Better than the back of the cereal box
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2/24/06:
So, just had my vort on Tuesday night. A vort is a small engagement party where I have to speak and then some rabbis speak and stuff. Also my roommate spoke. Mostly the idea is just to get everyone feeling good. There was also good food. Yay! Pictures of that will be up shortly (like next weekish) at the photo site (http://photos.yahoo.com/raffibilek) and also the speeches are posted now at http://www.catchmedia.com/~lushi/raffi_vort/. People said I spoke very well. I figure, heck, I�ve had 20-odd years of practice, oughta have the hang of it by now.
Anyway, the vort is just a precursor to the wedding. We�ve got the lion�s share of stuff done already, largely because Chana is super-awesome. I feel extremely happy that God decided to send her my way. We�re just getting the invitations done, and then some small things like finding a gown and new shoes for me and stuff. (Er � the new shoes would be for me. The gown is for Chana.)
Meanwhile, I finished off the Talmudical tractate on which I was working, which is pretty exciting. A fairly significant milestone. I�ll be spending a few weeks reviewing it, then making a big siyum (literally translated, this means �siyum�) to celebrate sometime in March.
So life is pretty good these days. Yay Raffi. And Chana. :-)
2/8/06:
Yeah, so I sort of skipped a month, but that wasn�t entirely accidental. It just didn�t seem wise to widely publicize my January activities, i.e., that I was out dating folks. (Folk, really). Point is, I�m engaged. I think everyone reading this has already heard. If not, uh� well, there y�are. Her name is Chana. She was adopted and raised in Virginia. She�s Korean-born. And she�s swell. She�s also a madricha (like a resident counselor) at a seminary here in Har Nof. And, uh, she�s swell. I think you�ll see what I mean if you check out the pictures I posted from our dating and a little engagement party we had (Monday night was the engagement & party).
We�ll be getting married April 10 here in Jerusalem. It�s pretty exciting. My head is spinning from all the things we�re trying to get done. But at least it�s fun. We get to do it all together. :-)
Right, I don�t really know what else to share at this point. Anyone with specific questions, do e-mail me. That generally helps.
12/2/05:
November seems to have slipped on by somehow, and here we are in December (enjoying unseasonably warm weather in Jerusalem). I have managed to escape almost entirely the avalanche of mawkish Christmas music most of you are suffering through right now (almost, because I had to call Dell and their hold music was, of course, Christmas junk), and am looking forward to Chanukah in a few weeks.
The old class is going a little better. I still don�t much like the rabbi who teaches it, but at least I�m getting into it a bit more. I also notice that my study buddy and I are generally at the top of the class, which makes it more tolerable, knowing that whatever abstruse concept the rabbi is trying to put over on us is probably being understood even less by others.
Plans for next year continue to shift around as I consider options at Yeshiva University and other places that are similar to various degrees. Trying to stay cool about applications, which are for the most part done, just need to collect some recommendations and other ends and odds.
Er� that�s really about it.
So, what are you doing this weekend?
11/14/05:
Well, once again I have delayed longer than I wanted to in putting this out. To my credit, my delays generally end up about a month away from the previous update anyway, so I suppose it all works out.
Winter semester has started, and so has winter. Mornings and night can be pretty cold, but the day is generally pleasant still, so long as the sky is not spitting out icy beads of rainwater at you. Or so I hear, from those people who manage to step outside the yeshiva from time to time.
The holiday break went nicely. Slept out in a wee sukkah on my porch in the cool autumn night. Sukkot in Jerusalem is extraordinary. Most nights of the week, Me�ah Shearim, a rigidly observant and generally unwelcoming neighborhood, transforms into the Jewish version of Mardi Gras. Singing, dancing, crowds, cotton candy - it�s spectacular.
Classes are also back again. At the end of the break I discussed with some rabbis the possibility of changing to another morning Talmud class (the main class of the day) since I was (am) unsatisfied with the one I�m in now, which is the standard spot for second-years. I�m not a big fan of the rabbi�s style or the rabbi himself, frankly, but most guys really like him, so it looks like it�s just me. At any rate, I�ve been trying to find another alternative along with the help of the Rosh Yeshiva. I spent a week just learning on my own while my study buddy was out of the country anyway, and that was nice, but not really as productive or efficient as I should be here, and not really a long term option. So I�m back in the old class now, still holding out to find an option that suits me better. I suppose we�ll see what happens.
What�s the weather like where you are?
10/10/05:
It always seems to be longer between updates than I anticipate. Hm.
The pre-holiday semester is coming to a close, and we�ll be on break for about three weeks until November. Second is pretty different than first year. Most noticeably, I am not nearly as harried and pressured. This is due to the fact that last year, I had classes to be at from morning to night; this year, I�m off as of one, with the intention that I am supposed to be learning and preparing for the next day all afternoon, and some of the night. Actually, there is a class in the afternoon on our morning Talmud assignment, but I never go because the rabbi drives me crazy. And there�s also a class at night on a different tractate of the Talmud, but I�ve been doing that on my own with a partner since, well, I can. So yeah, much less pressured. I have time to get groceries and stuff if I need it, make calls, etc. It just takes a little time out of my learning, which is, well, it is what it is.
Rosh Hashana was nice. Six and half hours of prayer each morning. Yipes. Yom Kippur, apparently, is all day in shul (read: the beit midrash) with a ten-minute break. Yeah. This should be interesting.
After that, the break starts, which for me will consist largely of family visits. First stop is my grandparents, who are still very ill, and my grandmother still very depressed. Can�t say I�m too excited about that. But Shabbat this week will be at my crazy-religious cousins in Bnei Barak, which is always fun. Next week I�m going to see another cousin (second, I believe) who just made aliyah and is living in Beit Shemesh, and his parents will be there for Sukkot also, which I am rather excited about, since I think the last time I saw any of them was at my bar-mitzvah. Also I�m going to try to hop down to Be�er Sheva where my aunt is. Busy busy.
Other things that are different this year are the people. The new class this year is really swell. All cool guys. No jerks. Last year there were a fair number of jerks. This was bad. My roommate and I are also getting along much better this year, seeing as how he�s someone else now. Very laid-back and sweet, not so much like my past roommate. Actually, I had 2 roommates last year, and up until now I�ve only had the one. Which is also good.
That�s the story for now. Hopefully nothing too eventful will happen anytime soon, allowing me to postpone writing again longer than I want to.
9/4/05:
Pre-yeshiva update: classes haven�t started yet, mostly I�m just cleaning and unpacking. Lots of cleaning. Nothing much going on, really, but I had an experience or two I thought worth sharing.
Upon my arrival I went to visit my grandparents in Ramat Gan. They�re not doing very well. My grandfather is severely afflicted with cancer, although to look at them, one would guess that my grandmother is the sick one. She is depressed and cries all the time. He looks and acts the same as always. She is barely managing. What is saddest about this is that she is largely causing her own misery. She frequently tells me not to tell anyone about what happens in the family, it�s nobody�s business, etc. She lies to her own daughters about her condition (she has her own set of physical ailments). I myself didn�t know anything was wrong until long after my grandfather had been diagnosed. She shuts herself off in isolation, refusing to allow friends and family in for support, which is what she most desperately needs. I wish I could help her understand how destructive her behavior is. But I am young and she is old, and nothing I say will make any difference. So I am reduced to sitting and watching her cry and mourn all alone, and I can�t do a thing.
I�ll leave it at that now. Other thoughts forthcoming.
8/17/05:
So summer�s winding down, and it�s been fairly relaxed and uneventful. What I wrote last time is pretty much about the same � schedule of working and learning all summer. I stopped working last week because my arms and back were getting all cramped up from working on my laptop. My learning also has dropped significantly. Kept up real well during July, but been about a week or two since I stopped gemara in the mornings, and this past week I�ve been doing almost nothing� just haven�t had the drive. Probably better anyway � I need to get back to yeshiva refreshed, not burnt out.
Other than that, really nothing has been going on. I�ve had many wonderful experiences spending Shabbat in the local community, where I am a very popular figure. I suppose it does go to my head. They�re all big fans of my gospel singing, which is a nice change from yeshiva life. Also, I took the GRE yesterday, which went fine, but it was a heck of a lot harder than I was expecting. You get your results instantly, which is nice, but I have to wait for my essay scores.
So now I�m a little bored because I�ve burnt myself out of learning and reading, and I�ve been mucking around on the computer a bit (which is how I finally got around to this). I refuse to watch TV, so there isn�t that much to do. (Yes, I know, I�m a fundamentalist. I�m actually just worried that if I start watching again I�ll end up throwing hours and hours of my life into the box like I used to.)
Uhhh� that�s about the lot of it. Not much interesting this time around. I�ll be back in Israel soon and expect to have more thrilling stories then.
What was YOUR summer like?
7/10/05:
Hey folks, so, time to catch you all up on what�s going on. I definitely waited too long again this time, considering the amount of stuff I�ve been up to, so my solution is basically to skip large chunks of stuff that have happened, and well, sorry. Guess we�ll just have to talk about it in person sometime.
So, aside from the Scandinavia trip, which we�ll get to, we last left off at the end of the school year. That didn�t go so well for me. I ended yeshiva about two weeks before yeshiva ended� just sort of got tired out and couldn�t study anymore. I guess that�s what happens after a year of hard work, morning to night. Your brain just says, �HEY, break time!� So I listened.
Scandinavia, then, was a welcome break (save for all the women walking around with only shreds of clothing on � that I could have done without). Norway I liked better, I think. The fjords were spectacular � truly some of God�s best work � and the arctic circle was cool (ha ha!) not only in the fact that it was daytime 24 hours a� well, day, but also I couldn�t quite get over the fact that so many people led normal lives in the arctic circle. Sweden was less interesting, I thought, though Oslo had nothing on Stockholm.
I had wanted to write a lot more about the trip, but I don�t want this to get too long, and there�s more to tell, so I�ll add one favorite story, and maybe write some more a little later. This one�s from Sweden, when we were in Mora, the lousy country town North of Stockholm. Kim (my travel buddy) and I went to a bear park with a bunch of interesting animals, though we didn�t see many. We were looking around for the arctic fox, when all of a sudden � there it was! About 30-40 feet away, we saw a big, fluffy animal with a white coat. �There it is,� I said. �People usually make coats out of that thing.� All of a sudden, two little kids appear on the scene. �Hey, those kids are awfully close to an arctic fox!� Then, they start petting it!
Raffi: �What the � !?�
Kim: �Aw, it�s a dog.�
So yeah, it turned out just to be a big ol� dog with white fur. Which was disappointing, but pretty darn funny.
So now I�m back home for the summer, which is so far going splendiferously. I�m working at home writing SAT questions for a really nice lady who tutored me way back when. I get up every morning at dawn to pray, learn gemara for an hour, work for about five hours out of the day, do some more learning in the evening, chill out with my little brother for part of the day, jog with him (really!), listen to recorded lectures from yeshiva during lunch� life is pretty good. I think my favorite part of the day is bathroom breaks during work. I can�t help but revel in the notion that I�m getting paid for relieving myself.
That�s all that�s (just narrowly) fit to print for now. Ta!
Oh, and question of the month: what are YOU doing this summer?
6/28/05:
Tried to post this last night, but a combination of having wasted my time on too e-mail and on figuring out this bloody Swedish keyboard delayed posting until this morning.
Back in Stockholm for the duration of the trip (until Thursday morning), after a brief stay in Mora, a small village a few hours north which we were somehow hornswoggled into visiting, because it was a dumphole of boring nothingness, a brief stay in Stockholm again beforew that, mostly to have somewhere for shabbat, which was great, Troms� before that, and before that Fl�m, which is where we last left off. Troms� (actually spelled with an o with a slash through it for that last one, but that appears to be Norwegian and not Swedish) was great. Sun never sets there, so we had 72 hours or so of straight daylight. It was sadly cloudy most of the time we were there, but it cleared up at night when we went up the cable car, so it was nice and sunny for while around midnight and beyond. Good pictures later.
Speaking of which, I had a chance to upload two pictures earlier. These are from the Fl�m period. One is on our way to Flam and the other is me at the fjords in my very dignified fjord-explorer's suit.
Ehhh... in general, having a lovely time. Enjoying lots of peanut butter and lots of daylight. Looking forward to being back and staying in one place for a period of time longer than two days, and to having warm food. Maybe some pizza or something. Maybe a hamburger.
I'll be home in a few days. Hopefully next week I'll sit down and write out a little rundown of the trip and its highlights. Like the wolf.
6/19/05:
A few quick notes on the first few days in Norway before my time at cafe is up. Will report on end of yeshiva days soon.
Shabbat in Oslo... it never gets dark! Sunset takes several hour, and never completes. Very odd feeling.
Never go to Frogner park. Ask me about this later, or maybe read a later update. Yikes.
Stayed the last few days with Claude, a religious Tunisian Jew. Great guy.
Right now in Fl�m (that � is a button on the keyboard here). The fjords (pronounced 'fjords') are unbelievable. God really knows his handiwork. Never seen anything like it. Pictures soon, I hope.
Lesson learned flying out of London into Oslo: No matter how rainy a day it is, it�s always sunny above the clouds.
5/16/05:
Boy, am I late on this one. Sorry about that folks. Things got kind of involved with preparation for Passover, getting ready to go home, going home, coming back, and hitting the ground running. I see from last times that I was supposed to tell some good Purim stories here, but that way long gone, isn�t it? Maybe a one or two.
We had a big ol� Purim Spiel which, after much pain and labor, yielded beautiful fruit, which everyone enjoyed putting on and watching. I�ve got a DVD which maybe I�ll rip some relevant clips from at some point, if I can figure out how, and post them, if I can find the space somewhere. After the spiel we went to the Rosh Yeshiva�s house for dancing and merrymaking, where I was generally in charge of making merry, as is my wont and regular charge in a world where people are a little impeded, shall we say. So I led the evening�s festivities in song and dance, and a good time was had by all.
I guess I�ll try to breeze on up to the present: Passover was challenging, being at home, trying to properly kasher my house, trying to be observant in a non-observant world. Not ideal circumstances, but we all made it without even any yelling matches, in contradistinction to previous visits home. (To those who are worried that I mean I want to forever run away from my family and sink myself in an Orthodox bubble and never come out, and you know who you are, this is not what I mean at all. All I�m saying is that living in an actual home where I�m the only observant one, as any observant Jew will tell you, is not an easy thing to do. So ideally, and realistically, in not too short a time I will have my own place to which others can come and I will not have to live in an environment that is so uncomfortable, but I can still visit it without such significant discomfort. Great.) Besides that, I was reminded that the Jewsih community I live among in Atlanta is actually pretty swell, so I�m rather looking forward to the summer now.
Since I got back from break, I�ve been working even harder than before. I moved up to the second-year class, now that the second years all moved out and up to different things, so I�m with this wild, brilliant, lunatic rabbi who teaches Talmud in an entirely different way. Already after two my new study partner and I felt we were in a whole new world of thinking. The teacher�s been pushing us pretty hard, and it�s challenging, and pretty cool. But I�m working hard, and I�ve had to ditch some other personal study sessions I�d set up with other people (like the next-door rabbi). So it goes.
One more month until the year is over. I have unofficially decided to come back next year, which I suppose means that I�m afraid to say that I want to stay for another year, because that seems weird, but acknowledging that that seems to be the best thing for me to do at this point in my life, that looks like what I�ll be doing.
On my way back home to the US I�ll be making a two-week pit-stop in Norway and Sweden. I�m especially looking forward to seeing the midnight sun. (This requires a trip above the arctic circle. Nifty.) Should be good fun. Will definitely make for an interesting update, provided I don�t get lazy, which has been the case lately, for no good reason. Actually, I think there is a good reason. My friend Lev sends out e-mails and continues to thank those who send him responsive e-mails. I would do the same, except NOBODY DOES THIS. I know there�s a small cadre of folks who reads this bloody thing, and you should all send me an e-mail from time to time to say hi, because maybe I miss you. Or maybe I talked to you yesterday, in which case, fine, you have an excuse. Lev says he asks questions and that gets people to answer them. Maybe I�ll try that. Here�s my first attempt: What do you think about tofu dogs?
3/24/05:
Yup, more of the same. This week and last have been particularly rough because in addition to my usual demanding schedule, we�ve got rehearsals jammed in for the big Purim spiel that�s happening this Saturday night, which I mentioned in the last bit. It should be pretty funny, it�s a bunch of little sketches basically. I helped write the opening number, which is a rewrite of �Comedy Tonight� from �A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.� It�s now �Purim Spiel Tonight.� At this point I�m actually just looking to get the whole thing over with. It hasn�t actually been such a great process. The whole thing became pretty political, and the guy I was working with was really tough to work with, and the schedule was really getting to me, so I�ll be glad when it�s all over. I understand that Purim in Jerusalem is going to be phenomenal though, with people in all kinds of colors and costumes and states of inebriation all out in the street. I�ll have to report back on that.
Today I actually managed to catch back up on some sleep andstudy and relax a little. It�s a fast day, so I woke up at 4 am to eat before sunrise, went to pray at sunrise, then went back to sleep for a few hours. Half a day of classes, which left some time for individual study a generally less franticness. And then there�s still tomorrow off, Shabbat, and Sunday is more Purim (a freak three-day venture this year in Jerusalem). So I should be able to wind down a little.
Last week I spent Shabbat in Bnei Barak, arguably one of the most religiously observant places in the world. I actually was visiting family there, strangely enough, and it was a really nice experience. Some of the time I spent with a relatively distant relative on my dad�s side (I generally need to look at the family tree to remember how it works out. I think my great-grandfather may be his grandfather), and some of the time with my mom�s cousin, who has nine children. Both were exceptionally nice to me, and the kids were very excited to meet me and had all kinds of questions which I struggled to answer in Hebrew. But it was really swell spending Shabbat with family.
The week before that, I think I was at the Carlebach Moshav. I went there a few weeks ago when a friend took me on a shabbaton there, and I liked it so much I went back on my own. I had met a few of the residents, so I stayed with people I met there, and I took my friend Lushi (hi Lushi!) from Atlanta along, and we had a rollicking good time. It�s a really fun, religious community. Lots of color there. And weird people. I kind of like it. A bunch of the guys here have mentioned that I should take them next time I go. I think I may try to organize a big group of us to go down there, actually.
And in a few weeks from now I�ll be heading home for Passover. I wasn�t planning on going home originally, was kind of hoping to stay here and experience Passover in Israel, and avoid a whole lot of cleaning and whatnot, but the INS called me back for my citizenship exam right then (yeah, I�m still Canadian, remember?), so there is little choice. But hey, everything�s got a reason, so I�m sure this will be very good for me, and this way I get to see my family a few weeks earlier than I would have otherwise, which is a big plus, and I�m sure other great things will come of it.
I think that�s the news for now. Next go will have some great Purim stories, I hope. I have some great costumes to pull out, I can�t decide what to wear� I have my zoot suit here now (thanks mom!), and I think that will be well worth a go. Hmm�
2/17/05:
I�m finding that every time I want to write an update, the basic message tends to be the same. To wit: more of the same. Schedule is still get up, study, eat, pray, go to sleep (though I did extend my bedtime now to 12/12:15ish). But yup, same old, pretty much. And yup, still growing and learning a while lot.
But there is some cool stuff to report nonetheless. Around the time of the last posting, in fact, some interesting news popped up that I didn�t want to crunch into the last one. Namely:
- I upped the recycling program around here by buying recycling bins for everyone�s rooms. This faced a surprised amount of resistance from people who didn�t want to take up another cubic foot of space in their rooms, or from people who thought so little of recycling that I got mocked a little bit, or from people who just cared that little about recycling that I had to chase after some folks to take the bins to their rooms. (That�s just venting, mind you. Overall, people took fairly well to it, and at the very least I raised a few consciousness�es� yeah.) Also, the whole thing was further complicated by the sudden removal of the main recycling bin that I was used to using, so I had to find another one (not all that easy in my neighborhood). But I did. Yay me.
- I�ve also been wearing one of these nifty green wristbands since around the same time from savedarfur.org, which are an awareness-raising measure for the situation in Sudan. I can�t say it�s been tremendously successful, but every now and then someone asks what it is and I get to tell them. Baby steps. I sent some off to my friends in Beer Sheva too, hopefully they�re getting good use out of them. (If you�re reading this, let me know!)
- Also those few weeks ago I started teaching my friend Justin how to swing dance, with the intent that we will perform for the big Purim skit that is apparently a big townwide event here. (On Purim, the next upcoming Jewish holiday, it is a tradition to put on a silly play of some sort. I figured I should mention that, but I think everyone to whom that is not obvious has already stopped reading this page, and I am now so hopelessly frum that all my friends already know what I�m talking about anyway. Ah well.) I guess people who grew up in secular environments are generally funny to FFB�s � those that have been religious from birth. I find that teaching swing dancing one-on-one is far easier and more successful than the big group lessons I used to do. He learned very quickly, so we dance a couple of times a week at lunch to get him up to speed. He�s doing very well. We�re going to have a blast on Purim.
- A new big part of my day is a new study session I stuffed in in the evenings. Usually I do my regular partner study for Talmud at 8:30; about two weeks ago, the rabbi who lives next door, who is unaffiliated with the yeshiva, who is Israeli and speaks no English, approached me and asked if I�d like to learn with him (ostensibly because I am one of two students in the yeshiva who speaks Hebrew). I explained to him that my Hebrew was not so hot, and reminded him that this is, after all, a �ba�al teshuva yeshiva� (a yeshiva for those returning to observance), i.e., my Talmud skills are middling at best. He said he was well aware and just wanted a little extra learning time (though I suspect now that he is actually just being altruistic by helping me out, and possibly engaging in some basic review for himself. Anyway, so now I learn Talmud with him in Hebrew every night for 45 minutes which I never would have thought I had before I started doing it, and it�s one of my favorite parts of the day, because I get private tutoring with a rabbi who clearly knows what he�s talking about and we�re working on a section that�s a lot easier than what I do in class every morning, so I get to hash out my skills more without twisting my brain up too much. Also I get to practice my Hebrew. So I really enjoy that a lot.
Wow, these get really big really fast, don�t they? Well, I had a few more bits of interest to toss in here, but since this is already real big, I�ll add in one more report that is timely and relevant in a long-term sense (that is, of course, if you�re tapped in to the what�s-behind-it of Raffi, I suppose). Last week I spent shabbat in Bat Ayin, which I was expecting to be tremendous and great and exciting, but it was sort of not. Bat Ayin is this place that attracts Orthodox hippies, so I thought I would feel pretty comfortable there; and while the singing and dancing and all that was real nice, there wasn�t quite the same� I dunno, lovin�, that I really love about, say, Havurah gatherings. (No way to explain that in brief to anyone who doesn�t know what I�m talking about. Feel free to call me!) I haven�t quite passed judgment on it, but I didn�t fall in love with it, which is kind of a shame, because I was hoping I would. *shrug* The search continues.
I wrote a great tune for Mizmor L�David (Psalm 23) yesterday, just kind of standing around, on the spot. I�m very pleased with it. Very third-mealish. Hope you like. (Hey, really, if there is anyone out there who�s still reading this who doesn�t know what I�m talking about with all this Jewish stuff, let me know. I like to be all-inclusive. I�m sure that last comment was extremely bizarre to anyone who isn�t in the know, but if everyone is, heck, I�ll just leave it like that. But I want YOU to be in the know, too. Honest. I have no idea who�s reading this thing. E-mail me. I like you too!)
1/24/05:
I definitely missed a month in there on the updates thing. But there is a good excuse for this, to wit: absolutely nothing noteworthy happened in December. Really. Pretty much the whole thing was just get up, learn, go to sleep. Maybe one or two things happened, but really I felt bad wasting everybody�s time trying to make the daily routine seem interesting (again). Mind you, I am enjoying the daily routine a lot, just to toss that in there.
Of course, when it rains it pours, and in the past someodd weeks a bunch of interesting things have happened, so I�ll chuck a few of them in here and maybe write another update soon. (I find that, predictably, if I write something too soon after a big event, you get a lot of details on that event and relatively few on anything else.)
So what did happen in December? I was sick for a few days, which was not so fun, but it was a lot better here in yeshiva than back in New York, at any rate. Lots of nice people here. The aftereffects of sick lasted about a week. Others got it worse than me. Can�t complain.
Also in December, or at the end thereof, my mom came to visit. That was swell. Got to spend some time with her and other family members, all of whom I wish I could spend more time with, but getting away from yeshiva doesn�t really seem so feasible. I did have all of two days off for winter break though. Yeesh.
The weekend before this past weekend I got to see a whole bunch of friends from Brown and Havurah and other such wacky Jew places. Some were in town for a year, semester, some just visiting for winter break, so we all decided to congregate at the apartment of one such wacky Jew and have a rockin� Shabbat. It was absolutely great. A very welcome change from yeshiva, where everyone was jumping and singing and dancing, and the atmosphere was warm and juicy, and everybody was hugging everybody, and the variety of Jews present was so great. It was so so wonderful to hang out with all these great people, old friends, new friends, hurray!
This past weekend the yeshiva took a trip up to Tzfat, which was also a good time. I was surprised at how lifeless the place was; I thought it was supposed to be a center for crazy kabbalistic Judaism, but after all, it turned out to be more of a tourist city, and in the winter, with few tourists, the city was very quiet and not all that exciting. But very beautiful nonetheless, serene, picturesque, and filled with history. I ran into an old friend there (naturally), which was amusing. A very old friend � a girl I used to know in Montreal when I was 12 or so, and now she�s also religious, moving to Israel soon after having started her own business. Crazy.
I spent all of this shabbat eating, sleeping, and praying. Very relaxing. Meals were punctuated by my loud gospel renditions, much to the consternation of some rabbis and some other students who need to loosen up a good deal, and much to the delight of everyone else. So that was great.
And yeshiva life, as stated, goes on pretty much as normal. I recently started meeting with a rabbi and a student in a very small learning group, just the three of us, where we pore over sources regarding contemporary/troublesome issues, such as the role of women in prayer and such, weird prohibitions, and just about anything we don�t get. It�s GREAT. Hoping to keep this going until the end of the year. This rabbi, who happens to be an astrophysics Ph.D. from MIT, is a young guy who really cares, so he just sits with us and answers all our questions very candidly until we�re satisfied. Good stuff.
That�s the news for now. Pictures from Tzfat and a recent yeshiva event, in which I am wearing a black suit and a yellow twinkies shirt, now up at http://raffibilek.photos.com, and also my latest niggun at the bottom of the songs page.
11/28/04:
Life continues as normal here in Har Nof. Mostly a daily routine of classes. There�s sort of a fluctuation also of a few days where I just feel totally stupid and worn out from struggling with gemara, which is often very difficult, and then a few days where I�m feeling a lot more on top of it, and generally a little smarter (but not much). It varies with how difficult the particular section we�re working on is, how well my brain is doing on any given day, how much time my study partner has been able to put in with me, how much time I�ve had to give to it, etc. It can become pretty frustrating sometimes.
So that�s one aspect of life here that defines the feel of my day, what the gemara is doing to my life on that particular day. Another thing that really colors my days here is the evenings with Rabbi Kupperwasser, aka Coop, which I call him in violation of, well, probably a lot of stuff. I have tutoring with him in the evening followed by gemara prep session right after (usually people have two different rabbis). Coop is a short, stocky, rough-and-tumble rabbi who uses words that most of the other rabbis around here don�t use and has no qualms about insulting me outright. We have a great relationship. He yells at me, I yell at him, he chases me around the room, I throw toilet paper at him, he calls me stupid, I tell him to shut up, etc., etc. I�m very fond of him, and I think he might say the same if he thought nobody was listening. It�s great having him in the evening, �cause otherwise I think I might fall asleep most of the time. Working your brain real hard all day can pretty exhausting.
In other news, Jews in the Woods Israel was cancelled, or more accurately, postponed until spring. We couldn�t get enough people to sign on in time, to my dismay, so it just wasn�t going to come together by next week, so I nixed it. But now I have networks in place and still growing, so next time around it should be far easier.
Also, Thursday night I went to the Jerusalem Boogie, much like the Barefoot Boogie that I attended in New York some months ago (wonder if I wrote about that�?). It was GREAT. I felt a little (a lot) rebellious going to do some mixed dancing and all, but I really needed the outlet for a bit. Basically, it�s a room full of really wacky people, and they played all kinds of music, from Middle Eastern to Beach Boys to classical to hip-hop, and said wacky people danced in wacky ways, totally freely, not like in a club where everyone needs to impress each other, but more like in an insane asylum, where if you didn�t know what you were getting into, you might think the people were a little off-kilter. It was a LOT of fun.
Lastly, I got into this weekly do-gooder thing around here where I go with some other yeshiva guys I met through e-mail to a local hospital and we go sing to the patients. It�s really great. As you can probably imagine, this is quite a fitting activity for me, and I get to sing and be energetic and put on a big giant smile, and the patients generally enjoy it, and everyone gets to be happy, and I like happy. So I look forward to that all week (I go Friday mornings). I have some good stories from this, but I think I�ll save them for an ask-me-about-it-sometime kind of thing.
Right, carry on.
10/22/04:
Update #2 of yeshiva life comes after a little while longer in yeshiva. I think the heady excitement expressed in the first update was sort of a first week thing that kind of died down after, well, the first week. Which is not to say that I�m not enjoying myself still, just that things weren�t as whiz-bang after the idealism dissipated little.
Mostly this is the case in the area of gemara studies, which have been significantly harder. I also lost my one-on-one time with the super-excellent tutor, had to share him with someone else, which of course is a world of difference, and then got switched into another tutor, who was absolutely terrible, and couldn�t switch out until just this week, which is much better now, but I was feeling very very frustrated for a while there with this lousy tutor. Anyway, so gemara is a kind of tough, and I�m struggling with it, and also struggling to stay interested, so it�s not all sugar and spice. But it�s still great to be in yeshiva where it�s easy to be frum and everyone is growing as a person and as a Jew and it�s easy to do the same without outside pressure. Yeah, that I like.
Meanwhile I�ve been keeping myself busy with other projects I enjoy. I started taking notes on my laptop in class, which is helpful since you always have to reread the gemara in different ways and add layers upon layers onto your notes, plus I can record the class on my computer at the same time, plus I turned my notes into a sort of hypertext gemara, with pieces of it linking into Rashis and Tosafot (the relevant commentaries) and so forth, which I�m sure has been done before, but I was pretty excited to do it myself.
Also, I�ve been working on putting together Jews in the Woods Israel, which is very exciting. It looks very feasible, if only I can drum up the interest. More on this to come. Earlier this week I spoke to the rosh yeshiva (or one of them anyway, it�s confusing) and convinced him (it didn�t take much) to start donating part of the charity money that the yeshiva collects to Sudan relief. (I also sent him some information to read at his request.) I picked the Jewish Disaster Relief Corps, figuring a Jewish organization was the way to go. I�m pretty proud of myself there. Also, I just picked up a bin at the hardware store and will be announcing at the next available lunch that students should place their paper waste in their so I can shlep it down to the nearest recycling bin (just a few minutes down the road, but we have no paper recycling in the yeshiva, which has been bothering me). So that�s what I�ve been up to, changing the world and so forth.
The gist of it is, trying to challenge myself, learning- and other-wise, not overdoing it. A lot of guys here are really studying all the time. Not for me yet. Still need my chill time. I try to fill in the little gaps with reading good Torah books, but otherwise, I don�t kill myself over it. Also, I�ve been reading �The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People� in the bathroom. Impressive stuff. I recommend it.
If I haven�t heard from you in a while, you should write me. Click here: [email protected]
Great, thanks.
Oh, last thing: I started putting up a few pictures from my room and other random yeshiva things at my pictures site: http://photos.yahoo.com/raffibilek. More to come soon!
9/27/04:
I�m home in Atlanta now for Yom Kippur and some of Sukkot. it�s hard to believe I�ve only had three weeks of classes so far. It feels like forever. One of my friends there rightly points out how intense it is, how much you change in such a short time. In such a tight environment, where everyone around you is a yeshiva-goer, all into learning and personal growth and all that, you get so driven that you forget the rest of the world isn�t like that. But you grow yourself a lot, day by day. It�s cool.
I definitely feel very lucky to be at this yeshiva (besides at yeshiva in general). We gets lots of personal attention, as I mentioned, and the rabbis are totally brilliant, and I love Rabbi Orlowek, who is a pretty well-known rabbi, and he just comes and tells us things about life, and the wisdom that comes out of his mouth, boy, ya gotta just eat it up. He basically gives lessons on how to be a happy person. They make me happy. Also, we have great food, courtesy of Mrs. Berger, and cake break every day, wherein Mrs. Berger bakes us a fresh cake every day. Oh yes.
What else? I�m still crazy. I wear nutty clothes around yeshiva, like bright orange shirts and flame-tipped Israeli-style pants (sharwallim). One of the rosh yeshiva guys is a little disapproving. The other, whom I�m very fond of, routinely compliments me on my dress. I�m fond of him.
Rosh Hashana was nuts. I was in shul (er, the beit midrash) for two days straight. I think the best part was when one of the guys went around yelling �Don�t forget everyone, bring your towels!� And then everyone came to shul with their beach towels. It was very amusing to me. (This was for the ritual where we bow down on the floor to God, but do not wish to actually be on the floor for idolatry-is-bad reasons. *shrug*) Yom Kippur, which I just spent here in Atlanta, was also sort of like that (long). I spent nine hours in shul during the daytime alone. Sheeeee.
Outside of yeshiva, I also got to see my cousins recently, whom I have not seen in four years. They�re a little different now. That�s definitely been a highlight of the past month. They�re awesome. I played battleship with 10-year old Yuval, and I schmoozed with 17-year old Michal, who�s preparing for the army next year, and I heard about army life from 19-year old Daniel. Cool.
That�s a pretty good summation. My head is a little too flitty right now to be systematic about this. More delightful updates to come then.
8/31/04:
First day of class� amazing! Started off with gemara class � there are four people in my class, including me. We�re taught by the rosh yeshiva (head of school). Wow. He�s pretty awesome. A real swell guy. Reminds me of Papa Smurf. Next we had a more lectury-style class by Rabbi Noach Orlowek, a guy with a huge reputation, for good reason. Extremely sharp, very funny, and a pleasure to be in class with. His class is about, hm, how to put it� how to live, I guess. Character traits, worldview, stuff like that. He�s going to talk about how to be happy. Happiness, anger, love, etc. Ask anything, he said, but don�t ask about politics or halacha. That�s not what the class is about. It�s a great class.
Afterwards, lunch, which was great � meals here really rock, especially considering I�m coming from a year of not rocking meals. In fact, to take a detour from the day�s schedule, just about everything here is going better than last year. (Maybe that was the ultimate purpose of last year? I.e., so that all the �little things� this year wouldn�t seem a downgrade from my �normal life,� but rather an upgrade, allowing me to focus on the important stuff? Just a thought I had.) Actually, make that everything except my room, which is about the size of the singles I had at Brown, and which I share with two other people, but all things considered, isn�t bad, �cause hey, I don�t really need the space for anything. So yeah, the bathrooms are bigger, the showers are bigger and cleaner, the food is better, I don�t have to shop for it, delicious fruit is comfortably provided, I can walk to a KOSHER food store, the refrigerators have room in them, the beit midrash is air conditioned, my room has an INCREDIBLE view, etc., etc. The people thing is going great too. I�m not terribly fond of my roommates, but at least I can count on the fact that they�re not JERKS, since everyone here is pretty much here to grow as a person and become a great guy and stuff. So even if you WERE a jerk, it kind of fades away after being here for a while. This also means that people just DO things, like wash dishes, sweep up, and so forth � there are chores here and all, but first off, you can count on people to do them, and second off, people do nice things all the time for each other, without putting it on some nice-thing tally for each other, and then holding it against each other, which is GREAT! Nothing spoils a good deed like knowing that the person who just did it for you is going to bring it up again later as a bargaining chip.
Right, enough ranting. After lunch and a lot more free time than I had expected, torah time with Rabbi Gershenfeld, one of the top reasons I�m here to begin with. He was worth it. He is brilliant. I remember getting the feeling a few times during the class that I was looking at some different kind of being housed in human skin. I got a heady feeling a few times from the enormity of the insights he was providing. It was pretty amazing. Turns out he was also a fencer at some point, as he mentioned in order to illustrate some point. This in addition to being a Fulbright scholar and a host of other incredible feats, in addition to the most brilliant Torah scholar I have ever personally met. Woo.
After that we had a class on mussar, ethics, with Rabbi Gershenfeld again, which will probably be better once we get into the main texts. Then I had a one-on-one tutoring session with a Rabbi from some other yeshiva (Beit-Gan?). Everyone gets one of those. It�s nuts. Some of the rabbi tutors are rosh yeshivas of other places, others are just really big smart guys from important yeshivas. Nuts. After that, back to my four-person group with yet another rabbi. Because we�re that special. Fish for dinner, then (now) optional evening study time.
Things are good so far. This is just day one though� don�t know how things will go. I�m a little bit starving for some singing, which I�m doing by myself, but mostly getting funny looks for. People are generally putting up with my ridiculous pants (and bare head). Yesterday a bunch of us guys went to Netanya, chilled out on a single-sex beach. Oh yeah. Got a shawarma. Nothing, but nothing in the States compares to a shawarma in Israel. Likewise wit hthe falafel. Had a falafel a few days ago � there is no falafel anywhere that can do what this falafel did. I don�t know what that is, but I liked it.
Wish me luck.
9/27/04:
I�m home in Atlanta now for Yom Kippur and some of Sukkot. it�s hard to believe I�ve only had three weeks of classes so far. It feels like forever. One of my friends there rightly points out how intense it is, how much you change in such a short time. In such a tight environment, where everyone around you is a yeshiva-goer, all into learning and personal growth and all that, you get so driven that you forget the rest of the world isn�t like that. But you grow yourself a lot, day by day. It�s cool.
I definitely feel very lucky to be at this yeshiva (besides at yeshiva in general). We gets lots of personal attention, as I mentioned, and the rabbis are totally brilliant, and I love Rabbi Orlowek, who is a pretty well-known rabbi, and he just comes and tells us things about life, and the wisdom that comes out of his mouth, boy, ya gotta just eat it up. He basically gives lessons on how to be a happy person. They make me happy. Also, we have great food, courtesy of Mrs. Berger, and cake break every day, wherein Mrs. Berger bakes us a fresh cake every day. Oh yes.
What else? I�m still crazy. I wear nutty clothes around yeshiva, like bright orange shirts and flame-tipped Israeli-style pants (sharwallim). One of the rosh yeshiva guys is a little disapproving. The other, whom I�m very fond of, routinely compliments me on my dress. I�m fond of him.
Rosh Hashana was nuts. I was in shul (er, the beit midrash) for two days straight. I think the best part was when one of the guys went around yelling �Don�t forget everyone, bring your towels!� And then everyone came to shul with their beach towels. It was very amusing to me. (This was for the ritual where we bow down on the floor to God, but do not wish to actually be on the floor for idolatry-is-bad reasons. *shrug*) Yom Kippur, which I just spent here in Atlanta, was also sort of like that (long). I spent nine hours in shul during the daytime alone. Sheeeee.
Outside of yeshiva, I also got to see my cousins recently, whom I have not seen in four years. They�re a little different now. That�s definitely been a highlight of the past month. They�re awesome. I played battleship with 10-year old Yuval, and I schmoozed with 17-year old Michal, who�s preparing for the army next year, and I heard about army life from 19-year old Daniel. Cool.
That�s a pretty good summation. My head is a little too flitty right now to be systematic about this. More delightful updates to come then.
8/31/04:
First day of class� amazing! Started off with gemara class � there are four people in my class, including me. We�re taught by the rosh yeshiva (head of school). Wow. He�s pretty awesome. A real swell guy. Reminds me of Papa Smurf. Next we had a more lectury-style class by Rabbi Noach Orlowek, a guy with a huge reputation, for good reason. Extremely sharp, very funny, and a pleasure to be in class with. His class is about, hm, how to put it� how to live, I guess. Character traits, worldview, stuff like that. He�s going to talk about how to be happy. Happiness, anger, love, etc. Ask anything, he said, but don�t ask about politics or halacha. That�s not what the class is about. It�s a great class.
Afterwards, lunch, which was great � meals here really rock, especially considering I�m coming from a year of not rocking meals. In fact, to take a detour from the day�s schedule, just about everything here is going better than last year. (Maybe that was the ultimate purpose of last year? I.e., so that all the �little things� this year wouldn�t seem a downgrade from my �normal life,� but rather an upgrade, allowing me to focus on the important stuff? Just a thought I had.) Actually, make that everything except my room, which is about the size of the singles I had at Brown, and which I share with two other people, but all things considered, isn�t bad, �cause hey, I don�t really need the space for anything. So yeah, the bathrooms are bigger, the showers are bigger and cleaner, the food is better, I don�t have to shop for it, delicious fruit is comfortably provided, I can walk to a KOSHER food store, the refrigerators have room in them, the beit midrash is air conditioned, my room has an INCREDIBLE view, etc., etc. The people thing is going great too. I�m not terribly fond of my roommates, but at least I can count on the fact that they�re not JERKS, since everyone here is pretty much here to grow as a person and become a great guy and stuff. So even if you WERE a jerk, it kind of fades away after being here for a while. This also means that people just DO things, like wash dishes, sweep up, and so forth � there are chores here and all, but first off, you can count on people to do them, and second off, people do nice things all the time for each other, without putting it on some nice-thing tally for each other, and then holding it against each other, which is GREAT! Nothing spoils a good deed like knowing that the person who just did it for you is going to bring it up again later as a bargaining chip.
Right, enough ranting. After lunch and a lot more free time than I had expected, torah time with Rabbi Gershenfeld, one of the top reasons I�m here to begin with. He was worth it. He is brilliant. I remember getting the feeling a few times during the class that I was looking at some different kind of being housed in human skin. I got a heady feeling a few times from the enormity of the insights he was providing. It was pretty amazing. Turns out he was also a fencer at some point, as he mentioned in order to illustrate some point. This in addition to being a Fulbright scholar and a host of other incredible feats, in addition to the most brilliant Torah scholar I have ever personally met. Woo.
After that we had a class on mussar, ethics, with Rabbi Gershenfeld again, which will probably be better once we get into the main texts. Then I had a one-on-one tutoring session with a Rabbi from some other yeshiva (Beit-Gan?). Everyone gets one of those. It�s nuts. Some of the rabbi tutors are rosh yeshivas of other places, others are just really big smart guys from important yeshivas. Nuts. After that, back to my four-person group with yet another rabbi. Because we�re that special. Fish for dinner, then (now) optional evening study time.
Things are good so far. This is just day one though� don�t know how things will go. I�m a little bit starving for some singing, which I�m doing by myself, but mostly getting funny looks for. People are generally putting up with my ridiculous pants (and bare head). Yesterday a bunch of us guys went to Netanya, chilled out on a single-sex beach. Oh yeah. Got a shawarma. Nothing, but nothing in the States compares to a shawarma in Israel. Likewise wit hthe falafel. Had a falafel a few days ago � there is no falafel anywhere that can do what this falafel did. I don�t know what that is, but I liked it.
Wish me luck.
Read on about what I did last year and beyond...
