Safed/Tzfat/Tsfat/Zefed...

Last Thursday I ran in the Jerusalem Half-Marathon (I only ran a 10k but that is the name of the event). It was a really beautiful day and a really interesting event. There were people from all over Jerusalem and from all over Israel there. There were army units running with their guns and Orthodox Jews running with their Tzitzit. I beat my personal record and I plan to continue running races for fun and keep improving my time. It was really great to see that there is athletic life after rugby.

Team Rothberg

For Kabbalat Shabbat, I went to Tsfat. Tsfat is the mystical city in the North of Israel where Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) originates from. Because of its mystical characteristics, the people who live there are mostly Hassidic Jews and artist hippies. We arrived too late on Friday to do any artsy shopping but we were able to explore the town for a while.

Safed is one of the four holy cities in Israel (along with Jerusalem, Hebron and Tiberias). One of the most beautiful sites in Tzfat is the Tzfat cemetery. Many famous rabbis were buried here. One of the most famous is Rabbi Isaac Luria (ARI) who is one of the most famous Kabbalists of all time. Because there are so many famous Rabbis buried there, many Hassidic Jews come and pray and pay tribute to these rabbis very often.

Shabbat was incredible. We went to this synagogue called the Carlebach Synagogue. This is the place to be on Friday night. It is a small synagogue but everyone (men and women) were singing and praying really loudly and with a lot of Spirit. It really encapsulated the atmosphere of the town.

We stayed at a Hostel run by Chabad. They set us up for dinner with a Chabad Rabbi and his wife. The conversations at dinner were very interesting, I had not been exposed to this branch of Judaism before and it was interesting to see that even within my religion, there were views and issues I had never contemplated before.

Since everything is closed on Shabbat, on Saturday, we went out for a hike. The country side of Tsfat is beautiful. Tsfat is located on top of a mountain so the views are incredible. The North of Israel looks so different from the South.

Our little Tiual ended up being an epic walking journey. We saw the Kineret and decided that that would be a feasible walk. Apparently it is a good 40k away from Safed. Unfortunalty we realized this about 20k into the walk. We had to turn around and walk back, this time up the mountain. It was an absolutely exhausting walk but the views were so beautiful it was well worth it.

My plans for the upcoming weeks: I will be having Passover Seder at Nitsan's family's house. Then on Wednesday I am heading off to Egypt. I am going to Sinai and Cairo (doing the reverse Exodus)

Hag Semeach everyone!

Bone-e et ha aretz (build the land)

Last weekend I went on a MASA sponsored shabbaton. The event was titled "Core and Periphery." The purpose of the trip was to educate us about the periphery in Israel, namely desert kibbutzim and small towns in the desert.

The first stop on the trip was a Beduoine town named Hura where we met with the mayor in the town's community center.

The next stop was Kibbutz Cramim in the Negev. I was amazed as we drove up to this kibbutz; all of the desert surrounding it was green where it should have been dry earth. It was really fascinating to see how this community (and others like this one) really built the earth, they cultivated the land and created something to live off of.

Witnessing this really got me thinking about communities in Israel and the overall structure of their agricultural society. In the United States we're all good liberals (lower case L). When people went out West to cultivate the land they did so with the incentive of making a personal fortune. Yes, they did form strong communities but the overall purpose of going West was to make a new life for yourself and your family and make your living off the land. The incentive behind cultivating the land in Israel is very different. When the State was founded in 1948, there were serious trade embargoes with the surrounding countries. One of the most serious embargo was on food. Israel could not get food from other countries so they had to grow it themselves; there was no other option.

That is where the idea of "Bone-e et ha aretz" comes from, you are not just cultivating the land for yourself or a better life for you and your family, you are growing food for the entire nation of Israel. Your work on a Kibbutz is for the good of the State and for the good of the community that you live in.

Although many Kibbutzim are no longer socialist institutions, the strong bonds of community in Israel permeate deep into society. You can see this in many different aspects of Israeli day-to-day life. I've really witnessed this in the Jewish-Israeli society; people really open up and genuinely want to help you out. For example, a few weeks ago, a friend and I ran to the shuk. Halfway there it started hailing and raining. By the time we got to the shuk we were soaking wet and freezing. A random women saw us and offered to give us a ride back to our dorm. She would not take no as an answer. She drove us back to our dorms and let us wear some extra sweaters she had in her car; it was no big deal for her, she just wanted to make sure we were comfortable.

This is something I see all the time in Israel. The next part of the Shabbaton, we went to a desert town called Arad. There were about 90 participants on the program and MASA found all of us a family to have Shabbat dinner with; families were lining up to have people come to their houses. The family I had Shabbat dinner with was amazing. I had such an amazing time. They are a religious family but they were very interested in my Jewish upbringing. The Reform community in Israel is pretty small so according to most religious Jews you are either practicing or not practicing. We spoke a lot about different customs within Judaism and about Reform Judaism in America. They were genuinely interested in the fact that men and women prayed together and that we had women rabbis. Sometimes when I speak to more religious Jews I feel like I am judged for the extent to which I practice Judaism but this family was incredibly supportive and encouraging even though I did not practice in the same way they did. As I was leaving dinner they invited me to come back after Passover. The dad said, "I'm not just saying this because I am Israeli, you should really come back." I thanked them and told them if I was ever in the area again I would take them up on their offer. That's Israel for you!

Purim

Rabbis of the Talmud said: A Person is obligated to drink on Purim until he can no longer distinguish between "cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordachai." In Jerusalem, the most religious take this statement very seriously and celebrate accordingly. The more secular crowd also celebrates accordingly. Even people who don't drink are still dressed up and having a good time.

Purim was really exciting in Jerusalem; the atmosphere was overall very festive.

Here are some pictures from hag purim:

I went to a party that might have been the largest party I've been to in my entire life. They had a circus and three different live bands and DJs. It was held in the Jerusalem theater and it was epic.

Eilat and Jordan

Last weekend (before Purim) some friends and I traveled to Eilat where we stayed near the beach. Eilat is located at very bottom of Israel and it is surrounded by Egypt and Jordan. My group took a trip to Jordan for the day to visit Petra. Unfortunately, the day we went was the worst/coldest/rainiest weather Petra had experienced that year so a large part of the park was actually closed off. Every time the rain stopped for a few minutes I was able to snap some pictures.

The reason the closed part of the park is because the City of Petra is located in a cannon. In the desert, when it rains, all of the water rushes to the bottom of the cannon. And yes, that women in

the picture is crying because it was that cold.

Alas, we come across the tomb where the holy grail is hidden! Only to find that we are unable to do the three tasks required of us and we are forced to go home (i.e. this was as far as we were allowed to go into the park)

The next day was absolutely stunning (which was a good thing too because we had to check out of our hotel and our bus back to Jerusalem was not until night time). We got to spend the day at the beach.

All-in-all, Eilat was Eilat of fun