LIVNOT Round 2 (More Building)

So as my grad school program ended on August 17th and I moved out of Tsidon, I needed a place to stay for a couple days before coming back to Livnot. I crashed with my friend, Mike, from Livnot. I schlepped all five of my bags from Tsidon to a street off of Arlozorov, getting to his place drenched in sweat. I enjoyed meeting his roommates, Sarah and Yechil, and just chilling. Mike and I also went to the beach and played Ultimate that weekend, where I met a lot of really cool people and might play another game or two before I leave Israel.

Northern Exposure left to right: Aviva,
Kyle, Heather, and me

I took a bus from Tel Aviv to Tzfat (not missing it like last time) and got to Livnot. On the bus, I got a call from my old friend, Sonia, from Livnot, asking me to stay at my place before she flew out to the States. She had apparently never left Livnot; after doing Northern Exposure with me, she did the four week Galilee Fellowship program, then stayed on as a madrichah (leader) for three weeks. I got to there and she had not yet left ; I got a chance to say goodbye before she flew back to the States, where she will be starting a new job at Camp Isabella Freedman in Connecticut.

The amazing new bat sheruts,
Na'ama and Tifferet

I got a chance to meet people in the Galilee Fellowship program and people who technically had done the one-week program multiple times in a row; Dan, Leopold, Isaac, Jayne, Keren, Audrey, Sharon, Samara, Jeremy (Samara's fiancee who had volunteered with Sar-El that week but came back for Shabbat), and Emily. They were all really cool people. Emily unfortunately had to leave after a day and a half because she wanted to visit family before leaving Israel. The new Northern Exposure group this week included Kyle, Aviva, Heather, and me. I had also expected Avital (the fearless bat sherut from last time) to be there, but she had finished her national service a week or two previously. However, I did get a chance to know Na'ama and Tifferet, the two new bat sheruts. Those two girls are awesome! Na'ama (as I told her multiple times during the week) is a small girl with a loud voice and a big heart. Tifferet is a very sweet girl with motherly instincts.

Left to right: Audrey, me, Na'ama, Yonatan, Aviva, and Kyle

On Sunday, the first day of the program, we did orientation an hour late and had to skip the tour around Tzfat. After dinner with everyone, we went out to the Klezmer Music Festival (a big, three-day festival in which people from all over Israel came to celebrate). I hung out at the festival with Emily and Keren, such a fun night! On Monday, we ate breakfast and quickly went to do community service. We first went to the old folks home I had gone to last time. This time, they were having a little celebration and we helped serve food and talk to the residents (and Leopold joined the dancing puppets on a pole). Afterwards, we went to chisel rocks from the side of a walkway near the Citadel to help build up Tzfat. Doron, our coordinator for the week, and I dug up a really big rock which ended up being part of a castle. Later, we had free time then dinner.  We unfortunately had to cancel the forest hike. At night, we went out to the Klezmer Festival again. There were so many great performances there.

Leopold

On Tuesday, both groups together went on a day-long hike to Nachal Zevitan (Zevitan wadi). We stopped off at a couple places to go swimming; the first place I did not swim and instead snacked and talked with others. At the other place, we all ate lunch and swam in the small lake with a waterfall. Doron (Livnot's resident daredevil) jumped from a rock some 12 meters (about 36 feet) into the water. It was a very intense experience for him. Also on the hike, a few interesting things happened to me: I got physically knocked around by slipping a rock and skinning my knee and walking right into a tree branch. However, I did talk to this guy, Yonah, who works at Livnot and hooked me up with a friend of his in Seattle who works in HR. Maybe he has a connection or two in Connecticut. Lastly, I got into an intense philosophical discussion with the tour guide, Fivel Yedidyeh, about the Orthodox Jews who kind of do the hora (all positive happy dancing) in any situation, regardless of whether it's getting a speeding ticket or seeing a friend. These are the guys who believe in the famous מאומן נחמן נחמ נח נ(Na nach nachm nachman meuman) concept, in which people should go into every situation positively and think it's a blessing. I mentioned that they're not regular people for thinking that way (yet who really is normal?), and I brought psychological concepts into play. Fivel had an answer for every one of my questions. At night, I went out again for the last night of the Klezmer Festival.

Kyle's back is "death" and
Dan is photobombing

Beautiful face art on Aviva

On Wednesday, we did some more community service, moving rocks and stacking them on the side. We also played around. In the afternoon, everyone split into groups to do a treasure hunt; many teams lost interest, as there were 40 tasks on the list to accomplish. Isaac, Yonatan (a kid from Philadelphia who made Aliyah and works construction for Livnot while hanging out with groups), and I only accomplished 15 things on the list. These included asking a stranger on the street about Rabbi Nachman, squeezing juice, standing like a statue for 60 seconds, putting on tefillin, and eating the famous Tzfat cheese. Later that night, we had a Purim party. I didn't have anything in my bag of tricks (okay, duffle bag), except my Double Dare shirt I'd received from playing at Southapalooza during UConn's Spring Weekend a couple years ago (great game Jen, Alana, and Liz). I went to the girl who sits outside Livnot who just recently got engaged to an employee at the delicious Yemenite food stand across the alley, and she painted my face to make it look like I'd gotten slimed. Great costume! At the party, everyone stood up to explain their costume and we ate, talked, and had a little dance party.

On Thursday, everyone went on another hike to Nachal Amud (part of the famous Sea to Sea hike). It was somewhere I had been before, given the last time I was at Livnot, my group had joined the Galilee Fellowship kids for the first leg of their hike. We jumped into that small, really cold water hole for swimming. Still fun. After the hike, Northern Exposure (me, Aviva, Heather, and Kyle) had a little Shabbat discussion with Alon, another Livnot employee. The four of us were almost falling asleep but I did my best to ask intellectual questions to keep the conversation going. Despite my brain barely working, it was still intellectually stimulating. After that, we had free time. Dinner came around and then we prepared for Shabbat, cooking and cleaning. Along with that, a few people had the opportunity to write WOWs (Words of Wisdom). I was one of five picked, and I originally had trouble coming up with a topic. I considered my speaking of my adventures this past year, my discussion with Fivel, and Tisha B'Av. After speaking with Doron, I decided I wanted to combine the topics of my adventures in the past year and Tisha B'Av, specifically what Yonina had said in her email (refer to "Coming to a Close..." post).

This is how Kyle ALWAYS eats his chicken

Friday came around and we began with Challah braiding after breakfast. I created another poorly made challah and Na'ama helped me create "Super Turtle". Nothing trumps Super Turtle! Afterwards, we took a little field trip to the Rimon Winery and the Butterfly beer factory. Both wine and beer tasted delicious, however the lunch at Butterfly was not to my satisfaction (blegh!). When we got back, we had free time until Shabbat. I wasted about two hours on Facebook before I was motivated to finish writing my WOW. After looking online for some inspirational quotes, I found just the one I was looking for:

"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware" -- Martin Buber

My paper turned into a discussion about my experiences and adventures in Israel in the past year, and how much I have grown. Please refer to the next blog post to see my WOW (I hope you will be amazed).

I finished my WOW just in time to have enough time to shower and get dressed ready for Shabbat to start at Livnot. We did Kabbalat Shabbat, went to a few synagogues to experience Shabbat around Tzfat, and then had dinner. Again, what a magical dinner. We ate, laughed, played with Yonah's kids and Doron's kids, and presented our WOWs. After dinner, we had an oneg in which we drank some beer and presented l'chaims to each other. My favorite one I did was when I turned to Jeremy and Samara (the engaged couple), and mentioned to them that, given how Samara's eyes sparkle when she talks about Jeremy, I hope to one day find what they have found with each other -- true love. They were so thankful for that compliment.

Doron dancing his heart out
at the Klezmer Festival

On Saturday, Heather and I went to a family's house for Shabbat lunch. The father is from Los Angeles and the mother from London. They have about six children, ranging between the ages of about 6-22. They were a really nice and sweet family, and we got into great conversations with them. After that, we hung around Livnot for the afternoon and celebrated the end of Shabbat at night, singing many songs and dancing the hora (more or less). After that, we did a closing circle, saying what we most enjoyed about the past week. When it was my turn, I made a little joke about wanting to tell a ghost story with a candle up to my face in a dark room, as I announced, "Once upon a time...". Then I got serious; I thanked everyone for being amazing, I reaffirmed my delightfulness of Na'ama and Tifferet being present and said they will flourish the next year doing their national service at Livnot, and that they both have bright futures ahead of them.

On Sunday, Dan, Leopold, Kyle, Isaac, and I joined Dinah (a girl who did Livnot back in February) and her friend from France, Yonatan, to do a little traveling around Israel. However, instead of leaving this day, we decided to take advantage of our free night at Livnot as alumni and take a day to plan a couple days where we wanted to go first. So I ended up meeting the new Northern Exposure group. This included my friend, Ari, who was in my friend Jenn's Israel Teaching Fellows group this past year. He is currently studying a Master's in Judaic Studies at Hebrew Union College, the American seminary for Reform Judaism. All students do their first year of studies in Jerusalem. HUC also has campuses in Cininnati, New York City, and Los Angeles. I also met Ari's friends, Sarah and Elana. Sarah happens to be from Connecticut, so we got to talking a little bit. Elana, who is at HUC studying to be a rabbi, is from just outside Kansas City. I also met some other really cool people, such as Ian, Kate, Tara, and Kailyn. Ian is a kid orginally from California who grew up in Hawaii and seems to have the craziest travel stories. Kailyn is a preschool teacher from New Jersey who's very chill and is hard to read. At night, Elana and I decided to take a walk and get to know each other a little better. In the morning, I left with my friends for a new Israeli adventure (to be covered in an upcoming blog post called "Post-Livnot Adventures").