And by recovering I mean from the intense ten days we spent traveling around Israel with mom when she came to visit last week. I do not think that David and I realized how much fun we would have as tour guides. I was very nervous before my mom came because I wanted to show her everything, especially because this was her first time here. It did not help that the day she arrived was cold and rainy-both of which neither of us were prepared for. However, after one rough night of trying to make sure she did not fall asleep in her salad at dinner, the entire visit was incredible and the weather was perfect. Apparently our living room futon is much more comfortable than we thought. I also did not realize how much we really know about this country, especially Jerusalem. In less than four days we say: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Caesarea, Haifa, Kineret (Sea of Galilee), Masada, Tsfat, and the Dead Sea. Pretty unbelievable! I will not go into too much detail because much of her visit can be seen and explained by viewing the pictures in the photo gallery. Not only did we tour many places (even David and I saw new sites for the first time as well), mom got a “peek” into our life here in Jerusalem. It is much easier now to talk to her on the phone. She knows about all the places we are talking about and the people as well.

Mom got to experience a pot luck Shabbat dinner with us, see my gym, got to classes with me, drink tea and do my usual breakfast routine in the morning, go to a Jewish “Halloween” party with us, and got to physically experience how much walking we do in this country. My mom was the easiest person to please and the incredibly fun and positive. I am still sad about her leaving-almost a week ago on Friday, but have been so preoccupied trying to recover from a bad head cold as well.

After my mom left it has been work, work, work. Starting school last week was a rude awakening after much time off for the holidays. We have been given lots of work and I have some very important deadlines coming up as well. For instance, next Monday I am leading services with fellow classmate and rabbinical student Josh Samuels and cantorial student Jess Lenza. Both of which are my friends, fortunately. Although it has been fun to coordinate service choreography, practice prayers, and create a service outline together, we are all very ready to finish practicing and get to it on Monday. I have calculated that we have already practiced over eight hours for services next week. It has been fun but somewhat stressful. We are excited because we are having a drummer and guitarist, better known as my fiancé. I am excited and anxious for next Monday to come.

Besides practicing for services and working on homework, I am fighting this head cold and working on two papers that are coming up. First is for Modern Jewish History. This history paper is due the same day as when I will be delivering my Dvar Torah, sermon. I am not nervous about delivering my sermon. I am nervous about actually finishing it. I am giving it on December 6 and again cannot wait to finish both of these.

This work has kept me quite busy and intellectually challenged. I enjoy doing the research for all of my work and learning how to work through these intense assignments while balancing my social and personal life.

Tonight was an especially meaningful night for me. I began my community service project that will be happening every Tuesday night for approximately four hours. It will be a long and late day but I am excited for it. I have decided to volunteer at what is called Mevassert Zion, an Ethiopian absorption center. The background on the center and most of the people is this: many of these Ethiopians converted to Judaism JUST so that they could live in the land of Israel where they could be free and safe. Because of this conversion they must now take Jewish classes and most all children and parents are in Hebrew classes to become integrated into the larger society. They are poor, single families with many children and no jobs. I decided to work with a friend of mine, Ilana, at the center. We were assigned a family with seven children. We were both very nervous to meet the family since we had no idea how they would react to us.

As we walked down a long path to get to their house I remember it feeling so incredibly awkward. Do they know we are here to help them? What do they think of us? What will I think of them? I am glad that I have Ilana to work with because she keeps everything quite positive and chill. When we arrived in the house we met four of the children. We imagine that the other three were sleeping. There were two cots in the middle of the living room, a sink, a small counter, and a television. This was their living room. We did not see the rest of the house, but it was clean but quite small especially for seven children. The mother was sweet as can be and from what we could tell the kids were somewhat close in age. There was a boy who was sixteen, a girl who was fourteen, two other little girls around eight or seven, and a little boy around four. Out of the entire group of HUC volunteers Ilana and I were given the newest family to arrive in Israel, they had only been here for a month. This brought about its own challenges. No one in the family spoke any English or Hebrew. We were able to somewhat communicate with the sixteen year old who is in Hebrew classes and knows simple words. This was a challenged I did not realize I would have to deal with. How do you play Simon Says in Hebrew without explaining the rules? What games can you play where you do not to do explaining? Ilana and I were creative and found some fun things for the children to do. The mother sat next to us and force fed us her Ethiopian cuisine. Although it was good, I was done by the second bite and she MADE us keep eating .It is considered rude in their culture to refuse their food and hospitality. Although we were grateful for her hospitality our stomachs were not as pleased. We are hoping that this does not happen every time. However, we will know for next time to not eat a snack before coming.

I am excited to work with Ilana on exploring other ways to communicate with the family without words. We will do some teaching and some learning ourselves. Overall, I am so happy that I am volunteering there and look forward to spending more time there as well. Ok, it is late and time for bed!