Belated inaugural post

Hello,

I promised many people back home I would keep them updated on my escapades in Israel. It’s taken me long enough, but after a month of escapading, I’ve finally been able to throw this blog together. They keep us pretty busy here, and I haven’t been doing much sleeping. When you farbring until 3 AM and then wake up at 6 to study chasidus before davening the next morning, there’s not a lot of time for that.

I realize that many people have been invited to view this blog, and many of them might have next to no idea what I’m talking about. I am, for the beginners, currently in the first week of what will, G-d willing, be a yearlong term of study at Yeshivat Mayanot in the Mekor Baruch neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. I’m not going to bother explaining Jewish terms in this blog, so if you want clarification, contact me.

Getting to Israel was a story in itself. Wrapping tefillin in airports and such things are always memorable, and extremely awkward. The best part of the trip was getting upgraded to first class on the flight to London, seated next to a Welsh scaffolded on his way back from Mexico. The worst part was waiting 2 hours for a taxi that dropped me off an unmarked street and left me to finagle directions out of a guy who spoke only Yiddish. Figures that I wrack my brains for days on how to say “where the heck am I?” in Hebrew and it ends up doing me 0 good.

Mekor Baruch is like that. You’re just as likely to hear Yiddish or English on the street as Hebrew. The Yeshiva is also equidistant from both Machane Ben Yehuda and Mea Shearim. Ben Yehuda is where you go if you want to eat at a swank restaurant and dance your Thursday night away. Mea Shearim is where tourists go see religious Jews in their natural habitat. Mayanot also about a 20 minute walk from the Kotel, so we’re right in the middle of one of most exciting cities in the world. Every few hours I have to just be like “Holy @#$%, I’m in Jerusalem!”

I was blessed with good roommates, baruch hash-m, who don’t wake me up at night and don’t complain about me getting up early. There’s one guy from LA, one from France, and one from Orinda. I just can’t escape the Bay Area. I travel to the other side of the planet to room with a guy who lives 20 minutes from my house. The room isn’t bad either; sometimes we have to fight the cockroaches for pillow space, but we have free wireless internet so all is forgiven.

I don’t know what form this blog will take. I might put some pictures up, but I think I’ll just write mostly. I don’t know how often, probably just when I have time or when I think of things to say.

Shalom,

Yoel David