Happy Gobble Gobble! (11/25)

Thanksgiving is an American holiday. And an Israeli one if you know the right people. It's not exactly a holiday here - we had ulpan this morning and I had class this afternoon, and most people went to their jobs today like any other Thursday in Israel - BUT - if your American cousins made aliyah (moved to Israel) and invite you to their house for Thanksgiving Dinner, it's a holiday!

Debbie picked me up right from class when it finished at 5pm. We sat in a bunch of traffic on the way to their house (not so unusual for Jerusalem) and got here just in time to greet all of the guests arriving at 6pm. By the time we pulled up in the driveway, some families had already arrived, but Josh was home putting the finishing touches on everything. They invited the other Americans in their yishuv/community and most people brought food with them - salad, stuffing, potatoes, desserts - looking just like a Thanksgiving feast back home! The place was crowded - lots of families, lots of kids, lots of toys, and lots of noise. Debbie set up a projector on the patio to show last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. For a while, it had many of the kids captivated! I enjoyed reminiscing about last year's parade experience - in a 2nd floor apartment on Central Park West overlooking the parade route, trying to make people outside jealous of us inside, but it was a particularly warm day so that didn't work. Oh well.

Anyway the dinner was great - I ate way too much of course, especially carbs. Stuffing, sweet potatoes, and also a bunch of salad. Then dessert - brownies, cookies, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and of course rugelach from Marzipan, the only thing I was able to contribute. All was great, all was too much, hopefully no tummy problems later.

Well I'm hoping to catch an early night to bed, as it's been a long day and a long week of intensive ulpan and interning and a siyur/field trip to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), so it may be time soon to hit the hay.

Laila tov/good night and Chag Thanksgiving Sameach/Happy Thanksgiving!

Keramika Klass Part 2 (11/24)

Ceramics class #2 - check!

Miles taught us how to make coil pots tonight, and we had the option to make anything that would hold ice cream, among other things. I made what will hopefully turn into a mug, which I started calling my hot chocolate mug, but really if it comes out ok, it can be used as an anything mug - hot chocolate, tea, and even ice cream, or my favorite - CEREAL!

Today we made the coil pots, they will dry out over the next week, Miles will take them to the kiln (where clay is baked) and in 2 weeks, we will be painting or glazing them. Then he will take them back to the kiln for the colors to set in, and the week after, we will enjoy our ice cream together.

Ceramics has been very therapeutic for all of us who have gone, I believe. Miles is an art therapist so some of the tactics he uses must come from that mindset. Something about getting your hands dirty, relaxing, having a lot of time and creative juices flowing, is very therapeutic. So no complaints from me. And hopefully a nice actual tangible object to come out of this in the end.

Oh yeah and remember that converse-esque shoe I made last week? Well I left it for Miles and we'll see how much of it stays together versus falls apart (versus what already fell apart) and how it turns out after going in the kiln. It's a good thing I don't care all that much about it and I'm going with the flow because I don't have much of an option otherwise!

Hebrew is a beautiful (and frustrating) language

Hebrew is both a beautiful and a frustrating language. It is frustrating because it is not my first language, and I think learning any language that is not your first, will always be frustrating. There are also nuances that are much different in Hebrew than in English, so I can't think one word at a time; there are phrases and parts of speech that have to be just right to make sense in Hebrew. That being said, Hebrew is actually a really beautiful language and sometimes makes a lot of sense, being built from shorashim (roots) and binyanim (structures or buildings) of verbs.

Example (and of course, comments are welcome because obviously my Hebrew is still very basic, and explaining it in English doesn't do it much justice):

The word "shopping" as a noun, is ken-ee-YOOT. The sounds K-N-T are present.

The verb "to buy" is leek-NOTE. The sound is also K-N-T.

The word "mall" as a noun, is ken-YONE. No clear T sound but the K-N combination is there.

The word "shop" or "store" as a noun, is cha-NOOT (the throat cleansing "ch" not like in "cheese"). No clear K sound but the N-T combination is there.

Just the one example for now...will add to it as time goes on. Suggestions welcome :)

Shabbat B'yachad/together (11/19-11/20)

Shabbad B'yachad is a wonderful part of our WUJS program. Our first Shabbat B'yachad experience was actually Chag/Sukkot B'yachad because it took place during the holiday of Sukkot. We all had dinner together and an oneg (dessert reception of sorts) and played some games. The next day we met to learn together, share activities together, and even have another meal together! This time, things were a little different.

This time, Shabbat B'yachad wasn't mandatory. Those who wanted to sign up could attend any or all parts of the program: the trip to the JBO (previous post), Shabbat services, Shabbat dinner, oneg, games, Shabbat lunch, learning/Torah discussion, Havdallah (the separation ceremony between Shabbat and the rest of the week), and Israeli dancing. Needless to say, I participated in EVERYTHING! Not only did I participate in everything, but I helped to organize the dinner in a fairly substantial way. I helped to organize our group attending a minyan (group) for Shabbat evening services (at Bnei IKAR, a group that uses drumming and community leaders to pray), and helped arrange the meal itself and the room setup and decoration. I had no problem doing it; in fact I enjoyed it! I am on the Shabbat meals committee so we threw around some emails with some ideas ahead of time. We decided to do a dairy meal with lots of healthy vegetarian options, so everyone had to think of what they wanted to bring. I decided to make a vegetarian chicken parmesean. Knowing it was going to be comparably more expensive than some other items people would be bringing, I snatched some money from Yonit who gladly pitched in financially and let me do the work of cooking it, which was so much fun! It ended up coming out looking and tasting absolutely delicious, and I'm really glad I kept some extras for myself. I also made a salad of chopped cucumber, red and yellow peppers, and carrots, tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. So much yummy food! Can you say...leftovers???

Before the meal, the Shabbat rituals committee explained many of the rituals and customs we perform on Shabbat, in the theme of "Shabbat 101" so we could all learn some basics about the traditions. Danit, Rachelle, and Josh each led or instructed at various times throughout the pre-meal and during-meal festivities, and a lot was learned by all. The meal itself was fantastic and was followed by oneg/dessert and then we went outside to play some games. Yonit is good at coming up with games to play. This one was more of an activity than a game, you could say, but it was very interesting, very fun, and very telling about us as a group. Each of us took one word from a baggie filled with words on paper, had to look at the word, and give it to another person in the circle to whom it was appropriate. Some people may get more than one word; others may not get any. After everyone has given their words, we each say which words we received and from which person, who then explains to all of us why the word was chosen.

All in all, it was very telling about how well we have gotten to know each other. I got all the hippie/environmental words, as well as HOCKEY because a little birdy in a tree (Josh) told our fairly new and special guest who doesn't really know anyone too well (Nimo) I am what you could call, a little obsessed. I also got "kids" from Rachelle because she knows I want to have kids someday and I love looking at cute kids around Israel all the time. I gave "walking" to Isaac because he always makes a point to walk around Jerusalem, even if his destination is over an hour away; he just plans his time in advance. I also gave "blanket" to Josh because a few weeks ago on our siyur, he let me lean on him during the bus ride, and we snuggled together to try and take a nap. It just reminded me of a blanket, so there ya go. Word association and memories and personality traits and cool characteristics. Was so fun we played a few rounds before wanting to head back to our own places.

The next morning, ahem, afternoon, I woke up, and went to the home of our Judaic teacher (Rachel Goldberg) for lunch. So I had lunch for breakfast - not too shabby. She had originally wanted to have as may WUJS partcipants as possible, sign up for a lunch, and she would match us somewhere in the neighborhood with warm welcoming open families. Only 9 of us signed up, which one could argue is too much for one household, but we are for the most part, her loyal students, and she couldn't say no. So she and her husband and her 3 beautiful children hosted us for a great meal of food, company, and conversation. It was a privilege to be in her home, to dine at her table, and be in the company of such a great family! I think we all had a great time. In fact, we had such a great time there, we barely had an hour to spend on our own before our activities resumed once again.

At 4:30, we met in "The Mo" short for moadon/lounge in our building, for a short learning/study session about Shabbat. Going along with the Shabbat 101 theme, some readings had been prepared ahead of time, and others were invited to share thoughts about what it means to make Shabbat or separate it from the rest of the week. One of the best things about this Shabbat B'yachad was that Mike Mitchell, our program's executive director, was in Jerusalem with us for the entire program. He and his wife Molly live in Be'er Sheva now, as she is attending medical school there, so it was a treat and a privilege to have dined with them the night before, and share in a learning with Mike this afternoon. Immediately after the learning was over, we went to the roof to perform the Havdallah ceremony, which separates the holiness of the Sabbath day from the mundaneness of the rest of the week. It's a short ceremony that involves grape juice or wine (because we're Jews, what ceremony doesn't involve the fruit of the vine?), the smell of spices (as we take in the last nice sweet smells of the Sabbath that we are sad to see leave) and a multiple wick candle, to represent multiple types of Jews in our world as well as to fulfill the blessing of illuminating lights, as in plural, not just one. It is a beautiful ceremony and a short one, and is done after 3 stars can be seen in the sky, indicating that the Shabbat is gone and the new day, the first one of the rest of the week, has arrived, and we usher that in. We extinguish the candle in the grape juice (after we have taken a sip of course, not before), wish all a good week, and then we're off!

Rachelle and Danit lead us in some fun Israeli dancing on the mirpeset/patio area of our building. Of course anyone is welcome to join and the music is fairly loud so our crowd of dancers changes from song to song. Some of us worked up quite a sweat! Israeli dancing involves lots of jumping. Well that's it for Shabbat B'yachad. I think it was nice to participate in all aspects of the program. I really had a nice time despite some of the stress I felt with the Shabbat time crunch and needing to be done cooking by a certain time prior to the sun going down, so that nothing extra was cooked on the Sabbath (against Jewish law) which is a custom some people in our building observe. Out of respect for them, I finished my meal early enough to squeeze in a shower and a nap before getting to services on time.

In the end, I was really pleased with how everything went, and thankful to be part of a community open to all kinds of people, all kinds of ideas, and all kinds of imitation chicken parmesean.

Jerusalem Bird Observatory (11/19)

It was an early morning. The alarm went off at 6:31am. I snoozed. The alarm went off again at 6:35am. I snoozed again. 6:39. One more snooze - I gotta change this thing to more than 4 minutes. 6:43 and I'm outta bed. That's all the time I had for snoozing today considering a 7:30 departure. Breakfast, get dressed, pack up my bag, fill up my waterbottle, almost out the door, shoot I forgot to pack up lunch. Quickly try defrosting some pita, took my sliced cucumbers and already prepared egg salad, put together a sandwich, grab a snack, and all goes in the bag.

I head downstairs thinking I'm the last one to arrive, because I'm already running late. I get down there at 7:32 and find that I am the first one. I guess I could have been the last one but I knew that wasn't a possibility. Not with this group! Well the last person finally arrives at 7:45, putting me out 15 minutes sleep (which makes me cranky) and the group 15 minutes late to go watch birds. That IS the point of waking up in the 6:00 hour on what's essentially a weekend here (Fridays are like Sundays). Needless to say, we walk 3 minutes to the bus stop and wait for the right bus to come. Fortunately, we don't have to wait very long for the right one to come along.

We get off at the Central Bus Station and walk about 10 minutes to the bird observatory (in a "green" site in Jerusalem, with our tour guides Rivka and Ya'ara, Israeli girls who live in our building with us as a part of our program. We meet Micha'el (no, that's not a typo for Michael, it's Micha'el as in two syllables, ok, moving on) who welcomes us to the JBO and starts telling us how they track bird migration in Jerusalem. Israel is at the crux of 3 continents, one of the main reasons why so many birds come through this direction. They have bird nets which catch birds migrating through Jerusalem, and rings that they attach to their legs/feet in order to track them by number. They have found birds that came from all parts of Europe, and all parts of Africa, on their twice a year migration. If I remember correctly, 500,000,000 birds come through twice a year, making 1,000,000,000 birds flying over Israel each year. Micha'el, Rivka, and Ya'ara showed us the ringing and tracking process of these birds, which was really fantastic. They treated the birds with great care and respect, and after they were tracked, set them free to continue on their journey.

We also got to take an up close and personal look at the nets, which I don't think happens very often, but we were allowed to have some special treatment since Rivka and Ya'ara work there. We then watched a short film (about 20 minutes) which mostly just had footage of wildlife in Jerusalem and greater Israel. We saw all kinds of birds and land mammals - foxes, dogs, gazelles. It was footage taken of them in their natural environment, which I thought was very cool. Unfortunately some people were so tired from a late night to sleep and an early morning wake up (bad combination) so they took that time to nap.

We sat in the actual observatory part of the site for a few minutes, watching the various birds land in a pool of water, or drink from the fountain, or land on a tree, eat some peanuts, fly away, come back, and do it all over again. It was very relaxing, and kind of surprising to see such a natural site untouched by human intervention. I know that humans helped to make that site what it is now, but in the middle of such a big busy city, it was nice to have a nature escape even if just for a few minutes.

We concluded the day with a short nature walk through part of the "green" park in Jerusalem, actually walking pretty close to home. But it was Friday and we were all feeling the rush of Shabbat coming (I will write about Shabbat B'Yachad in another post) so we took buses and cabs home to prepare for a feast!

The JBO was truly fascinating and I hope I have the opportunity to go back there sometime before I leave Israel.

Keramika Klass (11/17)

Ceramics! It's bringing me back to my childhood!

As part of the WUJS program, we are given the option to participate in a number of different classes/seminars based on interest and time. I have taken advantage of Judaic Classes with our teacher Rachel Goldberg, as well as most (if not all) of the siyurim/field trips, and tonight, we had ceramics class! So fun.

11 of us are signed up for tonight's class, and we show up at 6:30 in the classroom in our building. The instructor, Myles, comes in with a huge heavy looking backpack (I guess he's got clay in there!) and starts unpacking his things.

He tells us we are going to have the clay olympics. Task one - form a team and make up a team name. OK, done. We are the "Grouches" - partly because some of us are cranky and/or just woke up from naps or want naps, but mostly because Danit is wearing a shirt with Oscar the Grouch's face on it and we were just really lame and couldn't think of anything else. The other groups have their names too and we begin. Competition number one - who can roll the longest length of clay in coils in 5 minutes. We immediately start breaking up the clay, throwing it on the floor and rolling it into nice thin pieces that connect with one another. Extending, extending, adding, adding. The floor is so dirty, the clay is picking up dirt, hair, concrete pieces, dust, it is really quite disgusting. I hope we aren't really using this for anything fancy.

Well we take out the tape measures and measure each one of the to discover that our team wins! We had the longest coil of attached pieces of all the teams. Go team grouches. Moving on to task number two. Who can build the highest structure/tower with their clay? So we ball it back up and start again with this new challenge. Five minutes starts now. Again we roll the clay into coils, but our strategy is a mix between Lincoln Logs (leaving plenty of space for air, to build higher and higher) and Jenga (sturdy and stacked). We start with some pretty fat pieces for the base, so it is nice and strong. As we build up, we run out of clay very quickly. So we have to start taking from the bottom pieces. But if we recoil them into smaller coils, it takes away some of the height. So then we really get into the Jenga idea and just try to remove bulk without height. It seems to work relatively well but the other groups still have us beat in the end. Chaval/too bad.

We crush it all up one last time and our task as individuals on our team is to each make something specific with a lump of clay we are given. The other teams have to guess what each person's item is, and if they guess correctly, the team who made the item gets a point. Incentive to make these things as detailed and accurate as possible. The good news, we have way more than 5 minutes this time. Myles got us all so worked up that even when we first started on this task, tensions were high in the room. He finally said - guys we have plenty of time for this one, slow down, take your time. Our team gets 4 items: a helicopter, a fruit bowl - with at least a banana and a pineapple, a meal including a hamburger and a milkshake, and a hightop sneaker with laces (Chuck Taylor is the brand maybe? Something like Converse? I'm so not into fashion.) I take the sneaker, Danit takes the meal, PJ takes the fruit bowl, and Josh does the helicopter. Together, we've done a pretty good job. The other groups basically figure out ours, and we basically figure out theirs. Some of the items include: a tank, a vase of flowers, a couple watching TV, Mr. T, and the Statue of Liberty (which gets destroyed by the helicopter and the tank, which are both obviously from the IDF and you don't mess with the IDF).

Last task of the night - make something from clay to float in water. OK so our group decides (you know, cause we're badasses) that we are going to make a root beer float! Out of 100 points possible, we get 20 for creativity, but clearly any clay we put in the water sinks straight to the bottom. The other two teams try their floating pieces; they both fail miserably as well.

The Clay Olympics are over and our team wins it, only because we killed it in the coil competition. WOO HOO! Time to clean up and head out for the evening. Next week he says we will begin to work on something that is functional, now that we've gotten a lot out of the way in terms of learning about clay properties. It gets dry when overworked, it can be made into flat pieces, coil pieces, cut into various shapes, is heavy to work with, etc. Next week I hope to either walk away with something, or have something on its way to being functional. Can't wait!

Gleaning the Fields (11/16)

Our siyur today was to Rehovot, a small town south of Tel Aviv, where an organization called Leket gleans fields of excess for the needy. This organization was the one I originally wanted to intern with while I was here, but unfortunately they are not based in Jerusalem and don't have enough volunteer work here to keep me busy for 4 days a week. Needless to say, I was super excited about the opportunity to spend a part of my afternoon with them, knowing that my efforts would go appreciated.

As usual, we had Israel Update and breakfast in the Beit Knesset (the main building at Beit Ar-El) and even had some time to come back to our own apartments to get ready to leave). Around 11:30 our bus arrived and we hopped on. A little over an hour into the ride, we arrive at the field in Rehovot, none of us really with a clue as to what we are doing, but we are all happy and ready to volunteer. We meet Amir, who is wearing jeans and a shirt, tzitzit (fringes from a small prayer shawl worn underneath the clothing) and basically - a cowboy hat. Once he starts speaking, I can tell he's from NY, just not exactly sure where. As it turns out, he is from Long Island. Anyways, we meet our Israeli orthodox cowboy who tells us what Leket is and does - mostly food rescue, so that it can be spread over many people and many families - and explains what we will be doing on the farm. Today...we pick oranges!!!

Yeah so the oranges are really green and yellow, but that's neither here nor there. He shows us where the buckets are, so we can bring them to the orange trees for picking. Rachelle and I fill up a bucket in a few minutes, and bring it back to the large crates that take them on trucks to where they are necessary. We finish the first tree, move to the next one, and even across the path to another row of trees. Many pounds (or should I say kilos) later, we have an even more filled bucket of green and yellow oranges (hmm wait, what? that's not confusing at all), and we take it to dump it in the big crate. We were only picking for about 45 minutes but altogether, we managed to collect 500 kilgrams of oranges for the needy. Not too shabby! 500 kilos = about 1,100 pounds, divided by the approximately 15 people we had, and that's 73 pounds per person in that time period. That's over 1.6 pounds per minute. Dang skippy.

We all got free t-shirts for volunteering (another one to add to the "sleepy pile" collection in my closet) and went back to the bus to drive to the Leket warehouse in Ra'anana. It was a fair drive, about 45 minutes, so it was kind of a bummer to have already spent so much time inside on such a beautiful day, but sometimes you just have to make those sacrifices to do mitzvahs. We arrive at the warehouse, and we are met by Natalie, one of the staff members. She gives us a brief overview of how the warehouse functions, as a temporary holding spot for food from all over the place, until it is quickly redistributed to those needy families, schoolchildren, soup kitchens, anywhere. She gave us a short tour of the warehouse so we could see the items being stocked and stored. She explained why it was so empty in there - because they try to get the food out to constituents as quickly as possible. Makes sense. The food does no one any good while its sitting in a cooler or on a stack of crates. This made me really happy. We only spent about 30 minutes here before hopping back on the bus to return to Jerusalem. Another long ride back, so multiple hours today spent sitting on a bus. But well worth it to see these two places in action.

For anyone interested in more information about Leket or to make a donation: http://www.leket.org/english/

Women of the Wall (11/8)

Women of the Wall: http://womenofthewall.org.il/

This morning I woke up VERY early (the alarm was set for 5:41am, only so I could snooze for 4 minutes) to walk to the Kotel with some friends, to join the Women of the Wall for Rosh Chodesh (the new month). I first learned about the Women of the Wall as a group/movement because of Hillels of Westchester and the film "Praying in Her Own Voice" which Yael Katzir produced a few years ago, and now screens on campuses. I don't think HOW ever managed to get a screening (among all of our other busy programs, student engagement and birthright recruitment), but it certainly turned me on to this idea and I learned about this group of women and other supporters.

One of the first weeks I was here, Rachelle mentioned that she wanted to go to a Women of the Wall service. We agreed we'd do it, but we got so caught up in the first few weeks of our program, that we didn't realize it was already Rosh Chodesh, and we missed the first one. Meanwhile, my mom went to a Hadassah event where they screened the film. This was the first my mom learned about this movement, and she mentioned it to me. Unfortunately it was just a day too late as a reminder to go.

So today was the day! I put it in my calendar about 26 days ago and even though I stayed up late last night watching football (Go Giants!!!) I got up early for this experience. I was really proud to be standing there in solidarity with these women, some of whom have been fighting for the right to pray and sing out loud publicly at the Kotel for 20 years. The shacharit service was held on the women's side of the Kotel, with some men on their own side making sure to form a buffer between us and any potentially angry men, who have been known to curse, scream loudly, disrupt prayers, and even throw chairs over the mechitza (how nice, polite, and holy that is). The Torah service is still not permitted at the Kotel; the women have to go to Robinson's Arch, near the southern wall of the Temple Mount, where they are given the privilege to read from the Torah, and wear tefillin and tallitot. What a beautiful sight it was to see so many people, probably over 100 people, come together for such a great cause. Young and old, male and female, wearing all kinds of different outfits and head coverings and tallitot that were absolutely stunning.

After the Torah reading, we were all invited for a small oneg outside the Davidson Center (near the Kotel) with some snacks and drinks and a brief d'var Torah (word of Torah) from one of the board members or staff people (I'm not sure which one she was!) so Rachelle and I stayed for that and caught a cab back to Baka with some Pardes students who I recognized at the service.

I'm definitely looking forward to going back next month.

Day of Mitzvahs (11/3)

Goal of today: volunteer at a soup kitchen, Carmei Ha'ir. They operate similarly to a restaurant - all the "customers" come in and take a seat, and although they don't place a specific order, they are served the meal of the day (soup, vegetable, carbohydrate, and meat/fish) or if requested, only certain items (pasta and fish, just soup, etc). The "staff" or volunteers like me, clean the place settings after they leave, and set out new ones. Those who can leave money or anything else, are invited to do so, but no one checks to see who leaves something and who doesn't. To each his own. I was really excited to come and check this out and see what would happen. The good news is, the mission was very successful.

I arrived at the soup kitchen this morning a few minutes after 10am, as my understanding was they are open from 10-2. I asked for Oren, the volunteer coordinator, but was told he was not in yet. They invited me in to wait, so I sat down and read a chapter or two in my book, and before I knew it, Oren arrived. He told me that they really start serving food at about noon, so I should come back. I took a walk down Yaffo street, knowing I could pop into a number of cafes at any moment, for a tea or another hot beverage, and read my book. I ended up stopping at a small park I found, sat down on a bench, and read for about an hour. I could smell the pizza coming from a nearby restaurant, and just had to get a slice. I closed up my book, put it in my backpack, and walked into Big Apple Pizza. I ordered in Hebrew, and even had a short conversation in Hebrew with the clerk. I was so proud of myself! I used a new Hebrew word/term I learned on Monday in ulpan, so way to go Ruthie!

After I finished my slice, I started walking back to Carmei Ha'ir to check in. I saw a mother trying to get her baby's stroller up a few stairs so she could enter a store. She was struggling and tried one way and tried another way. I saw her as I approached and just reached my hand down to help her lift the stroller. Haven't even served a meal yet and already, Mitzvah #1 - check.

It was 11:45am, I walked my bag and sweatshirt up to the office, and immediately got to work. Soup at each place setting, pita bread in a basket on each table. The crowds would be coming at 12 sharp, according to the other staff and volunteers there. From what I could tell, it was mostly staff, except Yosef (or maybe Yossi) who is also a volunteer, from California, and here for 6 weeks this time around, but seems to visit quite frequently. They were more than happy to have me, either because it was an extra set of hands, they welcome volunteers in this way all the time, or I'm a chick! They are all dudes there, so maybe chicks are underrepresented. Regardless of why they were happy to have me, I was happy to be there.

Today's menu: vegetable soup, pasta in tomato sauce, koobeh (an Iraqi meat dish), mixed vegetables, and fish. Water on tap to keep it simple, and the food is served until the food runeth out.

I did everything from serving plates to clearing plates to bringing someone just fish if he or she wanted it, refilling pitchers, bringing more bread, wiping down tables, throwing away garbage, and of course observing the intricacies of the place from start to finish. I couldn't even put a single label on the type of person who came in for lunch. Some looked like they were rushing in from work, some looked like they were musicians, some were elderly with missing teeth, some were religious with kipahs (head coverings), some were completely secular. They were all so grateful to have a hot meal. Some asked if they could take their food to go, or extra food to go. Some brought bags or containers or tupperware to take certain items home - for family members or for themselves for later, who knows? Although some folks did not finish all that was on their plates (and therefore it was thrown away, that kind of made me sad), others did not want to waste and took the extra home with them.

From 12-12:30 it was very busy and very crowded and we were turning over seats and tables very quickly. No one is rushed out; each person comes in on his or her own time and stays as long or as short as necessary. Strangers sit together if that is the only option; some dine as groups or friends. It's loud because of chairs moving, and people talking to each other, and the kitchen serving food and trying to clean silverware as quickly as it comes in. Ofer seems to run the cleaning portion of the show back there, and speaks English really well. Apparently he lived in NYC for 4 years, so I'm sure that helped. He is taking me under his wing to make sure I know what to do, where everything goes, and that I don't screw up. As the crowd died down, the others working began to clear tables fully, wipe them down and put the chairs upside down on them so we could prepare to clean the floor. Once most people were out, we started washing the floors. Since I told them when I first walked in, "put me to work" they really did put me to work! I had a broom scrubbing and a squeegee to push the dirty water into the drain on the floor of the kitchen. Good workout and good times.

One lady who came in close to 1pm (they close at 1:30 officially so it was closer to the end of the craziness) left some herbs in a cup of water, on the table that any donations are collected. That was what she could leave, and so she did. They look pretty and smell wonderful. I hope I see them next week when I go back. I'll be back :)

Volunteering at a soup kitchen - Mitzvah #2 - check.

Since my schedule got a bit turned around today, I ended up not having afternoon obligations, so instead of taking the bus back, I decided to save myself the bus fare AND do something healthy - walk home. It's not a crazy far walk but it's about 4 kilometers, which is 2.5 miles. I took a few detours - one through a park I walk past a lot but have never been in. It was nice to see new scenery. I also made a pit stop at the Fuchsberg Center for Conservative Judaism. I pass it a lot as well during my walks around this city, and have never been in there. I figured since I wasn't in a rush today, it would be a good time to see what programs they have to offer for non Conservative Yeshiva students. It took a while to find the right office, but when I did, the lady in the pink t-shirt was friendly and helpful, and gave me some sheets of paper that listed lectures and classes and other ongoings at Fuchsberg. More to add to my busy schedule in Jerusalem.

When I was about 20 minutes from home, I saw 2 women and a man looking all over the sidewalk for something. Turns out they are all speaking English, so hey, I guess it's time for me to help! She says that some beads from the zipper of her bag fell off and they are red and green and black. I lean down to find one and gave it back to her. She was upset that she couldn't find the others, but was just ready to give up; I think she had been searching for a few minutes. One of the women had already left. The man was still there and he and I somehow found the last 2 beads of her bag by the curb of the street. She was so happy and thanked us many times. Glad I could make her day. I'm on a roll. Mitzvah #3 - check.