Jewish holidays
The two Jewish religious practices I try to maintain, besides being intelligent and good with numbers, are keeping pesach for Passover (i.e. not eating bread) and keeping the fast for Yom Kippur. I suppose both reveal a desire for sacrifice and penance within me. Fasting for a day isn't really hard (you miss breakfast and lunch one day, as it goes sunset to sunset) for me as a wrestler, so there's that pride thing too.
So I kept the fast here, same as always. What was different was how the rest of the world behaved.
It seems obvious to say that Israel, being a Jewish country, would take Yom Kippur more seriously. But to call this a Jewish country is reductive. A sizable part of the Jews in the country (who in themselves make up only about 75 % of the population) are not religious. That other 25 % is Christian, Muslim, or Druze, with Arabs and foreigners filling up the sheet.
And yet on Yom Kippur, the country coalesces into a day of rest. On Shabbat, for example, those who are observant do not drive, but those who don't care much for the religious details take over the roads.
On Yom Kippur, it is heavily frowned upon to drive. By 3:30 (about an hour and a half before sunset, as daylights savings in Israel are really early, due to Orthodox politicians/lobbyists who asked for an easier time on YK) the afternoon before Yom Kippur starts, nobody is supposed to be driving. This is a big deal; riots in the old, mixed-population city (i.e. Jews and Arabs) of Akko broke out over how an Arab drove through a Jewish part of town (it's disputed whether or not he drove quietly or with music blasting, and as usual, it sounds like both sides are much at fault).
I live in Nof Yam, a part of Herzliya Pituach, which due to its affluence, nearness to Tel Aviv, and heavy embassy population, is one of the most secular regions in the country. Still, the roads were virtually carless. I went for a walk at midday. In 45 minutes of walking, including a cross over the highway via bridge, I saw one car driving, an apologetic woman behind the wheel.
The roads were not, however, empty. Instead, bikers and rollerbladers and walkers flocked to the streets. Mostly families or kids on the main roads, they were people on bikes who enjoyed the freedom. On the highways, there were packs of serious bikers in matching tight red shirts and black spandex shorts. It's sort of a national bike day, a day where the whole country stops and then allows everybody else on the road. It was most tranquil. (NB: Looking through my archives, I think I must have used the "It was most tranquil" line about ten times. Anybody catch where it's from? (nb of nb: I've used it three times before this.)
After Yom Kippur there are two more holidays in the high holiday season; Sukkot and Simhat Torah (the latter is the reason I can write this blog, as there's no school). For Sukkot, I received an invitation, along with another young colleague and friend, to have dinner with another, older colleague's family. Under their sukkah (a hut, where a family is supposed to take all their meals for the week of Sukkot), we enjoyed a nice soup, pot roast, and sweet potato dinner. There was fine conversation about the movable Do, jury trials, and naive art. The youngest boy at the table threw up (that is, not me), and the big Jewish family feel of it was really nice. My personal practices haven't really changed much, and I don't have any curls growing down the side of my face, but seeing a Jewish country is a strange, refreshing, and at times saddening experience.
The Appropriate Music for the Holy Land
Ok, I'm not going to cover the entire holy land. But Tel Aviv is a city that feels like it should have Leonard Cohen on low volume at all times. The poetry, the mysticism, the cracking voice, the sex, the gypsy 3/4 songs, all a part of the Tel Aviv experience.
But that doesn't mean that if you're cruising down the Ayalon (the major Tel Aviv highway, like Rt. 93 in Boston) and have some difficult thoughts to work out, you can't crank up Purple Rain and "Wanna' Be Starting Something." In fact, quite to the contrary.
Another Strange Thing About Driving
First of all, I'd like to lay to rest the notion that Israeli drivers are bad drivers (a notion that most of you readers heard only from me. Sorry). When I drive 100 KM/H in the right way (roughly 62 MPH), I'm usually passing more than I get passed. 120 KM/H (75 MPH) is about enough to be the alpha car on the highway. So the speed isn't that big a deal.
Of course, like everywhere else in the world, Israelis clog the left lane unnecessarily and at times make outlandish lane changes. The latter actually is a trick I abuse too, so no worries.
Are the Israelis a little maniacal on regular roads? Yes, probably, just like drivers everywhere except in the American South and Midwest.
Are they ruder? Well, that's an excuse to share one of my favorite anecdotes from my dad.
Q: What's a split second?
A: The time between when the light goes green and when the guy behind you beeps.
Here, the split seconds are shorter. Also, there's the Red/Yellow warning light to precede the green, which means by the time it gets to green, you're already late.
The second point I'd like to make (so belated that I had to go back a day later to edit it in) is that in Israel, a flashing light on a police car means something different than in the States. What it means, I'm not sure of. After seeing a bunch of cars with them on, however, and a bunch without, I've noticed that difference. In the states, flashing lights is enough to signify that the cop car is on the hunt, and get out the way.
Here, cop cars drive with the lights on, but they drive with no particular sense of urgency. 85 KM/H in the right lane? That's just fine with these cops. A red light? We can wait. Streams of cars passing by the cops in laughter? These cops are above it.
Again, I have no idea what it means. But usually, when I pass the cops, I skip the laughter. Usually.
Mixed Martial Arts
One of the avenues I've picked up to supplement income and acquire new friends is teaching a local group of M.M.A. fighters how to wrestle. I got the gig from wrestling with one of the main coaches of the club, Ido, who happens to have been on the Ultimate Fighter show, and is a celebrity in Israeli M.M.A. and B.J.J. circles. He's also known as "The Hebrew Hammer".
Every other Sunday morning or so, I drive down to a stadium in a northern part of Tel Aviv (in fact, the very stadium where the wrestling federation is housed), throw on my gear, sans wrestling shoes and headgear, and train a bunch of Muay Thai and Brazilian JiuJitsu fighters.
So far we haven't gotten beyond a snatch single with various leg in the air finishes, and I'm still adjusting to the realities of teaching wrestling in a sport where a knee can always stop a shot in the facial area. But a few other differences and interesting tidbits have come to my attention.
- When the fighters shake hands to begin a sparring or live session, they add a little pound after the handshake. So far I have not considered adding an explosion into the mix, but it's now close to my mind.
- I practice what little Hebrew I know while coaching. If somebody's head isn't in the right place, and he doesn't speak English as well, I'll point to where the head is supposed to be and say, "Rosh po." If somebody has to squat their butt down, they explain to me that the word is "tusik", or "yashvan". In a related but not MMA related note, I'm getting decent at pronouncing Hebrew r's, the letter "resh". You have to swallow the r, you see, and say it all the way in the back of your throat. It's quite difficult, and I may end up choking on my tongue, but whatever.
- The fighters conversely get to practice their English. While much of it is of a blue variety that I would never print on such family friendly webspace, I do like how one of the guys pointed out that when I would call them to the center by shouting, "Bring it in," I was living up to all the coaches in movies. Apparently all I'm missing is the line, "Hit the showers!" Yarr!
- I also managed to develop this into potential social interaction. I've talked with many people here as well as friends from other places about the occasional, surprising challenge of trying to hang out with someone when you know them in one context. For example, one could be in a chorus south of Tel Aviv and unsure about how to approach their fellow choral singers to have a drink one night. Or a cool fellow might play tennis with another cool fellow, decide he wants to hang out with other cool fellow, and then wonder if asking other cool fellow to hang out would sound too awkward, like asking somebody on a date.
I'm told this is more of a guy problem, actually.
Anyway, we watched the most recent UFC the other night in some bar 5-10 minutes from my house. It was a private party and there were a bunch of kids waiting outside for another party. My man Ido let me in to the dimly lit bar area and I nursed a glass of red wine while I watched two guys punch each other for awhile. I can't say I was thrilled with the fight, but it was mostly an effort to set up that social action. And an American wrestler is fighting next time. And I forgot to pay for the wine. Then again, my man Ido was quoted on the Israel broadcast of the fights as saying that he who knows how to wrestle best will win the fight, so a little secret weapon action is worth a glass of wine, eh?
My Favorite Paris Story
The first foreign destination from which I updated this now veritable blog was Paris. I then mentioned the city in various posts, detailing all the adventures I had as well. Actually, there was one adventure I only briefly mentioned, so allow me to share it in detail now before I return to the present and future:
I had mentioned that on our second day in Paris, Ben and I went to the Yitshak Rabin Gardens and then the Palais du Bercy. And that we had to sprint to the train afterwards, and had a very confusing departure. But what we did at the Palais du Bercy added to the fun.
The Palais is, I think, a sporting venue. It's walls have this grassy face to them, and sleek concrete walls to mark each subsequent section of the wall. Atop each grassy face is a little walkway.
Naturally, seeing that wall, I decided to climb it. Ben decided to cheer me on. And naturally, going up was the easy part - pulling by grass or railway or just low balance, I scrambled to the top of this venue. I climbed it just because it was there, and upon being atop it (about 50 feet above Ben, at about a 45 degree incline), I received no satisfaction except the climbing thrill.
This was countered by the fear of how to descend. It's one thing to climb up by pulling and slowly edging. Going down you have gravity to take into account (it's a bitch, ain't it?).
I decided tiptoeing along the concrete face while holding onto the grass might be the trick. Surely a crab walk down would be a controlled, manageable venture.
For about the first five feet, it was controlled. Then I or my old sandals' soles slipped, and all of a sudden I was sliding. Having begun to slide, I started screaming, a happy sort of scream like on a rollercoaster or when I jumped off the 10 meter platform diving board at Duke, but with a hint of fear. Meanwhile I'm using my hands to try to slow my momentum. And Ben is waiting at the bottom, not sure if he should laugh, try to save me, or call for help.
I landed ok, skidding forward a little. As soon as I proved ok, the two of us burst into a couple minutes of hard laughter. And the damage suffered was a badly scraped finger and my left sandal, which tore up on the top so that I couldn't wear it before. If you ever wondered where my trend/fetish for buying brightly-colored shoes came from, it was out of mere necessity: the Roman blue Nikes where the cheapest things I could find at the train station in Rome, and I didn't have my backpack where my sneakers lay.
Me right before I lose control and start screaming.So anyway, I'm going to Paris again in November with the AIS team. As part of the International Schools Sports Tournament, we travel at the end of each season, and Paris is the destination this year. I'm looking forwards to a triumphant return, a hotel 25 KM away from the center (though a small part of me thinks our tournament is at the Bercy), a meeting with Ben, and more unexpected good times. Of course, this time around, I'll be a leader of young men, and maybe such antics will be frowned upon...
Out on the Ledge
Speaking of students, here are a few of the latest fun things they've been challenging me about, and then a few more examples of how not different students and teachers are.
- One of my study skills sections has a few kids eager to be friends with me on facebook. They've spent class time and even a little of time out of class asking me about it, trying to figure out the proper spelling of my last name, and then still getting stumped. Little do they know that it's only recently that I've gone by Daniel.
- Some of those same kids were chagrined when I made fun of them for liking Jack Johnson. But I'm only looking out for them.
- Just like the wrestlers I worked with last year, all these kids are very eager to see me live out all their facial fantasies. Handlebars is the common request from the kids, and by handlebars they mean a fu manchu (where the mustache goes down along the chin, but with no goatee anchor; handlebars are the things that curl off your face, and I can't grow them yet). One freshman who grows far too much facial hair for a high school freshman has been bugging me to have a "Beard-off". Poor kid doesn't realize that regardless of the result, he will not be a winner in this event.
- Now to the teachers. Saturday I hung out with a few other teachers at our lovely colleague/friend Kate's apartment (she's actually the one who went with me to Sukkot). We drank, we spilled drinks, we had a good time. Her apartment is on the top floor of an apartment building (one that also houses my dentist's office) right next to the beach, and after a little bit of time, she invited us out to the ledge.
Accessed through climbing a few walls, the ledge hangs over the street. It's a fairly wide ledge, and there is minimal danger in sitting out there and enjoying conversation and one another's company.
I bring up this night, however, to draw similarities between us and them, with us as teachers and them as students. We like to imagine high school kids are especially immature, and that they do and say things we would never do. However...
One of our conversations on the ledge revolved around walking by people's houses and seeing if they have porn on TV, and all the implications of such thoughts and actions. Later, back in the apartment, the three girls (there were five of us total) went into a long discussion about tampons, their first periods, and the various implications of remembering these things. Which was fine, but not all that much better than the things our kids might talk about.
And needing to match the level of intrigue and weirdness, I, upon leaving, flashed a little worm on my arm. Somehow, that didn't repulse everybody, and marks the second time in a week's span that I showed female friends that little worm. The bastard's hanging around, alligator blood and everything.
Anyway, enough grossness and silliness. Until next time.
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