Jerusalem Day two weeks ago had 600,000 participants in total. That is ten times more than what I had thought. It's the proportional equivalent of 40 million people converging on Washington DC for a single reason. The left-wing camp has its work cut out if it wants to keep abusing its minority rule. Luckily for the left, they are the media, business, government and judicial elites, so they'll most likely get their way. The evils of Israel's socialist, centralized past that installed these people in power positions will continue to haunt the country for the forseeable future. On the upside, your average Israeli is slowly becoming familiar with the concepts of competition, fairness, market forces, accountability and transparency. So it's only a matter of time that the elites and the monopolies get broken and a more reasonable system of business and governance arises. But it will take time, painful time.

Last week was full of happenings. On Monday I had a bureacratic fight. I haven't enjoyed that wonderful experience for a while, so it was a nice refresher course in how if I don't behave like a crude thug, I will not get what I want. Tuesday and Wednesday was the Ulpan Etzion trip to the South of the country. We started off with a visit to Sde Boker, a kibbutz and Ben-Gurion's residence in the latter part of his life. The man is an icon in Israel, and for good reason. However, he was an atheist socialist and did his part in Sovietizing the Israeli state in its early years. I learned a few things from his home, now made into a sort of history museum. We then proceeded do some hiking in a canyon full of birthright kids, and then onward to a new hot springs facility in the Negev. It was just built, and it raises up water that is located 900 meters below the ground into several pools of varying temperature. Of course, the water has all sorts of minerals that are good for your skin. The spa has a modern, attractive, well-organized feel to it. In Israel, one can really appreciate this.

We then visited the faux-Bedouins. It's the same "oasis" in the northern Negev that all tourists get taken to. We had the food, the silly lecture on Beduin society and culture, their great (?) coffee, and slept in those massive tents. There was a whole tent that was pretty much a massive coffee-house type place with gift shop and a group of left-wing Israelis playing Indian intstruments. Our visit coincided with that of an Israeli middle school trip. Maybe they thought they were having a genuine Bedouin experience. Regardless, the food was good. The breakfast was especially tasty with loads of labane, which is an amazing, thick, sour, yogurt sprinkled with zatar. The hummus was good, but clearly store bought. Nothing wrong with store bought Israeli hummus by the way, it's delicious. They did manage one genuinely Bedouin thing - fried bread with spices. Whatever. Between the birthright trip, the trips with Kibbutz Yagur three years ago, and this one, I have had enough of these fake Bedouins. After breakfast, we rode camels. It was a first for me, but, honestly, it left me feeling that I many have trouble producing fruitful seed. On the way to and from the Bedouins, we drove through Arad, which is a really nice little town on top of a plateau, full of Mizrahis and Russians. If you're employed, it's a nice place to live.

Afterward, we proceeded to Ein Gedi, where we hiked to a small waterfall. As exciting as that was, more hiking brought us to a much larger and more powerful waterfall. There were some parts where I positioned myself between rocks in order to heave up dozens of unathletic women and fat, uncoordinated men. Honestly, people! If you're in your 20's and you can't manage to do a tiny bit of climbing that the majority of your peers have no trouble doing, you need to take time off from your life and get yourself into better condition. You're just part of that bottom third that I like to call - worthless. It's all mental, stop being pathetic! I know that most of my regular readers don't fall under this category. But I haven't reached the spiritual level necessary to be accepting of those who are physically challenged, so I need to periodically rave. I am working on it though. I hope to one day be nice to unathletic people.

Having enjoyed a powerful waterfall, we headed back, on a different and more challenging path. I took time from staring at the ground before me to admire the rockiness of the desert canyons, the ibexes and birds of prey. The Negev has a beauty all its own. Let me say, as a side note, that many of the girls on this trip, used the various swimming opportunities to display their products. I think my shomer negia state has entered another level. I was completely and totally unimpressed. The other guys agreed that there were some examples of G-d's handiwork that were objectively attractive. But I was genuinely ambivalent. Not only did I not care, I looked down on them for degrading their bodies by displaying them for public view. Either I am well on my way to becoming completely comfortable with my shomer negia status, or I am about to start batting for the other team.

After Ein Gedi, we had lunch in a hotel on the Dead Sea, a pretty nice splurge on our behalf by the Jewish Agency, thanks Gaidamak for your generous donation. A bit of swimming in the Dead Sea, and we were off to the new and revamped Masada. We watched a hilarious little film in a complex at the bottom of the ancient fortress. It was an Israeli made film, with Israeli idiosyncrasies, translated into English by someone with good literal skills but poor understanding of nuance. Needless to say, if you're smart, multi-lingual and and an acute observer of culture, the film was more entertaining than it was meant to be. Our tour guides must have realized that the weak third of our group was incapable of doing the relatively easy hike up Masada, so we took the finicular. Being in a cramped space with South Americans is a less than enjoyable experience, but I survived. Once at the top, we got a tour, had some in-depth discussions of the 2nd Temple Period and the Jewish Revolts, and got to observe a wedding ceremony. Yes, while pampered American children get overcharged by the Israel Parks Authority for having their Bar/Bat Mitzvah on Masada, the historical spot also serves as a cheap, yet high-quality, wedding location for really good-looking Mizrahi Jews.

We then hiked down, and met up with about a thousand other kids like ourselves. We all filled up a massive bleacher set on a hill facing Masada, and proceeded to enjoy an army band, followed by a few short speeches by Israeli notables. You don't have to live in Israel long to realize that notables here get about as much respect and reverance as a cool teacher in an inner-city high school in the US. In other words, we barely tolerate their presence, half-listen to what they say, and maintain the kind of energy that makes the notable feel thankful that their little appearance went off without a hitch and no one threw anything or kicked their ass. We were then treated to a sound and light show. The sound was provided by powerful speakers positioned around the bleachers and the lights were used in various places on top of Masada, along its walls, at the bottom of its mountain, along the slopes, all to tell one of the most powerful stories of Jewish heroism in the face of, what else, overwhelming odds. I don't remember ever seeing such a show in the outdoors, especially in the middle of the desert, with such wonderful views. If any of you haven't done this, you must. It can only be arranged through a tour group, because the Masada people have to get enough groups to make the show worthwhile.

At 11pm we headed back to Jerusalem, and arrived at 1am. I was sleep deprived on Thursday morning as I made my sluggish way to the Central Bus Station for my trip to the Golan. I was supposed to go up with a friend, but I missed the bus that he made. I got on another one, direct to Tiberias. The bus took Route 6, which, in central Israel, runs close to such wonderful places as Tulkarem, Talbe, and Qalqilya. Nothing like riding a bus, seeing a massive terrorist nest 500 meters to your right, some Jewish towns stretching for a few kilometers to your left, and glimpses of the Mediterranean just 8 kilometers farther on your left. I can't imagine what kind of mental midget you have to be to genuinely believe that the 1967 borders are defensible. I don't know how high-tech border security can be nowadays, but you can throw a rock across central Israel. The bus made a pit stop in Afula, which, like Arad, is full of Mizrahim and Russians, but is not as nice. Having arrived in Tiberias, I tremped to Tzomet Tzemach, which is an intersection at the southern point of the Kinneret. Tremping is hitch-hiking in Israel-speak. The Kinneret is absolutely stunning in the summer, deep blue, quiet, clean. There are plenty of beaches, but they are small and not overcrowded. If I weren't in a hurry I would've jumped in. At Tzemach, I devoured a triple burger at a BurgerRanch. Not so great. I was then picked up by a rabbi of the yeshiva I was visiting. Thursday night was Shavuot.

After checking out what is probably the most ideal setting for a family lifestyle - perfect moshav, modest homes, little plots of land, happy families, attractive synagogue and study areas, a perfect and untainted ideological population - I proceeded to study through the night. It's a tradition that on Shavuot, the holiday when we celebrate the receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, Jews learn all night. Since the Torah portion was sufficiently discussed after mincha and maariv, the all-night learning included Halakha, Talmud and Mishna tracts. For those of you a bit behind on how your ancestors lived since the beginning of Judaism up until 2 generations ago, mincha is the afternoon prayer service and maariv is the night prayer service. Shacharit is the morning prayer service. The entire moshav prays in the beit knesset (synagogue) regularly, so it's always packed during prayer time. The men's section, which is the main section, is hardcore and the praying is full of kavannah (conviction/meaning) and ruach (spirituality). The women have a section that is kept totally separate by a mechitza, a barrier. Believe me, I tried, you cannot see through it. The advantage of the Israeli dati-leumi crowd is that they are very ruchani so it doesn't take much to be inspired.

After the services, everyone mingles outside of the synagogue. Men and women talk, as do guys and girls, but they keep a respectful distance. The guys and girls are quality physical specimens and I can imagine various impure thoughts run through their heads, but I guess with the right upbringing and belief system, it's not an issue. Anyways, my friend and I had dinner at the home of the head rabbi of the moshav. Shalom bayit - peace of the house - is the term used to describe family harmony in Judaism. Religious people have some amazing shalom bayit. Everyone is happy, relaxed and well-adjusted. And no amount of children stresses out the parents. They are completely calm and manage to give just the perfect amount of attention and discipline to all the kids. Who are amazingly well-behaved by the way. Anyone who has been in a religious household knows how amazing their family life is. It's not that they are acting for the guests, you can tell by how people interact that they just have no tension underlying their interactions with one another. I find that to be almost illogical. I had many meals with different families on the moshav this weekend, and the total perfection of shalom bayit was a universal theme. Crazy cult or just application of basic Jewish principles to family life? Hmm...

Learning Halacha was informative and interesting, but learning Talmud was something else. Almost all the male residents of this moshav are hardcore Jewish scholars. So they join the yeshiva guys in their learning. I learned Talmud one-on-one with this amazing guy. Like most dati-leumi, he is in a totally different world than the image of the introverted, strange black hat that most secular people associate with strict Jewish observance. He was, typically of dati-leumi, a hardcore IDF type, who is currently splitting his time between working in a flower export business the moshav runs and learning in the beit midrash (study hall). He is on a very high knowledge level, and learning with him is difficult to describe. It runs something like this. We read a passage in Aramaic, which is close to Hebrew. After translating it, we bring to light the concepts described. We then follow the arguments. At first, I feel that I am understanding it, and that it's just basic logic. Then, he brings in a citation, and the confusion mounts. We go deeper into the text and my mind alternates between understanding and the mental block of being logically stumped. He then brings in an opinion, and all is made clearer, but the implied is still confusing the mental picture. We go deeper into the text and my mind feels like it's racing to catch up, but it's just too slow. He backs off, and lets me catch up. Eventually, I tie the strings together and blurt out something half-way intelligent. It takes us an hour to get something out of a third of a page. If any of you want to feel like a child learning math for the first time, and want to be genuinely stopped dead in your thinking tracks, learn Talmud with someone who knows what they're doing. It's great mental exercise. Of course, my study partner also threw in a bit of Kabbalah, just to mess with me. Amazing stuff.

The guys at the yeshiva pretty much learn, pray and exercise. On Friday, after some much needed sleep, the yeshiva students and I walked down into Nahal El-Al, which is basically a canyon-esque crevice on land owned by the moshav. It's wooded, and fun climb down. At the bottom, there' s a waterfall, and a clean, cold swimming hole. Beautiful. It serves as a natural mikve for the moshav residents but is also popular with Israelis who go hiking in the area. We came back up and went for a bit of a jog before Shabbat services. I had to take about 6 weeks off recently from running in order to allow my shin splints to heal up. I got cocky with my running progress and was flying around in early April at pretty impressive speeds considering my lack of a running background. As always occurs, when you get overly confident, you hurt yourself. So now I am just coming back into running. Nevertheless, excuses aside, I got my butt kicked by the guy with whom I studied Talmud. Of course, so did some of the young yeshiva guys so I shouldn't feel bad. Still, when a 40-year old man spanks you in a 5km run, you feel fat and slow. I gotta get my butt in shape.

Shabbat was a relaxing and spritiual experience, although I take issue with the fact that shacharit on Shabbat is over two hours in length. When you're starving, a long service is not easy to handle. In the final analysis, it was an amazing weekend, totally not relatable in blog format. Today, in the morning, my friend and I tremped to Tveria and took a bus from there to J-town. Every little thing you do is a bit of adventure in Israel. But you have had enough. Now go surf the net for some wholesome, family-friendly entertainment.