Shalom, bo'ker tov

If yesterday was wet, today it's biblical. I woke up shortly before 7 this morning to the sound of thunder and wind. The rain on the window was pleasant enough, but someone sure took the lid of the holliest of hollies, as the sound of the weather was straight out of Indiana Jones.

The order of the day will be getting a chip for my phone, taking advantage of that GSM thing we all love and don't get to exercise, not fully, back home. Then I'll hunker down in a cafe and write a bit... the weather is just too crappy to go walking around taking pictures.

Michal and the girl we met last night, I can't remember her name, I didn't drink that much zubrovka... Shanee, that's it... they're both off today, Erez told me to call Michal once I obtained a sim card... he should be getting up soon so we can go to breakfast before he heads off to the office.

Funny thing 'bout that Zubrovka, I had to order it, I mean I was watching the 1946 version of The Razor's Edge with Tyrone Power, something I rippeed onto my Ipod before I hit the road. Elliot Templeton has this wonderful line where he says "ah, zubrovka, it's like listening to music by moonlight", guess I wanted to see the moon last night.

So here's my first feeling/observatio... Hebrew, the written language, the sign, it has a slightly new referrant here than back home. What I mean by this is that when I see Hebrew on the door of a kosher restaurant, or while walking up and down Devon st. in Chicago, when I see that back home there's a part of my brain that is aware or thinks of it as a form of exclusivity. This is "Jewish" this isn't, or that it's definitely something other than main stream the same way a "House of Saris" on Devon is something other than Bed Bath & Beyond in a strip mall in the burbs. The script bring with it a whole host of baggage back home, I'm aware that it is something more to me, or should be, than to a gentile walking down the street. Here, a sign is just a sign, and the holy script of fire is nothing more than advertising at times. There is a kind of demystification that happens from over saturation, a death of the word, or maybe the script, or maybe just my attitude toward the script. I'm aware that people here live their lives rather differently than we do back home. For instance, the weekend is not Saturday/Sunday, no, it's Friday/Saturday, so that one can spend Friday day preparing for the shabat and resting on Saturday before the start of the week on Sunday. Thursday night is the equivalent of Friday night. These small prescriptions are biblical, they're a necessary part and identity of living Cana'an. I, in all of my reformist and more than often, irreverent ways am some what of an outsider here, well naturally the language barrier, but it doesn't matter, Hebrew, or so the joke goes, is Israel's second language, the concentration of Russians is growing. I spoke Russian to the Falafel chef last night... but more so than that, there is a sense that here all Jews are welcome, regardless of how irreverent you may find yourself... as they are too... and there's no mystery to the signs on the door or the smells that emanate from them... I like the fact its just a sign here... I really do...