Monday Monday (La Da, La Da Da Da) - A Normal Monday for Fall Semester

In this second installment of my "normal" days, I'll provide some insight into my normal Monday. In the States, the work week begins on Monday. In Israel, it starts on Sunday. So while I am at school on Sunday, I have to reconcile the changing dynamic of starting the week after Shabbat, as well as pay attention to the idea that the rest of the world is still having a weekend. Mondays are the day that it feels like it begins to feel like we are not so far removed from the rest of the world, except that we're already on the second day of the week already. It's confusing. But it works.

More Hebrew

Monday is a BIG Hebrew day. We have a double portion of Hebrew class (with a very different emotional feeling than the double portion of manna for Shabbat). I wrote about this class in the post about Sunday, but suffice it to say that Mondays feel more like the summer session because of the quantity of Hebrew lessons. 

More Grammar

Yup. More biblical grammar. Fun times. More fun moments with Sima.

Bible

This is, by far, my favorite class. The class is taught by the same person who taught my Intro to Biblical History class, Joel Duman. We take a section of Torah, create our own translation from the Hebrew text, and in doing so, learn about what the text is really saying. For example, in Genesis 28:12, the JPS (Jewish Publication Society) translation reads, "He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it." However, a translation that is more loyal to the text would read, "So he dreamt and, lo and behold, there was a stairway was placed towards the ground and its head arrived at the heavens and, behold, Angels of God went up and down on it/or through Jacob." I could go into the specific differences in our translations, but the thing that Prof. Duman brought in is that historically, the "staircase" that Jacob could have been imagining was not necessarily a staircase as we understand it. Instead, it was more likely a reference to a Ziggurat, which was a Babylonian sanctuary with, wait for it, a STAIRCASE in its front that the priests would walk up to enter the center altar of the temple. This is just one example of how this class has opened my eyes to look at the Bible as a piece of literature and in a whole new way. Further, It has inspired me to really look at a more linear translation so that the power of the Hebrew words can become clearer. This class always ends too early for my liking, but it's a lovely "dessert" after a full hebrew "meal."