Driss-A-Blog

This week (or was it last week, not sure) I was helping move an ex-Neve girl who's got married two nights ago from the apartment where she was living to the place where she was to move after she was married. I have a car here so that's helpful. Another ex-Neve girl asked me to help, so I did. What was kinda neat was that we had a fellow helping us move some of the heavier objects...boxes of books, suitcases, etc., and I found out that he's from Detroit. We were riding over the new apartment and I was smoozing of course, asking the regular stuff and found that he's from West Bloomfield, and knows a couple of my brothers. Small world.

The wedding was two nights ago, a real reunion since Miriam was at Neve about 9 years ago when I was there. That was great. Last night was Sheva Brochos, which of course was also very nice.

I've been hanging out with Ahuva. We've gone bowling and to the mall and general stuff like that.

The Kotel is a neat sort of place. I had some thoughts about it today. I've been going on a regular basis and it's interesting how my thoughts keep kind of evolving about it. The Kotel is a wall. Duh. But I've been watching all the kinds of people who come to look at a wall. Jews, non-Jews, religious, non-religious, army, civilian. To come look at a bunch of old stones. It's not so much the wall itself, but that the wall has become the focus. The Temple was the focus, and it was taken away. But G-d decided to leave us something, something physical. There's a book that I have that spoke about the connection between Shabbos and the Temple. (I'll have to find the book when I get back) That G-d have us holiness in space and time. The Temple was holiness in space and Shabbos is the holiness in time. Interesting thought.

Back to the Kotel. We know that G-d is everywhere, but at the Kotel G-d's presence is most revealed. It seems that there we know and are more receptive. I remember the first time I was at the Kotel. I think I was 16 years old. We got to the Kotel and not feeling anything, and being very dissappointed. It was a wall, and not a very impressive one either, kinda small. I was expecting much more.

But as I've spent time here in Israel and at the Kotel I've started to realize what it's really about. The Kotel is there as a way to help us focus on G-d. It doesn't need to be huge or magnificent (no doubt the 3rd Temple will be), at the moment all we need is what we have. Just a thought.

To the mundane. Today I moved into the dorms at Shearim. I still have a couple things in the car, I'll be moving the rest of it in tonight. I'm looking forward to getting settled in one place for the rest of this trip.

It has been a good time. What's funny is that I feel like I'm already on the tail end of it. I'm not sure why. I need to relax. I still need to call people... friends, cousins. Gotta get on that. Believe it or not I even have my Shabbos plans... last week it took me till Thursday night 11pm. Yikes. This week it's Wednesday afternoon. Yeah!

I've got an orange strip of cloth hanging from my car window. This identifies me as being against the pullout from the Gaza Strip and northern Shomron. Orange has become the color of the opposition. I also bought a shoulder bag that has an orange stripe across it and says "Kulanu Gush Katif v'haShomron", "All of us are Gush Katif and the Shomron". Next week is a major traffic offensive. I have to double check the times, but across the country there will be people with cars stopping on the highways and blocking major streets between 6-7pm. I'm going to try and join this action. We'll see how it goes. Such is life. Always something to get into trouble. Like Mom says, if you don't aggrevate one person a day you didn't do your job. HaHa.

With Love of Israel.