dig that we went on and I hadn't! So, I guess it was Wednesday that we went to the Judean foothills to the east to explore some of the caves that the Jews built to hide in when the Romans were taking over about 2000 years ago. they carved them out of the mountains and there were some burial caves and other structures still there. Then we went into one of the caves that was still being excavated and started to search for any shard of pottery or stuff like that. I found a piece of pottery and someone even found a bone. A big one! It was crazy. It was just our first of many tiulim so there will be much more on that.
Thats a lot for one post. Next time I'll break it up because I kind of had to go fish for the day and stuff.
Joey Blatt
