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.

Adira found her voice

So Adira learned she could speak ... or at least make some cute noises - though we are hoping she has the Ma Nishtana down pat for the Pesach Seder.



Everything else is going well here. The weather has returned to its seasonal norm - no more 90 degree days, we are back in the low 60s. We are some how managing to get by with out the support of grandparents and are starting to prepare for Pesach. We are going to host the 2nd night seder here. Though we are sad to not be sharing the holiday with our family, we are looking forward to leading our own seder here - so far we have 6 of us for the evening and I think we might end up with 3 more. In other news, we got Adira's birth certificate last week so her name is officially now recorded as Adira Bracha - next stop US Consulate to get her US equivalent of a birth certificate and her passport.

Purim Meshulash

We finally returned to our rewired apartment on Friday afternoon. Even though there was a lot of cleaning to do from the construction it was really a relief to come back to home. We were getting sick of living out of suitcases and eating out every meal. Though we will miss the breakfasts at the hotel -- delicious! Thursday evening began the purim weekend extravaganza. For those who may not know, Jerusalem residents (walled cities) had the special privilege of having purim "last" for three days. Because Shushan Purim fell out on a shabbos this year the obligaitions for the day which are regularly all done on one day are instead spread out over three days. We heard megillah reading at the yeshiva (cap guns were fired at the mention of Haman) and distributed matanos l'evyonim on Friday. On Shabbos we inserted the Al'hanissim prayer into the davening and read the torah reading for purim. Finally on Sunday we exchanged mishloach manot and attended the seudah. Although it was really a great experience to take in an entire weekend of Purim I think I prefer it all on one day. It is very taxing to have such high levels of simcha over three days. It's also a bit annoying to listen to the fireworks and drunks for three days.

Power Status

Many of you are probably sitting there thinking now that Adira is in the picture that is all our blog is going to be about - how many diapers she wets a day, haw many hours she stays awake for and who she looks like more at any given moment. But wait - something else has happened...
Thursday night I feel like there is a small of something fried, though Aaron doesn't smell anything so maybe it is all in my head. However, about 45 minutes later there is a LOUD pop and the electricity goes. So I start calling different people affiliated with the Yeshiva to figure out what we do about this at 7 pm at night. By about 9 pm we realize this is not something that can just get fixed, but a major electrical issue...so we moved out and are now living in a hotel - I guess we always talked about going on a mini-vacation - we just didn't get to plan the dates.

And for those that think it should only be about Adira - here is one of the latest pics.