Getting Ready For the High Holidays

Hey Everyone,

Last time I checked in I had just finished my first day at Hebrew U. Though it's only been a few days, a lot has happened.

On Monday night, I did something REALLY cool and saw a band called Hadag Nachash at the one shekel festival. It was an entire music festival that costed only 1 shekel (about $0.25) to go to. They were AMAZING. There were not that many people there, so I was literally 30 feet from the stage (and able to push my way up more). When they played their most famous song, "Shirat Hasticker," I, and everyone around me, went completely nuts. It was a joy to see Israeli culture in a non tourist location. The only bad part of the night occurred when my camera broke. The memory card is OK, but I still need to figure out how to get all my pictures uploaded so you can see some of the shots from the concert. Some band that wasn't that good played after them, so we left.

On Tuesday, I got to do something really cool and walk the underground water tunnels under the City of David in Jerusalem. During the Assyrian seige of Jerusalem in 701 BCE, Hezekiah, the king of the day, built an underground water system to ensure that the City would be able to withstand the attack. The city wound up staying in the hands of the Judeans partially because of the work of Hezekiah. As we were walking down toward the tunnels, we heard the Muslim call to prayer blaring from speakers around the city of Jerusalem. While it was a reminder of the religious diversity that the Jewish state possesses, it was more of a sign to me that coexistence can happen.

When we got into the tunnels, I was in the back of our 40 person group, and there was no staff behind us. A boy in the back with us lost a shoe, so I, along with 3 other kids waited for him. By the time he found it, the group was way ahead of us in the pitch black tunnels. The 5 of us took our time wandering through the ancient tunnels singing, talking and enjoying the history around us. At some points, we turned off our flashlights lights and literally navigated our way through the tunnels in pitch darkness. Never before in my life had I experienced darkness so dark that I couldn't see my hands when it was directly in front of my nose. It was amazing (even though we scared our group by being nearly 20 minutes behind them at the end).

This morning, we had no classes and instead took some time as a group to prepare for the high holidays. We had some workshops about topics including symbols of the holiday, relationships with god and shofars. They were really interesting, and I now feel far more prepared for what will most likely be an incredible spiritual experience. Tonight, we are davening as Nativ (and I get to use my newly purchased Machzor), and tomorrow and Friday we will be in various shuls in Jerusalem.

I won't have internet for the next few days because of the Chag, so I must now say a big Shanah Tovah and G'mar Chatimah Tovah to all of you. I'll be in contact next year!

Becca