adventures in Bnei Brak...and beyond

This is so typical of me: For the past month, I've been commuting to Bnei Brak (a nice religious city near Tel Aviv, about an hour and fifteen minute communte by bus) each Monday to teach a handful of clarinet and saxophone (that's right, saxophone) students. In Hebrew. I love it! It's wonderful to be teaching clarinet (and saxophone) while simultaneously improving my Hebrew skills. Plus, the girls are very sweet, mainly in their late teens, and mainly learning just for the enjoyment of music, not for competitive reasons. It's such a pleasure. As a bonus, I get a chance to be alone with myself for two and a half (or more) hours each week, which, as a chronic over-commiter, is a really breath of fresh air. I really enjoy the time. Baruch Hashem! I feel like my energies and talents are really being put to use!

In a nice moment of hashgacha (divine intervention), I happened to mention at the Shabbos table today at lunch that I hadn't been to a live concert of classical music in a while (as an audience member, not as a performer), and I missed it. Happened to be that there was a concert Motzei Shabbos (Saturday night). So the mother of the household and I went. There was a jazz duet to start (Jazz guitar and trombone) who were really fantastic. It's been years since I heard live jazz, and it was in such a nice setting! Then there was a concert pianist who played Schumann's Theme and variations etudes in C# minor (I think), which was stunning.

My learning is still going well, Baruch Hashem. I've found that the more translating I've been doing, the betterI get at it (this is, of course, the logical progression of things!!). It's so satisfying to open up a Chumash (Bible) and read what the meforshim (commentators - Rabbis from a long, long time ago, mainly) have to say on the different verses. There's so much wisdom packed into each verse, nuggets of truth, ways to be a better person. Torah is amazing.

I love it here; it's indescribably wonerful. Everyone should come visit!!!

My camera is again on the fritz, so I apologize for the lack of pictures. However, I still haven't gone anywhere that exciting recently, so it's not such a loss.