So first of all I have to apologize to all you (if you care) because I did not make it to women of the wall. I slept through my alarm :-( I am not a morning person so when I get tired enough I don't hear anything. Next month...I heard it was pretty quiet this month which is nice. I was bummed to miss it, but I feel super rested so it wasn't a total loss.
So I had a really lovely shabbat. I started at navah tehillah, which was great. There is awesome energy there and the singing is realy beautiful. They use instruments at the service but they are used to enhance the prayer and the people praying instead of detract or distracting from it. They did an awesome version of lecha dodi that I now can't remember, grr. It will come. But yeah I've had a lot of the songs we sang stuck in my head over the past day and a half.
For shabbat morning I went to kedem (as usual). It was nice, I mean hey I go there for a reason. One cool thing that happened today during services was it started raining. There is something really special about it raining here. Everyone gets so excited because rain is precious. So to see everyone's reactions to the rain was interesting, I definitely think people prayed harder/sang louder as the rain was falling. It helped me understand better all the prayers for rain or prayers about rain that we find in our liturgy.
Another thing about rain is I realized how nice the post-rain smell is. It smells like the world has been refreshed, I dunno. It is weird to me that I now have such a different perception of weather, but after being here for three months of horrible heat I am appreciating the rain and the cooler temperatures (I never thought I would say that).
So today (sat) and yesterday there was this special thing in Jerusalem called "habatim mibifnim" or translated as houses from the inside. Basically a bunch of cool houses or buildings that are not usually open to the public open their doors for people to go and see. It is a way for residents to see and appreciate the city a little more. So after services and lunch I went around with a couple of my classmates to some of the houses.
First we went into a church/monestary that is across the intersection from me. It was pretty sweet, they also had this really large courtyard that came out of nowhere. We tried to go to some other houses but most were closing by the time we got there, despite all that it was cool to walk around on streets that I wouldn't usually find myself on. There are a lot of cute little streets in rechavia, plus the weather was PERFECT for walking around.
We made it to one other house down by school which was one of the first houses built outside of the walls of jerusalem, I don't know much about architecture, but it was cool to see. You could tell it was old and they had stone walls in some rooms. The owners who lived in the building were also there to answer questions. It was a nice way to spend shabbat afternoon.
So I have a bible quiz tomorrow, which I need to finish studying for. Wish me luck :-)
Becca
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