A slideshow

However many days I may not be sleeping on the couch I've rented, I'm actually happy I've got a home base in Tel Aviv. This whole journey is really overwhelming and intense. Making the trek back here is like having sorbet between courses. The streets of Neve Tzedek may smell like a rancid litter box and garbage and while beaches may not really be my thing (yet, I aspire to relaxation), I nevertheless appreciate the ksat adventures I have here.  I mean, if I do get into Batsheva, this will be my hometown and we all know I won't be wasting my salary on a grandiose apartment.

And if sorbet isn't quite your thing, I highly recommend banana date mango soymilk smoothies.  Yeah.

I know you're probably wondering where all the pictures are.  I hate to say it, folks, but I'm not the photojournalist this time (most of Israel is documented in my facebook albums and for anything else you can find lovely pictures online thank you google). I find it silly to have people take pictures of me standing where I am.  I know I was there. Does a picture really say any words?  Particularly if a funny looking gal is obscuring the mirage.

I'm also fighting this intense desire to be intense.  I've been sitting watching the waves roll in from the Mediterranean sea for a while now.  Maybe it's not so hard.  I just have to think of myself as a little kid: if you run them around enough they may eventually actually want to be quiet.  It's strange but very nice.

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It's not about making your own halackah. I need to find a rabbi who can give me all the information and let me make my own answers. Not tell me what to do.  This can take years. Be patient.

Funny, I already learned this lesson. Funnier, I learned it four years ago in San Francisco. Yet another instance where I get it. (backstory: sophomore year I lost 15 pounds, got back on pointe and auditioned my way back to a summer intensive program I had previously adored.  I got there and four days later I was on a plane to NYC. I learned that I wanted information, not to be the best.  I decided this was the difference between being a student and a professional. You go around and get all the information you can from knowledgeable sources you trust and then come to your own often malleable conclusions. So I did that and look where it got me.)
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Interesting how the gaga class in Israel is taught like chabad: Hebrew first, then English. Those who get the English get more. The repetition is not only watered down, but something is lost in translation. Even the grammar makes you see that. Expressions are lost. It might be less important if it were about copying the teacher, but it's about self discovery with the teacher suggesting interpretations from their own personal discoveries for you to try out, if desired. That's why every teacher is different. That's why nobody looks like Ohad. 

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Don't date anybody in the first year of baal teshuvah. They're unstable and change every week. They're growing up again. They're finding themselves. Bar, you're brilliant.

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One rabbi (the rebbe?) said don't eat strawberries because it might have microscopic bugs. Torah says if you can't see them it doesn't count. Prohibiting strawberries is putting a fence around the law to help you to keep from breaking it.  If you are careful about washing and checking them, you can say a bracha over the strawberry and eat it.  Otherwise, you miss the opportunity to elevate something.  Leia, you're also brilliant. :)

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What's up with me and food here? You'd think I was starving or something (soooooooo not true). I hope it's like chabad where you slowly learn that you'll get to eat everything again next time. At any rate, beside the falafel, the ruguleh, the "Israeli dim sum" for lack of a better word, its the peanut butter that's eating at me (har har;).  I was warned about this, but I chose not to heed the seemingly odd advice. Apparently, you can bring peanut butter into Israel but you can't bring it out because you might be hiding something in it (beats me why israeli customs doesn't mind). I don't know what they do in the US to make peanut butter thick, but I can only hope that the tasty slop I bought today will congeal in the fridge, like the trader joe's natural stuff does.