The Science of God

I went to a lecture by Dr. Gerald Schroeder yesterday, author of "The Science of God" and others (I don't know if you've read or know about him, Dad). He was at the very least an interesting guy and a good lecturer. Engaging and willing to answer questions and let the lecture develop from there. He's Jewish, and the main point of his books seems to be outlining how scientific observation (and in particular quantum mechanics, space-time expansion and metaphysics) can easily fit with a non-literalistic reading of the Torah, or the Bible, and even explain things about Biblical ideas. The overall impression I got from him was that he wasn't going to throw out scientific observation if it didn't fit the Torah, since he's an MIT physicist himself. Rather, he would re-evaluate Talmudic interpretation.

One thing he mentioned in passing but which I'd never heard of before was that there is some debate about the translation of the first word of Genesis 1:1. בראשת (bereshiyt) is usually translated as "in the beginning," but many Biblical Hebrew scholars, and Dr. Schroeder, apparently, are convinced that the actual translation is more like "with wisdom." Interesting.

Overall, I liked it, particularly the metaphysical stuff he talked about. But I don't think I was as amazed as others were. Nari was impressed, and Anna and another girl I know named Maddie thought it was unbelievable. I think for Anna it was because she grew up in a Baptist environment and although she's broken away from it, she had never heard anything about how science is perfectly compatible with most religious thought. She'd never even heard the concept of the six days of creation being longer than six literal days (as yom in Biblical Hebrew can mean an unspecified length of time). For me, some of the arguments weren't entirely new.

I know you thought I'd forget...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KRISTY!

Now you're a big girl like the rest of us. :) What are you doing for your birthday? What'd you get?

Hey, you have to post or email me your address (home and/or school) so I can send you a happy birthday note.

Cooking stuff

Mom or Dad, could you post some instructions for making broccoli and potatoes the way we do at home? I have broccoli, olive oil and potatoes and acquired some rosemary (from the campus garden). I forgot to ask last night how to do it.

I got a 96.5 on my midterm, which was the highest grade in the class, except for another girl who got the same score. But she speaks Arabic, so she has an unfair advantage. In my heart, I beat her. :)

Not the beach, but...

So I went to an Israeli water-park yesterday. One of those things you just never imagine they would have but then when you hear about it you think, "why not?" It was pretty hot yesterday, and we were just south of downtown Tel-Aviv, so I was thinking going to the beach would be even better, but I wasn't driving. :)

Of course, it's hotter at the beach, and you can't escape to the shade like you can at a park. So maybe they knew what they were doing.

Since it was right next to Tel-Aviv, I'm assuming a lot of the patrons were Tel-Avivians. If that's true, then for people who live by the beach, they sure are bad swimmers. I beat two of the guys who came with us without my hair even tied back (they directly challenged me, the morons), but since they live just outside Jerusalem, I guess they have some excuse. I spent a fair amount of time trying not to laugh at some of the strokes of random strangers. If they'd been going any slower they would have sunk, and their form was so bad.

A waterpark with a bunch of people who can barely swim is a new experience for me. All right, I'm done making fun of people. :)

I wonder...

If the Messiah does come down through the Kidron Valley, and resurrects everyone in the graves along his path, does he also remove all the stone covers of the graves? Cause unless the resurrected have superpowers, it might be hard for some of them to break out. And that'd suck.

Dormition Abbey, site of the Virgin Mary's death (or as Christians have it, where she fell into a deep sleep) and the bell-tower. 

A more detailed view than the other one I posted of the largest Jewish graveyard in the world. Up on the Mount of Olives. The tower is the Chapel of Christ's ascension and the arched building to it's right is the Seven Arches Hotel. Apparently CNN does (or did) it's Jerusalem coverage from there. 

The ramparts on top of the walls around the Old City. That's Nari there. 

King David's Tower, with Yafo (Jaffa) street below. 

Yeah, the picture's tilted. Anyway, this is my half of the room. 

I just had a midterm and it's only the end of August

That's just wrong. Once again, I had that troubling moment where you're sitting in class, have already gone over your answers, and know you're done way before everyone else is. By now I'm getting used to it though. Anna still beat me by a couple of minutes, as usual.

What’s funny is that we’re still at that stage in our Hebrew where we can only make pretty basic sentences, so even though we have to write six or seven-line short answers, they come out sounding like an elementary school paper.

Example: אני נוסעת למסעדה. אני שותה מיץ תפוזים. אני אוהבת לשתות מיץ

It looks so impressive, but I sound like a five-year old. “I go to the restaurant. I drink orange juice. I love to drink juice.” :)

My schedule for the semester will be roughly thus:

Sunday: sucks. Class from 10:30 am to 6:15 pm. I kid you not.
Monday: Hebrew - 8:30 am to 10:15, then Archaeology at 2:30 to 4:15.
Tuesday: Hebrew – 10:30 to 12:15, Foreign Policy from 4:30 to 6:15
Wednesday: Hebrew – 10:30 again, Archaeology at 12:30.
Thursday: Just History of Palestine at 10:30.

I almost swung a three-day weekend, but no. I could never get that to work at SD either.

An argument for not sheltering your kids...

Yesterday our class spent the last hour and a half in the auditorium with all the other alef classes, watching an Israeli movie called (roughly) Canafai'im Shevurot - Broken Wings. There were parts of the movie that were a little explicit. Brief nudity, the implication of sex but nothing shown, and a naked boy and girl sitting side-by-side in an open window but not doing anything and no private parts shown.

A good portion of my class and the student body at large is Muslim, or at least raised in an Islamic-influenced culture. Many of them live in their own homes in the Arab neighborhoods and only come to the school so they can learn Hebrew, something you need to live for an extended period of time in Israel. They were not happy. Specifically, the girls were not happy. A few guys walked out, but every girl I knew was Muslim walked out, and I saw more than a few boys who didn't. It was the girls who were extremely distressed at what they'd unwittingly watched. One was even crying outside the doors.

To be fair to them, they should have been warned that the movie would have this content. The teachers weren't on the ball here, although the fact that if would be a problem probably didn't occur to anyone. Which got me thinking about how the movie could come as such a huge shock to them. Sure, I could see them being indignant at not being warned about content that's against their religion, but upset to the point of crying? Shocked? Christians at home would get mad if a movie with sexual content weren't properly rated, but they wouldn't run out of the theaters and/or cry. How can you live in a secular nation to college-age and not at least be somewhat inured to it? Haven't they ever seen so much as a random commercial or billboard that shows too much skin?

Frankly, I think plenty of the boys have. And Anna had a pretty solid explanation for why the girls haven't. They're raised in neighborhoods filled with people who share their beliefs, are literally surrounded by it at all times, and while maybe I shouldn't make a snap judgment like this, the girls probably don't often go far away from those neighborhoods. They take sheruts to school and back, not buses. These are Arab taxis which have curtains on the windows, which at first I figured were to create a nice little sun-shield and make the van cooler, but now I wonder if the fact that they completely block your view of the streets you're traveling on isn't another reason.

I can't really say for sure if it's a result of having been completely isolated from secular culture or of religious conviction, but I know which I'd guess.

Sort of relevant to that: I now know which classes I'll be taking.
Foreign Policy of Israel
History of Palestine and the Palestinians
Archaeology of Jerusalem
more Hebrew

and...The Political and Social Study of Women in Israel.

Coincidental, I guess. Maybe I'll get some answers. :)

Hey, look at that

Israel's first gold, and the first time "Hatikva" has been officially played at the Olympics. And it's for windsurfing! The guy has an appropriate name, too, because gal means "wave" in Hebrew.

My teacher was all excited. I wish I had a TV so I could've watched the ceremony. Apparently it was very moving.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/26/sports/olympics/26wind.html

Me in an Israeli tank. Funny how you can't actually see out of it unless you pop your head out the top. Otherwise you're just in a small metal tube with a lot of doohickeys around and no windows.  

Part of the view from the back porch area of the hostel. 

Big waterfall #2. Also didn't get to go down to the bottom. 

The, uh, "mountain." Told you it was a hill. 

Brianna and Aaron on the waterfall. 

Me. You can't see it, but there's a little waterfall right behind me that I'm about to climb down. Best part of the trip. 

A freshwater crab I found. I pointed it out and Ariel, our resident hike lunatic/daredevil (every trip has one, they're the ones who jump out of trees when you're not looking and wrestle seagulls (Baja in-joke)) lunged for it. Guess he knew what he was doing, though, since he didn't get pinched. 

Big waterfall #1. Pretty, but I really, really wanted to go down there. But they put fences there just to stop people like me from doing that. 

Error, stupid pictures

My other pictures aren't loading right now. They were good too. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow.

The valley with the Gil-Bon stream ahead. That's our guide there. 

Golan Heights

Time to write down what little remains in my memory of my trip to the Golan Heights.

The buses left at probably around 5:50 in the morning last Friday, and my stupid alarm didn't wake me up until about 5:35. So I threw on clothes and hauled my bag out of the dorms, then slept in the bus seat until there was actual light outside. My hatred for early morning wake-up calls transcends all national borders and time zones.

Not much interesting happened until we got to the Sea of Galilee. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stop and walk around, or preferably swim, but it was a nice little lake. I don't care what the name says, seriously, it's a lake. We were driving by the Eastern shore, and you could easily see Tiberias on the other side. Plus it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes before we left it behind us.

If you have an idea of Israel's general shape, Golan is the area in the top right corner, above the Galilee. It shares borders with Syria and Lebanon, and during the winter months it's the greenest place in Israel. I'll have to go back in November to see it. We got off the buses to take a hike through Mappal Gil-Bon, a stream that flows down into the valley and the Jordan river. It was nice to see running water again. The guide and about ten of us waded through the stream while those who didn't want to get wet took other paths down the valley. That was by far the best part, since it was a cool little waist-deep stream with fig trees, bamboo-type plants and others forming a little canopy over us. We also sat in some basalt caves for a while and tried not to disturb the bats. One moron took a flash picture of them, but luckily they ignored him.

Once the hike was over we traveled farther up to a mountain area on the north-western border of Israel. Well, they were hills, really. What is it with landscape features in Israel being given bigger names than they merit? There's actually a real mountain even farther north, but every time the guide called the thing we were on a mountain I almost giggled. Anyway, this was a strategic spot in the Yom Kippur War, where Israeli tanks fought off large numbers of invading Syrian tanks trying to get through the low areas between the mountains. The whole area is strategic, because we were looking down into Syria from a mid-sized hill, and they don't have anything even close to that kind of vantage point on their side. We could see an Israeli military intelligence base situated on top of another nearby hill. We sat on an old tank that had been left there as a memorial while the guide told us about the Yom Kippur War (1973, I think).

After that we went even further north to a town called Tel-Hai, way in the Northern tip of Israel, where our hostel was. It was an extremely nice hostel, well-kept, pretty buildings and a backyard area with a large field and patio overlooking the valley. Once I'd gotten a shower and changed I went with my temporary roommates to the services which are held as the sun sets every Friday night, signaling the beginning of Shabbat. It was really amazing actually, to sit outside on the patio with warm wind and hearing the student-led hymns being sung (one guy wants to be a rabbi and so knows how to lead the songs), looking out at the sun setting behind the hills and the lights of the towns down in the valley.

Shabbat dinner was good.

My roommates and I slept until twelve in the afternoon, and apparently we weren't the only ones. A lot of people missed breakfast, but we managed to get up and leave the Olympic coverage for a few hours for lunch (it had been awhile since any of us had a TV). But then we came back and crashed for a little longer. There's a disturbing amount of table tennis on the Israeli coverage of the Olympics. Maybe there wasn't much else to cover at the time.

Since we couldn't leave until sundown (for Shomer-Shabbat observant students), I visited a photographic museum with a few other people, which was mildly interesting, came back, had dinner, and then packed to move out. Getting a group our size onto two buses is a serious operation, though, so we didn't get moving until at least 9:30. But we did get to watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the way back. :)

Part of the street I walk up every morning to school and down every evening after school. Those buildings barely visible above the trees are the Idelson dorms, where I live. The front display on the bus says Har Ha-tsofim - Mount Scopus.

Shopping in the Old City

If you're looking for odd merchandise, shopping in the Old City is about as much fun as you can have. As long as you don't mind dealing with merchants who want to show you everything, and guys who ask where you're from, to see your eyes, and various other stupid things when you're clearly walking away from them. :)

Nari and I didn't get off the bus at the right time, and ended up at the Givat Ram campus in far Western Jerusalem, and had to take another bus to the Gate. Stupid, but at least we've seen a little more.

We did the walking tour on the ramparts, which you pay a few shekels for at Jaffa Gate and then can freely walk all the way down the top of the western and southern walls, which gives you a great view of Western Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives, and Dormition Abbey, the church in the Armenian Quarter where the Virgin Mary fell into her deep sleep. Unfortunately, you can't see that much of the Old City from the ramparts, because there are some old buildings in the way, probably old military housing from the various occupations of the city. I know I posted before about how slippery the limestone is. Well, the ramparts are definitely limestone and definitely old, because I skinned my hand grabbing onto the rail after I lost my footing on the steps.

Anyways, Kristy would be proud of me, because I bargained like nobody's business. I got a little vase made from Hebron glass that's very pretty but the guy said it was 180 shekels at first, and both Nari and I looked at each other like "bull****." Eventually he gave it to me for 65, or about 20 bucks. I think I got the courage from Nari, who although very nice can be mean when she thinks she's being ripped off.

Nari got Arabic coffee and didn't know you're not supposed to drink all the way down to the bottom. The expression on her face was pretty classic when she got down to the dregs. When she went to pay the guy, he told her five shekels, when the guy who had pointed us to the place said two. Nari started protesting, saying how his friend had said two shekels, and he said "What friend? I have no friends." It was pretty funny. Nari won in the end.

The US Elections

So I'm extending my habit of writing things days after they happened. Stupid. Hopefully I can write about the Golan Heights today and get it done before it all leeches out of my brain.

Anyway, on Wednesday I went to a small talk given by the editor of the Jerusalem Post about who was better for Israel, Kerry or Bush. It was mildly interesting. One good little point I got out of the thing was a better appreciation for how much Israel relies on us. Somebody asked how important American support or approval of particular actions was, and his reply was that American support is everything. In his opinion, the US is the only reason Israel hasn't gone the way of South Africa, as far as the international community is concerned. Now he may be exaggerating, I'm not entirely sure. But from what I do know, he's probably a lot more right than wrong on that.

Small relevant note: There's a shirt sold in the Jewish Quarter that I really really want, because it cracks me up every time I see it. It says "Don't worry America...(picture of fighter jet in the middle)...Israel is behind you."

Some of the Torahs contained in the centuries-old synagogue in the Jewish section of Hebron. The open one is around nine hundred years old, and numerous museums have tried to buy it from them. 

A flower I picked from a fence outside the Jewish cemetery. My friend Dan and I decided it looks like two helicopter rotators attached to a sea anemone. Lucky I took a picture, cause the thing wilted pretty fast. 

The women's room. That's the window to Sarah's tomb in the back there. 

Tsion kever avraham avino.

Basically, "here is the tomb of Abraham, our father."

Inside. Women enter a room to the right, between Abraham and Sarah's tombs. Men cross over the courtyard and enter a room to the left, between Jacob and Leah's. 

Bruchim haba'im lamart hamachpelah.

Welcome to the Cave of...something. I'm assuming "patriarchs."

Steps up to the synagogue/mosque. The darkened wall to the right there is where Jews used to pray when they weren't allowed in to actually pray before the tombs. Unfortunately, I don't remember how long ago that was. 

Wall construction in Beit Lehem. The thing is a hell of a lot bigger than it looks. 

Hebron

It's really dumb to write about something two days later, but here I go. I went on a student center-sponsored trip on Tuesday to the Hebron, which is in the southern half of the West Bank, and arguably the second-holiest city in Judaism. It's home to the tombs of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs: Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Leah. Supposedly the cave Abraham bought is under the big half-mosque/half-synagogue there, and it's basically the Biblical land of Abraham. The tombs are housed in a large Herodian building which serves as a synagogue/mosque today. There's obviously no small amount of resentment between the Muslims and the Jews who pray there: the place is divided, with the Muslims getting the tombs of Rebekah, Adam and Eve (I think), and the Jews the tombs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah and Leah. Since 1994, when an American Jew killed more than 30 Muslims in the mosque area during Ramadan services, Jews have not been allowed in the mosque. For ten days a year, Jews get access to all tombs, and Muslims for another ten days a year.

The city itself was visually not very different from East Jerusalem, Beit Jala or a lot of the towns we saw on the way there. Houses packed together, armed guards stationed at intervals, and the like. The thing is that there are maybe 900 Jews in the city proper, and over 100,000 Arabs. To say there's a siege mentality among the Jews living there is not an exaggeration.

Our guide was a perfect example. We met him after we visited the tombs. He told us some of the Biblical stories about the place, the belief that Hebron is the entrance to paradise, for example. His story about Abraham's insistence on purchasing the cave to bury Sarah in, rather than allowing it to be given him by the owner, contained some commentary to the effect that Abraham had some foreknowledge that his (and by extension the Jews') ownership of the land would someday be challenged. He bought it for full market value so that no one could challenge his or his children's right to it.

Once we had left the synagogue, we visited part of the Jewish settlement and saw the cemetery of the Jews killed in the 1929 massacre. The story goes that before '29, the Jews in Hebron refused British military protection, citing their good relationship with the Arabs in the city. But starting on August 23, 1929, Arabs killed 67 Jews in three days before the survivors got out and into Jerusalem. Even after they were buried, their graves were repeatedly desecrated. There is also another man buried there whose name I can't remember, but I know he was killed relatively recently, somewhere in the late 80s early 90s. He was shot by Palestinians for a reason I also can't remember. The guide asked us to join him in praying that God will no longer allow them to be attacked without response.

Basically, he wasn't very shy about his political leanings. Part of the story was of course missing. No motives on the part of the Arabs, either known or speculative, were given for the massacre, or for any killings that happened from then on. If relations were good between the Jews and Arabs in Hebron prior to 1929, what happened?

The drive back was very beautiful. I think Middle Eastern landscape looks best just prior to sunset. We also stopped at Rachel's tomb in Beit Lehem. As revered as the place is, it was rather small and understated.

The Nablus kidnapping

I don't know how closely it was reported in the US news, but two weeks ago three social workers teaching English in Nablus, an American, a Brit and an Irishman, were kidnapped by Palestinian extremists and released a few days later. My friend Anna actually knows them, and a couple days ago she was able to see them and they told her what had happened.

Apparently there's a dividing line or something like it in Nablus, one side of which is dangerous to be on. These three guys live on the street that makes up that line, and on that day a white van just drove up and some guys hopped out and started accusing them of being Israeli spies. They know Arabic, so they told them who they were, and got other Palestinians who knew them to vouch for them, but the men wouldn't listen, and took them into the van by force.

Once they realized they'd been telling the truth, the extremists were all smiles and apologies. They repeatedly told them what a terrible mistake this had been, took them to one of their houses to feed them a huge dinner. The guys even had a PLO escort back to their homes.

Like we were told at our security meeting: welcome to the Middle East.

Ah, the power of soccer

Every day we have breaks during classes that are usually a half-hour or so, and today during one of them I was tossing a little rubbery ball, about the size of a softball, with a guy from my class in a rounded area in the building that's kind of a connection of four different halls and passageways. Eventually we progressed to kicking it around like a bouncy hacky-sack, got Anna into the circle and eventually another guy from another alef class. Then we realized the pillars in front of one of the walls make really good goal-posts, and started taking shots with one guy as goalie. Since this place connects four hallways, students had to squeeze by, and eventually we gathered a crowd of other people. So we ended up having a three-on-three pick up game for the rest of the break.

The really Lifetime-esque aspect of the whole thing was that a lot of the bystanders and new players in the game were students who primarily spoke Arabic, especially a few from my class whom I (and the other American/Canadian/European-English speakers) hadn't gotten to know because of that. But soccer is the universal language. That and math, but nobody likes math.

Now we're trying to see if we can do that regularly. The problem is that I kind of stole the ball from my teacher Naftally. Not really, because he gave it to me during class when he was passing out objects to identify, but I don't think I was supposed to play soccer with it, and he probably won't give it back tomorrow so we can play again. I'm just lucky he didn't notice it was a little scuffed-up. :)

Two of the cats that hand around outside my dorm. Put out milk and they come running. :)

Some people here get annoyed with it (maybe because it happens five times a day), but I think the prayers and hymns the muezzins sing that are broadcast over Jerusalem sound very mystic. When you're in the Old City and closer to the source, it's very beautiful to hear.

!אני אוהבת ירושלים, אבל אני אחרת הארצות הברית ומשפחה. לחתראות

(I love Jerusalem, but I miss the US and my family. Bye!)

I wouldn't swear by my translation of "miss" there. I hate when dual-language dictionaries give your fourteen different words that equal the same word in English and don't spell out the differences between them. But the sentiment is there. :)

Feels just like home...

Nari, Marnie and I were walking along the streets after getting out of a nargilah bar, and a car drove by with some down-home American rap music blaring. I heard Nari do a little "oh" that she does when she hears something that makes her homesick, and both Marnie and I started laughing, because we knew what she was thinking. It's true: hearing heavy bass and "**** that *****" coming out of a car does make you feel a little more at home.

The Checkpoint Bombing

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/463842.html

This story is old, from August 8, but a good overview of the Qalandiyah bombing. The terror alert over Jerusalem is still in effect, but from what I can see there's about as much consequence of a high terror alert here as there is in the US. Security forces and checkpoints are on alert, but everyone else goes about their business.

Taken from a rooftop in the Jewish Quarter.