In retrospect, I should have ____

I spent the day of mourning for the Holy of Holies in transit, in sleep and in selfishness.  I was mourning my own mistakes, thereby subjugating the collective woes of my people.  We spend so much time praying for the coming of Moshiach and the rebuilding of the Temple and I have to choose the most cursed day to bolt.  How ironic. Well, next year in Yerushalayim, G-d willing. Hopefully I won't have to wait that long (now who's G-d here? Tricky question)

I suppose it's fitting though. I ran out of steam erev tisha b'av.  I also got a little ruffled last night when I visited a woman who lives in tsfat and teaches ballet to frum girls. I had no idea she was also a practitioner of a shakra energy-cleansing psychotherapy technique wrapped up in Torah and Tanya.  I dont know how we went from talking about dance to 4 hours of that. An emotional mess, I fled from tsfat.  Now I'm back in tel aviv. Not as thrilling as it used to be.

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On a happier note, I met "all the superstars of chabad in Israel" this past week. "2 second" hungry caterpillar recap: 

On Tuesday I tried out jerusalem's emergency room (if you ever need one, go to the one behind the central bus station, even if you're not in Jerusalem) 

On Wednesday, mayanot and kever Rachel with mirriam Rhodes, spent the night in bat ayin with musician Rachel ferency

On thursday sampled all the grapes in her husband's vineyard (kiddush will never be the same. Wow. So, kids, who wants to bomb the afternoon Sauvignon blancs?) and drove the scenic route to tsfat with mirriam and one of the schwartz's sons (chabad at UCLA), checked into ascent of Safed, visited the Arizal on his yartzeit (with thousands of hareidi jews) and stayed up until 5 am talking (surprised?)

On Friday I spent an amazing shabbos at ascent (where I already knew at least 5 people from chevron and mayanot), took classes, learned Tanya and read a lot

On Saturday I learned, I ate, I learned, I ate, I danced, I ate. Shabbat Shalom!

On Sunday I decided to stay in tsfat, tried out kabbalistic meditation on the letter aleph (gonna take a while to get to nun...), and went on a midnight walk with Olivia Schwartz

I spent monday morning at machon alte, and finally ended up at this woman's house, whose husband is a cousin of the rebbe and still talks to him. 

I'm not surprised I'm tired, although I should have stayed in tsfat.  Laundry is not a very good premise for travelling all night, particularly when you're not paying for housing (Shoshana and "Big Mo" are amazing).

And not only do I know at least seven people who are going to be back in ny soon, but I also have a place where I might be able to start teaching dance to women in crown heights. If one humbling day of destruction makes me want to go back so badly, it couldn't have been for naught, right?