SO I am back here at beit bnei its only 10:00. Since I last blogged I have been all over the place. From the central bus station I got on the bus to Ashkelon and told the bus driver very clearly to tell me when we were at ein tzurim and I told him again later because I was worried we were getting close becuase I was carrying around a JNF map of Israel with me. So, of course he doesn't tell me and its hard to see around so I didn't notice until we were already in Ashkelon that I stayed on too long. So I just wait until we get to the tachana mirkzit in Ashkelon and then I stay back on the bus to talk to the bus driver who is like what ae you doing here its the last stop. So I tell him I was trying to get to ein tzurim, no comment on his part he is like take this bus number. It was fine in the end I guess because in ashkelon I got some food to eat and the bus came almost right away. However when I get on the bus the diver is like where is ein tzurim (BAD SIGN) but I knew it was the right bus because I called ein tzurim and I asked infomation, so he looks at this list he has of places and can't figure out the fare so someone suggests how much he should charge me, I hand him 50 shek and he gives me back change, I am a bit flustered so I don't get a chance to check my change until I sat down when I realized that he gave me 5 shekel less than he was supposed to, I was already worried about this guy and I had no proof so I figured its about $1.25, I'll just let it pass. SO then the exicting part, I get in a seat two rows behind the driver and in front of me a few people are sitting some soldiers some guy and some old lawyer who was prosecuting bunch of Yemenite youths(this guy seemed to know more than the rest of them about the route) and as we go on all of them are screaming at the bus diver "atzor, stop" because the bus driver apparently had no idea where the stops were on the side of the road and they were arguing about which road to take. after we got about 10 kilometer out of ashkelon I start asking the group in front of me where ein tzurim is, they tell me pretty much agreeing in two stops. After the first stop I press the buzzer and get my stuff together and stand up, when they all go no sorry we made a mistake and one of them says oh yah its the next one. next time I don't get up because I have a feeling these guys have no idea what they are doing, this goes on for a bout 5 stops until the bus gets crowded and a border policeman sits next to me so I definitely can't keep on bobbing up and down without knocking into his gun. this time I press the buzzer but don't get up warning the guy sitting next to me that its likely I am not getting off, which I don't. finally right after that there is a big highway sign that says EIN TZURIM and this time I get up and jokingly thank the guys and the bus driver an run up to the kibbutz which is about 750 meters up the side road and finally meet Jason, who later turns out to be Rav Jason, who is in charge of chutznikim. I get into the yeshiva and drop my stuff down and after a quick 5 min chat mincha starts with Rav Yoel Ben Nun(rosh yeshiva) singing the first few lines of Ashrei in some weird tune I have never heard before. After mincha I go into the Chutznik shiur on “methodology and terminology of the Talmud”, for such an impressive name it didn’t live up to it. It basically used masechet Shabbat to explain how the construct “yachol….talmud lomar….” Works in middrash halacha, basic stuff just think about the haggada “yachol mirosh chodesh Talmud lomar bayom hahu, ei bayom hahu yachol mi’beod yom talkmud lomar bavur zeh…beshah she yesh matz u’maror lifanecha”(or something like that, I don’t have a haggada in front of me) so meanwhile while the other Americans there are stuggling with the gemara which I have no touble with I am already thinking of the haggada while when he asks if anyone can think of a famous case of this I am the only one who remembers it, it was a bit disconcerting that they didn’t know but that type of shiur was exactly what I expected from ein tzurim. The next shiur was also a bit basic it had to do with in a variety of sources where the sons of great leaders of bnei yisrael go off the derech, most of it was about bnei shmuel who both judged from be’er sheva; here too it was strange I was the only one who could remember that the fat king that ehud killed was called eglon and that included the rabbi giving the shiur. Late things got better when I was with the Israelis in their shiurim, there was an amazing shiur comparing melachim, divrie hayamim and Isaiah and he even gave a handout showing that where one story is mentioned seemingly out of context in one of the books he showed us a manuscript were it wasn’t in the text and then was added in, in the margin going down the page, and then said something to the effect that Shadal was able to figure out that it was a late comment and only later was it proven true. It was very interesting comparing the treatment of the siege of sancherev and other events and looking at how they are treated very differently in each case painting a very different picture with completely different morals. Later there was a shiur by the rosh yeshiva on Rav Kook’s Orot which went all over the place from mathematical models to communism to Descartes to postmodernism, it was mainly about the idea that everyone is searching for spirituality whether they realize it or not. After maariv and dinner which was pretty filling and if they were complaing about dinner I want to know what a good meal there is like. After that I just talked to Rav Jason for a few hours about Ein tzurim and yishivo in general, he almost reminded me of the Oracle in the Matrix, he seems to know about tons of yishivot and tried to guess what I thought about things often very accurately especially as I gave him more information about myself, but then also wanting to do his job as an advocate of the yeshiva he didn’t want to highly ecommend other places. Then again he went on and on about making sure that each person goes to the yeshiva that’s right for them so in the end he gave me the contact details for maale adumim. SO then I go to a “tish” that I was to exhausted to appreciate , not the usual “tish” it reminded me of a “gush tish” because it was all learning with a handout the only difference being they had food and they opened and closed with a song. I find out they daven at 7:15 at yishivat ein tzurim, so I end up getting up at 5:30 to get to minyan with the kibbutz at 6 because Egged told me when I called them that I have to catch a 7:15 bus to ashkelon to make the 7:50 to beer sheva to make the 10:00 to the shatichim(otniel). So I end up eating breakfast at Rav Jason’s house, his wife made me grilled cheese, they offered to pay for my breakfast at the kibbutz but they were already driving me for a bit so I just ate with them. So his wife, chana, takes me a bit back up north to casdina which is a major junction for catching buses and as soon as I get there in 5 min I am on a bus to beer sheva. So there I am in beer sheva at 8:30 in the morning and then I find out that the bus realy only leaves at 10:30, so much for all that rushing to get there in time. So I go around and check out the malls in the area, there are like 6 of them and try to find internet, well most of the stores are closed early in the morning bus no, not one internet café! As I walk aound suddenly there is a swarm of Jews for Jesus, alarm bells go off in my head. WHAT, THEM, HERE??? I thought that kind of thing was illegal in Israel. So as I walk by the first pair of them I take a pamphlet and spit out my gum which I had been chewing for hours, see there is a good use for their fliers! Later I am so bored that I figure I will ask what are they doing here, they don’t want to confront me directly so one of their leaders tell me they are from America, and I was going to get confrontational about how dare they do this to Israel, but first I feel like knocking down their theology, which as usual with my luck it wasn’t even interesting, she couldn’t even answer what difference it made that messiah came if it didn’t make a difference, I am sure there are a billion answers but if she couldn’t even answer that it wasn’t worth my while and anyway a crowd started to form that was trying to keep people away from them and I probably wasn’t helping anyone by distracting that one woman while 40 of them go around as if nothing is happening. So now I still have an hour left so I go and buy the Da Vinci code in hebew, and search for a place that changes Australian dollars, I finally found one so now “lior’s $10” which she refused when I was going to pay for her parking at the airport is now ready to be given as tzedakah in the form of 33 shekel.
Now I get on the bus and stay aleret this time watching because I don’t want to miss my stop and anyway its intresting to pass though the yehuda and shomron area. I get off the bus in otniel and walk to the yeshiva punch in the code they gave me(its as bad as the suitcase code in spaceballs) and find the office as intruscted. I awit in the office and people are walking aound, some people who got off my bus are not chatting with someone on a compute and I am just standing their too exhausted and confused to do anything. Finally one of the people on my bus ask me if I am shvush checking out the yeshiva and suggests I go down stairs to the biet midrash and ask for the guy in charge of shuvshim. I do that and happen to ask the sgan shvushim and he get the head because he doesn’t realize I can speak Hebrew well, so the achrai shvushim comes says hello and says he will get one of the rabbis to speak with me, half way he finds out I speak Hebrew because I say that he I can speak to any rabbi and not just the American oleh rabbi and gets annoyed at me for speaking English. So then off he goes, I see he is mainly talking to fiends but finally half an hour later one of the rabbis comes up to me and I speak to him about what I know, I came off really badly because I was feeling so sick and jetlag that I was shaking and answering incoherently but it was ok because I think he got how I was feeling. After that I felt abandoned again(I almost think its intentional they want to see if you can figure out what’s happening) so I walk up to a few people talking and ask them what’s going on and chat with them for a bit. I really felt unwelcome when I fist arrived, but they saw how I was and offered me a bed during afternoon break for me to sleep in and from then on I got along with everyone, the thee Americans and the other assorted Israelis. Unfortunately I only got attend the last 20 min of a shiu tanach and then a shiur klali right before I left at 8pm tonight, but the chevrutot were nice. It’s a good place, not many Americans but many of the Israelis speak English but are fine with talking to me in Hebrew because they are confident enough in there English that they aren’t tying to use me to lean English. I call egged and then have one of the American Israelis to show me his bus timetable and I catch and 8 o’clock bus to kiryat arbah and get there at 8:20 where I would have to wait for40 min, however I get lucky and the 8:15 is running late, o I get into yirushalim at around 9 and get off in mirkaz hair, now that I think about it I should have looked for a wireless intrenet connection. I take the 4Aleph down to emek and now I am here at beit bnei debating wether I should try to find out where the “minyan factory” shtieblach is or wether to say maariv b’yichudut. Right now I am leaning to davening here because I don’t feel up to a long walk and I want to get up tomorrow for vaatikin at the KOTEL!!!
L’hitraot
