Rosh HaShannah reflected

As of last Friday evening, it is officially 5770. Apparently this means that we are in the 1,770 year of the time of Moshiach, and that the Moshiach has to come sometime in the next 230 years. That it is, presuming we accept that the entire earth is only 5770 years old. (by the way, did you see that they discovered modern human footprints in tanzania, preserved in volcanic ash, dated to 120,000 years ago? currently the oldest human footprints known.)

Anyway, overview of the weekend...I spent the first night the guest of the Levingers, the Rabbi and his wife, Chaya, as well as their five adorable children, Yehuda, Yossi, Tzipi, Chani, and Mendel. It was the first chasidic chag of my life, and I still can't understand how Chaya manages to manage five children and make such a multi course meal. Miracle of the evening: I deseeded a pomegranate in a nice dress, and managed to not get a single stain!

Instead of going to some shul the next day, I decided to spend my first Rosh HaShannah in Jerusalem (and realistically, likely my last) at the Kotel. I was a bit nervous at first, convinced that with the double whammy of Rosh HaShannah and Shabbat, the wall would be a mosh pit, completely packed without a stone left to stand on.
Instead, it was quite the opposite. There were so few people, I was able to take a chair of the stack (which was still stacked!) and bring it right up to the wall, sitting just a foot or two from the stones, and sit for a couple of hours, reading, resting, thinking. I have managed to come so far, to where so many generations only dreamed to speak of, and my only regret is that I know I will never be able to where my Tallis at the wall.

Walking through the old city, seeing the ruins, the new "old" walls blending nearly seamlessly with the actual old walls, on a day that was meant to be spent in this city, was a slightly surreal experience, which was increased by the hordes of Russian tourists thoughtlessly snapping photos and speaking on their cell phones in the plaza of the Western wall, and all over the old city (note to potential tourists: on Shabbat and holidays, not the most considerate thing to do.)
This night, I went with four other girls back to the Lymans' for dinner, where I was confronted with the biggest symbolic fish head ever. It was from a salmon. And had teeth.

On the second day, since we had yet to hear the sounding of the Shofar, I went to the Great Synagogue, where the service was austere and the famous choir neogospel. Beautiful, yes, but disconnected.

The evening's Tashlich brought us to the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, where the hungry fish and turtles eagerly gobbled up the challah-fied sins. Later that night (much later), on a whim, Hayley and I went to Tel Aviv, where we met up with a couple of her friends for a negilah night on the beach of the mediterranean sea before coming home at dawn to start the Fast of Gedaliah, really an easy fast as far as fasts go.

In other news, I am going to be going to Berlin on Sunday morning in order to have a job interview, which was supposed to be at 2:30 on Tuesday (the day after Yom Kippur and another fast), and will now be at 10 am. Yup.

so, ich muss jetzt nur Deutsch sprechen, ob ich fuer mein Interview bereit sein will...
Tschuss!