Home is where the Hut is

So this week was Sukkot, a week-long holiday that Jews spend sitting in Sukkahs, or huts that we build in our backyards, in remembrance of the huts we lived in while traveling through the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. In Israel this translates into- vacation.

I spent Shabbat in Efrat with my brother Barak, and we pretty much spent two whole days sitting in the Sukkah. The sukkah is supposed to be a temporary structure (you have to be able to see the stars through the "roof" of dead branches), yet you are supposed to treat it as your home, eating there, sleeping there, and sitting in it as much as possible. Well, the Auerbachs take this pretty seriously, and moved their whole living room into the sukkah. And I mean the whole living room, the couches, the lamp, the coffee table, and come Saturday night, the TV. On Sunday they moved the network cable into the Sukkah so that they could play Age of Empires on their laptops. I feel that I can safely say I spent more than the required amount of time in the Sukkah.

As for the vacation part, Im pretty sure I got my share of that as well. I spent Sunday lying on the couch (in the Sukkah) reading, went to a free concert on Monday and rocked out to Moshav Band, Shlomo Katz, and Adi Ran (who is an awesomely crazy old man), and then went on a bike hike on Tuesday. While my knees and butt are still recovering from upwards of 5 hours spent on a bike (which is probably more bike time that I have had in the last 5 years),   I got to bike through these old dirt paths away from all people, got to wander through a vineyard, pray in a field, and make friends with cows. And when we finally got back to the moshav (small farming village) where we rented the bikes, I got to meander through their neighborhoods in the quiet of the night (except for that one street where I got chased by dogs). 

I spent most of Wednesday recovering (aka sleeping) and Thursday socializing. There is nothing like happy three hours at my favorite pub IN A SUKKAH.

The only bummer of the week was that I found out that my friend Kieffer will not be going into the army the same day as me. They moved her enlistment date to a month from now, so come next Sunday I will be all alone with a bunch of Israeli teenagers. Oh yay. Anyway, the countdown has begun, and Im kind of nervous about it, which has translated itself into me not thinking about it. But next week is my last week of freedom and I plan on enjoying it to its fullest. 

Now Im off to prep for the next awesome holiday as I will be partying it up with the Torah tonight. Im gonna miss Chabad's dance across campus, but hopefully Jerusalem will have something just as good to offer :)