Conservative Judaism, Rabin, and Insomnia

I'm still awake, even though I need to wake up at 6:15 for davening tomorrow, so I figured I would take advantage of this time. On Thursday I ended up not going to V for Vendetta, and instead watched 3 episodes of Lost. On Friday, We had to get up for a morning session with Jules Gutin, Director of USY (and I had to get my package of 4 SIs, Sudafed and gloves). I enjoyed it, as I do all of Jules' sessions, but I felt that the group was hoping for a more in depth look at the Movement. After the session It was time for lunch, and then Debbie, Jordana, Joshy and I headed off towards the shuk to buy rugelach from marzipan for Shabbat. As we were walking there though, I got sidetracked by a crafts fair and we all went exploring. According to the artists I spoke to, they will be there every Friday. A lot of the stuff I saw was beautiful, and I can't wait to bring Eemah there. We bought our marzipan and headed home.

When we got home I found Joey and Adam (our resident barber) and we (along with spectators) shaved Joey's head according to the terms of the bet.



I think it came out rather well.

Friday night services were at Moreshet (The shul that is part of our compound - stepping through it's doors transports you via wormhole to an American Conservative shul). Judah led kab shab and it was fun because his voice is beautiful. The girls had a "sleep-over" (minus the actual sleeping over), and the boys felt the need to crash and assert ourselves - it was pretty fun/obnoxious of us.

Saturday morning I went to Shira Hadasha with Meir. Alick led Shacharit - beautiful as always. I walked home with Shosh and we had fun talking - she is the best big sister ever! After lunch we had another session with Jules. He taught us about the role of the Torah in modern Judaism and about the authority of Rabbinic Judaism - all stuff that I knew already, but a necessary primer for some of my fellow Nativers. I spent what little free time we had over Shabbat with the most wonderful people ever - Joshy, Debbie, Rachel and Adina.

After Mincha, Maariv, and Havdallah, a busload of us headed off to Tel Aviv. Saturday night was the rain check of the Yitzhak Rabin memorial - 14 years since his assassination (I actually do have vague memories of seeing the news about his death). The ceremony was moving. I understood a lot of the speeches (from people such as Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni, Dalia Rabin and others) and enjoyed the music (Hadag Nachash and also some performing group at the end singing Shir L'Shalom). Unfortunately, the evening was marred for me when I got back on the bus. One of my staff members, who I already knew aligns himself with the political right, felt the need to take the bus microphone and give his take on the proceedings. He called the evening a hate-filled event that spread mistrust and hatred of the right and the religious in Israel. What he did was disgusting (I can think of no way to soften my words here - I felt quite physically sick), and upset me and some of my fellow Nativers. Ariella and I had a discussion about whether we could possibly have missed these undertones that our staff member had perceived, considering that we aren't native speakers, but we decided that they could not possibly have been there. To paraphrase Tzipi - 14 years ago there was a huge rift between the right and the left, a rift that led to an unspeakable act of hatred. Now, we must continue coming together, continue working together, for peace. Unfortunately, Nativers who don't have as much Hebrew as I do only saw the evening through the lens of hatred presented by our staff member.

One cool part of the evening was seeing the recorded message from Obama. Israelis don't like him too much, but I thought that the message was very good, saying things that needed to be said. Except when he used the term Palestine in the present tense; that was either a major gaffe (obviously unlikely) or a calculated move in Obama's push towards peace.

Today was business as usual. I woke up earlier than I often do on Sundays so I had plenty of time to relax before school which was nice. Silicon Wadi (after lunch at the Frank, of course) was very interesting today. We heard from a deputy director within the Ministry of Finance, who also happens to be our professor's father.

When we got home I watched a little tv with Joshy and then I went out to dinner with Gabe, Ilana and Becky. After dinner it was time for our final session with Jules, this one about Halachic decisions of the Conservative Movement - focusing specifically on the Eemahot (adding the Matriarchs to the Amidah). I found this the most interesting of the sessions, though I wonder if maybe we could have eliminated one of the other sessions and split this one into two, to allow more time for questions and to make the sessions shorter. All in all out weekend with Jules was very pleasant (especially considering that it is supposed to be the first of our Conservative Judaism sessions, and we already had sessions with Joel Roth and Bradley Artsen).

Now I'm going to try to go to sleep again, I have a busy day ahead of me.

Talk to you soon,
Seffi