Being religious and burning men...

Hello and Chag Sameach to all,


Whenever i try to start to write these things i always go through a 5 minute period of staring blankly at the screen thinking "what did i actually do"...and today is no different! So to aid me in the writing i've got triple j (australian radio) on my headphones and sugerless black tea (you never get it sugerless here, they enjoy 2/3 suger 1/3 tea). Wish me luck!

Holidays In the Holy Land

Since i wrote last, Israel has been plagued with holidays--most that i've never celebrated before in my life! Yom Kippur though was the strangest for me. I'm not sure if i've said this before but Daniel's apartment (where i'm STILL living--thanks idf for aiding me in finding a home) is right in the centre of town. It is a busy hussle bussle location active day and night 24/7. With that background you'll understand why it was so bizarre on Yom Kippur, it was zombie movie style quiet. No cars at all, and a select few people walking or riding outside.I spend the majority of Yom Kippur sitting on Daniel's balcony just thinking and i swear it was so quiet i could hear my thoughts out loud.

Sukkot started soon after the end of Yom Kippur, something i didn't notice at all. Me like i'm sure most people hardly celebrated it at all. I did however go up north to Tiberias to meet family, (the cousin of my Uncle, Ellie) Though with them we didn't exactly eat in a sukka or say any blessings for whatever it is you're meant to bless on sukkot we did eat. Oh we ate, and that seems to me like a holiday celebration; family together, food and catching up--what else do you need?

Staying with the family up north was really good for me actually, i spent the whole time talking (or trying to talk) hebrew. Infact i even played monopoly in hebrew with the kids, though i did have to get them to read my chance cards, that's a little too hard to do to children standards (much higher than adult standards!)

The perils of 10 hours of class a day  

When we arrived back on base it was straight into study, which i guess made sense, a short week after all (tue till fri morn). What we're covering at the moment is very basic and i'm hoping that we're only doing that as a basis for the rest--the hard hard stuff to come soon. What we study is basic but the rate at which we study it is not. A topic that you'd usually spend a week on, we spend 10 minutes so we learn alot very quickly. How the teach is good i think, we spend long hours in class (with small breaks inbetween), and before all meals when we're in shloshots (3's) lining up outside the food hall we usually will recap to everyone what we learnt in those lessons.  I have a sneaky suspicion that they only get us to do that as a time filler but even so it is very useful to recap and to actually go back and think, "hmmm what did i learn". I am yet to go up front and tell everyone--for some reason i seem to not be able to talk at all when in front of crowds, but i guess that the only way to get over that is to push through and do it anyway. I actually only thought of that now, came to that decision. So I promise now, next time i write i will have talked infront of everyone that'll be good practice.

Being all religious and stuff

So, told a slight untruth before i did celebrate sukkot a little. I ate all my meals in one on base. Mostly because it was something new, and a really nice atmosphere....but hey also a mitzva (however that works!) The only bad thing about that was they made us get our food then stand outside in a chet with our trays whilst we waited for everyone. Kinda embarrassing to wait outside with your food slowly getting cold and even more disgusting when everyone else just goes straight over to the sukkot.  On that note, we've all noticed that they are very very strict on our course, even though based on what we see day to day we are the best behaved from them all. For instance when we were standing in our discipline chet on thursday evening (this is the chet were we get addressed by the mefakedet hacors and she tells us individually how many hours punishment we have) we were right infront of the boys course. Can't remember the name of their course but its the same as ours....but for boys.  We're standing there straight getting in trouble ever so often for whispering or moving without permission whilst the boys and jumping on each others backs, scratching their bits, yelling and being exceedingly rude to their mefakdot and not getting in trouble at all. It's like we're already good so they be stricter just because they can...who knows? Though actually someone gave a reason that seemed legitimate to me. Our course consists of a majority of Olim Hadashim (new immigrants) so they are very strict so as to break us, in case we think we're gods gift to the army--being new comers and volunteers. As i said, not too sure of the validity of that logic but it's one explanation!
Back to the religious stuff, on thursday i got all religious (not really) and shook the lulav and etrog even said the blessing! woo woo. Can't say i felt any miraculous warm God loves me feeling afterwards, but it was pleasant. One of those things, why not do it? Takes 5 seconds and doesn't harm anything or anyone.

 Burning Man

The man, as he burnt

The friday i got off base was also the second day of Israel's second burn, named Octoburn.
Burning man is a large
festival which takes places in Nevada dessert America. It has an ideology in a way, the whole idea is to break the restrictions of everyday life, to do whatever and just be happy. Pictures from the festival always feature people wearing crazy clothing (or not much clothing) and doing incredible weird things.
All over the world people have regional burns to keep the spirit going and that is what we did on friday. Hof Hobonim become a small city on the beach with what Haaretz said was 1200 people, i think perhaps more.
It was a crazy small city which was alot of fun! Though it actually wasn't at all what i expected.
I took a lift to the burn with Natasha and two friends of hers, which was really lucky as i'd only rang her 10 minutes before they left...invited myself to their car. We didn't have a tent as we all assumed we'd party all night, and as i only knew i was leaving 10 minutes before i did i didn't even have any food or drink. Oh yeah, one of the main things of burning man is the gift of giving. So it's alot of giving people food and drink just because you can, the gift of gratitude. Of course because of this i wanted things to be able to give, doesn't have to be much but just to be able to give things away to people can be really lovely.
On the way we stopped in an arab village to buy some supplies....unfortunatly an arab village meant there was no alcohol at all. So we went into this festival with nothing (well natasha had like half a bottle of vodka for 3 people,). but it didn't matter at all. I got a couple of drinks from random people and that was all...same as i'd assumed we'd be partying all night i assumed it'd be largely alcohol induced, in the end it really didn't need to be.
Met up with my friend Nir for abit but he looked alittle like death on legs, super sleepy i mean. So confidently i announced "you go to your tent and sleep, i'm going to hang out and meet people, when you wake up later come find me". It wouldn't be too hard as i'd taken his vest which was lined with flashing red fairy lights...i was highly visible! Now, i'd said this even though i did feel alittle worried. Slightly that i'd end up sitting alone in a tent of people thinking, hmmmm well this is crap. But harden up i did and walked confidently into a tent sat next to someone and started talking. And that is pretty much how the night went. Met some people, then some more... in the end i was with 3 guys  (none from the first batch of meeting people) who may or may not be meeting up this evening for bbq.

The octoburn was an amazing experience but when israel has it's next regional burn i need to be there more in the day, i feel as though thats when it goes crazy!

As for here, we've got yesterday and today off as well for Simcha torah...so many holidays! I'd taken the opportunity which holidays supplied us to go to jerusalem and meet with friends. Little did i know how much that'd walk me down memory lane. It's crazy, the security guy at the bar myself and all my Aviv friends used to frequent even remembered me!

But now i'm back in tel aviv, sleeping enough to catch up on two nights of 2 hours of sleep each night...and then a little extra! As i said, perhaps tonight to a bbq, but either way tomorrow morning bright and early back to base.

Until next time, chag sameach and lots of love,

Louise


OH i totally forgot to mention, sat morning of burning man i come back to "camp" where natasha and that slept only to be told "we lost the car keys". ONLY friends of mine could do somehting like that! In th end they got a taxi to bring the key from tel aviv all the way up north to hof habonim (that's like an hour and a half drive).
On the note of losing things, i didn't lost my glasses. I knew it! My friend had accidently taken them. So get them back soon enough. but relief!!!