So I have SOOOOO much stuff to say, as you know orientation started on Monday and lots has been going on with that and then add to that the craziness of Israel and things I want to write in my blog just pile up. I'm gonna keep this one short because I was just on the phone with the internet people for a while because we were STILL having problems with the internet. (sidenote: why in Israel do you have to deal with 2 companies for the internet, isn't that a little silly?? I think so)
One event I want to share with you happened a few days ago at the supersol (the grocery store below my building). It was very "Israel." I went to supersol to pick up a few things and then got into the shortest line at the grocery store, or so I thought. There was one man who was paying for his things, and then two guys (friends? lovers?) in front of me. In true Israeli style the guy who is currently paying is arguing with the cashier about something (JTS hebrew did not teach me the correct words to understand grocery store arguments haha). This guy is basically only buying a TON of iced tea and a lot of cornflakes. Weird combo, right?!
Anyways this guy is arguing and some woman, maybe his wife but I really don't think so, is just sitting on the phone while this guy takes ALL the iced teas and starts to bring them back and replace them with grapefruit juice. Again, not quite sure why this is happening, but all of us in line are just waiting as this dude argues and then continues to go back to the juice aisle for more grapefruit juice. I don't really know why this is ok in Israel, but it is...
So after like 10 minutes this guy is still arguing, and I'm sitting there making annoyed faces with the guys in front of me, and kindof bonding over the ridiculousness that is happening. Thankfully I wasn't in a rush to go anywhere so I could just appreciate the situation in all of its "glory." Also the guys in front of me were pretty hilarious (yeah maybe I was eavesdropping on their convo, but they were speaking pretty loudly and they knew I was there so I wasn't being that bad). One of the guys picked up a king sized twix and said (in hebrew which I understood, what now!!): Why are the big ones called king sized, what does that mean? Then they also have small ones that are called fun sized, but there is nothing fun about that size, it's so small. Hilarious right? I laughed.
Then to add to the situation there was a woman waiting in line behind me. She sounded like she was from new york/brooklyn who was freaking out about a bunch of things, including how much chocolate milk to buy. She was waiting in line and talking on the phone and is yelling into the phone (in english in her ny accent): I don't know what is going on, there is something wrong with the pri-gAt. The prigat. And she kept repeating "prigat" in her ridiculous accent. BTW prigat is a brand of juice, the one that the crazy guy was buying.
Then in a very un-israeli gesture one of the guys in front of me asks (yes in Hebrew) if I want to go in front of them since I was only buying 4 things. Usually Israelis cut in line, they don't let you cut. Then I made a joke about choosing the wrong line/being sooo lucky that we are stuck in this line. They laughed, I think because they thought the way I spoke hebrew was silly, but whatever i can handle that.
Finally the crazy guy pays for his 20 bottles of grapefruit juice and 10 boxes of cornflakes, and NO I'm not exaggerating. One of the funny guys made a comment about that combination. You would think with the amount of stuff he bought he was having a party or something but it doesn't seem like it would be too fun...cornflakes and grapefruit juice?! Also why didn't he just buy a shit ton of milk? We'll never know.
So yeah he left, then I paid and left and laughed to myself. I really got a kick out of this situation, I hope you found it entertaining, I dunno.
Second thing: So at orientation (more about that later), we had a program where we broke into small groups and shared parts of our story/our process that lead us to HUC. One thing that I noticed in my small group was the amount of people (future rabbis and educators) who came from interfaith families. In the group of 7 there were 3 students whose mother's weren't Jewish. If you add in the number of people who come from families where one parent converted the percentage of future Jewish leaders from this type of family would further increase.
Isn't that interesting???! I was saying someone should do an official survey on this to see how many rab students are from interfaith homes in the reform movement. I think it would be cool to have some hard data. But seriously, isn't it interesting that so many people who love Judaism came from interfaith families? This is a great proof that Reform Judaism is doing something right by welcoming in interfaith families. There are so many great future rabbis who don't have Jewish mothers, does that make them bad Jews all the sudden?? How much should rely on your parents anyway?
That was just an observation I wanted to share, maybe I will go into this more later, but right now I am absolutely exhausted. We were basically left in the middle of nowhere and were not told how to get back. Good times in rab school.
More coming soon.
lyla tov,
Becca
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