This past weekend was Purim, the festival based on the book of Esther. We're learning about the history of Purim in my Jewish Thought & Practice class. In fact, for that class, we had to go to a reading of the Megillah (scroll of Esther) in a synagogue. Purim is a huge festival here, it's pretty wild. People dress up in crazy costumes--we saw pirates and princesses and Elvis and all sorts of fun things. I dressed up as an orthodox Jew :)
The synagogue service was crazy, with everyone dressed up and a fun little program. There was some singing, popular songs rewritten with a Jewish message, but the main act was the reading of the book of Esther (in Hebrew, of course). The synagogue I was at, along with a bunch of other JUC students, was a synagogue that's a part of a school just across the valley, Hebrew Union College, so it was mostly lots and lots of college-age kids and young adults. The scroll was read (really, chanted, which basically means sung to a certain set of guidelines) by a bunch of students who were apparently learning to be rabbis or cantors or something, anyway learning how to do this kind of chanting. It was pretty neat--they were singing slow enough that I was able to follow along in Hebrew. The professional readers I've heard go way too fast for me to read! So that was neat. And whenever the name "Haman" is read, the entire room goes bonkers. Everyone yells and boos and has all these noisemakers--the sky's the limit. People come to synagogue with snare drums and trombones and all sorts of things, for the purpose of making noise to "blot out" the name of Haman. It's all part of the festival. There was also basically a carnival in the Old City yesterday--tons of people in costumes all over. People eat Haman's Ears cookies--triangle-shaped cookies that sometime have different stuff in them, they are really good. People give gifts to their friends, give gifts to the poor, having crazy drinking feasts, all sorts of stuff. And this is what they're supposed to do. Lots of Jews get really really drunk. When my Jewish Thought and Practice teacher was teaching us about this festival (he's a conservative Jewish rabbi), he actually quoted the New Testament to us--Ephesians 5:18, which says "And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." He wanted to warn us to not go to one of the drinking parties after we went to the synagogue service. Funny!
So that was Purim. We also had Easter this Sunday, of course. I went to a sunrise service on the Mount of Olives; I left campus at 4:30 in the morning! Lo tov, as they say--not good! It was a lovely sunrise, but also really hazy. We're having some hamsin winds again. Those are hot winds that come up from Arabia during the changing seasons, really hot and full of sand. So it was in the 90s yesterday. After the sunrise service, there was a breakfast served by the church. We had bacon! Yummmmm. I also met an Episcopal priest named Bingham. He is from Oregon and has been a priest for 3 months. Interesting guy. After that, we walked back to campus and I took a nap. In the middle of the afternoon I helped set up the tables for our big dinner. We had a massive turkey dinner--something like 90 people came. It was crazy. I made the gravy, which turned out amazingly. I decided I have good gravy genes--both of my grandmothers make fantastic gravy, and I think I have inherited that trait. I'm pretty happy about that. (Thanks Grandmas!)
This is some of us who went to the sunrise service on the Mount of Olives. Here we are all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We ha bacon right after this picture! I will have a few more up late next week.
On a completely different note, Dog (my fish) is no more... like Enoch (Genesis 5:24)... and it is a mystery. When I went to feed the fish this morning, there was no fish. There are several possible explanations:
(1) Fishy suicide. But I looked all over my desk and the floor and found no fish carcass, so that probably wasn't it.
(2) Prank. I've been asking around, especially the people who might do something like that, and have found no leads.
(3) Cat ate Dog. (Fun, hey?) The Wrights (JUC's director and his wife) have a cat named Angel who sometimes runs around and sometimes is in our room. However, the fishy bowl was up high on a narrow shelf with lots of stuff around it, none of which was moved that I could tell.
(4) A warp in the space-time continuum. I can't remember if I blogged about the warp in the space-time continuum that once ate Sarah's and my train tickets this past summer in Spain. But it happened then, so it could happen again. This is my best guess.
...and of course,
(5) Dog walked with God, and he was not, for God took him (see Genesis 5:24).
I'm not too torn up about it; I guess it was just Dog's time. I'll have to find someone else to talk to now :)
Farewell Dog!
Also, I thought I would mention a "Where do I live??!?" moment I had a week or so ago. Our laundry room was incapacitated for a few days... because a cactus fell through the roof. I hope someone besides me thinks that's really funny.
One more thing, especially for all you Minnesotans. It was in the 90s here yesterday. Right now it's 88 and sunny, with very little humidity. Now there's good Easter weather.
