Today is Erev Succot.
Our entire program was shipped off to Ramat Beit Shemesh, and sent to
different houses to stay at. We left at
11 AM and landed in a Kibbutz called Yishi.
The plan for the day was to swim at this family’s house, whose pool we
rented for the afternoon, and go shopping/play basketball down the street. First the guys played basketball while we
swam, then the guys swam as we shopped.
The weather today was not so particularly beautiful, which I thought
would ruin the swimming experience. But
alas, I was wrong. We walked down this
pathway, which led us past a very open and spacious one-floor house, and it
winded around through beautiful shrubbery, flowers, and trees. Looking out into the distance, there is a
great view of mountains and what I think is Ramat Bet Shemesh. After continuing on the lush pathway or about
thirty seconds it opened up completely.
On the right there were about five shower stalls, and in front of us through
a trellis with inviting vines wound around it was a very large tile swimming
pool. The deep blue color of the water,
because of the reflection from the tiles, was basically screaming, “swim in me!” We all put our stuff down and changed to swim
as quickly as possible. As everyone was
jumping in, I took an extra couple of seconds to really just appreciate where
we were. I looked around and saw a
beautiful view, an incredible assortment of flowers and trees around us, and a
ridiculous pool. It was really
amazing. We enjoyed the pool and played
random water games for about an hour, at which point it was time to shower and
get dressed. I thought I was in heaven
in the pool, but I was SO wrong. Let’s
talk about outdoor showers for a second… WOW.
My new life goal is to have an outdoor shower. Why?
Because there’s nothing more perfect than showering, tanning, and having
vines/trees/nature directly around you. I
really cannot think of many times in my life where I’ve felt so totally at
peace… Amazing.
Tell me you don't just want to jump in...
When everyone finished showering and getting dressed the
boys came to the pool as we exited towards Rabbi Bryks’ car. We piled in and he drove us to this kind of
shopping center area in Beit Shemesh.
The goal was to have pizza for lunch, buy gifts for the people whose
houses we were staying at from this totally humungous candy story, and also
have some time to just hang around if we wanted. The pizza place that we went to was kosher
Pizza Hut! I totally wish I could have
eaten the pizza, but instead I just had a salad. The cheesy smell and steam floating off of it
was more than welcoming to my taste buds.
I just wish I wouldn’t suffer such extreme repercussions from enjoying
even one slice. It’s okay though, the
salad was great and it served the same purpose- to supply my body with energy
to continue to function. After lunch we
walked around a little bit, but soon enough Rabbi Bryks came back to pick us up
and we got in the car again. We drove
for about ten minutes to Ramat Beit Shemesh, where we were all given a map and
a chart explaining where we were staying and eating and how to get to each
place. My friend Faye and I are staying
together at this nice place about a block away from the synagogue and Rabbi
Bryks’ house, and not so far from where we’re eating dinner tonight. Though she will be leaving tomorrow night, I
am planning to keep one and a half days of Chag- weirdest thing ever- so I’ll
be here until Tuesday night. One and a
half days means that on the second day I keep all of the Torah level
commandments and none of the Rabbinic level commandments. In other words, I won’t be using my cell
phone or turning on lights but I will pray as if it was a weekday and I’ll make
Havdalah on Monday night. I know—I’m a
weirdo. Haha.
I want to leave you with an interesting thing that I heard
the mother say to her children. Usually,
at least in my house, before a Chag a mother would be yelling at her kids for
not setting the table, cleaning properly, or showering in a timely
fashion. However this mother was yelling
at her kids for not learning enough Torah today. I thought that was kind of cool, so I figured
I’d share it.
Chag Sameach and Moadim Le’simcha to all!
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