So I returned. And I knew I was going back, as soon as the plane touched down on English soil.
Or, to be pedantic about it, I was pretty sure I was returning to Israel as the plane flew over Tel-Aviv. I was fairly certain when we got to Heathrow, and more so when we were driving home. I was decided as soon as I spent the next day in England, but I gave it two weeks or so, in case this changed, of the feeling wore off.
It didn't, of course.
Monday 12 October 2009
Monday 5 October 2009
Days Forty Nineish - Fifty Six, or thereabouts.
These following entries (for the same reasons as the compounded/highly edited entries of Days 42-9, below) will focus more on the main (ever dramatic) incidents of my final week as 'The Mitnadevet':
1. The Drowning. OR - 'The Day I Proved I Didn't Know My Limits and So Nearly Died'
Wednesday - NJ and I decided to go to Ashdod, to meet with her friend, 'R', where we went to the beach. Just before leaving, we'd missed the bus because we were debating for over an hour whether or not we should bring our swimming stuff. We did not, and our first stop in Ashdod was the beach. I went swimming in my dress, which was a fun first.
TPALSS, 1. I don't like swimming in sea water, 2. I thought, 'meh, why not give it a go', 3. I didn't realise how deep it was, and got smacked by several waves, and pulled under by the undercurrent. It was surprisingly very very strong, and on trying to reach the bottom to regain my footing, I realised I couldn't, and started screaming. I don't really remember much else.
Apparantly I scrambled up R (like a CAT!), who is a very good, very frum boy, and he took me back to shore and tried to get as much (non-salt) water down me. In between choking and trying to drink, I was trying to ask what happened and furiously apologising. I felt so sick, crap and embarrassed!!!
Needless to say, I was absolutely exhausted by the experience and so had an early night, although I slept fitfully, waking up either because I had a horrible flashback or nightmare, or needing to go to the loo.
2. Thursday - 'The Hallucination Incident'/'Our Crazy Day of Crazy Crazy Shizzle'
Still knackered from the events of the day before, I took the day off work and rested. At 3pm or thereabouts, NJ woke me up from a very deep sleep to tell me that Boston guy, the ex-mitnadev, had returned to the kibbutz!
Why, I was trying to wonder, would Boston guy do that? He didn't like us, and drove me mad towards the end of his stay, convinced I secretly wanted to sleep with him, and telling everyone this. However, newly arisen from this heavy, salt-watery tasting slumber and uneasy in the heat, I felt really zoned out, and was convinced this was all some kind of strange semi-cheese dream. I told her that was a crap joke, and she shouldn't have woken me up for THAT, but she insisted. I thought maybe I was hallucinating, which i can sometimes do if extremely tired and hungry. I asked, the immortal line,
'So where is this hallucination of ours, then?' and she said, 'right behind you.'
And standing right behind me, only a split second after I'd turned my back on the kibbutz, was Boston.
It couldn't have been real - it was all too quick and perfectly timed, and I'd just woken up...and we'd been alone on the kibbutz together (me and NJ) for over a week. We concluded he was a hallucination, and we didn't see any more of him for two days.Ergo - hallucination.
If he was real, we thought, surely he would've said sthg to us, or we would have seen him around...but no. Then we got a bus to TLV - within 2 minutes of getting to the stop. We always have to wait at least 20 or so minutes. So we concluded that the day before we had most likely both drowned, and now we were in some crazy parallel universe, much like Limbo or somthing, and if Boston was really there it was so we could all ask for each other's mechila before the Yamim Noraim. Or I was still asleep.
He was nowhere to be found when we got back.
And Aussie guy came back to the kibbutz with us!!!! :D
3. The Shabbaton-Beit HaCar Incident / Shakira the Dead Goat
For Shabbat we had 12 ppl or so - NJ's two mates, a London girl who was still on Kibbutz but we hadn't seen much of, me and my mate, Aussie guy and our apparant hallucinated Boston guy, and a few others.
Deciding to show them all the Beit Hacar, on Shabbat we went and I set to proudly showing them around.
All was going swimmingly until the following conversation:
A voice: 'He mehta! He mehta!' [she's dead, she's dead]
Me: 'mi mehta?' [who's dead?]
banot sherut: 'l'eze!!l'eze mehta!' [the goat, the goat's dead]
Me: 'Efo? Efo l'eze?' [Where's the goat?]
banot sherut: 'Shakira! B'Pinot Lituf!' [Shakira, in the petting zoo]
and I turned around. And sure enough, Shakira the goat was slumped into the dog's hole with her tongue lolling to the side, her eyes rolled heavenwards and flies everywhere, apparantly very very dead.
It felt a bit like the 'Dead Parrot' sketch. I felt sick but remained calm.
TPALSS, I left London in July with a bag which weighed 10kg. Despite not using half of the clothes and stuff I packed, my suitcase had managed to expand somewhat enormously during my stay on kibbutz. I canlt think how. Anyhoo, R from Ashdod came to join us, and bought me a pizza to say goodbye, and then helped me repack my case and even zipped it up for me whole I sat on it, bewildered by this feeling of crazy remorse overtaking me.
J from the P famille took me to the airport, alongside NJ and R. J and I had a quick goodbye, but it was definitely a 'see you soon' rather than a 'goodbye forever' I feel.
After checking in my bag (all done by R, bless!) the three of us headed to the departure gate, towards McDonalds, and I couldn't believe this was happening to me. It could've been the pizza they forced down me, it could've been the general apprehension re: leaving, but I felt incredibly sick, as if I'd swollen a whole load more of salt water just that minute. Then I realised that actually, rather than throwing up, I was about to burst into crazy roaring and screaming tears. I bought a McFlurry - my first!!! - and ate it quickly, before i could start crying. I hate crying in public. It's a shame that my first McFlurry is eaten purely as a distractionary measure, but still.
Then Aussie guy showed up, and we all sat chatting for a bit. My flight was at 7.20pm, and it was 6pm. NJ and R left to go back to kibbutz and Ashdod, and Aussie and I chatted and I tried not to throw up or cry until 7pm, when I needed to go catch the flight to London.
And it was strange. For a minute, I was fully intending to not go to the Boarding Gate. I could easily get my bag back from the plane, and leave the airport, go with Aussie to gte some Power Espresso Vodka and sit drinking it on the miklat, live on the kibbutz for a bit and then get a job outside and gradually earn enough to move, and make Aliya at some point in all this and then -
Aussie, who can (after two months of being with me pretty much the whole time) read my face effortlessly, said something like: 'I know what you're thinking, but you need to go to the gate.' And I couldn't say anything at all to that, but I could feel my face getting red and turning into the resemblance of, what my mother calls 'a constipated muppet', and then I started crying a lot, into his shoulder. Oops.
Then I said goodbye, gathered up my stuff and went through hand luggage security, and arrived at my gate ten minutes later, just on time. I don't see how anyone needs 2 hours to get through all that.
I felt drained. I couldn't believe I was forcing myself onto this plane, I felt so dizzy and sick, and like it wasn't me moving my legs. But I managed to get onto the plane,and switched off my Israeli phone, and sat in my admittedly very comfy and roomy seat, depressed and feeling half-dead as ever.
And as we flew over Israel, and I saw the lights of Tel-Aviv by night, I felt an actual physical, cramp-like pain in my chest, and I had a really bad headache. Then my seat neighbour started talking to me - and although she was lovely - a (non-Jewish) PhD student from Sheffield who'd been in Haifa for a Chemistry conference and we talked for the entire journey, including a point where I tried to explain why that Charedi person didn;t have curly-wurleys, and that one did, but that meanwhile I was also religious but not like them, etc etc, I couldn't help but think, 'How the hell am I going to survive chutz-la'aretz?'
When I got off the plane, and saw my brother hobbling towards me on crutches (he'd broken his ankle), i was quite happy to see him as I'd missed him terribly. However, after hugging me, I was somewhat perturbed by his choice of greeting - 'What the hell's happened to you?!'
And I agree - it must've been quite the shock to see me come back tanned, my hair leonine and cascading down my back with a gingerish-tinge, a nose-piercing, crazy-Aladdin pants and schlepping a drum.
And that was the end of my trip.
For now.
1. The Drowning. OR - 'The Day I Proved I Didn't Know My Limits and So Nearly Died'
Wednesday - NJ and I decided to go to Ashdod, to meet with her friend, 'R', where we went to the beach. Just before leaving, we'd missed the bus because we were debating for over an hour whether or not we should bring our swimming stuff. We did not, and our first stop in Ashdod was the beach. I went swimming in my dress, which was a fun first.
TPALSS, 1. I don't like swimming in sea water, 2. I thought, 'meh, why not give it a go', 3. I didn't realise how deep it was, and got smacked by several waves, and pulled under by the undercurrent. It was surprisingly very very strong, and on trying to reach the bottom to regain my footing, I realised I couldn't, and started screaming. I don't really remember much else.
Apparantly I scrambled up R (like a CAT!), who is a very good, very frum boy, and he took me back to shore and tried to get as much (non-salt) water down me. In between choking and trying to drink, I was trying to ask what happened and furiously apologising. I felt so sick, crap and embarrassed!!!
Needless to say, I was absolutely exhausted by the experience and so had an early night, although I slept fitfully, waking up either because I had a horrible flashback or nightmare, or needing to go to the loo.
2. Thursday - 'The Hallucination Incident'/'Our Crazy Day of Crazy Crazy Shizzle'
Still knackered from the events of the day before, I took the day off work and rested. At 3pm or thereabouts, NJ woke me up from a very deep sleep to tell me that Boston guy, the ex-mitnadev, had returned to the kibbutz!
Why, I was trying to wonder, would Boston guy do that? He didn't like us, and drove me mad towards the end of his stay, convinced I secretly wanted to sleep with him, and telling everyone this. However, newly arisen from this heavy, salt-watery tasting slumber and uneasy in the heat, I felt really zoned out, and was convinced this was all some kind of strange semi-cheese dream. I told her that was a crap joke, and she shouldn't have woken me up for THAT, but she insisted. I thought maybe I was hallucinating, which i can sometimes do if extremely tired and hungry. I asked, the immortal line,
'So where is this hallucination of ours, then?' and she said, 'right behind you.'
And standing right behind me, only a split second after I'd turned my back on the kibbutz, was Boston.
It couldn't have been real - it was all too quick and perfectly timed, and I'd just woken up...and we'd been alone on the kibbutz together (me and NJ) for over a week. We concluded he was a hallucination, and we didn't see any more of him for two days.Ergo - hallucination.
If he was real, we thought, surely he would've said sthg to us, or we would have seen him around...but no. Then we got a bus to TLV - within 2 minutes of getting to the stop. We always have to wait at least 20 or so minutes. So we concluded that the day before we had most likely both drowned, and now we were in some crazy parallel universe, much like Limbo or somthing, and if Boston was really there it was so we could all ask for each other's mechila before the Yamim Noraim. Or I was still asleep.
He was nowhere to be found when we got back.
And Aussie guy came back to the kibbutz with us!!!! :D
3. The Shabbaton-Beit HaCar Incident / Shakira the Dead Goat
For Shabbat we had 12 ppl or so - NJ's two mates, a London girl who was still on Kibbutz but we hadn't seen much of, me and my mate, Aussie guy and our apparant hallucinated Boston guy, and a few others.
Deciding to show them all the Beit Hacar, on Shabbat we went and I set to proudly showing them around.
All was going swimmingly until the following conversation:
A voice: 'He mehta! He mehta!' [she's dead, she's dead]
Me: 'mi mehta?' [who's dead?]
banot sherut: 'l'eze!!l'eze mehta!' [the goat, the goat's dead]
Me: 'Efo? Efo l'eze?' [Where's the goat?]
banot sherut: 'Shakira! B'Pinot Lituf!' [Shakira, in the petting zoo]
and I turned around. And sure enough, Shakira the goat was slumped into the dog's hole with her tongue lolling to the side, her eyes rolled heavenwards and flies everywhere, apparantly very very dead.
It felt a bit like the 'Dead Parrot' sketch. I felt sick but remained calm.
4. The End of Kibbutz Days / The Airport
TPALSS, I left London in July with a bag which weighed 10kg. Despite not using half of the clothes and stuff I packed, my suitcase had managed to expand somewhat enormously during my stay on kibbutz. I canlt think how. Anyhoo, R from Ashdod came to join us, and bought me a pizza to say goodbye, and then helped me repack my case and even zipped it up for me whole I sat on it, bewildered by this feeling of crazy remorse overtaking me.
J from the P famille took me to the airport, alongside NJ and R. J and I had a quick goodbye, but it was definitely a 'see you soon' rather than a 'goodbye forever' I feel.
After checking in my bag (all done by R, bless!) the three of us headed to the departure gate, towards McDonalds, and I couldn't believe this was happening to me. It could've been the pizza they forced down me, it could've been the general apprehension re: leaving, but I felt incredibly sick, as if I'd swollen a whole load more of salt water just that minute. Then I realised that actually, rather than throwing up, I was about to burst into crazy roaring and screaming tears. I bought a McFlurry - my first!!! - and ate it quickly, before i could start crying. I hate crying in public. It's a shame that my first McFlurry is eaten purely as a distractionary measure, but still.
Then Aussie guy showed up, and we all sat chatting for a bit. My flight was at 7.20pm, and it was 6pm. NJ and R left to go back to kibbutz and Ashdod, and Aussie and I chatted and I tried not to throw up or cry until 7pm, when I needed to go catch the flight to London.
And it was strange. For a minute, I was fully intending to not go to the Boarding Gate. I could easily get my bag back from the plane, and leave the airport, go with Aussie to gte some Power Espresso Vodka and sit drinking it on the miklat, live on the kibbutz for a bit and then get a job outside and gradually earn enough to move, and make Aliya at some point in all this and then -
Aussie, who can (after two months of being with me pretty much the whole time) read my face effortlessly, said something like: 'I know what you're thinking, but you need to go to the gate.' And I couldn't say anything at all to that, but I could feel my face getting red and turning into the resemblance of, what my mother calls 'a constipated muppet', and then I started crying a lot, into his shoulder. Oops.
Then I said goodbye, gathered up my stuff and went through hand luggage security, and arrived at my gate ten minutes later, just on time. I don't see how anyone needs 2 hours to get through all that.
I felt drained. I couldn't believe I was forcing myself onto this plane, I felt so dizzy and sick, and like it wasn't me moving my legs. But I managed to get onto the plane,and switched off my Israeli phone, and sat in my admittedly very comfy and roomy seat, depressed and feeling half-dead as ever.
And as we flew over Israel, and I saw the lights of Tel-Aviv by night, I felt an actual physical, cramp-like pain in my chest, and I had a really bad headache. Then my seat neighbour started talking to me - and although she was lovely - a (non-Jewish) PhD student from Sheffield who'd been in Haifa for a Chemistry conference and we talked for the entire journey, including a point where I tried to explain why that Charedi person didn;t have curly-wurleys, and that one did, but that meanwhile I was also religious but not like them, etc etc, I couldn't help but think, 'How the hell am I going to survive chutz-la'aretz?'
When I got off the plane, and saw my brother hobbling towards me on crutches (he'd broken his ankle), i was quite happy to see him as I'd missed him terribly. However, after hugging me, I was somewhat perturbed by his choice of greeting - 'What the hell's happened to you?!'
And I agree - it must've been quite the shock to see me come back tanned, my hair leonine and cascading down my back with a gingerish-tinge, a nose-piercing, crazy-Aladdin pants and schlepping a drum.
And that was the end of my trip.
For now.
Days Forty-Two- Forty Nine
Because so much happened in the last few days, these entries have been (somewhat lazily) hardcore edited and lumped together for the following reasons:
1) this period covers 13 pages of the notebook in which I first jotted it all down (in note form)
2) NJ (New Jersey) and I spent a lot of time together - entirely alone, the only mitnadvim left - on the kibbutz and most likely completely and utterly lost it. Hence there are interesting sketches, plans and strange tales which to this day I don't understand the meaning of entirely,
3) there seems to be a lot of strange details and stories about goats, ADD and the social dynamic amongst the madrichim in the Beit Hacar, much of which will be lost on the reading audience. Strangely, these factors all seem to interplay a lot. For their esoteric and idiosyncratic (not to mention frightening) nature, they have been either omitted or highly edited.
Wednesday - Hungarian and the Frenchie left the kibbutz to go start their Ulpan - the latter thank g-d, the former I'll miss. So for the first time EVER, the kibbutz fell completely silent. Silent that is, but for the sound of NJ. Together we discussed the differences between ADD and ADHD. So now I know!
We also learnt a new word in Hebrew - מעמי' - 'mummy' - the equivalent of 'babes' or whatever. However I did not know this. I explained to the culprit uttering this that, in English, 'mummy' is not a term of sexual endearment, and if it is used as such, it's actually more fetishistic. Yeuurrgghh. Of course, these occasions are when language barriers are the most funnest!
Thursday - a group of young Charedi boys visited the Beit Hacar today. The first point at which I decided I loathed them intensely was when the banot sherut (the girls doing their national service - sherut leumi - at the zoo) and I were forbidden to enter the zoo while the boys were in there, as weren't tzniut enough, incase we corrupted the boys' neshamot, possinbly with a hint of eye contact, or a smidgen of elbow (the actual 'ervah' of the arm was covered entirely, you see, as were all our lady lumps and bumps, by our baggy 'madrich' tshirts).
This was the second occasion in which I've seen uber-Charedim being crap with animals - in Har Nof, it was a regular (and horrific) occurence to see stray cats being kicked by Charedi children, and even sometimes the men and women. Sick. Anyhoo, this time, I wanted to check that my animals were being treated nicely and well, so I snuck in to wash my hands (which were covered in varnish anyway). What i saw was like some crazy hallucination:
The thirty or so boys in the petting cage (where i work regularly) were picking up and throwing the dogs at each other, which was disgusting enough, but then one of the boys picked up a goat (!!!) and, dancing and trying to push it above his tiny pre-pubescent head, began singing a highly strained version of had gadya. This led the other boys to stop throwing the dogs aroiund,a dn join hiim in forming a circle, with the boy holding the goat in the centre.
I looked to his teachers, hoping they'd have the common sense and decency to stop him. Did they f***. The teachers joined in, leading the dancing and singing louder than their pupils!
Absolutely horrified by this, i left myself into the cage and sat in the second pen, where the dogs go to cool down. As soon as I got in there, all of the dogs flocked to me, most of them shaking. Then, all of goats and sheep - who usually ignore me or at least don;t flock over - came into the second pen aswell. There were about 30 animals sitting with me, trying to gte away from the evil boys on the other side of the fence.
Declaring the pen 'assur' (forbidden), the boys then settled for trying to throw stones through the links in the fence, while I shouted at them to stop and their teachers encouraged them to continue.
Disgusting.
I thought it couldn't get any worse. But, about an hour or so later, after the second group had goneI let all the animals back into the amin pen, and checked them over. Then I noticed that the dog with the little bronw face wasn;t there.
I looked everywhere - all around the pen, all around the zoo - but it wasn't anywhere. then I noticed that, in the main pen, the hole that she'd been digging for the past two weeks (and which she liked to sleep down during visitng hours) had been covered up.
I considered for five minutes whether or not I would be actually crazy enough to dig - with my bare hands, like a dog - the hole up again. Then, thinking, 'ah why not?' i did. It took about 4 minutes to dig up - it was a very deep hole - and as I was digging, more and more of the madrichim were coming around to look at what the 'mitnadevet meshugat' (crazy volunteer girl) was doing.
Then, I saw a little brown face emerge, looking terrified and covered in dirt. I thought I was going to be sick, I was so shocked. We don't know how long it had been down there, but we checked it over and it seemed alright after an hour or so.
Later I saw some of the charedi boys' group go up to the baby donkey in the pen and throw dust into it's face, just to see what would happen, and lauhging, then I shooed them away, and they took to throwing stones at the separated and very cartzioty doggies.
The best bit of the day was when, finally realising it was time to go, the headteacher spoke over the intercom saying how great the day had been, how much fin they'd all had, and what kiddush hashem's they'd all been. I was hiding in the office, and i couldn;t help but laugh out loud at his lack of self-awareness. I know I'm no angel, but at least i can recognise when I'm being hypocritical and ridiculous.
Friday - I went to Haifa, to visit Aussie girl for Shabbat in Yemin Orde. It was great to see her!
Shabbat - YO is gorgeous. Really clean and friendly.
We had a lovely dinner and lunch in the cheder ochel with the kids, then Aussie and I went to Nir Etzion - a moshav across from YO and went o the zoo there. We met a 13 year old English-French-Israeli Charedi boy, who we talked to or about 45 minutes and who was absolutely charming and a true kiddush hashem. It just goes to show that my experiences with the charedim in the zoo but a few days before might have been horrific, but that I shouldn't generalise all Charedi behaviour by that.
During Shabbat I had a realisation - THE penny-dropping moment - to put a long story short ( hereafter abbreviated to 'tpalss'), I don't know if i can return to London and be ...'happy'(?) there - I've never in my life reached such a nice state of calmness, happiness and centrality, focus and balance as I have had on this trip, and it made me realise that, everything I thought was so great in London, or at least settled for - the crappy (and in hindsight highly unsuitable) relationships; so-called 'modern Orthodoxy', London style; stuff at home and my general life plans up unto this point (MA; Teach First; Teaching; marriage, kids, live in London etc etc etc) - it;s really not so great, nor how I want to live my life.
I don't want to do another year of uni, doing all the same things I have been doing for three years, reading and writing excessively while trying to keep it all together and seeing the weeks fall by without doing anything practical or significant; I don't want to marry some clone from the ghetto, have kids and settle in Hendon/Golders, send the kids to JFS/Hasmo and get caught up in the claustrophobia of the community; I. Don't. Want. Everyone. In. My. Face. Telling. Me. What. To. Do. The. Whole. Bloody. Time, then getting upset and hurt when I want to do something that I - yes, I - want to do, which doesn't necessarily benefit everyone, but it does benefit me (I am NOT that clever, but at least I know this and don't have to struggle through an entire year of MA just to prove I have a brain by having another graduation picture on the wall). Because it;s my life and I bloody well want to lead it and shape it according to what is best for me, and what will be best. In short, the space my mother left for my MA and PhD graduations pics on her 'simcha wall' will probably lay bare for a few years yet.
In short, I believe a gap year in Israel - volunteering and generally doing whatever I want to do, alone and totally free, is way more beneficial to my overall everything than any MA, at least for the meantime. I've never felt anything so strongly in my life - not saying that I'll make Aliya after that year off, but if it happens now, then it happens now.
I wonder how my parents and grandparents will take it. Think I'll keep that bit of news - like the nosepiercing - to myself for a bit. I've never felt so happy or so apprehensive. What a fantastic epiphany!
Sunday - came back to kibbutz aftee my amazing, thought-provoking Shabbat with Aussie in YO. My mate from the zoo and I fed the baby cows, which made us really hungry and so we went to Burger Ranch. Then I went to the ever-lovely and welcoming P famille to discuss my new plan, just to check I wasn't losing it or being stupid. They thought it was great.
Monday - went to Jeru to discuss shizzle with Nefesh B'Nefesh. they were located in kanfei nesharim - just a stone's throw away from my old stomping ground. Even in my happy state, just getting on the same busses, one stop up, having a coffee in a cafe i used to frequent etc etc - fermented weird and horrible recollections and feelings of unease etc of being in the same place. Then I left to go see Holland, the mitnadevet, in her new sem, and I went to a mussar lecture. Was really good - I realised I would've enjoyed sem way more if I hadn't gone anywhere Charedi. I 'chupped' it, if you will.
Tuesday - my mate from the moshav next door picked me up and we walked through the fields to the moshav - took 30 mins, but was such a lovely walk, had a rly nice time. Then she drove us to TLV and we got froyo.
1) this period covers 13 pages of the notebook in which I first jotted it all down (in note form)
2) NJ (New Jersey) and I spent a lot of time together - entirely alone, the only mitnadvim left - on the kibbutz and most likely completely and utterly lost it. Hence there are interesting sketches, plans and strange tales which to this day I don't understand the meaning of entirely,
3) there seems to be a lot of strange details and stories about goats, ADD and the social dynamic amongst the madrichim in the Beit Hacar, much of which will be lost on the reading audience. Strangely, these factors all seem to interplay a lot. For their esoteric and idiosyncratic (not to mention frightening) nature, they have been either omitted or highly edited.
Wednesday - Hungarian and the Frenchie left the kibbutz to go start their Ulpan - the latter thank g-d, the former I'll miss. So for the first time EVER, the kibbutz fell completely silent. Silent that is, but for the sound of NJ. Together we discussed the differences between ADD and ADHD. So now I know!
We also learnt a new word in Hebrew - מעמי' - 'mummy' - the equivalent of 'babes' or whatever. However I did not know this. I explained to the culprit uttering this that, in English, 'mummy' is not a term of sexual endearment, and if it is used as such, it's actually more fetishistic. Yeuurrgghh. Of course, these occasions are when language barriers are the most funnest!
Thursday - a group of young Charedi boys visited the Beit Hacar today. The first point at which I decided I loathed them intensely was when the banot sherut (the girls doing their national service - sherut leumi - at the zoo) and I were forbidden to enter the zoo while the boys were in there, as weren't tzniut enough, incase we corrupted the boys' neshamot, possinbly with a hint of eye contact, or a smidgen of elbow (the actual 'ervah' of the arm was covered entirely, you see, as were all our lady lumps and bumps, by our baggy 'madrich' tshirts).
This was the second occasion in which I've seen uber-Charedim being crap with animals - in Har Nof, it was a regular (and horrific) occurence to see stray cats being kicked by Charedi children, and even sometimes the men and women. Sick. Anyhoo, this time, I wanted to check that my animals were being treated nicely and well, so I snuck in to wash my hands (which were covered in varnish anyway). What i saw was like some crazy hallucination:
The thirty or so boys in the petting cage (where i work regularly) were picking up and throwing the dogs at each other, which was disgusting enough, but then one of the boys picked up a goat (!!!) and, dancing and trying to push it above his tiny pre-pubescent head, began singing a highly strained version of had gadya. This led the other boys to stop throwing the dogs aroiund,a dn join hiim in forming a circle, with the boy holding the goat in the centre.
I looked to his teachers, hoping they'd have the common sense and decency to stop him. Did they f***. The teachers joined in, leading the dancing and singing louder than their pupils!
Absolutely horrified by this, i left myself into the cage and sat in the second pen, where the dogs go to cool down. As soon as I got in there, all of the dogs flocked to me, most of them shaking. Then, all of goats and sheep - who usually ignore me or at least don;t flock over - came into the second pen aswell. There were about 30 animals sitting with me, trying to gte away from the evil boys on the other side of the fence.
Declaring the pen 'assur' (forbidden), the boys then settled for trying to throw stones through the links in the fence, while I shouted at them to stop and their teachers encouraged them to continue.
Disgusting.
I thought it couldn't get any worse. But, about an hour or so later, after the second group had goneI let all the animals back into the amin pen, and checked them over. Then I noticed that the dog with the little bronw face wasn;t there.
I looked everywhere - all around the pen, all around the zoo - but it wasn't anywhere. then I noticed that, in the main pen, the hole that she'd been digging for the past two weeks (and which she liked to sleep down during visitng hours) had been covered up.
I considered for five minutes whether or not I would be actually crazy enough to dig - with my bare hands, like a dog - the hole up again. Then, thinking, 'ah why not?' i did. It took about 4 minutes to dig up - it was a very deep hole - and as I was digging, more and more of the madrichim were coming around to look at what the 'mitnadevet meshugat' (crazy volunteer girl) was doing.
Then, I saw a little brown face emerge, looking terrified and covered in dirt. I thought I was going to be sick, I was so shocked. We don't know how long it had been down there, but we checked it over and it seemed alright after an hour or so.
Later I saw some of the charedi boys' group go up to the baby donkey in the pen and throw dust into it's face, just to see what would happen, and lauhging, then I shooed them away, and they took to throwing stones at the separated and very cartzioty doggies.
The best bit of the day was when, finally realising it was time to go, the headteacher spoke over the intercom saying how great the day had been, how much fin they'd all had, and what kiddush hashem's they'd all been. I was hiding in the office, and i couldn;t help but laugh out loud at his lack of self-awareness. I know I'm no angel, but at least i can recognise when I'm being hypocritical and ridiculous.
Friday - I went to Haifa, to visit Aussie girl for Shabbat in Yemin Orde. It was great to see her!
Shabbat - YO is gorgeous. Really clean and friendly.
We had a lovely dinner and lunch in the cheder ochel with the kids, then Aussie and I went to Nir Etzion - a moshav across from YO and went o the zoo there. We met a 13 year old English-French-Israeli Charedi boy, who we talked to or about 45 minutes and who was absolutely charming and a true kiddush hashem. It just goes to show that my experiences with the charedim in the zoo but a few days before might have been horrific, but that I shouldn't generalise all Charedi behaviour by that.
During Shabbat I had a realisation - THE penny-dropping moment - to put a long story short ( hereafter abbreviated to 'tpalss'), I don't know if i can return to London and be ...'happy'(?) there - I've never in my life reached such a nice state of calmness, happiness and centrality, focus and balance as I have had on this trip, and it made me realise that, everything I thought was so great in London, or at least settled for - the crappy (and in hindsight highly unsuitable) relationships; so-called 'modern Orthodoxy', London style; stuff at home and my general life plans up unto this point (MA; Teach First; Teaching; marriage, kids, live in London etc etc etc) - it;s really not so great, nor how I want to live my life.
I don't want to do another year of uni, doing all the same things I have been doing for three years, reading and writing excessively while trying to keep it all together and seeing the weeks fall by without doing anything practical or significant; I don't want to marry some clone from the ghetto, have kids and settle in Hendon/Golders, send the kids to JFS/Hasmo and get caught up in the claustrophobia of the community; I. Don't. Want. Everyone. In. My. Face. Telling. Me. What. To. Do. The. Whole. Bloody. Time, then getting upset and hurt when I want to do something that I - yes, I - want to do, which doesn't necessarily benefit everyone, but it does benefit me (I am NOT that clever, but at least I know this and don't have to struggle through an entire year of MA just to prove I have a brain by having another graduation picture on the wall). Because it;s my life and I bloody well want to lead it and shape it according to what is best for me, and what will be best. In short, the space my mother left for my MA and PhD graduations pics on her 'simcha wall' will probably lay bare for a few years yet.
In short, I believe a gap year in Israel - volunteering and generally doing whatever I want to do, alone and totally free, is way more beneficial to my overall everything than any MA, at least for the meantime. I've never felt anything so strongly in my life - not saying that I'll make Aliya after that year off, but if it happens now, then it happens now.
I wonder how my parents and grandparents will take it. Think I'll keep that bit of news - like the nosepiercing - to myself for a bit. I've never felt so happy or so apprehensive. What a fantastic epiphany!
Sunday - came back to kibbutz aftee my amazing, thought-provoking Shabbat with Aussie in YO. My mate from the zoo and I fed the baby cows, which made us really hungry and so we went to Burger Ranch. Then I went to the ever-lovely and welcoming P famille to discuss my new plan, just to check I wasn't losing it or being stupid. They thought it was great.
Monday - went to Jeru to discuss shizzle with Nefesh B'Nefesh. they were located in kanfei nesharim - just a stone's throw away from my old stomping ground. Even in my happy state, just getting on the same busses, one stop up, having a coffee in a cafe i used to frequent etc etc - fermented weird and horrible recollections and feelings of unease etc of being in the same place. Then I left to go see Holland, the mitnadevet, in her new sem, and I went to a mussar lecture. Was really good - I realised I would've enjoyed sem way more if I hadn't gone anywhere Charedi. I 'chupped' it, if you will.
Tuesday - my mate from the moshav next door picked me up and we walked through the fields to the moshav - took 30 mins, but was such a lovely walk, had a rly nice time. Then she drove us to TLV and we got froyo.
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