On Human Condition, The

I've been neglecting you something terrible, turquoisehexagonalsun. I apologize. As part of my Tel Aviv resolution, I'll make sure to put you near the top of the list. For some updates: December has been a rather interesting month. I haven't done too much outside of Jerusalem. I haven't actually done too much in general besides hanging out with my friends and Sarah. But I've been having a great time. Tuesday night, we went over to our teacher Mo's house for a MexiHannukah Party. We brought tequila. Ayy. Last night, we went out for Chris and Jeremy's last night in Jerusalem (I'll miss them, really). And tonight, I'm leaving for Mitzpe Ramon as our pit stop on our trek to Desert Ashram for a three day galactic rave for New Year's (Sylvester as it's called in Israel).

Anyway, I spent much of December (something akin to 15 or 20 hours) researching and writing a very, very open ended topic for our Genesis Parables class—the one with the crazy teacher. Essentially we were to pick four articles from a collection he gave us, and provide a commentary, along with insight, and how they relate back to our class. Of my final product, he said it was graduate level work, so I figured I'd share it as filler. It's 3000 words, so good luck:

My teacher, Steve, and I, at his house

Four Essays
Noah Zemel
12/25/11

I am here today to present you an argument based on not reason but of a more esoteric nature, one that flourishes within the bounds of the speculative, shying away from the logical. I ask you to leave your intellectual pursuits at the door for a more spiritual one, as I use Frankfort and Co’s The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man to, once more give value to speculative thought.

Let’s begin by discussing the matter at hand: what is speculative thought? The article posits that “speculation—as the etymology of the word shows—is an intuitive, an almost visionary, mode of apprehension” (3). Speculative thought draws it’s origins out of necessity, that in primitive times, speculation was the only answer to natural phenomena, the only way to explain the world and it’s complex processes. “It attempts to unify” (3). Science, today, has taken over this role. This dichotomy has created two types of thought in regards to the external world: one living in conjunction with nature and one distinctly removed from nature. Speculation is to live in tandem with nature, seeing it as not quite an entity, but much more than how it exists today: concrete, understood, an intellectual pursuit. The article explains this by means of assigning the world two pronouns: “it” and “thou.” It—the scientific “it”—is how we view the world today, standing in direct opposition to “us.” Thou—the revered “thou”—describes ancient man’s relationship to the world. While “it” is general, “thou” is unique and carries weight; “thou” deserves respect. Finally, while “it” is an intellectual experience, if that (the article uses the term “intellectual detachment” (6)), “thou” is an emotional one, understood on a much deeper basis than science could possibly present.

Clearly, speculation laid the basic groundwork for religion to be established, originating in the form of myth. Myth, to ancient man, was a truth not scientifically, but through the stories it told. To them, they understood parable better than we could possibly know, for science is rooted deep in our minds as speculation was rooted in theirs. As a speculation of my own, if ancient man were exposed to the kind of rational, ordered thought that exists today, they would be as confused as those trying to comprehend ancient parable. Myth replaced science. The article makes note not to confuse myth with fantasy. “True myth presents its images and its imaginary actors, not with the playfulness of fantasy, but with a compelling authority” (7). At its very heart, myths embody all the collective experiences of the community in a completely individualized manner: everyone had their own personal relationship with the “myth.”

The myth of creation was the ultimate means to explain the world around us. It was the super-theory that answered the most existential question in history: why? And thus religion was born, not out of fable, fantasy, and fiction, but as a parabolic truth. As rationalism overtook speculation as the common way of thought, religion lost much of its true value. Through learning parable, we can come to appreciate the stories as much more than pure fable.

But what does it truly mean to speculate? I’m not sure we’ll ever know. Indeed, it’s a dying art. It’s a romantic pursuit: the freeing of one’s mind of convention notions of thought. Speculation is “knowing without knowing.” Ancient man never paid heed to whether the stories they heard were true or not, they accepted them as the truths that speculation brings. The modern man thinks quite differently, digging, unearthing, and trying to find a historical backbone to make sense of a collection of myths. Speculation, as a tool, can help us find truths in these stories that otherwise seem nonsensical. And through speculation, parable is born.

• • •

Avivah Zornberg provides some interesting ideas on the story of creation in her essay, Reflections on Genesis. Through her text, I’ll try to establish the beauty in unity, and plunge into the root of the human condition.

She begins her musings on Genesis focusing on Rashi’s interpretation of the first verse of the story. “What Rashi claims, in effect, is that the opening sentence tells us nothing about the beginnings” (3). He says that, for thousands of years, Judaism has turned to this verse for the answer to the most basic existential question, only to be presented a rather simple phrase: “in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). Rashi’s claim lies on the basis of the syntax of the verse, that the verse is translated as “in the beginning of God’s creation”, not “in the beginning, God created.” This minute difference makes no mention of how, in effect, God created, but rather that he was already in the process of creating, thus missing the actual act and beginning in media res. Rashi further states that Heaven and Earth were not created first per the syntax, but rather had already existed. So what existed in the primordial state before God created anything? Rashi answers “water, [as it] appears in the second verse with no account of its creation” (4).

The anachronism presented in the first verse of Genesis leads us to evaluate the text with a parabolic eye. If the beginning of the text is out of order, so too much be much of the other material.

Zornberg’s text continues to discuss the events that happened on the second day, or rather, the day after “day one” (which cannot be construed as the first day as the text says ehad, not rishon). Day one represents a moment of “primordial unity” (4), one that the waters of chaos were not discerned from one another and God existed “alone in His world” (5). If day one was unity, the other six were days of separation, havdallah. Everything God then created could be seen a separation from that which already existed rather than an act of materialization. Good was separated from bad, heaven from earth, and water from land. And eventually man was separated from animals, bringing light to the main issue at hand, that man was never created, just distinguished, and his future role in the world is to further and further distinguish himself so as to conquer the world around him, nature, a phrase I will delve into in my next essay. “What man is blessed-commanded to do is not simply to propagate: the process is one […] of transformation” (9). Through transformation, we are presented a challenge. We can grow to conquer, or we can strive towards unity, as is a main concept of Judaism.

In the act of separating, God brought forth a unique paradox, “compromising His Oneness and His Greatness” (5). When He said, “let us make man” (Genesis 1:26), he was asking permission, and with no other beings in existence, he must have been asking that of himself, thus putting him in a position of both supreme ruler and subordinate. Through this idea, we can see that the very root separation, the first binary division, was a division of God within himself. As such, God must be imbued into everything around, as all other separations are a constituent of that original separation.

The text moves on to discuss the nature of the phrase “to be.” It is represented as a “sort of jelling process” (6). In a literal sense, it’s the process of finding shape, of finding form. On a deeper level, when God declares, “let there be a separation” (1:6), he is providing form for two entities that previously existed in unity. Ironically enough, the being of divine unity himself is capable of destroying that unity by creating two units, given relativistic values that define them beyond the point where they could be recognized as a descendant from said unity. Good is given a value because it is, quite simply, “not evil”, and the same value holds true for evil. In a world of pure unity, there is no good, no evil, because there are no distinctions. We, as humans, cannot possibly comprehend pure unity because we live in a world so distant from the idea of it. Everything in our lives revolves around values held relativistic to one another. In other words, we know no constants that exist in a pure form without a counterpart.

And that is the current status of the human condition. We are doomed to live a world where separation plays a pivotal role in our daily lives—it is ingrained in our ethics, our morals, and our egos. While it’s not possible for us to achieve unity (some religious views may say otherwise), it’s important for us not too get too swept up in the idea of giving value by means of comparison, for it will only promote a culture obsessed with having the best, the greatest. Through actively transforming into a better people, willing to embrace that which is separate, can we move if only the slightest bit closer to unity.

• • •

As part of Sigmund Freud’s study on psychoanalysis, he tried to categorize the elusive realm of dreams. He separated the content of dreams into two: manifest-content and latent-content. The manifest is a disguise. Quite simply, it is a cover drawn over our eyes while we rest to entertain our subconscious. Dreams of this level are a manifestation of wish fulfillment and of satiating whatever desires we dwelt on that day, or days before. Latent-content is the symbolism behind the dream. Latency is parabolic, by nature, and deeply confusing. According to Freud, the wish-fulfillment process of dreams cannot be as straightforward as giving us what we desire; there must be a filter—what Freud refers to as a censor. This censor muddies what could otherwise be instant gratification into a vision that must be read as closely as the most allegorical texts—latency.

You entirely disregard the apparent connections between the elements in the manifest dream and collect the ideas that occur to you in connection with each separate element of the dream by free association according to the psychoanalytic rule of procedure. From this material you arrive at the latent dream-thoughts, just as you arrived at the patient's hidden complexes from his associations to his symptoms and memories. (Freud, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis)

David Mamet begins his analysis of the Noach story by referring to Freud’s philosophy of dreams, referencing both the manifest and the latent dream. In describing the latent dream, he says, “the latent dream […] is the dream we would rather forget, which is too powerful, too upsetting, too unsettling” (59).

The story of Noach is simple enough: God gives humans the command to spread forth and multiply, and as I previously established in the previous essay, to transform and grow. Somewhere along the way, God decided that it would not be in human’s best interest to function as a whole (a logical directive, as it would violate the individuality God created for each human). “Do not band together into large groups, you will do Evil” (60). Humans, being the remarkable listeners we are, did not heed his advice, and banded together to create a monument to our greatness: the Tower of Babel. God, enraged, sent a flood to destroy all humans and bury the Earth beneath the deluge, save for Noach and his venerable ark.

The Story of Noach as a dream might seem to be a bit farfetched, but to ancient man, furnished with a different mode of thought (speculation), dreams had a vastly different meaning. To them, dreams held the same reverence as a creed, and the two were deeply intertwined. Thus, we can examine some of the texts the same way we might go about examining dreams, starting by applying Freudian psychology to the stories.

The manifest content of this dream/story is, as Mamet states, the initial act of banding together, and building structures to rival God. This is the wish-fulfillment aspect. The latent content, the deeper dream, the one we would rather forget, would clearly be the great deluge—the flood. As Freud puts it, often the latent content of dreams “conceals a primal, infantile trauma” (61). Playing the psychoanalyst for God’s dreams is treading on dangerous waters, but, I would have to agree with Mamet in that God’s suppressed desire to kill, provoked by jealously enrooted through idolatry, is manifest through this dream.

Now it would be wrong of us to stop at Freud, one of the most controversial psychologists of the modern era. Let’s look at Carl Jung’s (another esteemed psychoanalyst) approach, one more focused on the deeper meaning of the dream, rather than the suppressed desires that conduct it. Jung, like Freud, divided dream content into two categories: objective and subjective. The objective is the literal, on a basic level, the manifest. An objective dream is straightforward in the sense that it does not really require interpretation. God’s dreams/stories belong to the latter group: the subjective. The subjective is open to interpretation and deeply allegorical. Through the subjective approach, a dream was to be seen as symbolic and analyzed as such.

Symbolism such as the rising waters that buried the tops of the mountains can be seen as an entropic regression wherein separations made in the days of creation are blurred and become one again. Through an act of chaos, unity, at least for the sake of cleansing, can be achieved. Again, a paradox is presented that water, a symbol of purity, can be the end of the world that was. Maybe not what Carl Jung would have reasoned (as he was keen to provide answers, not raise more questions), but following parabolic thought, paradoxes seem such a recurrence throughout Genesis that it would be foolish of us not to acknowledge whatever value they hold.

Ultimately, Mamet ties the story together through his interpretation of the dream not merely as the manifest, the objective, but as a device that we can grow through. “One cannot have what one wants […] is the message of Noach” (62). At the end of his brief analysis, he asserts his take on the human condition, which I focused heavily on in my previous essay. To be human is “to conquer our lower nature”(62). The addition of the words “our lower” provides a drastically different image of our purpose than the previous “to conquer nature.” It stresses, first, that nature is not necessarily a single idea, but rather exists as the summation of natures differently suited to each being of God’s creation. The previous “conquer nature” seems very confrontational in a way that could be unethical. By owning “our” nature, we are not conquering anything, per se, rather finding a balance, creating our own personal unity. And the word “lower” distinguishes between natures. The nature of natures, the higher nature, is one beyond us, one of a different binary division. It is the all-encompassing nature, and to conquer that idealism would be to manipulate and position us in a way so as to rival God, and as the story of Noach shows, that does not bode well with the Divine.

• • •

To conclude my series on parabolic thought, I will use Thomas Caramagno’s review of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse to play off common themes throughout the previous essay, to shed some final light on the nature of emotion and the human condition. Let it first be stated that I personally have never read To The Lighthouse, so in referencing the text, I am referring to Caramango’s review, not the actual book.

The first paragraph yields an interesting idea to jump off of: that of expression. Through writing her book, Woolf “‘expressed some very long felt and deeply felt emotion’ which writing finally laid to rest” (244). Emotion lies at the root of all human condition; it seeps into our dreams manifest as wish-fulfillment, it influences our intuitive senses, finding its way deep, deep into the inner processes of our psyche. It is what we know best (and also the least), for emotion escapes conventional description. The disconnect between words (symbols) and feelings is seen everywhere in life, from petty arguments to advertisements toting a ring to win “her heart.” We live emotion, but to express emotion is something entirely different. It is to have an awareness of “feelings.” Through expression, we can start to mend the disconnection between the verbal and the emotional.

Virginia Woolf’s obsession with her parents subsided after she wrote To the Lighthouse, as if through expressing herself non-verbally, she was able to comprehend a little better the forces at work in her mind. Her story was threaded with metaphor, in both the figurative (the lighthouse representing a beacon), and the narrative (her bipolar shifts translated into “seventeen subjective points of view” (244)).

The issue of dreams resurfaces (I can’t seem to escape it) in Caramango’s essay, in saying, of Mrs. Ramsay as the perfect maternal figure, “[the] idyllic dream cannot be fulfilled” (248). Dreams are the ultimate vessel of expression, for we have no active control over them. Instead, they feed off our emotions, our subconscious. To capture a dream, in all its depth, would be to capture emotion. And emotion, feeling, is the root of the human condition.

• • •

These essays may seem a bit scatterbrained, for they most certainly are. They are not so random, however, to lack any central threads. My purpose in writing these essays has not been to reveal a secret unbeknownst to the world about the human condition; I would not be the right person to do that. To better understand human condition, we must better understand ourselves. I set about to inspire a different kind of thought, one enrooted in the speculative and the parabolic, that might help uncover not necessarily what it means to be human, but what it means to be. I’ll conclude with a quote from Virginia Woolf, “We are sealed vessels afloat upon what it is convenient to call reality; at some moments, the sealing matter cracks; in floods reality.”

Winter '05 - Ra Ra Riot

On Shabbat, Bliss

Once a month, Aardvark sponsors a Shabbaton, basically a homestead with a religious family over Shabbat. Thing like this aren't usually my cup of tea, but I was low on cash (after Shpongle) and it seemed like it would do me some good to experience a true Shabbat. Anyways, the place was Moshav Modi'in (Mevo Modi'in), located about 4km north-west of Modi'in, which in turn is directly in between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, strafing the Green Line.

The Moshav was incredibly beautiful and had character other Moshavs lack. There was community art all over walls of houses, gardens full of fruit-bearing trees, and backyards with hammocks. The proper adjective to describe the residents would be, as Wikipedia says, eclectic.

I'll start by describing Shabbat, for the goyim audience. Shabbat is the seventh day of the week; it is the day of rest. Judaism views Shabbat in a completely different dynamic from the rest of the week, and of all Jewish tradition to keep holy, Shabbat is arguably the most important aspect of our faith (arguably does not mean I wish to argue this…I'd get sauced). Kabbalah defines Shabbat as the period of the week where the Shehinah is elevated and rises, with the help of our Mitzvot, to meet the Ohr Ein Soph in a moment of divine unity. The hell…yeah, okay. I'm not about to explain Kabbalah, but in Jewish Mysticism, God / The Divine / The Spirit-wind-of-Elohim has two components, a male, infinite being, called the Ohr Ein Soph (translated: the infinite light) that exists outside of the realm of anything finite. We do not have any direct interaction with the Ohr Ein Soph, and the only way there is any interaction between our realm and his is through a series of "lenses" known as Sephirot, basically the exact same thing as Chakras. Following? The Shehinah is the female counterpart of God and she exists in the finite realm. Judaism is all about unity, and it's our goal to unify the Shehinah with the Ohr Ein Soph by repairing the broken vessels (Klippa) and some other shit. In other words, by doing good deeds, we create an act of divine unity between the female and the male. In other words, cosmic sex. If you managed to follow that, my hat is off to you. So that's Kabbalah's take on Shabbat, it's a day of pure unity.

Aaaaaas such, you are not allowed to do a few things on Shabbat. No carrying, no burning, no extinguishing, no finishing, no writing, no erasing, no cooking, no washing, no sewing, no tearing, no knotting, no untying, no shaping, no plowing, no planting, no reaping, no harvesting, no threshing, no winnowing, no selecting, no sifting, no grinding, no kneading, no combing, no spinning, no dyeing, no chain-stitching, no warping, no weaving, no unraveling, no building, no demolishing, no trapping, no shearing, no slaughtering, no skinning, no tanning, no smoothing, and no marking. No problem.

That in mind, we got to Rabbi Avraham Arieh Trugman's and, like, damn. His place is sweet. He has an awesome yard with a fountain in it, a cave below the yard, and ancient ruins on the hill next to his house. The house itself is beautifully designed, with tons of really trippy Cabalistic paintings basically depicting some of the stuff I described earlier (God having sex with him/her self).

There were eleven of us, if I'm not mistaken. We went to shul Friday night. It was pretty weird. It seemed like half the congregation was tripping face. Dinner was served when we got back. Of course, the food was delicious and endless (definitely NOT why I decided to come…). So we ate, then we slept.

Somewhere in the back of my mind (near where I have my good judgement caged up), I decided to wake up early. Sin alarm clock, I woke up at around 6:30, got up, walked around the Moshav, stopped by the shul, meditated a bit, and read a lot. It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky and probably 60˚. We had second meal together and then we decided to check out the Ben Shemen Forest (the largest contiguous body of woods in Israel) which just so happens to surround the Moshav. The crew was Ari, Oscar, Hannah, Natalie, Adin, and Ryah. And the forest was pretty cool (by Israel standards, top notch). I'd include pictures, but they're on Oscar's Android and I have no idea how to get them off and I'm way too lazy.

After a profuse amount of gambling with Oscar over ping pong (overall I lost 5 shekel), we called it quits, had third meal, and parted ways. All in all, a very positive first Shabbat experience. And as I lay in my bed on saturday night, a sweeping feeling of contentedness sank in, and I was really quite happy.     

Sunblocks - Ratatat

On Shpongle

Well, shit. A few of us (Oscar, Sarah, and Jacob) went to see Shpongle this past weekend. Not your typical show. In fact, I've never really seen anything like this, despite having gone to a few festivals back home. The atmosphere was electric, the people were glowing.

The "secret location in the desert", advertised in the flyer, turns out to be a musical venue next to Mitzpe Gvulot. The desert here is a continuation of the Sanai Desert (due to its proximity to Egypt), and as such, is nice and sandy, not hard and rocky like the Negev. It was nice to walk around barefoot, although there were these spiky burs that kept getting lodged in my feet. Regardless, we were in the middle of nowhere. To the south and east of us was more and more desert, north of us was the kibbutz, then more desert, and west of us was more kibbutzim, then Gaza (yay).

A Burning Man "feel"

It was more of a festival than a show, to be fair. We got there are around 6 on Friday on a chartered bus organized by a man named Pinpin (Oscar knows him). The ride was pretty fun, and surprisingly enough, nearly everyone was speaking English. When we got there, the place was pretty empty, so we had a nice, relaxed dinner and met our neighbors. Turns out, Oscar's sister, who lives in Israel, came, and she set up right next to us. We explored the venue, etc. The place was really cool. The stage area had tents all around it selling Chai, clothes, and art. A few of the tents were just displaying art, and there were even a couple teepees there just to sit inside.

The grounds came alive as the night progressed, and I was incredibly pleased with the people that came with me. Oscar, Jacob, and Sarah are all independently-minded enough to go around on their own, meeting people in their own ways, that I didn't have to be constantly be with them (which is not the way to do a festival). It was great just to wander around the grounds, dancing, talking, not talking. There were people playing frisbee, giving out face paint, lounging in giant bean bag chairs, and doling out food. The people made this such a special experience.

At a Shpongle show anywhere else, you'd see every sort of drug being used and abused. You'd see people so fucked up that they don't even know where they are, or what they're doing. You'd get a bit of a misconstrued sense of the counterculture, that drugs come first and the music comes second. It's the other way around here. Sure, people are doing drugs, but you don't see them out in the open. Maybe the army conditions them to be more mature, or maybe that's just the culture here. I loved it. You could have interesting conversations with just about anyone (assuming they spoke enough English). People here have ideals and embody their lifestyle, not just a bunch of druggies throwing on hippie garb. People eat couscous and vegetables, not junk food. And the conversations we had were engaging and meaningful!

Speechless

The show…Shpongle did not disappoint. At the very moment when Raj played his first flute note, the entire crowd of 6,000 strangers were united under one spiritual experience. We were Shnitzled in the Negev. It was awesome. The show started at about 3:30AM and concluded as the sun rose at about 6. I'm not even going to attempt to describe the show; words cannot do it justice. All I will say is that it was hands-down, the most spiritual and magnificent experience I've ever had. And that sunrise...

A Very Shpongled Sunrise

On Arad, in the Desert

Lunch at an abandoned hotel complex

Vistas worth fighting over

On Geography, Jerusalem

I love geography something akin to the way I love chocolate croissants or back massages. I think it's one of those subjects that school has never ruined for me, something that I've always taken upon myself to learn on my own time. This post will be dealing with the geography of Jerusalem (I'll save the geography of Israel for another post), and if you don't really care for maps and familiarizing yourself with your surroundings, this post probably isn't for you. Actually, I'll be a bit surprised if anyone even finishes this post, but whatever.

South Jerusalem

We live in Katamon, specifically, Gonen Bet, on Yose ben Yoezer. We're in southern Jerusalem, basically as far south as you can get within the city limits. South of us is the friendly Arab neighborhood of Beit Sefafa, and south of that is the illegal Israeli settlement of Gilo. We live in a valley that extends south-west of us, and Gilo is on one hill and Malha is on the other. Through the valley, you get the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. Right then. Here's a map.

Expand that shit. I am at the red blip marked A—Yosse Ben Yoezer 34. Across the street from us is Shalom Felafel, Pizza Oz, and Bar 55, respectively a felafel joint, a pizza shop, and a liquor store. The other blips represent places that I go on a regular basis. The green blip is the rock climbing gym, and I'm there about three times a week. The blue blip is our local library, a four minute walk. The yellow blip is the supermarket, Rami Levi. Between us and the supermarket is a defunct railroad that once served as the primary method of travel between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The purple blip, up top, is my favorite park within walking distance (Gehenna and Gan Sacher are my favorites in J-ru). The turquoise blip on the top right is Emek Rafaim, a street lined with restaurants and shops down it's length, a twenty minute walk. The red shaded area is Katamon, our neighborhood, essentially the largest neighborhood by area in all of Jerusalem. The blue area is Talpiot, which has an industrial area, along with many shops. The green area on the left is Malha, which has the Jerusalem Mall, the largest shopping area around. The yellow area is the German Colony, one of the most expensive and upscale neighborhoods in Jerusalem. This is southern Jerusalem, which is predominantly secular and has a pretty young crowd.

Jerusalem at Large

Here's another map.

Katamon is that yellow area at the bottom, my apt. still that red blip. Thumbtacks represent parks and places I go to chill. The yellow one at the right is Gehenna, a.k.a. Guy ben Hinnom, a.k.a. the place where, in ancient times, they threw the rotting corpses of those not fit to receive proper burial, trash, and sewage. And now, it's a beautiful park with the best grass to sit on in all of Jerusalem, and cliffs next to it that are bolted for rock climbing (still waiting to buy equipment). It's on the border of East Jerusalem, so you'll see a mixed crowd there, but it's a park so everyone's friendly. The pink thumbtack next to it is Bible Hill, an empty hilltop with wild grass and no development, which is remarkable considering how densely populated Jerusalem is. Only a matter of time...The turquoise one in the center is Gan Sacher, which is the largest park in Jerusalem, but not necessarily the nicest, see what I'm saying? It's fun, though. The green thumbtack on the left is the Jerusalem Forest, a great place to wander around and get lost in, although all the trees have been artificially planted by the JNF, so it's a bit bittersweet, adventuring there, that is. The blue thumbtack on the bottom left is by far my favorite place that's accessible by city bus, but I'm not gonna say what's there. I merely put that there so my fellow Jerusalemites have a cool place to try to find.

Blue Thumbtack

The blips. From the left of the screen. The pink blip in the center is the Givat Ram Hebrew University Campus, which is a beautiful place with a massive library (five million some odd books). The yellow blip is the central bus station, which is unfortunately far from our apartment. The red blip is Mahane Yehuda, otherwise known as The Souk. The blue one is Tsiyon Square, or Crack Square, as we call it. That's where all the Americans congregate at night, and I generally try to avoid it as a rule of thumb. The surrounding area, though, shaded in yellow, is the City Center, and has many bars hidden in all sorts of side alleys, resembling something out of Assassin's Creed. It's really cool. The green blip in the blue section is the Arab Souk, which has lots of tapestries and other hippie shit for sale, along with tons of cheap Chinese junk.

Typical Store at the Arab Souk

The neighborhoods. The green area is the German Colony, north of which is Talbia, another very expensive area. North of that is Rehavia, which is the most populous area in Jerusalem, and is relatively secular and well-to-do. Actually, all of Jerusalem is pretty well-to-do (save for East Jerusalem), and I find myself being able to walk to just about any part of the Jewish city without worrying about safety. North again, the small yellow section, is the City Center extending from the bus station to Mamila, and you'll find most of the bars and pedestrian traffic here. Rehov Yafo, the light rail / pedestrian street, runs the length of this section. To the south-east is Mamila, the upscale district with jewelry shops, expensive hotels, and multi-million shekel apartments. East of that, in blue, is the Old City, incredible, incredible place, surrounded by the red East Jerusalem (not allowed to go there...nothing really to see anyways...). And the light blue. Haredi-land, if for lack of other description. This is basically where all the ultra-orthodox live in Jerusalem, and my oh my are there a lot of them. I'd say essentially a third of the city's population is Haredi. I even got stoned once near Mount Hertzel on Rosh Hashana. I was walking back to our apartments from Ein Kerem and these two kids started throwing rocks at me...

Path through the Jerusalem Forest on the Jerusalem Trail

Aaaand that's basically Jerusalem, city of a million people, holiest city in Israel, denser than every city in the states save for NYC and San Francisco, and a pretty damn cool place to spend half the year.

He Tried to Escape - Midlake & Logos - Rodrigo y Gabriela

On בית היצירה (Bayit HaYetzirah), House of Creation

 

Our room, in all its glory

My Bed

Ari's

On Settling, settling, settling

Jerusalem

Routine is yet again setting in, bolstered by the fact that I'm grounded this week from going out at night (I decided not to go to volunteering one too many times). I'm not sure whether I need this time to reflect and actually write something, or whether I'm yearning for last week or the week before, where each day brought a different story and each night, as I lay in bed, I felt accomplished. I did nothing of my own volition today. We went on a tsiyur to the West Bank, but I didn't chart where we were going, look up the bus routes, and hop on an Egged. I didn't have to pack a backpack and hope I'd find somewhere I could set up my tent. We went to a beautiful place, really, it was a spring in the middle of the arid Judean mountains, but it didn't have the same feel as if I were there with a sense of adventure. It just felt like everyone was dragged out of bed an hour too early and attitudes reflected that. We got back in the early afternoon and I've been here since, practicing my Hebrew, listening to music, and wasting my time away.
   
Americanization

Aardvark has been assimilating with Year Course. There are some great people on that program (just as there is on Aardvark), but one thing I love about Aardvark is that it's so small that it doesn't make sense to always hang out with Aardvarkians. It gives incentive to meet people off the program. Year Course doesn't quite work that way. It's large enough that people seem contented to spend a year in Israel, with Americans, and as we hang out more and more with them, I feel less compelled to try to meet Israelis. That being said, I really do love the friends I've made on Year Course.

Time

My list of places to go on weekends has gotten a bit too long, and it's been a while since I've actually explored. Time is scarce. I keep forgetting that I'm on a program, and as much as I'd like to do whatever I please, I still have classes three days a week and volunteering four days. It's becoming compelling to live for the weekends, but then I feel I've mismanaged my time something equivalent to the income inequality of Mexico. So I'm left with the challenge of trying to enjoy my week, despite the metaphorical corral (or barbed wire, if you're talking about Israel).  It's too easy to get sucked into the laziness of apartment life. My computer is too convincing to pick up and browse. Tomorrow, I'm not going to touch my computer. It's a start, I guess. I would really love to delete my Facebook again. There was a different dynamic without my "internet personality". I only had to worry about myself, not "myself"— there are no edits to make in real life.

Space (of a personal sort)

They're watching me…(Hey, guys). I understand it's their responsibility to keep me safe, and out of trouble, but I think somewhere along the line, they were convinced that this was a personal issue, or at least things have become a bit personal. I have absolutely nothing against our madrichim, they're great people, fun, enjoyable, and well-intentioned; the fashion of being a subordinate just doesn't look great on me. I'm going to try a lot harder to restore trust and curb my impulsivity, even if it means drowning my personality with methylphenidate.

Ari and I completely re-did our room, and it's actually a livable space now. We have a rug, and a beautiful tapestry on the wall, and lots of art (including drawings by Ari). We have a desk and speakers and candles and incense and a trash can and a little bookshelf. The place is comfortable.

Isaac's was shut down. The machrichim found out about it, and since they've been reading my blog, undoubtedly know who's responsible. That whole thing was a bit shortsighted (a profound characteristic of the youth). Oops.

שלווה
   
I want a vacation (from vacation). Thank god I'm going to college in Colorado, where there are mountains to be climbed and skied, and not somewhere flat, somewhere normal, somewhere routine.

In lieu of whatever tone I may have conveyed amidst rambling, I'm somewhere around the happiest I've ever been. I would just like the opportunity to poke around the far reaches of emotion in this state. I think I'm going to add an extra couple hours to each day.


Falling Through A Field - Black Moth Super Rainbow

On Safed, Zefat

We embarked on an optional program to the fourth holiest Jewish city (yes, you can quantify holiness), otherwise known as Safed, or Zefat (pronounced Tzfat), this Wednesday and Thursday...yeah. Safed is really a beautiful city, nestled in the hills of the Galilee, with a great view of Mount Meron (see my last post).

Sunset in Safed

Basically, we were dropped off in this hotel and traded over to the chasids (see fig. 1). The occasion was the holiday of Simchat Torah, marking the end of the year-long reading of Torah, and a time to start a new book, maybe Harry Potter. Just kidding, we're re-reading that shit...again and again. Baa-ut, this is a fun chag, a la booze, so I'm not complaining.

Fig. 1

The program these chasids had set up for us was awful sweet and I really did appreciate how faithful they are to some diety and whatever, but I just wasn't having any of it. I'm not about to beat around the bush. I was there for the free booze. So I skipped all the lectures and stuff, and joined in the festivities at night, including but not limited to, getting drunk and dancing with loads of men. God would've smote me if I deigned to dance with a woman...none of that.

It was fun, though. There were a bunch of Year Course kids (think of Aardvark as a sleek, Ford Mustang, and Year Course, a rusty ol' Taurus). No offense to that lot. But the kids on their program were actually real cool and we went out stargazing until late and hung out ever later.

Chilled kids

Thursday, I woke up late and went out on the town and found some neat-o abandoned shit. More of the same Thursday night (drinking and dancing and torah), and then back to Jerusalem I went.

  Time is the Enemy - Quantic

On Sukkot, Old School

Sukkot is a holiday that celibates nature, and more specifically, rain. See, rain is incredibly important to life in ancient Israel, and obviously provided the basis for a few holidays, Sukkot included. Basically, Sukkot is a rain dance, and it represents the last foray into nature before the heavens separate and God takes a gigantic piss. So we took a foray. 

Over Sukkot, Ari and I went backpacking in the Galilee. Our madricha, dropped the two of us off at the Shvil Israel trailhead (Israel Trail) north of Mount Meron, and we were off on our "true Sukkot experience". First thing I noticed about Meron is that it is drastically different from any other mountain in Israel. It's not like the mountains in the Golan, they're too dry. Carmel is too developed. Obviously, it's nothing like the mountains in the desert. No, Meron stands out. First off, it's big...not by hiking standards (at all), but looking at it from afar, it's a beautiful sight. Second, it's green. You hear that, Israel, green. There are trees and shit. Finally, it's on the Israel Trail, which is a pretty sweet hike from the south near Eliat all the way north to Kibbutz Dan, and tons of cool people hike the trail.

Mediterranean in the distance

For the sake of my sanity and your clarity, look at this link. This is our route, with the places we camped as a waypoint. Actually the link isn't working, so here's a file of the map, you need Google Earth, though. Download.

The first night we camped at this pretty legit campground on top of the mountain. There was one other person camping there, his name was Daniel and I smoked a cigarette with him. Cool guy. We made this incredibly warm fire, on a surprisingly chilly night...and then get this, it started raining, so we took shelter in our tent and went to bed. Things were dry in the morning.

Tent nestled in the trees, beautiful campground

After Meron came the Nahal Amud, which is a valley between Meron and the hilly city of Zefat with a stream running through it. See pictures for effect. It was tight. That night we could not quite find the fabled campground our madrich mentioned was there, so we talked to some other people in the same boat and decided to basically camp in the dirt parking lot we're in. I walked to this gas station, re-upped on food, and set up tent. Turns out there were a lot of cows that roamed the land we were tenting on, so we had to be mindful of our steps.

The Nahal Amud under a natural bridge

It was gorges...get it? yeaaah.

Morning broke and we took off towards Mount Arbel, with the intent of camping up there. The hike was pretty nondescript (stole some fresh fruit from a kibbutz...yummy). So we get to the Arbel trailhead at around three o'clock and realize that camping is not only illegal, but near impossible to get away with (it's a really popular hike and the mountain is barren, so hiding amongst trees would be a no-go). These two travelers from Manchester, England offered to give us a ride to the beach, where they knew people camped out. We were in a bit of a pickle with the sunset and whatnot, so sure...why not? Bad choice. We get to the beach and it's loaded with arsim (thugs) and fat people. And they had loads of food...we had none. Anyways, we're pretty exhausted so we decide to crash at around 7. That's when the music started. Ari, a little pissed off, went to the main gate and asked when quiet hours were. The response: "quiet hours? people come to the beach to get drunk and listen to loud music, not to sleep." Fun! Sleep was pretty scarce.

Galilee from Arbel

Still exhausted, we resumed our trek in the morning, summiting Arbel by noon, and finding our way into Tiberias by two. We spent the day hanging out by the sea, reading and whatnot, and caught an early ride back to Jerusalem. Chag fucking sameach.

Caves are cool

Oh, and somewhere along the way, Ari and I caught some bug from some food we ate or something and subsequently spent the next couple days sick as a dog, hospitals and whatever.

Aruarian Dance - Nujabes

On Yom Kippur

When I say I've never been religious, I've never been religious. I really never paid attention in shul back home. I'd even sneak my iPod in and wire the headphones up my jacket sleeve and listen to music the whole time through. Yom Kippur here is a little different. Everyone celebrates (or atones), and everything is shut down. Everything. The airport is closed, the roads are deserted, no businesses are open, even Arabs don't drive out of respect, so I figured I'd at least fast so I didn't feel left out.

The rules for Yom Kippur are kind of strict. No electricity, no creating (writing, music, art), no destroying (tearing paper, causing harm), no lighting fire (as it's an act of creation), no eating, no drinking, no bathing, no wearing leather, no sex.

I forgot to eat lunch Friday, so I had a small dinner Friday night. I missed three meals…just not consecutively. Friday night a few of us went to Emek Rafaim, which is a major street with tons of shops (all closed, of course). Basically there were a few hundred people just hanging out in the street, playing cards, skateboarding, scootering, and laying down on the asphalt. It was incredible. We just went around meeting people.

No Cars Go

Saturday we went on a walk down Begin Boulevard, which is the major throughway of Jerusalem. Imagine Interstate 84 (or whatever your local highway is) completely devoid of cars. It was something else.

Begin Boulevard - busiest road in Jerusalem

I broke the fast an hour early. I know, I know, I'm going to hell. But I'll be damned if that sandwich wasn't the most delicious I've ever had.

We Aim - Yppah

On Kibbutz Ketura

Each week, Aardvark takes a tsiyur, or trip, to heighten our cultural understanding of Israel, yadda yadda. To be completely honesty, they're a bit boring. This week, however, we did a vacation-style tsiyur to a kibbutz down south for a couple nights. We lodged in the guest house there, which is basically a hotel, but isn't a hotel...know what I'm saying?

Happy Noah at Kibbutz Ketura

Anyways, we left at seven Tuesday morning, napped through the bus ride (which took us on interstate 1 through the West Bank, and then down south on route 90 along the Dead Sea). We got situated at the kibbutz…my room was Andy, Ari, Oscar, Jacob, and myself. Good group. Tuesday was pretty nondescript. We learned about the kibbutz (it's a "green" kibbutz with a pretty big solar field adjacent to it, wiki), did some "organic gardening", consisting of digging trenches in the dirt and filling them with straw, and got lectured one too many times. Tuesday night was where it was at. We had a poolside barbecue, night swimming, and schmoozing. The lifeguard on duty was on Year Course (the original Aardvark, similar program), so after she got off , she brought a few of us up to a bonfire that all the year course kids were having.

Gardening with Oscar

The bonfire was really cool, although it was facilitated by their madricha, so it's not quite like it was of their own volition. Whatever. It was pretty far away from the kibbutz on the desert plain, so I can now say I've been to a bonfire in the desert. The stars out in the desert at night were something else. I'd place them a notch above The Berkshires, but below Montana. Afterwards, we all went back, hung out a bit outside their residence and met some of the other kibbutz people. There were some pretty interesting volunteers there, and a bunch of South Americans doing some strange program in Israel…didn't quite understand their story. I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of the table they all chilled around. A volunteer some time back wrote a list of "rules" to follow on it that served as their commandments. I can't quite remember what they said, something along the lines of, "learn to love arak", "put your shoes in your suitcase, take them out when you leave", "have sex in the pool at least once", "look at the stars every night before bed", etc.

Downtime

Wednesday morning we did activities we signed up for the night before. I signed up for "film-making", which as it turns out was definitely the best choice. Basically we went around making a really fucking dumb movie about a killer that kills people with spoons; I was a recurring character that kept dying, similar to Kenny from South Park. It was pretty goofy. We had some down time during the day, so Oscar and I jammed a bit with Daniel, a Year Course kid (I lugged my djembe down to the kibbutz).

At about 4:00, the tour guide brought us all into the desert. At this point, both Ari and I were pretty pissed at all the group stuff that had been going on. I felt a bit coddled. So we basically went to the front of the group for the hike and left the tour guide behind us. We all rendezvoused at this shed at the foothills of the Red Mountains in the Negev (about fifteen minutes from the Kibbutz).

Foothills...I climbed up the mountain in center frame

Then something pretty cool happened. We were to do a "solo desert experience". Basically, we went ot on our own to an isolated spot in the desert (an issue I'll address in a second), turn off our cell phones and be completely silent and sit for a half-an-hour or so and write if we felt like it. He told us not to go too far, not to climb up the mountain, etc. Well…I really wanted to climb the mountains. When we were in Ein Gedi, we never actually summited a peak, so my hiking senses were tingling. I needed to see what was on the other side of these mountains. I think about a quarter of the way into my hike, I would have been considered too far away for safety's sake. Impulses kicked in, and I guess I just took off. Basically I started my trek by going up this rock-scramble in a gully of the mountain face. Things got a bit too steep, so I started to traverse, and that's basically how I got up the mountain: hiking until it got too steep and then traversing.

Found this dwelling on my way up the mountain, nestled in a ravine (phone quality)

View from top: Ketura in foreground, Arava Valley, Jordanian Mountains in background

Well I got to the top in about fifteen minutes (I booooked it), so I had a fair amount of time left, maybe an hour or so. I sat on top of this ten meter cliff on the top of the mountain, meditated a bit, wrote a little and tucked my writing into a crevice in the cliff-face. And I decided to continue. The wide desert plain called me. I started to wander away from everyone, and sat in the middle of the desert, not hearing a sound besides the wind in my ears, not seeing a person, no life, no sign of life other than one road. It was incredibly serene. I could see in the distance (really not too far away) a strikingly similar set of mountains as the one I just climbed, so I decided to do the whole thing again. This time was a bit easier, as there was a desert road (one lane, 4x4 is a must) snaking up the mountain that I followed. And I could see everything…To my east lay the Arava Valley, behind it the Black Mountains of Jordan. To my south was more mountains, and a gentle slope down. Had it not been so muggy, I'm sure I would have been able to see the Red Sea and Eilat. To the south-west lay more mountains, a bit smaller than the set I was on, directly west was the desert plain, a flat, rocky, lifeless expanse that Moses wandered through for forty years. To the north was a road, more mountains, and a communications array situated on the tallest peak in my view. It was a fucking panorama.

 

Desert road (http://g.co/maps/pzqzu)

Now is where I got in a bit of trouble. The sun started going down, and I was daaamn far away from everyone else. So I booked it down the desert road, across the desert plain, to the face I scrambled up. I got there, and said to myself, fuck this, I'm not about to die. Going down that slope would not have been safe. To my north-east lay a mountain with a power line tower on top of it, and up this mountain was a path, so I decided to walk across the plain to the mountain. Shit took forever. It was really much further away than I thought, and there were tons of prominences along the way that I mistook for the desert plain, so I had to double-back maybe three times on that journey. I got to the top, walked down the path, and got a call (I left my phone on) from Paula, our madricha, screaming, saying everyone has been waiting over half an hour for me. Shiiiit. So basically I sprinted down this path and back to them, coming in at a hefty forty minutes late. Thank god I wasn't the only one that was late, apparently a group of people that summited the largest mountain of the "front range" were in the same boat as me (climbing things they shouldn't have been, going way too far, and coming back late). Well they were pissed, and we apologized profusely, and I guess things were mended up at least enough for all of us to go about living.

Trail down

They then brought us to the same place we had a bonfire the night before and taught us how to make pita over a fire. It was pretty neat, and really yummy. We headed back and chilled for the rest of the night, meeting some more of the volunteers and hanging out with Year Course kids. It was a fun night.

I think the bike ride is what really pissed my madricha off. Basically, Aardvark went on a bike ride around the Kibbutz and area, and while we were waiting for everyone to get suited up for biking, I asked Paula if I could jump off this ledge. A resounding, "NO". Well, ADHD kicked in, and when her back was turned, I jumped it, landed it a few times, and, as she turned around, mid jump, I crashed (baby crash), and she freaked. So I didn't get to go on the bike ride. Damn. And that's basically that. I had another conversation with them and got reprimanded a bit, and explained to them how I'm pretty impulsive and I'm trying to work on that and all, and things seem okay now, although they're worried about me, which is not a great position for me to be in. Oh, and they emailed my parents, so now I have to deal with that.

The bike ride I didn't get to go on

Well Kibutz Ketura was quite the tsiyur. I might end up back there now that I know people there; I'd probably be able to crash, but to be honest, there are a few hundred other kibbutzim to visit, and I'm damn glad to be back in Jerusalem.

I should be getting to volunteering. I switched to work at the Lone Soldier Center, basically a non-profit established to provide a "family" to solders here without any family. The boss was going to be an hour late, so I went down the street to this cafe and I just finished my iced coffee. And I'm back on Facebook. I gave in. Phooey.

Minnesota, WI - Bon Iver & True Love Waits - Radiohead

On Isaac's, 2.0

We've been doing some renovations

Isaac is no longer "my" space, but now "our" space. It's become a group effort. We always keep our eyes out for things with the mindset, "that would be great for Isaac's." The comfy chair was a bit difficult to get up, involving hoisting it up the outside of the apartment complex with a rope. It's fun, though. Last night, Andy and I were out snagging some signs when this group of seven-ish ladies accosted us in Hebrew. Me: "Ani lo medaber ivrit!" So we explained the signs are for the roof, and they got curious, so we brought them all up to the roof. They are now the first Israelis to experience Isaac's, and they loved it. It's both my, and all the other kids on the program, sincerest hope that the machrihim don't find out about Isaac.

Ethel and her parking spot

On Ya'aretz Street, Left at Yafo

We found this really cool bar. I mean really, really cool. It's called Djembe Bar. It's basically an indoor/outdoor set up with couches all over the place. There's a firepit and they regularly have bonfires outside. Inside, there's a room full of djembes and more djembes (if I had to guess, I'd say 25), and you're welcome to just come and jam. The staff working there are really cool people who just made Aliyah from the states, but they don't have work visas so they live off tips and sleep in tents in the backyard of the bar.

Cozy couch with Gabz and Andy

Whadda crew

It felt like I was back at Max's Garage, minus street signs. We'll definitely make this a regular spot.

The Shrine / An Argument - Fleet Foxes