My New Favorite Jewish Custom

Ok.

Judaism is full of different types of customs and traditions. I have experienced many of them, but none like the one I did today!

I went with a HUGE group (about 50 people) to the shuk (marketplace) to go do Kaparot. It is when you take a chicken, grab it by it’s wing’s and swing it over your head. Each chicken costs 50 Sheckles, and it all goes to charity.

The concept of the tradition is that you are transferring your sins over to the chicken before Yom Kippur, where you repent for your sins. You do this by swinging it over your head 3 times, and saying a prayer. After you are done, the chicken is slaughtered (kosher, of course) and donated to a family that can’t afford a meal before the holiday!

It was truly a bizarre, and fun way to prepare for Yom Kippor.

Here are some pictures!

Here I am, holding my chicken!

Yet another one of me holding him!

Here I am, in action!

Here's my hand, aftermath!

High Holidays; Higher Fevers

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday/weekend! I’ll pick up with my blog right where I left off!

So after the mikvah, I took a nice nap, and got ready for holiday! I made a couple of phone calls to friends and family, took a shower and got dressed up for the holiday! I then went down and took pictures with friends before services! Yossi Garr, the Nativ director lead the service, which was really cool, because I got view him from a different perspective than I normally do! After he lead a beautiful service, where I got chills from everybody singing, we had an interesting dinner. It amazes me how much I can learn about Judaism, even though I already know so much!

I learned that there is actually a Seder (in Hebrew: order) for Rosh Hashanah!

Some of the items that were on our table were beets, dates, honey, and a HUGE DEAD FISH HEAD! It was so gross, and so cool at the same time. It was awesome, but it kinda freaked a lot of people out (me included! Have you ever eaten a meal with a dead fish staring at you? Its really uncomfortable!)

After dinner, I did the coolest thing I’ve done yet. We (about 15 people) walked to immen Moshe, an overlook of the old city. Walking there was so cool, because we could walk in the road, as there were almost no cars driving on the holiday! Only in Jerusalem… At Immen Moshe, we could see the walls being illuminated with lights, and the gold of the Jerusalem shining, even at night. It was absolutely beautiful. The fifteen of us sat down and started to sing niggumin (wordless songs) and songs about Israel. The sound was magnificent. So magnificent that the tourist who were coming by to Immen Moshe were all stopping, and taking pictures and videos (even though it was a chag) of us. It was a really spectacular experience, and was definitely the highlight of my holiday. It is one of those moments that you just had to be at to experience the power and beauty of. Hopefully my description gave you a little taste!

The next morning, I went with about half of my kehilla group to a conservative synagogue called Ma’anot. The service was… not the amazing religious experience that I was looking for. It was slow, I couldn’t get “into” it, and the person leading had bad voice as well as selected uninteresting melodies. After the service, David and I went to a host family’s house for lunch! The host family we went to was from Britain and we (Helf and I) weren’t quite sure of the family dynamic. He said he had 3 kids, but there was a nephew and the guy said that he was working on trading kids? It was an… interesting… meal. On the bright side, we met a (beautiful) girl, who just turned 19 last week, and joined the army 3 days early. That was all that I needed to make my meal great. =) What a great way to meet nice Jewish girls! We spent the rest of the day relaxing, praying and hanging out with friends, enjoying our lack of electronics!

The next morning, I went with 15(ish) other people to a synagogue called “Kedem” (like the grape juice!). Now THAT is what I was looking for in a service! Since the synagogue is conservative, there is no rabbi or cantor, and it is completely lay-lead. The girl that was leading did not have the greatest voice, but she picked great melodies and I felt comfortable in the service! I even got the Levy aliyah, which was totally awesome! A bunch of other nativers also got Aliyot, and we felt completely welcomed, which as absolutely amazing! I know that Kedem is a synagogue that I will enjoy going back to in the future! Like Saturday, we spent the rest of the day relaxing, napping, and not doing anything exciting! After the holiday ended, I went with a bunch of boys to Café Joe to watch some football! It was awesome, but I went back to base at halftime, cause I was tired.

The next morning I woke up, feeling absolutely horrible. I walked my way to services with a huge headache and was not looking forward to the day. I walked into the room where we pray, and my staff took one look at me, and sent me back to bed. I had a terrible cough, producing green phlegm. So I went back to bed for another 5 hours. After I woke up again, I had lunch and went to Hebrew University so I could catch my Jerusalem class. Big mistake. I went for half the class, and then had to leave, as nausea hit me really badly. I’ll save you the details, but I was sick, so I went to bed at like 8, sleeping until 7 in the morning the next day. I woke up the next morning (in case your lost, this is Tuesday morning) and went to the doctor. It took about 20 minutes to walk to there and then I spent about 2 hours inside the doctor’s office. Nativ’s insurance policy paid for everything, so that was really cool. I was diagnosed with a Sinus Infection, and I was given antibiotics (again, Nativ’s insurance paid for it!), went back to base, and fell asleep for the rest of the day. I am now feeling much better!

So, last week, I had an interview with Magen David Adom (MADA), the jewish red cross. The interview was to see if I would be qualified to become an EMT, and help out in the ambulances here in Israel. I was nervous, because I don’t know Hebrew well, and you should have decent background knowledge of it to get in. I went into the interview thinking that I wouldn’t get in, but I wanted to try. Anyways… I GOT IN!!!! So, in about 2 weeks, I am going to begin my intensive training, and I will keep you updated with that!!!

Tonight, I went to do something amazing, but I’m going to make it it’s own post.

See you soon!

שנה טובה ומתוקה!

Shana Tovah Umetuka!

A happy and sweet new year to you all!!!

I’ll drop a quick update to you all before I turn my computer and all electronics off for the weekend (until sundown on Sunday!)

This morning, we woke up at 830, davened and had a quick breakfast. We then went down to the basement of beit nativ and had a study session. There were 3 – 45 minute sessions available; with each session have 4 different options of things to study.

The first session that I went to was studying the torah portion that is read during the second day of Rosh Hashanah, also known עקידת יצחק (Akedat Yitzchak). Or better known as the “Binding of Isaac”. This is when g-d goes to Abraham and tells him to slaughter his son, Isaac. Abraham obeys and when he is about to sacrifice his favorite son, an angel of g-d stops him, telling him to sacrifice a nearby ram instead. The angel did this because Abraham showed that he had complete faith in g-d, and had trust. To me, this story is amazing, and shows how strong a person's belief can be. But other people in the limud (class) were voicing their opinion on how they disliked the story because some people don’t know why g-d would ask that of anyone… I find it interesting to see other people’s perspective on the torah!

The second limud I went to was all about the service and the machzor (books used for the high holidays). It was interesting and I learned a lot about the upcoming services. We learned the difference between the high holiday services and a normal Shabbat or daily service. It was really interesting and I learned a lot, even though I thought I wouldn’t.

The third and final limud I went to was learning about the traditions, customs and laws for Rosh Hashanah. Once again, I felt like I wasn’t going to learn that much, but the joke was on me, as I learned SO much and had a fun time while doing it!

After we finished, we (Seffi, Josh, David, Tyler, Judah and I) went out for lunch. We wanted to go get pizza, but we were sick of the same pizza place that was a 15-minute walk away. So we found a new place, about 5 minutes away, which was the same price, run by an American who made aliyah (moved to Israel) and tasted amazing. I think we found our new go-to place for pizza!

After the pizza, the boys and I went to do something that I’ve never done, nor would I have ever thought to ever do. We went to a mikvah (a spiritual bath). The purpose of a mikvah (in our case) is to achieve ritual purity for the new upcoming year. It was a totally amazing experience! It started out by each of us going into a little booth to undress and take a shower before going into the mikvah. After we were done in the shower, we would individual go into the mikvah, say the Schecheyanu (the prayer said on special/new/unusual occasions) and dunk our heads underwater 3 times, so we were completely submerged, then got out. Once we left the mikvah water, we were considered to be “pure”. Although it sounds kinda weird and unusual, it was a great experience, and it set the tone for the upcoming transition into the Jewish year of 5770!

i’ll update you all after the holiday and let you know how it goes! I wish the best to everyone reading this and shana tova to all!

Love Always,
Seth Daniel

Seth Does Laundry and Not Much Else..

Hello Once again!

Well, I promised not to let real life get too far ahead of my blog, so I figured that now would be a good time to catch you all up on the happenings here in Jerusalem!

Monday morning began as normal, with Tefillah, breakfast, and Ulpan. But then something exciting happened at 2 pm! Instead of walking down and across the campus, to my Jerusalem class, we walked to the bus and went back to Beit Nativ! Turns out, that this week, we only have Jerusalem class on Sunday and Thursday, which means that we get to go back to base, and chill for the rest of the night! Boo Ya!!!!

So when I got back at 2:30 on Monday, I sat in my bed, thinking about things that I could go to kill time, since I didn’t have any homework that was do the next day (if I was at home, mom would have told me to get ahead.) But I’m not at home, so I did other things, such as… LAUNDRY! I took my big, very heavy bag of clothes, and brought it downstairs to the laundry room, and started to do 2 loads! Turns out that knowing how to do your laundry is something that is

a) Extremely useful
b) Important to know before you leave for college/Israel

So, with that being said, I must say thank you to Ann Lerman for grounding me so many times that I now know how to do my own laundry! (Just kidding mom!) [But seriously. She did]

I spent the rest of Monday night relaxing and not doing much of anything else. I studied for the quiz I had in my Ulpan class the next day (we have one almost everyday)

Lets see… I don’t mean to sound boring, but basically every night this past week I’ve stayed in, and done random things, such as studying and what not… but I’ll give you a list of semi-exciting things that have been happening around here.

a) On Monday, I tried out for the nativ acapella group. I know it’s kinda ironic, because I have a terrible voice, but I feel like there is enough talent in the group, that if I don’t sing soo loud, you wont notice me. Which would be clutch. So yeah. I’ll let you know how that works out.

b) On Wednesday, I had an interview for Magen David Adom (the Jewish red cross) to see if I could qualify for the training program. If I were to get accepted, it would only be for the first semester when I am in Israel. I still want to help teach English to students second semester… they asked me 2 questions in Hebrew, and I was totally lost, so they asked again in English, and I responded in (very basic) Hebrew. They asked my questions such as “do you want to go intoa medical field after college?” and “why do you want to do this?” I think I did pretty decently… we’ll see how it turns out..

c) Today in Jerusalem class, we did something new, that was totally amazing. This Jerusalem class really kinda bores me a lot because I know a lot of what we are talkig about and until today, been to all of the places that we’ve gone to. Today, we were learning about the Christian view of Jerusalem, which was totally intresting, and informative. We learned the history and life of Jesus, starting from where he was born to where he was crucified. I never knew much about Christianity, and I thought it was interesting to learn so much! Afterwards, we went to the church where Jesus was crucified.

If you look at this picture, under the table is a hole in the ground where the cross was planted during the crucifixion. The lady in this picture is kneeling down and kissing and praying at the site.



This picture shows you where Jesus was taken into the cave after he died. It was also here when his pupils came 2 days later, and couldn’t find him (Easter Sunday).




It was an incredibly interesting day and I learned so much. I think today inspired me to take a religion class while here in Israel.

Alright. That’s about all for now!

one HUGE update

[PREFACE] OK. So this post is really really REALLY ridiculously long, because I haven’t updated you in a long time. I apologize for that. I promise (to the best of my ability) to not let it happen again!


Hello Everyone!

So, I have some free time, so I figured that I would catch you all up on the happenings over here in Israel! Since I last updated you, A LOT has happened here at Beit Nativ. Thursday night was our first free night in Israel, almost everyone in the program went out to have fun! I went out to eat with some friends and hang out on Ben Yehuda Street (a place full of stores and restaurants. VERY popular, especially late at night!). We hung out until late at night, chilling, and eating schwarma (it was awesome). We decided that we should head back to base around 2:30 in the morning.

On Friday, we woke up (probably earlier than any of us wanted to wake up), and had breakfast. Almost immediately after breakfast, we headed on to a bus to head out on a hike. The nice leisurely hike took over 4 hours, and was almost 5 miles long. After spending the rest of the day relaxing, trying to recover and we got ready for Shabbat. That night, we took a 15-minute walk to a nice park, which overlooked the old city, and prayed, while watching the sunset over the city. It was absolutely beautiful. That night, we went back to beit nativ and had a dinner (which was actually pretty decent) and had a rauch session. It was a great way to spend my first Shabbat in Israel.

Saturday Morning, we woke up, and had a light snack before services. Then Josh, Tyler, Meir, and Aaron Leven all went on an adventure to find a little synagogue called “Kol Rina”. This synagogue is located in the bottom of a building, in a bomb shelter. With that description, you can imagine how hard it was to find the place. We spent almost an hour walking around Jerusalem, looking for the place. We passed it about 2 to 3 times before realizing that we found it. The service itself was one of the most magical experiences that I’ve ever had. The Cantor spoke incredible English and the melody of everything was beautiful. I can’t wait until I have the opportunity to go back there! After services, we walked back to Beit Nativ, this time, only taking us about 10-15 minutes (soo short) and hung out with a lot of people on Nativ, relaxing, enjoying Shabbat. After Shabbat ended, we were quickly escorted onto a bus, and taken about 45 minutes away, to a city called ‘Ramat Gan’. In Ramat Gan, we went to see the Israeli national soccer (football) team play the Latvia national team, in a world cup qualifying game. Even though Israel lost, the game was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had. All of the Israelis were soo crazy, and bursting with national pride. It was totally awesome. The cheers were really easy to learn, and participate in.

The next morning, we had to get up bright and early for our Hebrew University orientation! We took a tour of the building, got our class schedules, and ate lunch.

For the next three weeks, I will be having the same exact schedule for Sundays-Thursdays. It starts off by waking up at 7:00 or 7:15 in the morning, (depending on if we were reading torah), and go to services. I then go back to my room at about 7:50 (after services) and shower and get ready for the day. After I take a shower, I grab a small bite to eat (cereal [trix] and milk [1%] [[both of which Adam and I purchased because we didn’t like the food provided]]). I then go downstairs and take a coach bus at 8:25 with everyone else to Hebrew University, which (depending on the day) takes anywhere form 15 minutes to 45 minutes. It is now currently Ramadan, which means that a lot of people are out and about in the morning.

Once we get to H.U., I go into a Hebrew Ulpan class from 9 am to 1:15 pm. This Ulpan class is an intense Hebrew learning course, where we speak barely any English, and learn SOOOO much. In the 5 days that I have been I class, I feel like I have learned more Hebrew than ever before in my life. Our teacher can now walk in, speaking only Hebrew, and we can all understand her! It’s the coolest feeling ever!

After the class ends at 1:15, we have a 45-minute lunch break. The cafeteria at H.U. is actually really amazing, and has an incredible assortment of lunch foods available. To this day, I have had: Chinese Chicken, Teriyaki Chicken, Roast Beef, and Schnitzel. Every day I have a new option, and they are all great! With the meal comes your choice of sides (I get fries and rice), an Israeli salad, a diet coke and a dessert. It is a good way to break up our day

At 2 PM, I meet up with 25 other kids from Nativ for our Jerusalem Class. In this class, we sit in a lecture about the city of Jerusalem (which is actually really boring, but factual) and then we go out and explore the area that we were just talking about (which is actually really cool – except for the fact that I’ve already done most of the things we are doing). It just really puts an amazing perspective on how everything really relates to modern day Israel. It’s totally amazing!

That class gets done around at 5 PM, and from then until the next morning, we have free time to do whatever we want. Some of the nights, there are mandatory programs, run by Nativ, that are really interesting.

Here’s How I’ve Spent the past couple of nights, since the days have all been (basically) the same!

Monday: 3 friends (David, Seffi and Judah) joined up with us after missing a week of the trip. It was so good to see them and have them be with us. I really missed hanging with them, and it was good to have more friends here. That night, Helfand (aka Helf aka David), Seffi (aka Seffi), Tyler (aka T-Pain), Josh (aka J-Mills) and I all went and got new siddurim (the koren [produced by the orthodox union]) and kippot on Ben Yehuda. We then went to break them in by walking to the western wall and praying. It was absolutely amazing to see the wall lit up at night and to be able to break in my new siddur there.

Tuesday: Every Tuesday night, there is a mandatory Nativ program. At this program, we learned some more rules and guidelines then did an icebreaker program with some crazy guy who was kinda neurotic. It was… interesting…

Wednesday: It was one of our friend’s, Ilana Rosenzweig’s, birthday, so we decided to go out for a nice dinner. Since we are old, and sophiscticated, we tried some different types of wines. It was a great way to celebrate and relax! After the dinner, we walked back to base, and ran into a jazz music festival, which was totally amazing. So we stayed there for about an hourish and enjoyed the music

Thursday: We had a September 11th program, which was really astonishing. We heard Yossi tell us his story, which was incredibly personal and we watch United 93. I’ve never seen it before, and thought it was a very powerful movie. I know how 9/11 affected my life, but to hear other people’s personal stories, and see how they are affected, really put an interesting perspective on things…

Friday – Saturday Night: I packed up my bags and went up north to Tiberias with 14 [yes, that’s not a typo.. 14] other Nativers for Shabbat. It was a 2.5 hour bus ride and was actually really easy to get to. We stayed at hoTEL AVIV (the pun is intended), which was located right across the street from the kinneret (the only fresh water lake in Israel) We did Friday night services, and then spent the rest of the night hanging out at the beach and enjoying each others company! The next morning we slept late (finally!!) and spent the day just relaxing around the hotel/town/beach. It was a great way to spend Shabbat and I had a great time!

Ok. So im hitting my limit, and its 1:20 in the morning. So I’m going to call it a wrap now!

I’ll update more frequently, so my posts wont be nearly as long.

To leave you, I’ll give you some links to enjoy!

My Second Photo Album
My First Photo Album
Tyler’s Blog
My Friend Jordana’s Blog (totally awesome, she’s a great writer, you should for sure check it out)
Helf’s Blog
Judah’s Blog


Alright….

Peace out girl scout!

Quick Update part 2

Ok.

so you may have seen a nice video of beit nativ on this webpage.
and now, you may notice, that it disappeared.

i took it down (on my own, [i.e. i was NOT asked to by anyone, nor was i in trouble]) because of security reasons.

we had a long talk about keeping things safe here on beit nativ, and i feel that having a video that shows where people sleep, local hang out areas, etc. was not very good.

i hope you understand!

update you tonight!

Seth

Quick Update

Hey Y'All...

so, a big update is coming soon (tommorrow)
but until then...

check this out!

Shalom!

Hello from Israel!

So, lets catch you up on the recent happenings of my life!

On Tuesday, September 1st, I got on a plane in chicago, and took it to JFK. I then waited and met people from my program while we waited for our next flight, which would take us to ISRAEL! After about 8 hours in JFK airport, I got on an 'EL AL' 747, with about 60 kids from my program, and we were off!

During the 9 and a half hour flight, i slept for about 8 hours, and talked with other people on Nativ! Once landing in israel, and collecting all of our luggage, we hopped on a bus, and went to a look out, where we had a pep talk, from the Nativ Director, Yossi Garr. He took us to an interesting spot. In front of us, was the city of jerusalem, behind us was the city of tel aviv. directly to our left was a mall, with food and stores, and to our right, was a bunker from the war of independence. Yossi told us that during our year, we would all find our place in israel. whether it was modern (the mall to our left) or historical (the bunker to our right), religous (jerusalem) or fun and social (tel aviv). it was a really cool place, and really put things into perspective!

Once we got back to Beit Nativ (our base and home for the next couple of months) we found out who our roommates are. I am rooming with 2 guys, Tyler and Adam. Tyler is from New York and went to ramah in canada. Adam is from Minnesota, and went to ramah wisconsin. they are both really awesome people to be with and hang out with. My friend Josh from home is just down the hallway, so its really easy to see him as well. our room has a huge porch, unlike any other room in the building [=)], which connects to the main area of our building. i feel really fortunate to be in such a good location, with good people, in a big room!

This morning, we woke up, davened (prayed), ate breakfast (wasn't a big fan at all =/) and did ice breakers! after ice breakers, we took a little walk in jerusalem, which was beautiful. even though my computer says that its 86 degrees, it really feels much hotter! i know i'll be burning through the deoderant pretty quickly!

Ok. it's 1 PM now, and im off to lunch!

i'll update you later!