Mikor Baruch
Today was awesome.

Every Wednesday we HUCers drag our tired bodies out of bed and come to school for our "Israel Seminar Day". It's a day when we don't just have to sit in the classroom (although we do a bit of that too) and learn but rather we get to go out into Israel and learn about different aspects of it's culture, language, religiousity, politics, etc. Lately, it's been a little stagnant, feeling like we got stuck in this routine where we go to school, sign up for a mini-field trip and return to debrief.
I thought today was going to be like that too....but it wasn't. I mean, yes, we did meet and get lectured to, and then go off around Jerusalem, and then come back to debrief...but today was just cooler somehow.

We all broke up into small groups of our own choosing, and we went into different neighborhoods around the city in order to talk to people. Not just to be taught, but to actually listen to them...to take a survey of the socio-economic conditions of the area, the inhabitans views on politics in Israel (which are always complex and ever-changing), and to figure out what people's lives were like in these different areas.
I had an incredible group. My friends Dave Reiner, Rachel Bregman, Noam Katz, Joel Simonds, and Kevin Kleinman and I went together to a religious community called M'kor Baruch. We started off by walking around together in a big group, going into some stores to check stuff out and try to talk to people, but then we decided it would be better if we split up. Kevin and Joel went into a Yeshiva and had a cool experience watching what they were doing and seeing what was in it. Rachael and Dave walked around and went into a store where a man taught them a Midrash when they inquired about economic conditions.
Noam and I had experiences too!!! We met this lovely old woman at a bus stop who was very sweet, but wasn't so helpful in the information department. Then, we went into this guy's office under the guise of wanting to look at apartments in the area. This guy was a tax collector and had lived in the area his whole life. He was so fascinating. He was also willing to talk to us about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we wanted to know. It was really cool.

Now, I have to admit that Noam's hebrew is much better than mine. But I was finding that I was understanding a lot of what he was saying, and I was doing well enough communicating with him on my own. No one in that area of town spoke any English...which was great. It forced me to use my Hebrew and that was really cool too.

After that, we met up with the rest of our group and did a little more talking and walking and observing and then headed back downtown to eat lunch and walk around before we had to head back to school.


I just really love what we did today. Jerusalem, and Israel for that matter, is such a diverse place and because I tend to spend about 8-10 hours each day at school, I rarely get a chance to see it all on a regular basis. I live in a very secular, english-speaking, yuppie area and it was nice to see a different type of neighborhood. It was also great to have an excuse to interact with Israelis. I'm so sheltered here, in this little bubble of HUC and although I mostly love it, I would hate to regret not getting to meet more Israeli's this year. I mean, I have less than 4 months left, and I don't feel like I've truly experienced it all, lived it all, or seen it all. And I know that I can't possibly do it all in the next few months. But, I also can't get lazy. Now, is a critical time for me to do this. I know the city and the language and the culture well enough to be confident and to understand my interactions with Israeli's at this point. So I can't just stay in my bubble because it's easy and it's what I know. I still need to challenge myself all the time and get out of my comfort zone and experience it all...because trust me, there's a lot to experience!!!!!