The Mystic City

חברי,

It took me three months, but I finally made it to Tsfat, or safed, or צפת. This city is one of the four holy cities in Israel, and many interesting things have come out of it. Tsfat is the birthplace of kabbalah, the study of mysticism in Judaism. Many many great rabbi's have lived, learned, and written in tsfat and the city is known for it's unusual happenings and more than coincidences (remember this, it comes into play later). For the four holy cities in Israel there are coinciding signs, eg. Jerusalem is Fire. Tsfat is know as the city of air. I can honestly say this holds true, it is located on top of at mountain and almost everything in the city is painted blue, and if a strong wind is not blowing there is always a gentle breeze bringing in new aromas from fresh baked bread to the smell of the forest.

My spring break from ulpan started last thursday (the 2nd), and in the afternoon we struck out for Tsfat. We were supposed to rent an apartment for shabbat from my friends uncle, but we couldn't get in touch with them because they were in poland until friday morning. So, we decided to stay in a hostel thursday night, and hope things would work out for shabbat. This weekend was particularly challenging to find a place to stay and a place for meals because it was shabbat hagadol (the shabbat before passover). We sat in traffic on the highway for an hour, but still made it up to tsfat by 930 pm. We walked into the hostel, check in, and were about to walk up to our rooms when I saw my friend from Jerusalem walk in the front door (I knew she was in tsfat, but we hadn't really been in contact). It was a bit ironic because I really wasn't expecting to see her because she was busy working. We put our stuff down and ventured out into the old city of tsfat.

While we were walking through the artist colony (it's really amazing how much cool stuff is going on in that city) amid the signs for "Tsfat Cheese," I said Shalom to a group of people in the street and they started talking to us in hebrew. It turns out that there was an entourage for the Mayors of Tsfat and Netanya! We talked to them for a while, and took pictures with them, so random! After we wandered some more, we realized we were right back at our hostel (something we hadn't really planned).

The next day we tried calling the family, but still no answer at 10 am. So, we decided we should probably try to look for other rooms to rent because the hostel was REALLY expensive for shabbat, and they probably didn't have space. We found a nice place a block away from the hostel and went in for a look. They were a really nice religious couple, Yaakov and Geula (which means 'redemption' in hebrew) in their 50's. The rooms were nice, and the price wasn't bad so we decided to play it safe and take it. They said they still weren't sure if they could put us up for meals. Pretty much 5 minutes after we left we got a call back about the apartment we were supposed to rent, and since we thought more of our ulpan friends were coming up with us we decided to stay where were supposed to be originally. We went back to Yaakov and Geula apologized about out situation and got our money back. "Next time," we said.

We went to the apartment, which was about a 15 minute walk from downtown, after spending most of the day looking for a place to have at least one meal for shabbat. When it was around 3 we decided to buy just what we needed for shabbat, just in case we weren't invited at shul. We were joined by one of our friends from ulpan (who had places for meals on shabbat) in the apartment, who suggested a rabbi at a particular synagogue who always has people over for meals. So we went, and after the service I asked the rabbi about a possibility of a meal (in bad hebrew of course). He said it was fine, but he doesn't take girls for meals. This was a big problem as my two friends are girls. I graciously declined. Apparently while this was happening Yaakov, yes the man we were supposed to rent from, was nearby and saw the interaction. He can over, put his arm around me and said "Don't worry chamudi (sweetie), bring the girls and come over for dinner!" I can't even begin to describe what an amazingly generous and sweet family we were so blessed to find. Yaakov and Geula were both of Moroccan descent, and have 6 children, of which 3 were home, 18, 16, and 6 (Girl, boy , girl respectively). We had a really nice meal, wonderful conversation (all in hebrew of course!), and the kids liked us so much they said even before desert "so you're coming back tomorrow right?" We certainly did, although we were an hour early because I read my watch wrong... whoops! It's all good though because the girls learned how to make some killer moroccan dished, and I got to talk to the teenage boy about like in america and Israel and practice my hebrew. On sunday we bought them a nice piece of artwork to show our thanks for their generosity and wrote them a note. They said whenever we want to come back to tsfat we now have a family to stay with, things couldn't have worked out more perfectly.

For the afternoon we went to Amouka to visit a grave of a well known rabbi (of course I forgot his name). This is the place one is supposed to go to pray for their bashert (soul mate), it was the girl's Idea I just came along for the hike. It is located in a valley in the middle of the forest about 20 minutes drive from tsfat. It reminded me a bit up upstate NY, gorgeous landscape.



The Mayors!


View near the apartment.



The Ha'ari Synagogue

Amouka.

I'm spending the rest of my break with my adopted family. This shabbat I'm staying by them for shabbat and then Ben and I are going up to Nahariyah to the beach for a few days, can't wait! Happy passover!!!

ד"ש
יחיאל