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.

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