It's 1:30 am on Monday morning and I just got out of the longest, hotest shower I've had in a while. I had a wonderful Rosh Hashana in Beit Shemesh. It was exactly what I had anticipated and everything went really smoothly. As one can imagine, after spending almost 3 days with 5 children under the age of 9, I am really looking forward to spending tomorrow (well, today really) just chilling. Since I don't have school today - we postponed the day because of the fast so I have classes instead tomorrow - I plan on spending my time relaxing, writing, figuring out what is going on with my internet and VOIP and doing laundry.
But, I want to take a minute to recap how Rosh Hashana went. So, as you know from my previous post, I took the train to Beit Shemesh on Thursday night and went to sleep sharing a room with the baby (she just turned 2). At about 4:00 am, she woke up crying hysterically for her Abba. I started to soothe her when she took one look at me and started calling me "Mommy" and crawled into bed with me. I think she would have fallen back asleep in a few minutes but fortunately, her Mom came in to the rescue and whisked her out of the room so I could get back to sleep. It was a nice way to start the weekend, mistaken for Mommy. The next thing I know it's 7:30 and the maid is poking her head into the room looking ready to make the bed with me in it. I took that as the cue to get up and so the day began. We did some errands and then little by little the rest of the company arrived. There was a 28 year old guy from my old stomping grounds who comes every year to daven at Reishit Yerushalayim, and two seminary girls (one from Brooklyn who is a relative of the hosts and she brought a new found friend).
For Friday night dinner, there were 11 of us. It was a lot of fun. Sleeping arrangements were very interesting given the group and I shared a room with two of the girls, 7 and 3. Sadly, one of them snored very loudly but fortunately for me, I was so exhausted both days that I was able to sleep right through it.
Shabbat day shul was really nice, the men daven at a Haskama (early) minyan so that the women can go to the regular minyan. We made it in shul both days in time for Maftir, and we both davened Shacharit at home. The seminary girls were sent to shul early each day to save us seats and it worked out that it wasn't too crowded in our section both days.
The most exciting thing about Rosh Hashana was Saturday night when we went to Noam's brother for dinner. There were 18 of us at the meal, which is pretty typical for me given the meals I've been to on the Upper West Side. Anyway, they do an entire new fruit/new year "seder" and we made blessings over: apples, leeks, carrots, pumpkin, pomegranates, something called Israel fruit, sabras, dates, jelly fish and beets. I am shocked that my stomach withstood all of those different foods! The kids were REALLY into though, and I think it's a great way to get kids excited and interested in the holidays.
This afternoon, the entire community was invited to one neighbors house because she has a fish pond. We were all invited to go there to say Tashlich, except we weren't allowed to throw bread. The kids again had a great time and the folks in the community got to hang out and smooze for a bit. I went to say Tashlich and admired the fish, although I missed not throwing away my sins. I might go to the beach at some point over Aseret Yemei Teshuvah and say it again but this time throw in pieces of bread. The symbolism for me is pretty important.
Anyway, I got back to my apartment this evening no problem. Tova sent me with some leftover turkey and salad, so at least I have 1-2 meals set for the week and she drove me to the train. I got on the 9:35 train and was home by 10:30. It was really easy and I will definitely made the trip again, although next time I hope not to have to bring so much stuff with me. When I got home, though, I was not happy to see the second cockaroach in a week. At this point, I think the apartment might have a problem because I really have no food out to be attracting the bugs. I'm not going to wait for a third bug to say something so I already e-mail Itai and asked him to get an exterminator here ASAP. We'll see what he has to say tomorrow.
The seminary girls who I just spent the past two days with were very, very interesting. It reminded me of a lot of things I experienced when I was in seminary nearly 12 years ago. Primarily, it made me VERY thankful that I was no longer a seminary girl., More about this later, including the stories that the school told them in order to make sure that they would stay away from "bad" neighborhoods (i.e. Ben Yehuda Street). When I told them I lived in Tel Aviv, I thought they were going to literally start saying tehilim for my soul. To a seminary girl, living in Tel Aviv is akin to living in a whorehouse.
Anyway, I bought a wireless router erev Yom Tov and I need to deal with my ISP in order to hook it up properly. My GOAL is to get my phone working by the weekend because my baby sister's birthday is in a few days and I plan on calling her to wish her a happy birthday ( and will NOT do it from my cell phone).
I hope everyone is having a Shana Tova U'Mitukah! Have an easy fast!!
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