Shabbat in Tzfat

This Shabbat I went to Tzfat, one of the four holy cities in Israel. We (everyone at the yeshiva) got up at 6 a.m. on friday morning to leave for Tzfat. We first stopped at a natural spring and then went to the grave of Rabbi Meir, one of the pupils of Rabbi Akiva and a major player in the Talmud. We finally arrived in Tzfat at around 12 p.m., checked into our hotel, got some of the best falafel in Israel, and then headed down with a few friends to the kever (grave) of Rabbi Isaac Luria, also known as the Arizal. Rabbi Isaac Luria is known for being a monumental figure in the revelation and development of the kabbalah (Jewish mysticism). Afterwards, my friends and I went to the Ari Mikveh, a natural spring inside a cave that's used for ritual purification. You pretty much go in and dunk a few times; people dunk different number of times depending on their liking (my personal favorite is ten). What makes this mikveh different from other mikveh's is that a) although the water leaks from the mountain where the cave is, nobody knows where it's source is and b) it's FREEZING cold, better than a cup of coffee if you want to wake up :-)

The Shabbat service I went to was pretty great; it was an outdoor Carlebach minyan, which means that there was a lot of singing and dancing with a group of mixed company ranging from the most non-observant to the most orthodox Jew. The music was beautiful and it was so great to see Jews of different backgrounds coming together for Shabbat, but the only thing was that the service seemed to be more about the music and performance of it than the actual davening. Afterwards, I had a great Shabbat dinner with my friends from yeshiva and then stayed up for an amazing fabrengen (chasidic gathering). We sang nigunim (wordless chasidic tunes), sipped on some drinks, and told stories about spirituality, religion, perserverance, family, integrity, and lots of other really great things.

The next day had a lot of great highlights: davening with the yeshiva, going to the ari mikveh again, reading the entire book of tehillim (psalms), afternoon fabrengen, and havdalah. At night we went to Ascent, a hostel in the middle of Tzfat that I'll be staying at for 2 1/2 weeks after the summer semester of Mayanot. We saw a documentary about a rabbi who conducted the largest passover seder in the world in Nepal. You would think that there wouldn't be that many Jews there, but after serving in the military, a lot of Israeli's actually make this huge trip out to the East for 6 months to a year. There were over 1,000 people at that seder! Afterwards, a group of people from the yeshiva (myself included) went to go visit the grave of the Rebbe's brother, went to the Ari mikveh AGAIN for a late night dip (1 a.m. to be precise), and then we went to this absolutely AMAZING old fortress from hundreds of years ago. The main room of the fortress was this huge dome that had great acoustics; whatever you said would linger on for a few seconds after you said it. We sang a lot of acappella Jewish songs and nigunim, it was one of the most amazing sonic experiences of my life, incredibly moving and beautiful.

The next day we went on this big hike from Tzfat to the grave of Shimon bar Yochai, a tzadik (holy person) we lived around the Second Temple period. According to the tradition, he was the author of the holy Zohar, the foundational and fundamental text of the Kabbalah. The whole thing was incredibly romantic in the 18th century literary adventure sense; the group of us went on this huge hike across mountains to go visit and pray at the tomb of one of the biggest holy men in all of Judaism. According to the legend, Shimon bar Yochai and his son Eliezar hid from the Romans for twelve years in a cave where they learned all the secrets of the Kabbalah. After all those years of hiding, they left the cave to find a man working in the field. Eliezar was so angered by the fact that people could do something as mundane as field work that his intense religious passion sparked the entire field on fire. A voice from heaven told them that they weren't ready yet, that they had to learn how to combine spirituality and physicality together so they went back in for another year. When they finally came out, they had the clear vision of how the two, spirituality and the physical world, work harmoniously together.

At the actual monument dedicated to Rabbi Shimon, I just stood there among all these chasidim and I prayed silently to G-d. What was amazing is that the sounds of people praying, along with the acoustics of the space, combined to make the sound of low rumbling winds. Why this is so cool is because the four holy cities (Tzfat, Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias) allude to the four elements (wind, fire, earth, and water). As you can probably guess, Tzfat is connected to wind, so the fact that it sounds like blowing winds was really intense. One of the things that I've been most happy with is the spiritual development that I've been making; it's definitely been a huge struggle for me, but I'm growing inch my inch, practically crawling in hopes that someday I'll be able to walk. That's all for now. Right now I'm in a particularly good mood; I had some good study sessions with Talmud and Torah, made some great progress with my new composition, and finally got skype (I'll now be able to talk to and see my parents over the internet!) That's all for now.
Best thoughts and wishes from Jerusalem,
Zach/Michael