Just Because

Adira is too adorable in this picture - we just had to share with everyone.
Enjoy!

Jerusalem on the Wall

In honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary since the State of Israel gained access to Jerusalem, the municipality created a movie that they showed last night portrayed on the old city walls. The movie began with a more current historical perspective of 40 years ago, with some of the soldiers recollections of the emotions they felt when they were first able to go to the Western Wall, a space that was previously off-limits. The movie then took a further step back to look at why the soldiers felt this way and portray the Jewish connection to the city.

There must have been at least 3,000 people there; and this was only 1 of 12 showings during the Passover holiday. The streets were closed, and we actually watched the movie sitting in the middle of a street. After the movie the municipality was sponsoring free tours of the old city. However, we decided to try and work our way home through all the crowds.

Some of the images where just fascinating - hands touching the city wall as if it was the Western Wall, people praying, the notes and prayers people leave at the wall and doves flying across.

It was definitely a neat experience and we look forward to other events the municipality and state will do as we lead up to Jerusalem Day and Independence Day.

Chol HaMoed

It is really hot outside. Ninety-five degrees hot. Even though there is little to no humidity here when you step into the sun it feels even warmer. Consequently, our strategic plan has been to stay indoors as much as possible today. We rented a movie on ITunes and finally got around to cleaning up after the seder we hosted. Not so exciting but that is kind of the feel of the neighborhood now. There are very few people on the streets and even the small mini markets (makolet) is only open a few hours a day during the holiday week.

In other news I present to you:
Weird stories in the Jerusalem Post regarding the craziness of Pesach:

1) The Jerusalem municipality officially switches the regular source of the city's drinking water (the Kineret) to well water. Apparently there is a concern that because fisherman cast bread crumbs into the lake to attract fish these crumbs may then be consumed by the inhabitants of the city. Who knew??

2) There was a religious edict signed by a leading rabbi of Jerusalem that prohibits the use of cigarettes during pesach because there is a possibility that the cigarette may contain derivatives of chametz. To his credit, he also said one should not smoke the rest of the year because of health concerns.

Moadim L'Simcha!

Pesach Status

We spent Shabat Hagadol and the 1st day of Yom Tov in Har Nof. The meals and company was great, however, we neglected to take into account the name of the city (Har ie Mountain) when planning our meals. We slept at almost the top of the mt. and ate almost all our emails at various points down the mt. I think a conservative estimate would be that we did over 1400 steps between Friday evening and Saturday night/Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon we walked back to our place so we could host a seder that night. Both seders where really enjoyable, though we missed having our families to share it with. One of the neatest experiences for me was getting to the point where we sing "L'shana Haba B'Yerushalim" (next year in Jerusalem) and going out onto the balcony of our host's home and dancing and singing, hearing in the background many other families in the community doing the same thing.


Today we ventured out to the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens - a little gem not to far from our apartment that I never knew existed before this weekend. One of the main banks here, Bank HaPoalim, actually sponsors the admission cost to a bunch of museums and attractions around Israel during these intermediary days of Pesach. The gardens being one of them we decided we needed to go. So much was in full bloom now it was gorgeous to walk around. There was even some shady spots to help us deal with the 90 degree weather. Tomorrow and Thursday we are aiming to find some indoor activities since the thermometer is supposed to approach the 100 mark.

Just a picture

End of the Winter Zman

How fast does time seem to fly sometimes? It is really hard to believe that it is almost pesach. Not only that but the number of actual days of yeshiva has dwindled to about 35 days or so. However, it is still too early to start feeling sad about leaving Israel so on to other news...

Ilana and I have been in full swing getting ready for pesach. We will be keeping two days of yom tov so that makes it a three day chag for us here. For Shabbat and the first seder we will be at a friend in Har Nof (one town over from where we live) and then we will walk back to our apartment and host a second seder. We ordered most of the food and will fill in the rest as needed. By the way, pesach food is just as expensive in Israel. Then we hope to have a fun filled chol hamoed (comment if you have any fun suggestions) before we trek out to the desert. Ofakim is out there though highly spiritual. We will be celebrating with Ilana's sister and her family but staying in her cousin's house.

Today I went matza baking in Jerusalem. It was a very intense 3 hours but it was actually quite fun. People kept shouting "L'shem matzos mitzva!!" (declaration of intent before performance of the mitzva) Instructions were barked around the room as if you were on the deck of a ship. The best way I could describe the experience is organized chaos. Things were flying everywhere but we were being extremely efficient. I was essentially in charge of the cleaning of the tables. It doesn't sound like a very important job but rest assured, your matza would not be kosher without me. The picture is the finished product.