Sometimes, you can't sit in the classroom anymore. It's like the scene in the movie where your pencil is tapping and the clock is ticking and finally, ah, the metaphorical bell rings. I had wrestled through six mishnayot (teachings) of Pirkei Avot, which was funny, since one of our vocab words was 'to become dusty/to wrestle with' - yes, in this ancient language, it's common to have one word meaning a few separate, somewhat-related things.
After a short lunch break, in which I acquired and consumed four different flavors of boreka from the local boreka bakery, I was back to studying Pirkei Avot. The dean of our school came and worked through a similar six mishnayot, but this time with the group of six students in my one-month program. I brought cookies, and we all shared some feedback on our experience. We love Pardes, we love the learning, we wish we had more time, etc.
I was really ready to scoot outta there as soon as our session ended at 2:25, so I made the adult decision that skipping afternoon class would immensely benefit me. It did.
I hopped a bus (after the one I waited for never came, typical, GoogleMaps) and ended up having to walk another 25 minutes up and down the hills of Jerusalem, through the Yemin Moshe flower gardens and the artists colony. When I reached the bottom of a massive hill, I realized I'd have to climb eight flights of stairs to get up to meet Haley, a friend from NU who is studying abroad at Hebrew University. As I paused to breathe, a car pulled up and out hopped Yoni, a boy who works at camp with me. This random run-in thing keeps happening. It happened the day before with an Israeli in a coffee shop, who once staffed a summer week camp with me. It happens in the shuk, by the Kotel, on the bus - it's a little overwhelming how tiny this country actually is. Anyway, I was so glad to see Yoni because the up-and-down walk alone had been a little creepy since it was so empty and only strange men were out, despite the fact it was 3:30 pm on a Thursday in the middle of town. We trotted up all the flights together, breathlessly catching up on the last few weeks before reaching the Yafo Gate to the Old City and parting ways.
Haley found me hiding in the shade of the looming gate, and we began to venture through the Arab shuk, ending near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Church of the Redeemer. We listened to the late afternoon call to prayer before feeling we were in too deep, and there was nothing to buy anyway. We u-turned toward the Cardo, the ancient Roman-era marketplace now housing fancy tourist art. We found mosaics and columns and kids scootering around them. What a playground. Our next stop was Jeff Seidel's office, a keiruv center that provides young travelers with Shabbat plans and cultural tours and parties and classes and more. I was in pursuit of a prayerbook to rent for Yom Kippur, and ended up with a glass of sweet red wine and a halfhour talk about Chabad at Northwestern. Jeff is an interesting man to say the least, and good at what he does. He was able to arrange dinner plans and offer me a cab fare if I were to go to a Rivky's house to learn about fasting on Yom Kippur - if keiruv is aggressive, it's also generous. (I didn't go because my phone died and a bad rugelach made me sick).
When we finally left Jeff's office, we were worried we'd miss our one afternoon itinerary item that actually had a timeframe: get into the Aish center before 5. We found our way through the skinny stairwells and winding walls of the city to the entrance of Aish's magnificent new structure (keiruv central, Jerusalem!). Shoulders covered, I successfully schmoozed our way to the observation deck, fare on the house. We ascended further and further up until we reached the sky. I felt like I was touching the sun. Or the Dome of the Rock, at least. We were in the center of all of Jerusalem, right by the Temple Mount, where the two Holy Temples stood, and now the Western Wall, still a hub for a peoplehood for over 2000 years. What a powerful place - it's just magnetic and splendid, yet not so overhwelmingly big that it's inaccessible or beyond emotion. I'm not the type to break down and cry, but I felt breathless again - it could've also been all those stairs. Haley and I rejoiced in the amazingness of the views, and took an excessive amount of photos, debating if we should ever descend.
Eventually, we did, and we decided to wander around the more residential parts of the old city. Flower petals and iron gates mark the area, in a pandemonium of crooked Jerusalem stones and yeshiva boys' prayers. It's just a poetic place. When we exited the city through the same gate we entered, we weaved through an outdoor art expo of giant painted globes with social messages. Four Haredim were smoking on an overlook of the highway. I wanted to yell at them because I found their personal presentation, black and white and cigarettes, to be appallingly inconsistent.
Haley and I plopped down at an intersection back in the hubbub of the New City, and talked about all the excitement and overwhelmtion that comes with being here, and all of my past travels and her future ones.
What I wouldn't give to get to repeat these two incredible years of nomadic status again - not to do anything differently, just to taste and smell and touch and remember everything all over again.
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