wow. hi people. my blogs are so behind.
the night before we went to turkey was a cool jewish holiday. it's called the 'Lag BaOmer' and is the 33rd day of Omer. i have no idea what any of that means. but here's my best shot: the jews count the days between passover and the Pentecost. a long time ago, on the 33rd day one of the big rabbis of old day's got this sick revelation. i don't know exactly what it was, and i think mostly mystic jews really incorporate it into their practice...
the day also aligns with an old pagan holiday that was associated with my favorite summer past times... bonfires. YES.
so. our professors encouraged to wander out into the ultra-orthodox jewish neighborhoods as the sun went down (signifying the end of the sabbath) and find some bonfires. it was kinda scary and i wasn't sure i was down to go out to a neighborhood we had never been to, with zero guarantee of finding anything.. but it was awesome.
the neighborhood was nutty. it wasn't nice at all, lots of cement and trash. it looked like a palestinian neighborhood. what did surprise me was how desperate they were in their call for modesty. as we entered the neighborhood, signs like this were everywhere:
maybe it's just my experience, but i feel like you would never see something like this in america. it's interesting to me how the jews expect everyone rise to their standards/what they view as normal. i feel like in america and most other places people are welcome to come as they are.
anyways, we continued to wander around for a long time, waiting for the sun to go down. it was still the sabbath, so all the jews were in their houses. eventually we got to a school/university thing where young adult jews study the torah. we have learned about these schools in class. it was definitely getting dark and we were starting to worry we weren't gonna find a bonfire, so we decided to suck it up and ask someone. we thought everyone in this neighborhood was hebrew and didn't speak any english... to our surprise, the two students we talked to (young guys with beards, typical jewish getup with the top hats, black suit coats and tassels) were totally AMERICAN. what??? I guess it is typical for them to just take a temporary hiatus from normal life to come to Israel and study the torah. so bizarre to me. we had an awesome, awesome conversation with them and i feel like i learned more about judaism and the culture here in our hour-long conversation then i have in 6 weeks of classes. a lot of the students at these schools are american and both of the guys we were talking to were from new york. as more and more students started walking out (it was getting later, so more and more people had finished their sabbath worship) we drew quite a crowd. there were a lot of people standing around us listening in our conversation. it was funny. i can tell you a lot about those schools now, but i don't think i have the energy to write it all down. if you wanna know, give me a call ;)
we talked for a while, when finally a car drove by us. the main guy we were talking to paused and said something to the effect of 'that is a stereotypical sign that the sabbath is over.' jews can't do work on the sabbath so they don't drive their cars. i thought it was funny that something as simple as driving a car down the street of your neighborhood symbolized the end of a day. we wrapped up our conversation and they directed us to where we would be able to find a bonfire.
the bonfires weren't hard to find. all you had to do was follow the smoke and the hoards of people. they were HUGE. i don't know how we didn't burn the whole city down. the buildings are so tightly packed, everything would've been up in flames in two minutes. the only thing that saved us is the fact there is literally 0 greenery and every building is stone.
as per tradition, after passover, the kids start collecting a ton of junk to build these HUGE mounds for the bonfire. there was tons of stuff, pallets, chairs, random junk from houses, plastic, basically anything. it was crazy to me that they let these little elementary kids be in charge of something so massive. the mound itself was in their school playground! they lit the fire and were on the front lines of the crowd watching it. i still can't even put into words how huge and scary this bonfire was. i have seen some crazy ones people build down at lake powell and stuff... i promise this was bigger... and it was in the middle of a residential area!!!!
at one point a firetruck did show up. it was comical to see it navigate the crazy narrow streets. some firefighters hopped out and soaked down a couple things, just in case. to be honest, they came too late and missed the fire when it was super huge. i think they would've put it out if they saw how big it was at that point
after the fires died down and the people dispersed we headed out to try and find a place with a street name we recognized so we could call a van to come get us. it took a while cause we were definitely in the middle of a place we had never been before. we did find a cool bakery place with awesome hot bread and cookies that opened as the sabbath ended. we all got a little hot loaf and nonmed as we were driven home to the jc. it was cool. when we got home we walked through the biblical gardens and could see all of the city. you could here music and see the glow of fires all over. it was awesome. definitely one of those 'i won't forget this any time soon' moments. it was a cool, cool day and an amazing cultural experience.
i almost forgot! the day before we had a tour of the underground part of the JC. underneath the JC is series of tunnels, kind of like Disney World's utilidoor. one of the funny security guys led us through. he doesn't think it's that cool cause he's down there every day and it's just pipes and wires, but we were stoked. on one of the levels all of the walls are covered by the names of everyone that has been at the JC since the late nineties and he brought a bunch of markers so we could add our names. it was awesome. i found names of a lot of friends and it was cool to feel like i was part of something more than just my group.
i hope everyone is doing great! thanks for keeping up with me.
xo
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