The Conservative Yeshiva is Awesome

If you couldn’t tell from previous posts, I really love the Conservative Yeshiva.  On Friday morning Yeshiva students, plus families including many cute kids (who were much more mature than the Nativers), packed a bus and left for a Shabbaton.  On the bus, I had fun talking with other students near me, most of who were from Ziegler (Rabbinical school in LA) plus the 14 month old twins of Ziegler students.  We began our official activities with a short hike that reinforced my desire to be an unproductive member of society and spend all of my time in nature.  Next we went to a different place to eat lunch, hang out, and swim.  Then we went to a kibbutz (I forgot which one- sorry!) and got ready for Shabbos.

Shabbos was absolutely beautiful.  Kabbalat Shabbat was led by a Ziegler student with the help of 2 of his friends.  They sat at a table in the front of our kibbutz synagogue, keeping the beat with their hands and feet while singing beautifully.  This service and Pesukei in the morning, were full of many new tunes (or at least to me for use during services, such as the tune of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah to a psalm), and I don’t know if I ever experienced better services.  After services Friday night we had a lot of food with a little singing (dinner), followed by a lot of singing with a little food (tisch).

In the morning, we had some delicious rugellach, plus some other food I didn’t really care about in the presence of the rugellach.  Services were lovely.  We then had Kiddush, after which I had my one regret of the weekend- not immediately taking a nap.  Rather, I went to a shiur which was very interesting (though I cannot recall the topic at the moment), throughout which I had to pee and really wanted to sleep.  After the shiur, I skipped lunch and joined my roommates for what became a 5 hour nap.

After my nap, I left my sleeping roommates to see what the awake were doing.  I missed mincha, a walk to a park, and some shiurim, but the sleep was far worth it.  Plus, I found the babies!  With a few other big people, I played with the previously mentioned twins, a girl of nearly two years, and a 9 month old boy, Yair.  At some point Yair spit up on my dress, but if you know me well, you’ll understand my honesty in how this did not bother me at all.  (On a similar note, I did not mind the one-eyed cat walking around.  In fact, I felt very sorry for her, noticing how she was not keeping her fur clean, which is a sign for my cat that he is unwell.)

Seudat Shlishit was delicious, and, of course, accompanied by more singing.  Then we did maariv and Havdallah, followed by some spontaneous dancing.  Finally, we packed up and loaded our bus to return to base.  Overall, it was a fantastic weekend.  I was able to hang out with students, from Nativ and not, and become closer friends with all of these people. 

Nativers took about half of the “leadership opportunities” for the weekend.  I find myself rather proud of this, so I’m just going to list it all now.  One person (never the same person for two honors) led Friday maariv, Friday night birkat, Friday tisch, shacharit, and Saturday maariv.  We also had a few aliyot, including me with maftir (and haftarah), and one of us joined two other Kohanim for their blessing during the amida repetitions.

But after this easy and fun weekend, we returned to serious study.  Sunday at 9 am I was in the Beit Midrash with a text and dictionary before me and a chavruta at my side.  I have since studied more of what makes a shofar kosher and the kavannah (intention) required to fulfill the obligation to hear it.  I also began a Chumash/Rashi class, for which we have just started to study the Shema (we spent about an hour and a half on the first two verses).  (I haven’t had other regular classes due to the Jerusalem course, which I will discuss in a future post.)  I also learned that I have been placed in Ulpan B, and because the teacher won’t be here until the class next Wednesday, I have some free time for a couple days!  Although, on Monday much of that time was taken by buying needed books, and some days I will be studying from 9 to 6:15 with only few and short breaks. (So no, as the friend of one Nativer, a previous Orthodox day school student, believed, we do not spend all day doing ice-breakers.)

Trivia: Why did I say it was Sunday after the weekend? 

Here in Israel, the weekend is Friday and Saturday