The Wedding and the weekend

Hey Everyone!

I hope everyone is doing good around the world and everyone did good who had exams or NFTY elections and had a good spring break. 

I promised more about the wedding. But let me start with the beginning of the day. I woke up at 8:45 (latest I've slept for a couple weeks). It was very strange because I was the only person on the kibbutz because everyone was on a tiyul to Sfat to learn about kabalah, mystic Judaism. So I got up and showered and me and my parents and Jake went to Jerusalem to meet up with my Uncle David, Aunt Seri, my baby cousin Tova, and my cousin Mordechai. We waited in the lobby of the hotel for them. We then all went out into Jerusalem.

First we walked to the old city. We stopped in a cigar shop and my dad got some cigars. It was funny seeing my cousin with tzitzi and a white shirt and black pants walk into a cigar shop, but thats Israel. In the old city we walked through the Armenian quarter. That was pretty cool. I saw a man wearing a black robe with a staff with a gold emblem on the top. I figured he was somehting important in the Armenian Church. For those who don't know the old city of Jerusalem is broken into 4 quarters: the Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, and Christian quarters. I always thought that it was kind of random that the Armenians got their own quarter. And the Muslim quarter isn't always safe for Jews and Americans. But the Arab shook is in there so Americans try to go and buy stuff. We aren't allowed to and since I don't speak Hebrew very well I don't think it would be advisable for me to go. The Jewish quarter has the Kotel. I think the Christian quarter has the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  Anyways, we got falafel and shwarma in the old city. It was delicious. My and my brother each had a laffa and a pita, which is a lot of food. We saw the Kotel and my aunt Seri and Uncle David stopped to pray for a little. We were going to go to the City of David but decided not too. We were all kind of tired from walking around and the City of David is a big activity. So while my Uncle David and Aunt Seri were praying, my family and Mordechai went to the Israeli shook. 

The Israeli shook was really cool. It wasn't like Ben Yehudah street where its all Americans and tourists. There were Israelis and people sold all sorts of fruit and cheeses and fish. One kippah dude had this really nice kippah that I really like. It was like a city on the kippah and it was amazing but it was 85 shekel so I didn't get it. Maybe next time I'll spoil myself and get it. I did get a really nice green one for 8 shekel. Its 4 shekel to a dollar about. My brother got a KU kippah. And then I got gifts for people back home. But it was just a lot of fun to spend time with my family who I hadn't seen in a while and with my cousin. Mordechai was good in the shook. Someone tried to sell my mom a broken bag and he saw it. I also got a bowl and spatula for my refried beans.  When we were walking back to the hotel from the shook we saw these "religious" Jews dancing and freaking out. Mordechai explained that they're religion was based on not being depressed so they go around with a van blasting techno music and dancing in the street with their peyas bouncing around all over the place. It was really funny. Mordechai explained that it was BS and they use the name of a very special and important sect of Jews and it doesn't delegitimize the real group's Judaism but it makes them look bad and gives them a bad name. 

So we left the shook and walked to Ben Yehuda street for a little because it was on the way back to the hotel. We stopped and walked around for a little while. I don't think we bought anything. I got money from the cash machine. Then we caught a cab back to the hotel. Driving in Jerusalem is difficult. I could never do it. I barely stay alive driving in Dallas. 

Now we start the main attraction: the wedding. We all got dressed and went to the wedding. The father of the groom is my Grandpa's first cousin. So the groom was my mom's second cousin. My family kind of knew Nathan, the father of the groom, and none of us had ever met the groom, Suchi. (The "ch" in there is the same sound in "baruCH" or the sound they talk about in Meet the Fockers.) The boys were on one side and the girls were on the other and a barrier separated us. Judaism doesn't do this to be sexist. They do it to show morality. People get drunk and dance at weddings and we must stay moral so we separate. We mingled and ate the food. I mostly talked with Jake, Mordechai, my dad, Uncle David, and some of the younger guys who are there just studying for a year or two.  My brother, my dad and I were the only people not wearing black hats. In fact, Jake wore his new KU kippah, and I wore my Dallas Cowboys kippah that I bought with Mordechai a couple weeks ago on Ben Yehuda. 

The chuppah ceremony I didn't see too much of. It was really crowded and everyone was standing and it was in Hebrew. This was my first wedding of any sort, much less an Orthodox Jewish wedding in Israel. My brother, Mordechai, and a couple other people stood in the back talking. We were explaining the ceremony to each other. After the ceremony they go in a room and sign the ketuba and that is the first time they can touch each other. We talked about the bride walking around 7 times. Judaism is a religion of laws and everything has an exact way of being done, even if it always isn't. I'm pretty sure everything was done correctly in this wedding though.

After the chuppah ceremony we all started to funnel back into the main room and ate for a little bit and then we started dancing. The guys dance with the guys and the girls dance with the girls. I don''t think the bride and the groom ever dance with each other. It might be weird to some people that guys and girls don't dance together but it was a lot of fun. My bus group on EIE has the closest guys so it wasn't that weird to dance with about 150 other guys as it could have. Me and my dad even got to dance with the Suchi and Nathan for a little bit. Its not like guys are grinding on each other. You dance in circle and jump around and all sorts of crazy stuff. Its fun, not sexual like dancing at a club is or something. I danced with Mordechai, Jake, some of my cousin whom I just met, Yecheil who is Mordechai's brother, and a bunch of other people. It was so fun and different than anything else I had ever done. Not the dancing with guys, just the whole experience. 

The wedding also had beggars trying to collect money. At first I thought it was weird that they would just walk up and ask for money inside like that but no one else thought it was weird and I gave some money to some beggars. Many beg for an organization, like their Yeshiva, and others just for themselves. My Uncle David did business with one. He gave him a twenty shekel bill and took back some coins. I thought it was pretty funny.  All together the wedding was a lot of fun and I was really looking forward to it. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect and I think I was accurate. I really like seeing my family and it was a nice break from EIE and spending every moment with the same people, even though I love all of them to death.

Fast forward a couple days now. My parents left on Sunday. Its Tuesday. The wedding was on Thursday. It was really nice seeing my parents. I missed them and they missed me and we had a lot of fun together on Thursday and going out to eat and on the Islam tiyul, which I don't think I even mentioned. But its going to be nice to have things back to normal now. I don't want to say they messed up the balance of stuff because they didn't but having all the parents here was much different. I'll miss them and my brother and will be looking forward to seeing them when I come home. 

I'm done with the big events. I want to give my opinion on Hebrew. To many Hebrew might just be the language that people speak in Israel, like it was for me before I got here. But now I see it differently. It is the language of my people and of my heritage, even if I spoke Yiddish back on the shtetl. I believe all Jews have a responsibility to learn some Hebrew at some point in there life. Not to become fluent but simply to know about the language and appreciate it. The Jews have been remarkable in reviving the language. It was like Latin or Aramaic is where people can learn it and speak it if they want to but it is the only language to undergo a full revival into a spoken language. Tel Aviv was founded as the first Hebrew speaking city 100 years ago. They were pretty successful. But I plan to keep on learning Hebrew after EIE and I think every Jew should make an effort to learn Hebrew. Jews for most generations were united under a common language and it helped to create and reinforce a Jewish identity and today we have the privilege of learning Hebrew, the holy language of the Torah and of our ancestors. Jews should take advantage of this because Hebrew is more than just a language. 

I'm done now. I wish I started this post earlier but whatever. I hope you enjoyed it and it was kind of long but a lot happened. I will try to get another post before I go to Poland because I won't bring my computer there on on Yam l'Yam. I will probably have a computer at Passover but I don't know if I will get a post in. Its all good though. I like to keep you on your toes. 

Until next time,

Joey B.