Two weeks ago I was walking by myself to a shabbat service. I was walking down a side street\driveway and a truck that had been parked started to move. BUT I was walking there first. To my surprise, but not really, he started honking and screaming at me for walking in his way. I do not know if he noticed or cared but I was walking there first, a parked car does not have the right of way over anyone. It freaked me out and pissed me off, a great way to start off shabbat.
As the sun was setting and shabbat was ending I went with a friend to the Old City. We walked through the Arab quarter and then found ourselves at the Western Wall. He did not want to go up to the Kotel but I figured why not? I covered up as best as I could and slowly approached the wall. There was an empty chair against the wall surrounded by many other chairs with religious people praying in them. I did not want to move the chair to sit in it or get closer so I just stood there and enjoyed the experience. A religious girl about my age noticed what happened and quickly moved the chair so I could be next to the wall as well. We often see and feel the divide between the religious Jews and secular Jews but this shabbat, for me, it was a bit different. It did not matter how I was dressed, where I was going or what I was doing, some people chose to embrace me and help me enjoy my shabbat while others had more important things to be doing. A shaky shabbat ended up with a beautiful ending.
This week I started a new-ish hobby, yoga. So far its going great. Last weekend I looked up yoga studios in Jerusalem and to my surprise one of the only websites that worked was of a studio that happened to be in an apartment building on my block. As my mom would say, it was b'shert. So I called ahead to let them know an American would be coming. I thought they deserved a heads up and she seemed nothing but welcoming on the phone.
I showed up Sunday morning to a small woman's only Kundalini class. It was just what I needed. The first 30 minutes we did a lot of stretching and warming up. The middle section were some really interesting yoga positions that I was not familiar with and the end was an unbelievable cool down. She played different music throughout the session. It was quite the experience. I had a great view of Jerusalem when I was standing looking out a window in the corner of the room. It was very spiritual in a non Jewish way but a wonderful city to be experiencing it in. After the class she brought out tea and cut up bananas an apples. We all sat around for almost a half an hour talking and enjoying each others company (of course I was mostly listening). No to mention the instructor translated everything for me, it was a good Hebrew lesson for me and English lesson for everyone else.
Yesterday I went to an evening Vinyasa class that was totally different but equally enjoyable. So far so good. I always enjoy finding new hobbies. We'll see where this goes.
(Of course it turns out that a lady who teaches Hebrew at Hebrew University was also in both classes, what a small world...)
nice post. where is the picture from? did you take it? love you!
ReplyDeleteI took the picture is through a fence\wall that is at the back of the hotel. I posted a few more pictures on facebook. Enjoy.
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