July 29, Friday evening:

We finally took David to the doctors today to see what was going on. We grabbed a cab and went to Wolfson Medical Center. It was such an easy process, which is nice to know in the future, just in case we need to get to a doctor again. Coincidentally, David had an appointment with Dr. Weiss from Australia. He spoke perfectly good English and was extremely nice. It was weird having a doctor who wore a yarmulke as he inspected David. Thank goodness, everything turned out to be totally normal and David was experiencing a bout of horrible dehydration. Instead of doing our Shabbat shopping at the “shuk,” a produce/flea outside market, we went to Mr. Zol super market and picked up our food for the weekend. The stores close in Jerusalem on the Sabbath and so everyone does their weekend shopping on Thursday evening or Friday morning. You can imagine how crazy busy it was.

In the afternoon, I was able to scrub all of our floors from top to bottom and it FINALLY feels like home. Then David and I worked on getting our meals ready for the weekend. Tonight we were being hosted by another HUC student after services and were asked to bring a veggie dish. David and I loved cooking together in our new and clean, might I add, kitchen. We listened to music as we cooked, it was a lot of fun.

Tonight, I went to Shabbat services at HUC in the gardens. The chairs were in a half circle facing the Western Wall. It was such a beautiful sight. I am so lucky to be able to pray feet away from the Western Wall as much as I want, especially on Shabbat. The entire service was in Hebrew but our interns led the music parts with a mandolin, guitar, and drums. It was very beautiful and very special.

Then, David and I walked over to the HUC students for dinner. It was nice getting to know some students I haven’t had the chance to talk to yet. We had a very relaxing dinner and now it is time for bed!

July 30, Saturday

David and I decided that the best way we could celebrate Shabbat this weekend was by sleeping in and catching up on some sleep. It was very nice to do so and around noon we got up and got ready to join some friends for lunch. We made a very good Greek pasta salad and headed over to eat. There were about ten or fifteen of us and it was a great time with amazing food. After lunch we sang songs and then headed off into different directions. I decided to get together some people to go to the Arab “shuk (different from the other produce market but a flea market nonetheless)” which I had heard was very cool to do on Shabbat. Years ago, it was too unsafe to go wandering through this part of town. Now, thank goodness, as long as we take males with us we are fine. It was so safe and I was not worried for a minute, which for me is a blessing. I made some great deals (I am really practicing my bargaining skills, not sure if this a good skill to acquire as a rabbi? Whatever!) and was able to get a tapestry for our living room wall and FINALLY a sofa slip cover which is beautiful.

After my shuk experience, David and I headed to the cinemateque, the movie theater, for a showing of “Million Dollar Baby.” Although it was quite good, it was completely depressing. We did see it with some HUC friends so afterwards decided to eat ice cream after such a sad movie.

July 31-Sunday

I had a hard time getting up for school today since we did not make it home last night until around one in the morning. After school, David and I had lunch and then stayed for one of the intern discussions on “Reform Judaism and Halacha.” It was interesting and overwhelming realizing I would have these discussions with my peers for the rest of my life.

Then we came home and cooked dinner for the first time. We hosted our two good friends Lauren and Karen for dinner. It was great fun and we loved having people over finally to enjoy our apartment with us. Lauren and Karen are in my same class and they stayed for a while afterwards as we studied Hebrew together. We really enjoy them!