Shavuout

Shavuout. Three words. Walk. Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Ok. 5 words. This was the craziest holiday ever to celebrate in Israel. But thank G-d I was able to do it! This is how it went…we waited until sundown to light our Yom Tov (holiday) candles. Just before sundown, I was outside right by the entrance to our building, and I saw the most beautiful sunset and landscape before my eyes. My building is quite high up on the hills (Har Nof, the suburb, is known for its hill-iness), so I had this wonderful view of other hills (really, something in between hills and mountains) and other towns dotting them. As well as the most gorgeous sunrise – a red sun with a pink shade spreading across the sky. I am so blessed to have such a view from outside my apartment!

Racheli, a Romanian Jewish (!) girl who has been living in England for a while and now wants to make aliyah, went with me to the Winacours, our hosts for Shavuout dinner. They turned out to be Scottish Jews! Never even knew that there were any…Mr. (or Rabbi? You never know…) Winacour definitely had a small, yet detectable Scottish accent. Thank goodness! Or else, you never know if you can understand those Scots or not! They had 4 kids ranging from 18 to 4 years old. The 16 year old girl had her friend from school over and they wouldn’t stop giggling and messing around. It was quite funny. The friend had 5 bracelets that said “I love Boobies” on them. I stared and asked if that was allowed at her religious high school?! She said that they were breast cancer awareness bracelets, and that everyone in the US had them. Really? Never seen those before. Shavuout is a holiday where most people have a minchag (custom) to eat dairy. Mrs. Winacour made a delicious quiche and homemade cheesecake. The boys (18 year old and 12 year old) were unhappy about this. Such men! Although I, myself, am looking forward to meat on Shabbat. Meat and fish are expensive, so the school doesn’t serve this for lunch. I’ll be buying fish again, just like in Paris. It really is a Paris repeat! Plus, my internet sucks here, too! I totally thought I was done with that. But I’m not too surprised – we’re stealing it from the neighbors.

Ok, that was a tangent. Anyway, after the nice dinner, we headed over to the seminary for some shiurim (lectures). There is a custom to stay up all night and learn Torah. This is because the Jewish people fell asleep as they waited for Moses to come back from Mt. Sinai, where he received the Torah. Sleep! When they were about to receive the most miraculous gift ever! So, in order to make up for that, we have this custom. We had three speakers who were very good. I was ok because I had those 17.5 hours of jetlag sleep. Then, at 3:45 am in the morning, we embarked on our arduous journey to the Kotel (Western Wall), a 1.5 hour walk. I had to make sure that I didn’t get lost from the group, because there were only a few people who knew how to get to and from the Kotel. As we walked, we were joined by other Jews! It was very cool. There weren’t waves of them yet, because we were quite early compared to most. But still. The city was quiet – the only cars we saw were on the few main roads. It was quite tiring, this walk. But it was good to have others to support you.

It was about 5am as we approached the Kotel, there was a huge amount of people there already. There was even security to go through, though it wasn’t very tough because of the amount of people pushing to get through! I stayed with a few other girls, meditating and waiting for 5:33am, the earliest we could say the morning prayer. We saw the night get light as the sun rose from behind the wall – it was magical to be there. People were standing and praying on rooftops near the Kotel, and the sun slowly illuminated them. Of course, we couldn’t get to the very Wall, but we stood close enough. I took my time, saying the whole Shemonei Esrei in Hebrew (I usually do half Hebrew half English). By this time, I was exhausted and hungry. It was even hard to comprehend the magic of the moment due to these bodily troubles. A Shearim alumni living in the Old City invited all of us to rest and eat breakfast in her apartment. This was so nice of her, and she was even expecting a baby any moment and STILL did this for us!

The hardest was the walk back. We started at 7:30am and made it back by 9am. Couldn’t have done it alone. Thank goodness I was with others. My feet were aching...straight to bed we went. Woke up somewhere in the afternoon to have lunch. Went back to sleep. Then, woke up for a really nice communal dinner with two other Shearim girls. We stayed up until past midnight, talking. Went to bed. Woke up at 11am. Had another communal meal. Took a walk around Har Nof. Played Bananagrams (with a new, fun version!), chatted with some girls who came. Had dinner. And, finally, ended the holiday. VERY long holiday. Plus, Israelis only keep one day of Yom Tov while the rest of us have to keep two. So while we were out, buses were running, people were driving, cells were out…it was unfair haha! After everything, Melody, Laura, and I did one of the workout tapes that Melody’s personal trainer from Chicago burned for her to take to Israel. It’s called P90X. It was 50 minutes of intense workout – we were tired, sweaty, and happy by the end. We resolved to work out a few times a week with different tapes. I hope we pull through – we could be quite in shape if we do! But wow, are we going to be sore tomorrow…

Ahava from Israel!

Elina

**Getting ready for Shavuout!