Classes

You know how when things get busy, all you want to do when you have a spare moment is lie down and do nothing? That's been me lately. Classes started three weeks ago already, and I haven't written a thing. I've been so busy with schoolwork and dealing with idiot banks and phone companies... well, that's another story. Right now I just want to write about The Big Thing, my classes.

The first class I'm taking, of course, is Hebrew. I'm in Ramat Gimel intensive, which means we have an extra half an hour of class each day so that we can get through the entire level and enter Daled next semester. That is, of course, in theory; my teacher is adding in additional classes so we actually finish everything. Read: Instead of having class 8:15-10:15 Monday/Tuesday and 8:30-10:15 and 10:30-12:15 Wednesday, I will soon have an extra 10:30-12:15 class on (some) Mondays. Sound like Ulpan, anyone?

I'm learning how wise the Ulpan program was. We had class from 8:30 until 1:15 (I think--I can't even remember anymore!), which was a lot, but we always had a break after an hour and a half. Now we have two hours straight, and it's really hard to concentrate that long without a break. I also think that my Ulpan teachers are better than my current teachers, even though one of my current teachers is a PhD and the other one wrote our textbook. During Ulpan, our teachers couldn't rely on translating words into English to convey their meaning to us because not everyone spoke English; now it seems like it's all they do. I miss the pictures and the wild gestures and understanding the words for what they are rather than what they mean in English.

Long story short, I'm not enjoying Hebrew, nor do I really feel like I'm learning much. I don't know how we're going to get through the level, nor do I know how I'm going to learn enough to take a class in Hebrew next semester. In theory I'm working my way through Daled on my own; not in theory, I don't have time and will have to see how much cramming I can do during break / whether I can convince the teacher I can work really hard and puppy-dog my advisor into letting me take it even though technically Daled is required. Israel is supposed to be full of loopholes.

My other class on Mondays and Wednesdays is Talmud, which I don't really understand. I was supposed to be in the lower level Talmud class because I've only ever studied Talmud in high school (and that was my first trimester!), but the lower level class was full of Nativ kids who joked throughout the whole first class without the teacher saying anything. I left half-way through; I can't learn anything in an environment like that, let alone Talmud.

Now I'm in the more advanced Talmud class, Critical Readings in the Talmud: The Talmud as a Path to Tikkun. Technically I have the prerequisites--Hebrew level Gimel and a class in classical Jewish literature (Kimelman's Liturgy class), but I feel like everyone else in the class has studied some Talmud before, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting out of it. What's the point of Talmud study? What are we supposed to be learning? My tri-chevruta (the product of an odd number of students in the class) is working off of the original Talmud page, which means we're reading and translating the Aramaic and... not much else. We're not really questioning it. Should we be? And even if we do, of what value will our answers be, when there are no real answers to be found?

My internship class, In the Community I: Israel Case Studies - Academic Internship, is also a mixed bag. The main thing that I'm learning from the class itself is that I really don't like psychology; sociology is much more interesting to me. It's mostly a waste of time, a lot of people sharing what's going on with their internships mixed with a bit of organizational psychology from the teacher. The good thing about knowing that I have to write a paper connecting the readings to my internship is that I'm connecting things as I go along; I guess I'm learning something there, but it doesn't merit an hour and a half every week.

My internship itself, however, is wonderful. I'm doing a whole bunch of things for JOH: running the English Speakers Group, helping to write and edit articles for the newsletter, helping to put the donor database in some sort of order, and helping to catalog and order the library. All in eight hours a week. I really like it, though, because it means hanging out at JOH a lot, whether I'm there for my internship or not. It means spending time out of my American study-abroad bubble and with Israelis in an Israeli setting, not just Israelis that were brought in like, "Oh, look, kids--it's Israelis!" I really like being able to meet people and work with people by myself and not just spend time with people the university presents to us. It's not helping my Hebrew much because everyone speaks at least some English, but I get to overhear some stuff in Hebrew, and there's more to a culture than just the language. I'm also beginning to get used to things here, and I'm starting to see how I'm going to get some degree of culture shock when I go back to the States in January.

By far, my favorite class this semester is one that got added on a whim: Nafez Nazzal's The Palestinians: Modern History and Society. Professor Nazzal's a wonderful lecturer. Everything he says is imbued with passion because he's speaking about his people and things that he can see but can't fix. Class is filled with tangents, stories of his life, but every tangent is relevent because his story is the story of the Palestinians. He knows leaders on both sides, has been threatened by leaders on both sides, teaches Palestinian students and Jewish students, gains perspectives from those he teaches... and tries his best to open everyone's eyes. Another student and I are recording his lectures because his wisdom is too important not to be recorded. It's amazing, and I can't believe I almost didn't take it. I know that I'll listen to the recordings again later, and share them with friends if I can, legally. Can I? I feel like everything Professor Nazzal is teaching us is too important not to spread.

Outside of this, I have a bunch of Jewish learning classes. I'm still doing Jeff Seidel, though I'm not really enjoying it and would definitely drop it if it wasn't my only way to earn money in Israel. My old chevruta partner gave birth over Sukkot break, and I don't know yet what to think about my new partner. My roommate Estie has also convinced me to go to the Hillel-Hecht Beit Midrash on Monday nights, which is where my tri-chevruta is going to do our Talmud homework. Wednesdays are the Masorti learning community (read: beit midrash, just not called that for who knows what reason) where Woty and I are learning bits of queer Talmud--see my original questions about Talmud study above.

With all of this, I feel like I have very little time. I'm beginning to miss Sundays, as Shabbat begins earlier than ever right now and my pre-Shabbat Fridays consist of sleeping in, cleaning the apartment, and going downtown to Ahuva's, where I've spent four out of the past six Shabbatot. I really need to learn to walk the 3.3 miles from the Kfar to Emek Refaim, or the 2.67 to Ahuva's. Those are the main places where Cool Shabbat Stuff happens...

Kibbutz Hannaton

I spent this weekend at Kibbutz Hannaton, the only Masorti kibbutz in Israel, on a Shabbaton sponsored by the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism. Overall, I enjoyed the Shabbat. I met a few new people--a girl named Beverley and Eitan Marks, the brother of an acquaintance from Brandeis--and had a pretty relaxing Shabbat. Services were a lot better than last week. I led weekday Mincha for the first time since high school, and the guy who led Kabbalat Shabbat used the Carlibach melodies, which I love. The food was pretty good, too, if a bit spicy. I discovered rice with raisins in it (not one of the spicy things) and had my first ever Shabbat where seuda shlishit had the best food.

I don't quite understand what is kibbutz-like about Kibbutz Hannaton. The kibbutz recently privitized, so everyone has their own income and owns their own home and people don't eat together in the Chedar Ochel anymore. A dairy farm provides the kibbutz's income, but only one member of the kibbutz works at the farm. As far as I could see, the only communal thing is the land, and the kibbutz just happens to own this dairy farm.

Speaking of the dairy farm, we were given a tour of it on Saturday afternoon. Overall, I was impressed. When I think of farm animals I imagine those stories of chickens who can't even move their wings, but these cows had lots of room to move around. Our guide said that the cows are kept happy, if only because those commercials are true--good dairy products come from happy cows. (And happy cows come from Kibbutz Hannaton?) The only thing that really bothers me is what they do with the calves. A calf was born about twenty minutes before we got to the farm, and the workers took him away from his mother before he could even stand. Since he's male, the kibbutz won't keep him--he'll be shipped off to become somebody's hamburger or veal dinner. The poor little cow! He didn't even stand a chance. Of course, after the tour of the dairy farm, we all throughly smelled like cows. I think the bugs also thought we were cows; I have five bites on one arm alone.

I also learned a bit about teaching styles this Shabbat. Rabbi Romm, the rabbi of the Fuchsberg center and a founder of the Masorti movement, invited a rabbinical student named Adam to join us for the Shabbat. Since it was a shabbaton, there were multiple learning sessions. Before Adam started his, he said something really interesting. I've been having trouble with Rabbi Romm's lectures, and Adam pointed out why: while Adam teaches about things he finds problematic, Rabbi Romm teaches about things he finds interesting. That's why Rabbi Romm's lectures are so light, and he can go off on so many tangents--it's not that he's really wandering off topic as he's providing more "interesting" tidbits about an "interesting" subject. This is the first time I've encountered this kind of teaching; I'm used to--and I think I much prefer--shiurim about the things that are problematic.

If this trip happens every semester, I think I'd like to go again next time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Next Shabbat--Rosh Hashana in the Old City!

$$$ for learning

So far, I'm pretty disappointed with the $$$ for Learning program. I was matched up with my chevrusa partner, Shoshana, three weeks ago, and we still haven't really gotten started. Each time she brings a different book, and each time it's not what I'm looking for. I want to learn about prayer and kavanah; so far, either the books don't talk about that or they don't bring up much for discussion and just reading words off a page isn't very fulfilling. This morning I checked out a copy of Heschel's Man's Quest for G-d from the library; I think we're going to be learning from that from now on. I've read it before, but it's very deep and I think we can get more out of it together than I was able to reading it by myself. Shoshana's never read Heschel before, so introducing her to him will also be fun.

Shoshana's nice, though. We've spent a fair amount of time talking--in fact, that's most of what we did the first meeting. (Opps.) She's pregnent, due in a month or so, and I don't know what's going to happen once she has the baby. The rebbitzen must have a way to work with such things, though. So many of the chevrusa partners have babies or are about to have babies...

Shabbat in Jerusalem

When I describe BUCO to people, I say that it's like Shira Hadasha without the mechitza. I am proud to say that I attended services at Shira Hadasha last night, and it really is an accurate analogy. It was a wonderful service; I wish I lived downtown so Shira Hadasha could be my regular minyan.

I'm spending Shabbat with Ahuva. Last night we went to services and dinner at the house of one of her friends from HUC, and then we came back and collapsed. Well, Ahuva and I both collapsed--as soon as Mr. FuzzFuzz (Ahuva's cat) decided to give up his half of the couch, I was out. Actually, he never did give it up - Ahuva's friend Alexis had to move him.

The annoying thing about Jerusalem is that the busses stop running between 15:00 and 17:00 on Fridays and don't start running again until an hour after the end of Shabbat, thus why I'm on Ahuva's couch. In theory I could take a taxi back to campus, but I'm a cheapy who doesn't currently have the money for such things. We've had a really lazy day, lots of sleeping and reading and talking. The sun's going down; the first bus reaches here in an hour and a half.

I'm currently reading Ahuva's senior thesis, which is entitled "Concessions, or the Relationship between Sexuality and the Pursuit of Holiness: a Comparative Exploration of Virginity, Marriage, and Contraception in Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism." I'm really enjoying it, and not just because it's an interesting topic. So far my only class here has been ulpan, and that's not academic in the sense of thinking and analyzing and the passage of knowledge from one person (or persons) to another. I'm realizing how much I miss such things now. I guess this is more proof that I'm going into the right field after college--what is sociology if not the making and passing of knowledge?

Jeff Seidel Student Center

There's this thing here called the Jeff Seidel Student Center. I'd like to compare it to Chabad; it's a religious family who invites students into their house for Shabbat and Jewish learning-type things. Only, the family's not Chabad, and the house is more than a house - it's a student center with (supposedly) wireless and computers and a tv and free laundry. They also have this program, $$$ for Learning, where you attend a weekly lecture followed by chevruta learning every Sunday night and earn $60 a month, $100 a month if you also attend lectures at a yeshiva. Doing the math, that's $7.50 an hour, but I don't think I would do it if I wasn't interested in the learning in the first place.

I went to the student center for the first time tonight, mostly for the promise of free Chinese food. The Chinese was fairly awful--okay, really awful--but the lecture was interesting. A Rabbi Friedman talked about the different levels of pleasure--physical, love, meaning, and spiritual. It actually made me think; he said that you should be able to give up one for the next, though you don't necessarily have to. Would one really give up love for spiritual fulfillment? Not infatuation--he talked about the counterfit pleasures on each level (drugs for physical, infatuation for love, looking good but not thinking/acting good for meaning)--but pure love, like mother for child. Is spirituality inherently higher than love, or is this a religious belief? How inherent are our religious beliefs?

I had a good time tonight. I did get the talk about the invalidity of my conversion, and Tzipora (the head of the program for women) did say some obviously biased things about Conservative and Reform Judaism, but I can either keep my mouth shut about certain things or try to refute them when they're too outrageous. (There are more women graduating from Conservative rabbinical school because men no longer feel it's their place, they need to find something different? BS.) Overall, though, I think it will be good. I'm glad; I feel like this kind of learning is a big part of the Israeli experience--or at least, the religious Israeli experince--and I'm glad to be able to take part in it.