Simchat Torah

Friday night was the start of Simchat Torah and Shemini Atzeret. I went to Shira Hadasha with Gabe, and we met up with some of my school friends on the way, including Tamar and Dani. When we got there, Gabe and I went to sit with our friends (and future Hebrew U Advanced Talmud buddies) Jesse and Jonny. I had a good time, and I was really enjoying the dancing so I went over to my professor (one of the founders of Shira Hadasha) and asked if he thought I might be able to lead one of the hakafot or if that honor was reserved for members. He told me that they in fact reserve one hakafa for guests, and he would be overjoyed to let me lead it. After the next round of dancing, he ushered me to the front of the room, handed me a Torah (which I can carry so long as I hold it like a lefty) and a slip of paper with the words of the hakafa on it. Getting to lead the hakafa absolutely made my night.

Towards the end of the hakafot I saw my friend Adi, with whom I went to school and did USY. It was great to see him and talk to him and, by arrangement (he is also friends with my staff Shosh), he came back to Beit Nativ for dinner. Dinner was ok, and then we had the tisch which was very fun (and filled with marzipan rugelach). Saturday was back to Shira Hadasha for me, again with a whole slew of people, for more dancing, singing, praying, and an aliyah for everyone (Shira Hadasha actually had seven different Torah readings to accommodate the crowd). The service was lovely as always and Kiddush was yummy. Then we headed back to Beit Nativ for lunch, and then I hung out with Josh, Rachel, Debbie, Adina and Gabe for most of the afternoon. I should mention that Na'ale, Schechter's 9th grade trip to Israel, was staying at Agron this Shabbat. I was lucky enough to get to spend a little time with two of my favorite teachers from high school, Morah Besner and Senora Shapiro. As Shabbat was ending, the other Schechter Nativers (as well as other class of 09 Schechter students studying in Israel who wanted to come for Shabbat) and I went to the Nativ Sukkah to sit with Na'ale and sing with them. I led them in a few songs (employing my awesome songleading powers imparted in my by my years in USY) and then the former Schechter choristers led Havdallah.

After that, both Nativ and Na'ale were off to Gan HaPa'amon (Liberty Bell Park) for Hakafot Shniot. Hakafot Shniot is a very interesting phenomenon. On the basketball courts of this park in the center of Jerusalem, hundreds of people gather for post-Simchat Torah dancing, a sort of take-two, only this time with instruments and microphones. My friends and I had a great time singing and dancing (I made sure to pull the Na'ale kids into circles and trains and all the other good Simchat Torah dancing) for one hakafa (which lasted for about half an hour) and then we headed home. We held a MDA study session for the midcourse exam the next day.

After that, I went to give something to my Schechter teachers and they gave me three uneaten pizza pies and a couple of bottles of soda (total cost of this seemingly free meal: approximately $80,000) and asked me to give it to Nativers. I brought it to the Sukkah where I sat with Ariella, Josh Cooper (not on Nativ, but a very good friend from home), Daneel (also not on Nativ, but a friend of Ariella and Josh from Ramah Nyack) and Shira Telushkin (also not on Nativ, but she's going to Yale with Ariella). We then sat for over three hours talking about a lot of random but fun and interesting (for us this meant several sociopolitical facets of the State of Israel and some Talmud) topics.

The next morning it was time for MDA - 12 hours, from 9am - 9pm. I made it through the morning to the lunch break, but after eating lunch I went upstairs for a quick catnap and slept for five hours. David tried to wake me, but I really wasn't feeling well (the MDA instructor later diagnosed me as having been dehydrated). When I woke up I was feeling much better, and I went with my friends down to Gan HaPa'amon for the night's Nativ Basketball Association games. My hand makes it very hard to play basketball, and the hours at the NBA were very frustrating ones.

Today I had MDA from 9am - 4:30pm - not great, but not too hard (I discovered that I really didn't miss much at all when I slept through 5 hours of class). After MDA we heard from a woman about alcohol and drug abuse. She clearly was passionate about the subject, but she didn't understand how to properly convey her message to 18 year olds and most of what she had to say fell on deaf ears. It's a shame.

I've been watching the show Lost with some of my friends - we really enjoy it and I highly recommend it.

To close on a good note - my grades are done from minimester at Hebrew U and I was very pleased - I hope I can duplicate that success in the real semester when it actually counts.