Fun and Happy times

Hey so after my not so good exam, please see other blog, I went to guys night out (or rather in) and it was great fun. Had fun chatting with the people from my course. Smoked some hooker (cherry flavord tabbacco) very very delicious and smooth and drank quite a lot of wishky and vodka, started with Jack...but Gavi came with a very nice single mult. Yum., end with Mariv well we are all future Jewish professinals to be.. Much fun and I am so so happy that Jlem is no longer hot beyon belief. Happy happy times and tonight is Shabbat. Fun alround.

Not feeling well

So hey long time no posting on this blog but most things have been rabbi to be related...so there you go. In case you don't know I am in Israel (Jlem) and I am not feeling great, its nothing terrible just a head cold but I am feeling priety rotten even so...and I have a lot on...so I should really get of the internet and start doing some of it so i can hopefully get an early night. Jlem is still silly hot and I am so looking forward to this cold weather that we have been promised.

So very tired

I am, as the title of this post suggests so very tired. I really don't know whether I am coimg or going. I feeling like I am juggeling a load of stuff all at once. It is also horrible hot here still and the humilidity has shoot up its like 87% today. Which is just horrible. (So I am not really sleeping)...I had tropp class today which wasn't as bad as normally but what we are doing has gotton a lot harder. Anyway all is generally well and I am happy.

Things move onwards

So I thought it was about time for another posting. I think I am now used to being in Israel, which is saying somethng. I am certainly used to the heat, I am still not enjoying it beign so very hot, but I know that at times I am walking along thinking 'this isn't so bad' when eariler on I would have been melting.
I am evening geting used to the work and Hebrew. (Actually found some time yesterday to work on something that wasnt modern Hebrew or something thing HUC related.

On Wednesday I went (along with lots of my classmates both male and female to 'Women of the Wall' that was quite an experince, although not as hostile or as difficult as I had been expecting. Its also really fun meeting up with Laura we are both quite streessed at the moment. (But lots of people on the course are) but it really helps to have someone. :) Not to mention that she is great as well.

Yesterday I tried to go out and see the meteroite shower but there is too much light in Jlem to really see anything in the sky. We did see a couple of shooting stars so it wasnt a waste of time. I am now getting ready to make the house presentable and think about getting ready for Shabbbat as another week in Israel draws to a close.

Apart from that my thoughts are turning towards the yomim norim as we are now in Ellul. (The Jewish month before the New Year), really don't ask why the New Year is in September/October (No really don't). I had left all my shofarot back home so I have had to buy one here. I am very impressed by how good value Jewish ritual objects and books are here. When one does the conversion from NIS into Pounds its great.

So in general things are going really well and I am having fun. But I am missing my friends back home.

Geting used to being here

So I have now been in Israel for something like 25 days and am settling in okay, I am still not really used to the heat or the sunshine and could really really do with some rain, which is sad because its just not going to rain here until the autumn. The summer Ulpan has started and I think that it is going well, (please read my other blog for details). I am not yet sure what i make of Israel in general or Jlem in particular (but this is certainly an intense kind of place). One funny thing that happed, well it wasn't that funny at the time, was when i went to the post office to post my letter.
I have no bag just my letter, in fact i had left my water bottle at home so I was rather hot and thirsty by the time I got to the post office. As I go in the man on the door ask me something in very rapid Hebrew, i understood that it was a question but that was about it. So i did what any English man would do smile sweety and said yes. This turned out to be a very bad idea indeed.

What I had been asked was 'do you have a gun?' so my saying yes coursed some alarm and dispondancy, any way I put my hands in the air and said, rather plantively 'I only wanted to post my letter!'
Oh he says your English 'do you have a gun' this time asking in English. "No of course not why would i have a gun?" He found it all very funny. Cant say i did. But it makes a good story.

Anti-semitism

So hey its been made busy here, the going to Israeli stuff (please see my other blog), and I needed a break so i decided after dinner a few days back to go for a walk. I hadn't succeeded in going more than 150 yards when i heard a car approaching me very fast from behind, this isn't unusual on my road although its a 30 zone people drive along it like mad things, any way they shouted something and I turned around just in time to see a man nude from his waist up leaning right out of the window, he shouted something at me in a think local accent (I picked up just enough to know it was hostile and antisemitic) before I was hit hard in the shoulder by a frozen chicken burger he had thrown at me. Anyway I know that this is what everybody says but it all happen so quickly that i didn't have a chance to take down the number plate. So when I get home I ask my family if i have a bruise on my shoulder because it was really starting to hurt. I didn't so all i did was facebook about it, I am something of a facebook addict :) and lots and lots and lots of my FBFs said i should report it if not to the police then at least to CST. So reluctantly I did, I say reluctantly because where i live antisemitic incidents are not uncommon and if I were to report them all I would spend all my time doing so. (That said it is a rare day when stuff is actually thrown at me), also when it happened I was very pushed for time and i didn't want to waste it. But in the end i did send an email report to CST who emailed back and said i should phone the police, so I did. At the end of the call the police person said she had to send someone around because it was a hate crime, and so latter two very nice policemen came to call to take a statement, which took ages as these things do. Anyway that was it because as i hadn't noted their number there wasn't much that they could do. I thought that that was it until yesterday about ten days latter I had a call from victim's support to see if i was okay, which was very nice but it all feels like a lot of work for a lot of people because of one silly thing. Although my should still hurts a little.
Apart from that every thing has been Israel related, excepting I read some Torah at Newcastle synagogue and went to see a student production of the Merchant of Venice at Keele with Rachel B. It was really rather good. Acting wise it was great but given the what the play was i was surprised that i enjoyed it so much.

Personality type

So hey I thought I would talk about personality tests. I have in my time been asked to take personality tests, I have also taken them for 'fun' i nearly always come out as ISFJ which stands for Introvered senesing feeling judging. I am not sure if I fully agree with it or not. I kind of like what it says about me if its true, but I am still not sure. I always come out as introverted, and I know that in world of Myers-Briggs personality tests and in Jugnian terms this means something else that how it is used in normal everyday speak. I can spot the quesrions that cause them to say that I am introverted, it is normally something along the lines of "would you rather go out to an all night party and meet lots of new people or go for a solo walk along the cliff top?' I have to say that i would choice neither, i would much rather perfer to spend sometime with a few (or a very few) close friends. But if I had to make the choice I would I have to say choice the solo walk. So I guess in the end I am introverted.

Bluebells

As promised photos of the bluebell woods.

Bluebells, and teeth and friends again

So I got my dentist appointment really quickly in the end and have a temporary filling, but I have to wait for my real one to have something more permanent put in place. I have been working hard on my thesis making some progress although not half as much as I would have liked, but then who does? I have sat my Hebrew exam, for HUC, which really just about made me wont to cry…I kind of panicked in it, which is never a good thing to do in an examination. So I am not sure that I will have come out of it well; and certainly I don’t think I showed my Hebrew skills to there very best.
Again I have been really really touched by how much love and support has come my way from my amazing friends (who I guess I must have been driving slight mad with my worrying about my exam and then its aftermath). They are all really really busy with pressure in all aspects of their lives, and Daisy has been rather ill; and yet they have nothing but kind and supportive. There support and nearness is something I will miss (I’m sure I will make good friends there and some of my local ones may come and pay me a visit but it still wont be the same as here where they are only a text or phone call away.

I am also getting to know my new friends, whom I am going to be living and studying with in J-lem (almost entirely though Facebook and I almost cannot quite remember what life was like before FB).

Yesterday Mum, Dad and I went for a walk in the local Bluebell woods, these are lovely at bluebell time: Carpets of deep blue flowers amid the green with dappled light coming in though the trees. There is also something magical about the smell of bluebells and woods. It was also one of those wonderful springtime days that are a true glory of England and is something I am going to miss with a deep intensity during my stay and study in Jerusalem, although I am really starting to look forward to it now.

Some photos should follow soon.

Friends, teeth and other stuff

So as readers of this and my other blog will know I am madly busy at the moment with getting ready to go to J-lem to start my rabbinic training and working on finishing my thesis. I have been keeping in touch with friends (trying to make arraignments to meet with people before my temporary disappearance. I have also been having teeth problems, I was at the dentist on Friday and had a filling done but it has fallen out so I need to go back and have it re-filled. But as today is a bank holiday I will have to wait until tomorrow before making the appointment.

A who's who

Two posts in one day don't know what has come over me. But I thought that it would be good to post something on who all the people I keep talking about are: So friends, the people who I am going to talk about most are; Daisy, Mandy, Terri, Samuel, Matthew, and Elliot. As for family there is mum and dad little sister (Who is no longer all that little) her partner and their new baby. Then there is Helen (bigger sister) and Rosie (even bigger one). And friends from way back when who I am likely to mension at some points are Sarah and Anika. So I met Daisy and Mandy and Matthew at an interfaith conference in Ammerdown. 'The three faiths Summer school

New Arrivals

Hey there any readers lots has been happening at my end, the results of which mean that I am very very busy! (For more details see my other blog ‘rabbi to be’)…in my real life if I can put it that way, is that my little sister has had her baby, so I have a new nephew!!! He is just so beautiful a really lovely baby boy, he doesn’t seem that interested in visual things…but then I am not sure that baby’s eyesight is all that great…although mum says that when I was a baby I was interested. He certainly likes singing and already has his favourites: including ‘swing low sweet chariot’ and ‘yom zer yisrael…’

The birth was quite dramatic but both mother and baby are well now, and Said has returned so all is well…Helen (big sister is coming down) at the weekend and Rosie has been really helpful as well ringing lots and lots…but as you can imagine things have been really really mad here, most of it has fallen on mum but I have also been rushing about like a mad thing…I am trying to sort out my accommodation in J-lem, it is still proving difficult but I am have found some flatmates, which is nice but now all I (we) need is a flat :)

I am much calmer than when I first found out that I was meant to be in J-lem sooner than I had thought, I have made lots of progress with thesis and may actually finish it by my new deadline which would be a real achievement because this is over a year ahead of my uni deadline…and I actually think that my thesis is going to be quite good.

I am also revising hard for my HUC Hebrew exam which I have organised to take at Menorah in May (mid-may) so still some time for more preparation yet. I haven’t had an exam since my MA modals end so quite a few years now…but lots of meditation is keeping me calm.

It has really brought home to me what fantastic friends I have :) especially Terri who was a complete wonder when I first found out what a tight place I was in phoned her up and I was completely freaking out and she really calmed me down and was just great, but not just Terri but Mandy and Daisy and Sam and Mat. I am so so lucky in my fantastic friends.

I am really pleased that I got to meet with most of them before this all happened and I hope that I will be able to met with Mandy and Daisy and Terri before I had of to Terra Sanacta. I also really need to link up with Anika and Sarah from school. So lots and lots to fit in.

I should also say that it hasn't all been work, rush, work, rush although mainly it has...I did find time to go into Uni and meet Dawn (a facebook friend) which was nice. But having a beautiful new nephew is the best thing that has happened recently.

so many sisters

Hey the business continues as all of my bigger sisters are here, although we do not over lap for all that long, Helen and Andrew (and their dog came this morning. I am not all that fond of dogs, but this is a peaceful dog. After I had had a time of nap Rosie, Bob and Alice have arrived. So we are having a fall house…and for complex reasons we are having our second sader on the eight night. Largely so we can all do it together. I am looking forward to it.

Finnal York Posting

When we had walked along the walls we head off along the narrow streets to the Minister Mandy and Daisy wanted to go into all the charity shops we past so it took a bit of time, not that I mined as I had really switched to holiday mood. We finally got the entrance of the cathedral and as it turns out Matthew was right about there being a charge to go in a full eight pounds which I thought was rather a lot. We all went in nevertheless and Mandy and Daisy went off on a guided tour while Samuel, Matthew and I sort of did our own thing. There was lots to see including new carvings and status and the like but I am not sure it was worth the eight pounds. Afterwards we had lunch and we returned to the hotel to play 'class struggle'. The next day we only really had time to go to the viking museum and have a picnic before it was time to return home. It is now chol mo'ed paseach so I am as always missing all the things I cannot eat. I am also really pushed with my thesis. but the brake in York was really what I needed.

Yet More about York

So after being chased by geese and failing to go into Cliford's tower we all headed off along the walls of York towards the Minster I was confident that there would be no charge for entry but probably a suggested donation, Matthew who is a Catholic was less than certain that I was correct in this assumption because Anglican cathedrals often charge for entry. Walking on the walls was lovely the views were great and we actually had some sunshine. We were all chatting away and having a fab time we had some lovely views of the Minster in the distance as we approached it.

So more about York

It had been a very long time since I was last in York (Longer in fact than I am going to admit in this blog) and I had forgotten how beautiful in a tumbled down sort of way the castle ways are or quite how expensive the museums and other attractions are. Often our route from the hotel to whichever part of York we were going to took us past Clifford's tower, which is not a happy site for Jews as there was a massacre there in 1190 when 150 Jewish men and women were surrounded by a mob; they chose to kill themselves rather than be captured, this really marked the start of the declined in quality of life for English Jews ended in the expulsion in 1290 under Edward the first. (A first of many expulsions that would follow. The current tower made of stone is not the same as the one on the site at the time, which was made of wood and was badly damaged in the riots. I had wanted to go inside and say kaddish (The memorial prayer) but the coast of entry was rather high. So I contented myself with staying on the outside. So after we had all decided not to go into Clifford's tower, we head to the museum of York and Castle life, before moving on to that though I should mentions that there is a memorial stone at the foot of the keep, we all found the entry fee for this museum to high as well. As we were about to leave I noticed a goose sitting on top of a bin when we got near we could see that she had made it into her nest and had no less than eight eggs and was if a goose can indeed be this very pleased with herself and she showed us her eggs before settling herself back down. Most of the geese around about the centre of York were less than friendly and so hurried along by advancing geese we head off to walk along the walks towards the Minster in the hopes that this would be an economic way of enjoying ourselves in York.

York

I got to York on Friday afternoon a little after my friends Samuel and Matthew had arrived there. We had to wait a little while until Daisy and Mandy got there but we had a nice coffee and some crisps while we were waiting. It was only a hour or so and then the two girls got there and after quite a lot of hugging. (Some of which nearly engulfed passers-by) we headed off towards the hotel. It was a little walk, which seemed further because of our bags. We settled into our rooms and exchanged gifts before heading out to the cafe where we were going to have dinner. Later we played pass the parcel but I'll blog about that later.

York and Passover

Hey I have just got back from a weekend in York with friends which was great (I will write more about it soon.) And am now getting ready for the Sader. Photos and more information to follow soon, well soonish.

Purim

Well the cold weather is still continuing although now its March (admittedly only just) I hope spring will come soon. Things are much the same as always I am working on my thesis, although I am still not making as much headway with it as would like although any headway is welcome really...I have been to another bagel lunch and a lunch and learn at manchester at keele Jsoc we have just celebrate Purim with a party (how else should one cleebrate it?) I did the poster but Hannah and Beth did most of the work, it was a fun party. I didn't drink all that much eventhough it was Purim because I need to get up to go to shul the next day to hear the Megilah read. It was a fancy dress party and I went as Sherlock Homes at home, so silk PJ's a smoking Jacket slippers and a deer stalker hat. On my way in this chap stops me and says. 'mate do you know that you're in your pajamas?'. Honestly!
The next day i did get to synagogue were there was a reading of the megilah and gifts and snakes. Fun times all round really.

Fruit, baggels and more snow

So we had our Tu b'shavat sader (That's new year for trees) it went really well and there was as always a lot of fruit 29 kinds this year...I like NYFTs but as it seems to come early this year and because its still cold it doesn't really feel like spring yet. Today I went into university not for any work reason but to go to a Jsoc baggel lunch (really good baggels) as one would expect from Jsoc. Its a bit sad though that my social life is all Jsoc or synagogue, ah well guess I shouldn't mope at least i have one...well sort of. It snowed again but is much colder here than it is in Manc. So getting to the lunch was fine. I am still thinking about how I am going to deal with the posters for purim but I am starting to get some ideas.

Things I've got on.

So the the things that I have on, and no I don't mean cloths but rather activities. Apart from the Usual PhD work and Learning Hebrew I have two things on at the moment one is prepartion for manchester Limmud for the session I am running and the other is to make a couple of Purim posters. One about the festival and the other on the Bible story. That should be fun and its not really not related as I can add it all to my professional portfolio. Things that I have done which are in anyway connected to the role of the rabbi. On the downside I have been having even more headaches. not fun, not fun at all.

Not much changes

Well, not all that much has been happening the cold weather stuck around for a while and then left to be replaced by mild and very wet weather. I haven't mad as much progress with my work as I would have liked large because I have had more headaches, even more that is than I am used too (also they are stronger than normal and less responsive to medications) I think given that I have Neurofibromatosis I may need to get them checked out if things continue (although I don't really think that they are NF related but rather stress induced). Anyhow the long and short of it is that things have been dull. One hightlight was going to Rachel B's housewarming which was really really nice.

Headache

Today is a headachy day, although I think that it is now getting better thanks to head pills, which i don't really like taking caffene and massage. Not sure I am going to do any real work untill after dinner now though.

More cold days

Well it has warmed up a bit, most of ice has gone. But it is still snowing and snowing quite hard. I am also not feeling all that well, nothing to bad but not really up to any hard work at least for a bit. I haven't been feeling that great for a few days and have just been doing some reading, a book about the Boston hasidic court, which was interesting but lightweight just what you want when you are feeling unwell though.

Yet more snow

It has been very very cold. A couple of nights back we had a -15 degree C night here and a national minium temp of -23. It hasn't been that cold in years and years and years not since 81-82. It has gotten a little warmer now about zero during the day and -5 at night but it is snowing again. And according to the forcast it is going to snow over night and tomorrow but with strong winds from the east so that will make it feel even colder. Decided not to go into shull today but in stead to stay at home and a have a quite and warm time. Reading about the Bostoner Rebbe which is really interesting.

SNOW and model making

Just a photo of the view from my back window.

Snow and model making

So its been another snowy day here, well I say another and here but this is the first real snow we have had in my part of the country its been odd really sometimes there has been snow just a few miles away but none here. But this morning there was proper snow and its been snowing on and off all day. As you would expect its been very cold and is an icy night so what to do on a snowy day? Well stay in and use the last model kit of Hanukah of course. So I spent a happy day make a model of the solar-system. The making bit was fine much easier than the Temple model in fact but the painting was quite tricky as the planets are quite small in the model (and not to scale) also there was no Pluto, I know that it is no longer considered a planet but for me there should always be nine not eight.

Moving forward.

So things are getting back to normal well as normal as things ever are but the hoiliday period is over and limmud is now past. I have re-impossed order on my room, I don't want to give the impression that my room is the very model of tidiness and order because it isn't, anyone who knows me won't be surprised to hear that given that when at school my desk was called 'the disarster zone' but it is good enough that I will be able to get on with some work, like writing more of chapter four or five or wherever in my thesis the section I am writting at moment will go in the end. I have followed up on as much from Limmud as I can I think I my have made a new friend maybe even two. (which would be cool)...some of limmud was even relevent to thesis. One presenter at Limmud said, about Masorti. "That a posible reason why Conservitive Judaism as had relativily little impact in terms of practice is because they mix legal history with doing law' which is an interesting idea, even if I am not sure that i buy into it. Apart from that I am, along with my friends, trying to organise a get together before all our lives get utlerly mad. Hopefully it will be in March just before pasech. I am also looking at the possiblity of going to one or two day limmudim before I go to Israel. So in a way still a betix and between period.
Shoud say sorry about the spelling in this post spell check isnt working on my lap-top.

Limmud and New year

Well its 2010, and don't ask me what happened 2009 because I don't know bomb it just went. I have returned from Limmud which was as always wonderful. In the end I attended 26 sessions which is not as many as I would normally go to, but I was having an easy time and not pushing things. I really enjoyed being a chrauvuta facilitator mainly because I had a fab and fun group. Almost all the sessions I went to were academic type ones and all were good though excellent, well all save one and even that wasn't bad. Mainly this limmud was just fun catching up with old friends and maybe making some new ones, will have to wait and see on that front. When we got back I was so tired that even though it was New Years eve i just hit the sake and went to sleep. A little destreved by the fire works but not to bad. So hopping for a good year and I know I will be a year o changes.