Lag Ba'Omer

ב׳ סיון, תשס״ו -- מ״ו לעומר

Over the weeks leading up to Lag Ba'Omer (don't have the energy to try to explain the significance of this date and its related customs...google it if you're curious), we watched the children of the religious neighborhood of Bayit Ve'Gan (where Nishmat is located) drag wooden pallets, old doors, broken closets, discarded shelves, bed frames, and every other manner of scrap wood down the street to the grassy ridge across from the entrance to our beit midrash. They built several large teepee-shaped pyres, only to have them blown down on a particularly windy night a few days before the significant date. Undeterred, they gathered the materials and then some more and consolidated:


And now, for some proportion:





By the next morning, all that was left was a smudge of ashes. They must have had lots of fun roasting marshmallows, but I didn't get to see it. I was busy hiking in the moonlight...

Yom Ha'atzma'ut (in retrospect)

ב׳ סיון, תשס״ו -- מ״ו לעומר

So I know I haven't been on in a while, for which I apologize. Maybe (probably) it's laziness, but I just haven't had the desire to gather thoughts, words, or even pictures for publication. I did have some photos from the Yom Ha'Atzma'ut celebration that followed my last post, but they aren't so spectacular although the event I attended was quite nice. At night I was in Efrat (more or less a suburb of Yerushalayim, but definitely a small city in its own right), and there was a strong feeling of local pride mixed with the national excitement. The presentation included speeches by R' Shlomo Riskin, the founder & chief rabbi of Efrat, as well as the head of the regional council and I think the mayor; a troop of 20-30 small children who heralded the day by blowing shofar in unison; several youth choirs & bands; a torch-lighting ceremony honoring leaders of various community services; a festive ma'ariv service with lots of singing & dancing; and fireworks right above our heads that rivaled New York's on the Fourth of July.

The next day I was in an unexplicably anti-social mood, causing me to turn down invitations to a couple of BBQs (thanks, Shana & Ari! Really!) and sit on my bed crocheting most of the day...but surprisingly, I was OK with that. Even afterwards I'm able to accept that it was a nice, relaxing day, what I needed at the time, even if it wasn't a memorable Yom Ha'atzma'ut Experience. I feel this bears mentioning because all year, on every special occasion, I've felt an urgency to get the most value for my time, so to speak. I feel that I have this one chance at each chag, so I need to spend it in the most paradigmatic Israeli way possible. But it's good that I can sometimes accept my own immediate inclinations as well, not hold myself hostage to my grand ambitions, and not feel guilty about it, either. For me, that's an achievement.

Yom Hazikaron in Yerushalayim

ד׳ אייר, תשס״ו

I went to the ceremony tonight at the kotel. It was very Israeli -- simple, straightforward, with a minimum of formality. As usual, most of my pictures came out blurry, but these are the important images: