I high-fived Natan Sharansky!

Sunday morning was a very easy one - I woke up around 10:30, showered and got dressed, and then headed out to lunch with Joshy and Adam. After lunch, we headed over to school for Silicon Wadi which was interesting but not spectacular. Then we went home and did a little school work and a little hanging around before it was time to get ready for the Idan Raichel concert that MASA (the part of the Jewish Agency that pays me money to go to Israel) was holding for all of their participants at Binyanei Ha'uma. Before the concert started we heard from Yuli Edelstein, and Natan Sharansky(!) and watched a movie that MASA had put together about their programs. The movie featured three MASA participants, one of whom was Ariella! It was really cool to see her up on the big screen promoting MASA. I find MASA to be very interesting. Their slogan is "Israel: Your Home Away From Home," but, as one of my friends pointed out, their ultimate goal (as part of the Jewish Agency) is to get people to make aliyah. This was particularly evident when Edelstein spoke of us as ambassadors of MASA and Israel, but reminded us that ambassadors only serve for a few years. "Serve Israel for two years, for three years," he said, "then come here and become Olim Hadashim (new immigrants)." Interesting. Anyway, the main point of this digression from cool things is that as Natan Sharansky was walking past me back up the aisle to his seat (We were in the tenth row from the stage), I reached out my hand into the aisle and got a high-five! Pretty cool for me.

The concert itself was great - the Idan Raichel Project has a very unique sound because of all the different cultural influences brought together by Idan Raichel. The songs we heard last night had lyrics in many different languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic and Spanish. Raichel is famous for pulling inspiration for his lyrics from Shir Ha'shirim, the Song of Songs, which I have always found interesting. He played a number of songs that I knew and even more that I didn't know but could still enjoy (Though I was upset that he didn't play Im Telech [a favorite of mine] or B'yom Ha'shabbat [one of his most famous songs] last night).

When I got back from the concert I studied for my Ulpan quiz today with Adina and LeeAnn for a bit, and then went to bed after chatting for a bit with Joshy (part of being the best roommates on Nativ is that we aren't just two guys who live together - we like to say we have a sleepover every night because we love having the chance to talk and gossip and joke every night as we go to sleep).

Today is one of my full days. On Monday and Wednesday I have Ulpan in the morning at 8:30, then Holy Life and Holy Death, and then Talmud until 6:00. The day is long, but the classes are still interesting, and hopefully they will stay that way. I have Talmud very soon, but hopefully I'll get another chance to write soon.

Talk to you soon,
Seffi