The Price Tag of the Price Tags

Periodically I look around Jerusalem and try to understand what it must look like from an outsider’s perspective. My neighborhood specifically, Nachalaot, offers a plethora of diversity. Black cloaked chassidim pass the colorful hippies and hipsters on the street. Secular students head for a beer in the same direction that the religious students walk towards to pray, while other religious students try to figure out where they can catch a service that is quick enough to allow them to catch up to their beer-swilling friend. I take it for granted that there is such a variety here, but every once in a while I peel my eyes open and am amazed.

Clothing to me does not make the man, but often times I take things to a higher level and try to understand the true differences between us. For some reason I seem to understand people who wear heavy layers of clothing in the summer out of a religious belief more than I can people who dress like me but hurly their heavy layers of religious beliefs at others.

Recently, one of my campers from two summers ago emailed me to ask me about my experiences and feelings with regards to the disengagement of 2005- a topic that was and still is very confusing for me. That was a summer that found me caught in a conflict between a belief in the inherent holiness of Israel’s land and a desire for peace and security for the Jewish people. As I recounted to my chanicha, for me a Jewish soul was more holy than the Jewish land, which is why I was not completely against the disengagement. To be clear, I was not for the disengagement either, especially because it involved uprooting fellow Jews from their homes, something that infracted upon my previously mentioned belief of caring for others. Nonetheless, as the rabbis who would become my roshei yeshiva would tell their students serving in the army at the time, I believed then that (theoretically speaking) I would not disobey orders. If told to do so, with a heavy heart I would remove Jews from their homes.

The hitnatkut took place over six years ago already and in many ways my view has changed. Hindsight, as we all know, is 20-20 (or 6-6 in Israel), and it has affected my stance. Last year during a car-ride that I had hitched from Latrun to Jerusalem, the drivers routinely asked me a bit about myself. When I mentioned that I was in a Hesder yeshiva (a program that combines yeshiva learning with army service) they asked me what the “hesder” (Hebrew for arrangement) was- would I or would I not participate in pinuiim. My answer was no, but my hesitation revealed that I had not completely accepted my new answer. They warned me that those few seconds of thought would be my undoing if faced with such a situation, and that a Jew should never uproot another Jew.

Yesterday’s events in the Efraim territories have once again caused me to question my stance. Personally I do not think I could participate as a soldier in removing someone from their home. I also cringe at the thought of giving up land. It failed in the past, and yes, I believe that we have a claim to Israel and should be living in all of her nooks and crannies. For me it is hard to point fingers in this situation. Truth be told I wouldn’t mind letting whoever wants to camp out on a hilltop do so (provided they understand the security risk that they put themselves in). It hurts to hear about another evacuation.

But the behavior of the noar gvaot, the hilltop youth, hurts more. At the end of the day, unity as a people takes priority and demands sacrifice. Five families do not compare to the communities that were destroyed in Gush Katif. We elect our leadership and grant them executive decisions. If the majority of the people chose a leader who takes a stance that I don’t agree with, then I will yell and protest, but when the day comes, I will not fight them. A holy land without a united people is worth nothing.

Noa Mandelbaum, an expert in special needs education, once taught me that we all have eyes, brains, and hearts. The difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher is in knowing how to use them. One who knows how to look around, analyze a situation, and understand the emotional intensity of a situation is the one who will be able to give the proper response. I see and feel anger all around me. Not just with regards to the debate over land rights and security, but in debates about other religious issues (the most prominent being those of women’s rights and modesty laws in Judaism).

Back in 2005 we feared that the disengagement would lead to civil war. We were granted about five year of quiet, possibly out of the shock and trauma of that summer, but the fear and frustration that were planted in the Gush Katif uprooting have begun to sprout into hate. Jewish soldiers have been attacked with rocks, Molotov cocktails, and the rest of the DIY arsenal, and forced to counter-attack fellow Jews. Religion, what should be the bond of the Jewish people, has once more become the ironic source of rift. The dati leumi (“Modern Orthodox”) world is tearing at her seams- and this is only one faction of the religious world in Israel!

The easy path is to protest the protesters, funneling all of the aggravation that they are causing us back at them. Justice is served and all of the injured, be it physically or egotistically, are avenged. Our challenge is to analyze the dynamics of the struggle and keep our emotions in check; to add thought to sight and emotion. Stay cool, boy. There is a big picture that we must be mindful of; a nation whose survival and being revolve around unity.

Living with people whose opinions are far more radical than yours is much more difficult than living with people who dress in a different fashion. Should we let rioters walk? Absolutely not! But at the same time, these are people whose roots, both physically and spiritually, are the same as everyone’s, and both sides are hurting. Few of us will actually stand face to face with a protester from the other camp, whatever side it may be, but every day we battle them in our discussions with friends. How we describe them and relate to them in words is what paints our vision of reality. Demeaning them in thought and speech will eventually result in a tangible hate, something that we just cannot afford.

This week’s parasha (weekly torah portion) deals with the first Jewish family to be torn apart by anger and frustration. Both Joseph’s slandering and his brothers’ jealousy and hate were guilty in causing the rift that lead the first Israelis into Egypt, the original diaspora. Years later it is our responsibility to fix their mistakes.

Thanksgiving

"How did you come out with the idea for this cocktail?"

How do you explain these things? How did someone figure out that honey and hot sauce work so well together? How do feet seem to move on the dance floor out of their own free will, dragging, pushing, coming together to create fluid movements? There's a feel for it, a touch. Somehow you know when things work together.

"Could you explain to us what's in it?"

When you're living as a bachelor in Israel, tehina is the new ramen. It's cheap, it's healthy, it can be spiced in different ways depending on your mood. You want me to bring you in something to make a cocktail with? I'm gonna open up my pantry and see what we have. Tehina, it's what's for dinner. And lunch. And breakfast. Why wouldn't I drink it as well?

"Just tehina?"

Tehina, water, silan (date honey), milk. I was going for halva, and it's not too hard to do. Especially when you have roommates who have been showing you for three months the best way to prepare the pasty goo.

"Oh, yeah, how's it going with your roommates? Isn't it hard to live like that?"

Rooming is a relationship in every way, and you have to have chemistry. Even after the chemistry, you have to keep working at it.

"Ok.... so back to the cocktail. What's it called?"

"Agrippas 115." New digs open new doors. Roommates who cook, roommates who clean, roommates who you feel you can talk with, everything changes. Old ideas turn new, and there's a constant input from free flowing good vibes, and plain old advice and brainstorming. Raw tehina is no longer just a gunk. It's dressing, dip, candy, and cocktail. Potential in the rough.

What's the point of this jumble of words spewed out at 2 am? This Thanksgiving I'm sending out thanks for my family and friends, as usual, but the big one goes out to the roomies who make this apartment feel like a home. Last night's victory comes, unknowingly, from months of teamwork. Thank you brothers!

Well this is a pleasant surprise

Nefesh B'Nefesh, the organization through which I made aliyah (moved to Israel), has asked their olim (new immigrants to Israel) to submit their favorite story from their aliyah experience. After flipping through my archives I decided to abandon the "inspirational" type story and go with something more humorous. I thought it was the best of my army stories, but that certain nude aspects of the story (relax, it's about taking a cold shower) might render it inappropriate for a family-friendly website. My fears were unfounded, and today I was informed by NBN that my story was chosen for their inspirational portal. Big thanks to Laura Ben David and the rest of the NBN crew, not just for this selection, but for everything that they do in helping the Jewish people and state. Keep up the good work!

Now gimme a read! http://inspire.nbn.org.il/aliyah-stories/369-sometimes-youre-hot-and-sometimes-youre-just-plain-freezing.html

More to come soon... I promise.

REMories

BS”D

Sixteen or so years had passed since the last time I saw her. She and her family lived on our street in Cleveland Heights, one block down from us, or up depending on how you looked at it. Her father was the principal at one of the local Jewish day schools, and our parents had known each other for a long time. Years before they moved to Cleveland, apparently, our families spent a summer together, while both sets of parents helped run the educational departments at a popular Jewish sleep-a-way camp.

Short hair that wasn’t even a bob-cut, she played hockey in elementary school, and, according to what her father told us over one Shabbat meal at my childhood home, she could terrorize the rink.

“At one game she checked a guy on the other team, stole the puck, and drove it in for a goal. I jumped to my feet yelling, ‘THAT’S MY GIRL!’ and was met by startled looks of confusion,” he would recount.

She was as Tom as a Tom-boy could be. Hanging out with her, we would discuss Charles Barkley’s impending retirement, and then head down to the garage to look at her hockey sticks. In all honesty, back then I was still playing with Barbie dolls. If she had any of those they must have been decked out in hockey pads as well.

Winter of ’96 gave the youth of Cleveland three consecutive snow days. As it grew whiter and whiter outside, with snow eventually piling past the door of our Fisher Price playhouse (at least a foot and a half deep) I spent my free time in her front yard building snow whales, snowmen, and other various sculptures with her and her brothers. Back then I was still innocent. I vaguely recall feeling a slight tingle around her, the tiniest of inklings that she was interesting, or more correctly, that I was interested, but for the most part I was there to hang out with her two brothers. And for all intents and purpose, she was really one of the guys.

It had been sixteen years since that wonderland of a winter. Her family moved to Cincinnati a year later; one more victim of the rabbinic familial lifestyle- the constant hop up the ladder of opportunity and around the map. Over an NCSY Shabbaton a few years later I ran into her sister and father. Seeing them was nice, but there was nothing that I felt that I was missing.

Last night she made a cameo in my dreams. After years of not missing her, of barely remembering of her family, she reappeared. And somehow I recognized her. In this particular eyelid film she grabbed the lead role. For some reason the girl I held in my arms, the one who made me complete until my REM cycle ended and the sun came up, was her. Not once did she mention her name, and her father was replaced by someone with a different face, but her features were unmistakable.

I woke up lost, spending my first morning minutes trying to understand what I had just seen. Angered by the fact that I had once again held her, my one and only, in one of her many forms, only to wake up to a shadow of a memory. I craved her touch and that feeling that I had dreamed of, the one of finally allowing myself to let go, to disregard the restrictions that I took upon myself for all of these years and to finally hold and be held for the rest of my life.

Her name moved quickly from its place in a cranial pocket to the tip of my tongue. Sixteen years it lay there dormant. Sixteen years it sat biding its time. I whispered it, her full name, shocked by the fact that I could place her face so fast and that I had no doubt as to whom I had seen. How did I remember her family’s name, let alone her own name?

“It must be a sign,” I thought in my typical manner.

Before I lay myself down to sleep that particular evening, I had gone out on a blind-date with a sweet girl who was very much not my type. I was ready to move on. The regular cast of characters, the crushes that came and never seemed to go, the names that cause me to sigh with regret of having never taken a shot, had all returned to my mind. Out of all of those girls the one whose basketball cards I had drooled over was the one to haunt me. If all of these years later she had returned with such a force, then this must be a prophecy some kind.

What-ifs rushed through my brain:

“What if she moved to Israel?”

“What if she’s single?”

“What if she dreamed something similar?”

I resigned myself to making contact with her if she was living in the country, and then opened up facebook.

“How did she spell her name? Am I wrong? Did I make a mistake with her last name? I remember the first three letters for sure, let’s see what the search engine gives me. Please Marc Zuckerberg come through, this could be it.”

Quickly I scrolled through the names and faces. Nothing. I typed again, varying the spellings, changing letters, praying silently that this would come through.

Success.

Her face was the same as in the dream, her hair longer than the last time I had seen her and her eyes were brighter than I could have remembered, especially because I never recalled looking into them when I was eight years old. There was no doubt- she was the one who had haunted my sleep last night.

I looked at one picture of her and then another, and then one more. All with the pure intentions of confirming that this was indeed her.

And then he appeared.

She stood behind his chair beaming, and the comments left by her friends leave no room for mistake. She’s taken by someone else. My eyes scan the information bar at the top. She still lives in the US.

Fist and table meet. One bang then I’m done. The hour is late, and Queen Mab already lies in waiting with her dust. Tonight I will dream again, a bit heartbroken, but one step closer to the truth.

Winter

Winter's chill has moved quickly from my bone's to my mind, numbing my brain and slowing down my reflexes. Day move to night much faster and the accompanying darkness weighs down on me. My animal instincts are attacking every fiber of my body- "SLEEP!"they scream. "Curl into a ball, fetal position, and just close your eyes..."

Yesterday it was summer, or at least fall. Now I am struggling with schoolwork, bar-tending classes, job hunting, and the regular grind of day-to-day errands.

Brown, gray, black. I look around, nostalgic for the yellow, orange, and blue. Morning, afternoon, and evening, when I wake up and before I go to sleep, I scour the Indian's website for my recently-departed summer, frantically clinging to the digital diamond, the green grass and pale brown dirt. When the Tribe offers no news I move onto the MLB site. Highlight reels, historics games, whatever I can get. Baseball diamonds have become an opiate for me. Seeing one calms me, withdrawal depresses me. The boys of summer have gone.

When Jerusalem is lit up she sparkles, shining like the beacon that she is to the world. Winter's early gloom in the holy city cuts even harder. "A few weeks," I tell myself, "in a few weeks you will have gotten used to the idea of long nights and short days. Quilts will once again become a comfort and not a necessity. Your bed will release you from its grip. A few weeks."

For now, my nesting instincts are go. Cooking has become a new joy in my life, a new distraction from the work and responsibilities that I have or am supposed to acquire. Corn bread, onion jam, even a quiche. It can take me hours, but I pull it off in the end, and smile with the realization that I can still learn new tricks.

Maybe I'll learn to let winter's opening days not stew my brain.

This too will pass.

"It's Hard not to be Romantic About Baseball"

"It was really depressing, "he answered me, "they really didn't deserve it. There was no reason for the Cardinals to be champions this year."

There are few people in my Jewish teachers college who I can speak baseball with. For that matter, other than the ex-pat Americans, there is nobody in this country who talks baseball. Israelis can't wrap their heads around the game. Baseball, with its pitch-dependent action, is too slow for the revved up soccer-heads in this country. They prefer the fast paced shell games, where you have to keep your eye on the ball as the clock runs, or is run down; complicated plays thought out to give the team that millisecond of distraction needed to place the ball in its respected net, goal, basket, what have you. American sports, be it baseball with its endless innings or football with its long breaks in between plays, just doesn't make sense to them. And if they had to choose between them, well at least in football they beat each other up while running the clock.

"Baseball's like a social get together. You sit, drink beer, eat junk, schmooze with friends, and once in a while clap your hands for your team," a good friend of mine once commented after his first baseball game.

Of course that was his response. The first time he saw a double play was when we diagrammed it on a pizza pie earlier that day. Israel is a beautiful country, but when you have to give three years of your life to the army and have your bag X-rayed when you enter the mall, you lack the patience to appreciate the thumping but slow-paced thrill that baseball offers.

But how could I not celebrate the Cardinal's incredible victory? How could I not seek out a fellow fan of the sandlot to discuss Freese and Albert? More than them being my second favorite team (I'll clarify: nothing makes me happier than an Indians' win, after which the next best thing is a Yankees' loss, followed by a victory by STL- my grandmother's team- if all else fails I root for the Jays- my grandfather's team) their ride, or more correctly, flight this season and post-season is at the heart of what makes baseball special. Which is why I disagree with one of the few people at the Herzog College in Israel who understood what those three red letters on my blue hat stood for.

Fan-hood is a strange phenomenon. Every jersey that we don makes us a member of the team, secures us a spot on their roster. It gives us the opportunity to be part of something bigger than we are; a member of the "Fenway Faithful", or of any other "Nation." Loyalties are passed on from father to son, or sometimes (as is by me), son to father, or just through the drinking water.

If you ask me, baseball fans can be divided into two categories: competitors and romantics. Competitors want the W, and nothing more. For them the end-result are the only thing that is important. Number one in the win column or bust. Like someone who guzzles through a bottle of fine wine because of the price tag and the status. They'll grow quickly into front-runners, fast to discard their hometown or familial loyalties for a team that will provide them with more bang for their proverbial buck.

Romantics are the exact opposite. To them the price tag is nowhere near as important as the label on the back of the bottle- the one that explains the process and flavors that were cultivated. As my mentor in wines and spirits once said, "Some people know brands, other people know wine." Somebody who understands wine will pay the price for a good bottle, but they also have the ability to find equal, if not better, wines at better prices. The process is almost all of the fun for the baseball romantic. The means and not the ends.

Which is why I root for Cleveland despite the fact that it is almost always guarantees me heartbreak, and why I believe that the Cardinals deserved the Commissioner's Trophy more than any team that has played since the Cardinals last took it in 2006- and even more than that incarnation! A team must be developed financially. I won't argue this, and hold this against the Dolans and the way they manage the Tribe. However, the Indians' front office, since the 90's, has been responsible for cultivating players, coaching them from the start of their young careers until they mature into the robust players who deserve big numbers on their price tag. Manny Ramirez, CC, and of course, Jim Thome, among others rose to star quality while playing for the Indians. The 1995-1997 lineup was definitely bolstered by some good business moves on the part of Jon Hart, but the heart of the lineup was young talent that was being raised in CLE. Since those days of glory Cleveland has served as a farm team for the entire MLB. Despite the heartbreak of losing the stars because they become expensive, those few seasons watching them break out are incredible. The scrappy taste of hard earned victory is ambrosia for the gods of baseball. Even if it's for only one game.

Of course, a competitive fan doesn't care. At the end of the season, if their team hasn't won, they throw them to the dogs. Star players who are payed millions in order to keep them from leaving, are booed when they screw up (A-Rod, I'm looking at you and smiling real wide). This is a business and their team is supposed to win. Period.

Don't get me wrong, I was disappointed by the poor performance of the Tribe in the second half of this season. But I made a promise that no matter what happens, win or lose, I was going to revel in that first half tromping that the "48 million dollar payroll that could" delivered to the Majors. Because to a romantic, a Cinderella story remains a Cinderella story even after the fat lady sings.

Which brings me to the MLB champion Cardinals. Hard earned, sweaty, seat of your pants wins. Late inning heroics. This is what they game is about. This is what makes it the American past-time. Is there anything that serves as a metaphor for life more than being down to your last strike (twice!) and pulling through? Is there anything more romantic than a come from behind victory? Only when the man responsible for his team's victory cheered for that same team as a kid.

Baseball is all about second chances. There is no clock on this game- it ends when you decide that you can't connect wood to rawhide anymore, when you stop believing that with bases loaded you'll turn the double play to get out of the inning, when David loses to Goliath. As long as you can make the play, you control the fate of the game. The beauty of baseball is in those long innings that so bore the natives of my beloved homeland. You don't need fast action to get your heart pumping. You just need to understand that nothing is guaranteed until the final out is made.

By all logic the Cards should not have even made the postseason. But baseball's not about logic. A team that never says “die”, that claws away until they've used their last breath to take that of another team, which turns from harmless to fierce once September begins to close, deserves the W. What they went through, the story on the back of their bottle, is worth more than the win. This game is not about putting up numbers. Numbers belong on clocks. This game is about gravity defying acrobatics, grass-stains and slides, stolen bases and stolen thunder.

This is what the romantic fans understand that the competitive ones do not. Baseball is not a business- it's life.

1:15 Rant

Sometimes you realize that things don't work out the way they should have. Sometimes the right changes come five minutes too late. You stand outside in the hallway trying to stare through the door, but the X-rays are not working. Hell, who are you fooling, they were never there. You got stuck with the invisible power, and couldn't get a trade in for it. What can you do?

Three seconds pass since the music stops, and only then do you begin to dance. Part of you enjoys the sweat dripping from forehead into eyes, splashing the dance floor and shining bright and wet, with nothing external forcing your moves; part of you mourns the fact that you just can't find the groove when the groove was on for everyone. What can you do?

Belief systems fall apart, and somehow you are the only one grasping the straws of what was once so popular. That was then. When you were a child. Now? Come on man, grow up. Times change. Change with them. What can you do?

Blink your eyes three times. Hold them shut on the last blink for 30 second. One deep breath with your picture on your eyelids. Do you get it now?

It's Not Always Black and White

One of the greatest decisions that my parents madei n raising me was to send me to the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland for the first four years (kindergarten through third grade) of my schooling. HAC is a Jewish day school that studies both secular and Judaic studies, but leans towards Ultra-Orthodoxy, or in American Jewish slang, is "black hat." Beginning my education in a more right-wing religious school set a tone for my Judaism. HAC established a strong foundation of belief and put, for better or for worse, practices into place that have lasted until this day, (they're probably also the source for my penchant for food that speaks Yiddish).

Though many might have considered the education a bit close-minded (I'll never forget how my second grade English teacher had to staple together the pages in Dear Mr. Henshaw that dealt with Christmas) I consider it to be the factor in my life that allows me to explore the many aspects and views of this religion freely and without fear. I know that most likely I will come home safely to the house that was built back in kindergarten, but also realize that every once in a while old wallpaper needs to be looked at and changed, furniture replaced.

But I digress. The most important thing that my parents gave me by sending me to the Academy and by living in Cleveland Heights ("Where you're either black or black hat") was the ability to feel comfortable around people different from you.

Or so I thought. I had a bit of a revelation this morning. I arrived at minyan and begin to put on my tefillin (phylacteries) standing above a seat. Before I could finish wrapping and sit down though, somebody had taken my seat.

"Come on man, what's your friggin problem?" I growled in my mind, carefully deleting the expletives out of respect for my tefillin (see what I mean about putting practices in place? I still imagine inanimate objects blushing or getting insulted). "It's pretty clear that I was gonna sit there, jerk."

I often get this way when I'm tired, but after I moved away to a new seat I noticed that in my mind I was preempting anything that someone might say to me. Especially after seeing the young ultra-orthodox guy who once gave me a tongue lashing for the way I wore my gun while praying (that's a different story). My thoughts began to turn, or more correctly, curdle, on the people sitting near me.

They were classic hareidim, ultra-religious to the last stitch in their long frocks. Curly side-locks, hats, scraggly beards in the best case scenario, fuzzy upper lips in the worst. My defense mechanism was running like Usain Bolt.

"Dontchu be taking my seat, ya penguin," it whispered at the man praying next to me. "Why are they taking so frickin long to start... come on already man."

Two 18 year old boys sat across from me shooting glances and smiles at each other. "What do they think they're looking at? Are they laughing at me? For real? At least my moustache doesn't look like a comb-over!" (I know, I know, it's blonde, and my instincts don't actually phrase things this cleverly in person either)

The kicker came at the end. At some point I switched the raggedy siddur (prayer book) that I had picked up with a smaller one that seemed not to belong to anyone in the room, despite having a beautiful inscription on the inside cover. I figured if it was someone's they would tell me. Of course, my brain also defensively snarled, "What, and he'll take it away from me in the middle?" When I had finished davening, I kissed the siddur and put it down. Comb-over-stache picked it up, kissed it and placed it next to him.

"Great, here we go," I thought, "a speech on how I should ask first, probably with some words like 'gezel' (stealing) and a whole lot of blah-blah to nod through while looking at the floor."

And rightfully so to tell the truth. If somebody had taken my siddur without asking, I would have chewed him out in my head for a good 15 minutes at least.

"Sorry," I said sheepishly, and truth be told, I was genuinely sorry.

His lips turn upwards in a big smile, and he enthusiastically motions to me and the siddur and gives me a big thumbs up.

"It was my honor, my merit, for you to use my siddur."

I blush. "Thanks,"I say to him as I leave, "shkoyach"(good job).

Shkoyach indeed, brother. Lesson learned.

New Year's Resolution: More Bloggin

Morning hits hard when you're unemployed, but not hard enough to knock me out of bed. Herzog, the teacher's college I attend, kicked off the semester yesterday, and with it I returned to my old ways of recuperating from the ten hour school day with hours of computer-sponsored brain-rot. Which meant that starting the big job hunt early was going to have to wait until after the later minyan (prayer service).

-Fix the guitar

-Supplies for school

-Pick up Horatio, my Sig-Sauer, from the range

-Blah

-Blah

-More important blah

Something about the "to do" list weighing down my backpack threw me off. Breakfast and in-house chores dragged on, while the seconds and minutes left the house, only to return as hours passed. The guitar had been sitting to long with a broken neck and strings and now needs a fret-board fix as well. Signs in restaurants declaring openings made me simultaneously hopeful and depressed.

But there was a success. After about 15 minutes of being snowballed and convinced that I was being given a deal (Ï'm sorry for the wait, but I was arguing with my supervisor about getting you a discount, which I was able to...."- Wow, just for me?!) and a little bit of schedule dancing, I began my first steps to the bar (The one you stand behind, not the test).

Bar-tending class cut my day short, but at least was an easy check for the list.

"Hey, you must be Yoni!,"Dor, the well-dressed instructor greeted me with a smile, Ï've been waiting for you to come."

What a change. Yesterday I was taking notes on a laptop in a yeshiva classroom, today-a notebook on the bar itself. A quick glance around the room:

Dos (religious guys) count: 2 others besides me ("What is a religious guy like you doing in a course like this?"- true quote from one of the girls)

Girl count: 3

Dosot (religious girls): Nope, too bad

"Let's talk about brandy and Cognac."

Yes, please do.

"Now let's taste them."

For the record, I held off because of the kashrut (dietary laws) issues with grapes. But school where you drink as part of the lesson- does it get any better than that?

After two hours on the production, difference between, and grading of the two, notebooks became shakers, we hopped over to the other side of the bar. There's an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" where Robin forces her way behind the bar for attention, and is dragged away while screaming "But I was somebody back there."It's like that. The timid persona that I adopt in a new environment quickly fell away once my shoe tread in that holy space.

"What'll it be?" I asked, smiling to the peers who would coach my mixology for two drinks.

Ice in the shaker!

Fill the jigger!

Other side!

Close with a bang!

And shake it here, shake it there, dance to the music bar-man!

The bar, it would seem, is a stage, or at least a dance floor. Alright, so I used an orange wedge to salt the margaritas, but man are the lights back there bright. Shine on please! I'll need it tomorrow when I try to kick things into gear.