Pesach !חג שמח

After spending about five days at Goldstein Youth Village, I spent my Passover Seder with all of my cousins and two friends, Jamie and Alexa. The Seder was at my cousin Katriel's house, in Givat Zev. All of my cousins, except for two, were packed into that small house. It was extremely chaotic with of the screaming in Hebrew and rushing to get all of the food ready for dinner. But, this Seder was definitely an awesome experience. Although it was a few hours longer than what I'm used to, Alexa, Jamie, and I had a blast. We all sat around the table eating, telling stories, laughing, and eating some more. I'm pretty sure that I ate my body weight in food. Gotta love homemade Jewish cooking! The funniest thing that happened, is that by the end of the Seder, almost everyone had fallen asleep face down on the table. We were all exhausted and passed out as soon as we hit the bed. What made it so special was being around family that I don't see often, and the fact that my friends loved being around them. Since Passover in Israel is like Shabbat, we couldn't drive anywhere so we had a really restful day and was able to catch up on sleep. Tomorrow we are up bright and early and start Yam L'Yam! We will be hiking from sea to sea over a span of five days. I'm super excited, since I've never actually been hiking before. It will be one more awesome experience to add to my trip!

Ein Gedi- March 1-3 (Weekend before Gadna)

While at Ein Gedi, we stayed at a youth hostel, which had a beautiful view of the water, and the highway.  The weather was beyond beautiful, which everyone was ecstatic about.  The couple days we stayed there were more relaxing than I expected.  All we did all day was hang out with friends, walk around, and tan.  Friday night and Saturday afternoon, we had Shabbat services, which were lead by a few of my friends.  There was also another teen group that was staying at the hostel, and it turned out that some of the kids on my program go to camp with some of the kids on the other program.  Also while we were there, my Jewish History teacher, Oshrit, took us on a nice little hike to a waterfall.  It was a lot smaller than most of us expected, but it was still super fun, especially being all together.  Before we knew it, Sunday came and it was time to make our way to the army base and start Gadna.   

Gadna- March 3 (Sunday)- March 7 (Thursday)

            We left Ein Gedi some time after breakfast, on Sunday.  When we arrived at the army base, which is in Sde Boker, they were not ready for us yet so we went to this little market near by for a bit.  Once we entered the base, and set our bags down on some benches, we were sent immediately to meet the commanders.  The commanders intimidated us all because they were only talking to us in Hebrew and only a few of us could understand.  Before we got split up into groups, we were taught the army stance that we would have to stand in the rest of the time we were there.  The way we got split up into our units was completely random.  The head commander would point to a person and tell them to go to the commander said.  I ended up in a really good unit, with a bunch of my friends.  The commander we had was the first commander that we met, and we were upset that we got her because she seemed scary.  But in actuality, she was the nicest commander on the base and every other unit was jealous of ours. Our commander then told us some info about the upcoming days. The next day, we got our uniforms, which consisted of a puke colored shirt and pants.  Unfortunately for my unit, there weren’t any jackets left by the time we received our uniforms.  For the rest of the day, we learned about 0 to use and shoot an M16 (a gigantor gun used in the IDF-Israeli Defense Force).  It was actually really cool to learn about all the different parts of the gun, especially since it was the first time I was up close and personal with one.  The next day, Tuesday, we had a few lessons in the morning and then headed off to the shooting field.  Once we got there, my unit was split up into five smaller groups, obviously I was the last one.  As soon as my group was called, I could feel all of the muscles in my body tense.  We got to the entrance of the building where we would shoot.  When we finally walked in, we all lined up on a blanket and sat in attention position, waiting for the Memem (higher position than commander) to give us directions.  The time finally came, I was lying down in shooting position, one hand on the handle and the other on the barrel.  As soon as I heard the command to “fire,” I moved my finger to the trigger and let it rip.  This was probably the coolest thing I have ever experienced.  Once I finished, I was in such shock that when people asked me how it was, I didn’t know how to answer.  It was such an awesome opportunity that I’m super glad I was given.  The next two days went by quite quickly and before we knew it, it was time to leave.  Even though I didn’t enjoy it at the beginning, I ended up having fun.   There are two things I will not miss about Gadna; waking up everyone morning at 6:00AM and having only twenty minutes to get fully ready for the day, and sleeping on flimsy cots in a tent.

Eilat/Bedouin Tents- March 7(Thursday)-9(Saturday)

            Straight from Gadna, we went to Eilat for another relaxing weekend.  Yet again, we stayed in a youth hostel, but this one was nicer than the one in Ein Gedi.  It was also nice because all 85 of us were in the same area and had our own little courtyard.  Thursday night we all went to the boardwalk, which was about five minutes walking distance from the hostel.  At the boardwalk we walked and shopped around.  The weather was amazingly warm, heavenly compared to what we dealt with at Gadna.  Friday morning, we woke up early and headed to the beach.  To our luck, it was a perfect beach day!  While we were there, I stretched out in the sand and soaked up the sun.  I even got to go snorkeling and see a bunch of cool-looking fish.  That night we stayed at the hostel and had evening Shabbat services.  After services, we had bonding time, where we did funny activities, including some short skits.  Some of the activities reminded me of the show “Whose line is it anyways.”  After bonding time, we had some free time before it was time for bed.  Saturday morning we got to sleep in, which I was super grateful for because I didn’t get much sleep while in Gadna.  Around 11, we had afternoon services and then lunch.  After lunch we went to the mall and boardwalk (which are right next to each other), and hung around.  Early into the evening, we packed up our rooms and had Havdallah service before we left.  Once all packed up and on the bus, we made our way to the Bedouin Tents, where we would sleep for the night.  Upon arrival we were greeted with beyond delicious food that just kept on coming and coming.  After dinner, we sat around a fire and sang some songs.  The next morning, we woke up a bit early so that we could ride camels!  This was my second time riding a camel, but I was still really stoked and had an awesome time!  I rode on a camel with Nina, and somehow we ended up being the very first camel, the one to lead the pack.  It was another awesome experience that I will never forget. 

I apologize for not updating my blog in quite some time, but as you could have probably guessed, I have been crazy busy.  First here are some posts that I wrote previously, but couldn’t find the time to post them.  These are from the end of February.  I promise that I will post more tomorrow!  Enjoy!

             

 (Tuesday February 18, 2013)

            Today was a good day.  Since Purim is this weekend, this week we have been dressing up as something different each day.  Today was animals, so I decided to wear my Paul Frank footie pajamas, which was the best decision that I could have made.  Besides wearing pajamas all day, it was a pretty normal day.  I had a ton of fun in Hebrew, today.  Since we just learned the vocabulary for fruits, vegetables, and other stuff that would be in the market, we took a class trip to the Markoleet.  While we were there, we filled out a sheet naming different foods according to color, different cheeses and chocolates, and what other items (besides food) could be purchased there.  After we got back to the classroom, for the last hour, we did fun coloring sheets, which tested our knowledge of the colors and our skills of staying in the lines while coloring.  The rest of the day went by pretty quickly, and before I knew it, it was dinner.  For the rest of the night, I just hung out with friends and did homework and then went to sleep.

 (Wednesday February 19, 2013)

            Today was our first tiyul for the week.  As a group, we went to the Israel Museum, which had an amazing model of Old Jerusalem.  While we were there, we walked around with our Jewish History class and teacher and learned about the four different sects, who lived in that time period: The Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and the Zalots.  It was actually really cool to learn about the different sects and how they all had similar beliefs, but were extremely different.  Also at the museum, there was an underground exhibit of the Dead Sea scrolls that are from thousands of years ago.  In the exhibit, there were also artifacts from the same time period, such as: tifilin case, sandals, scissors, combs, and even charred dates.  Since it was only a half-day tiyul, we had our general studies classes when we got back to the kibbutz. General studies went by unusually slow for me, since I wasn’t feel great.  After my last class of the day, which happened to be physics, I made food in my room. I made pasta in the water boiler, and topped it with sauce and cheese.  It was delicious.  After dinner we had our group meetings and then a couple of hours to do what I normally do; homework and hang out with friends.  Unfortunately, I still don’t feel great, and we are supposed to go on an all day tiyul tomorrow, to The Old City.  I am hoping that by tomorrow morning I will feel better. 

 (Friday February 21, 2013)

             So, as it turns out, I felt worse yesterday morning than I did Wednesday night, and ended up staying home from the tiyul to The Old City.  Even though I was bummed that I missed out, I made the right decision because I was healthy to go to Mount Masada and the Dead Sea today.  Waking up this morning was brutal.  We had to get up at 2:15 AM because we had a two-hour drive from the kibbutz to Masada and we wanted to get there before sunrise.  The bus ride wasn’t too bad, but I wasn’t able to sleep.  Once we got to Masada, we all sat at picnic tables and ate our “breakfast,” which consisted of barely anything; a slice of cheese, a cucumber, a tomato, a roll of bread, a pudding, and cottage cheese.  It definitely wasn’t a gourmet breakfast, but at least it was something.  Once we were done eating, we all gathered in our Jewish History classes, for a little pre hike talk, and then headed our way up the mountain.  The hike up took about ten minutes, which surprised me, but it was not a piece of cake.  The first step I took on top of the mountain was a sigh of relief, that I was able to relax a bit.  We then all gathered at a sitting area, which looked out over the Dead Sea.    Then we had a short service and had some time to venture and take pictures.  After, we split into our Jewish history classes, again, and walked around the top of the mountain and learned all about the history of Masada and the people who resided there.  Before we started our journey down the mountain, my teacher, Oshrit, took us to an area of the top of the mountain where my class stood on a bridge, which had an amazing view of the entire desert and sea.  While we stood there, Oshrit would say a word and as a class we shouted those words; “Masada will not fall again.”  The moment that we heard the echoes of our voices, gave me the chills, while Oshrit said that the echoes represent the voices from the past.  I know for a fact that I will never forget that moment, because it was the time when I felt the most connected with Judaism and my ancestors.  For the rest of the day, I kept telling everyone how I got the chills and was blown away by that experience.  The climb down the mountain was more brutal than waking up at the crack of dawn.  We took the “Snake Path,” which was an extremely long, winding path that had steep steps that were covered with loose rocks and sand.  It took about thirty or forty minutes to get down the Masada and into an air-conditioned building.  I had never been so thankful for air conditioning and ice cream.  Straight after lunch, we went to the Dead Sea, where we all hung out at the beach, floated in the water, and covered ourselves in mud.  Today was definitely a day that I will not forget. 

 (Saturday February

           

            It felt amazing to be able to sleep in, and best yet, it was Purim today!!  Once we woke up, we went straight to afternoon services.  They were actually really nice, especially since my friends lead them.  After services, we went to lunch, which was delicious for two reasons; the food was nicer because of Shabbat and because I was starving.  After lunch we had a lot of free time, which I spent hanging out with friends and relaxing.  Then around 4, I started to get ready for the night, which meant figuring out my costume.  I decided to go with a soccer player, which was really simple since I had the entire costume.  Instead of having Havdalah service at the kibbutz, we split up into two groups.  One group went to Modi’in and the other to Gezer.  I was in the group that went to Gezer, since I had gone to Modi’in last time we split up.  It was definitely a different experience, since we were not in a Synagogue, but a huge room on a kibbutz dedicated to services.

 (Sunday February 5, 2013)

            This morning, I woke up feeling absolutely wiped out.  I didn’t get much sleep and had zero energy in me, even to get up to go to the bathroom.  I was really upset and distraught, because I really wanted to go into Tel Aviv with everyone, instead of missing out and staying at the kibbutz and doing nothing.  It took me way too long to decide what to do, but I ended up pushing myself to go with the rest of my friends.  I ended up having fun but still didn’t feel great.  While in Tel Aviv, we went on this cute street that had a bunch of small boutiques.  Then we went to the mall in Tel Aviv, which was within walking distance of where we were.  We didn’t have much time to shop, which I wasn’t too pleased about.  But, I did get one thing accomplished that I needed to get done.  The bus ride home was super relaxing, so relaxing that I ended up falling asleep.  When we got back to the kibbutz we had a good chunk of free time, which I spent as I always do; doing any work I have and hanging with friends.