On Monday I had Isaacs and Talmud (no Hebrew because that's over!). I spent all of Monday night working on college stuff for applications due on 1/1/2010.
On Tuesday I had no school and again spent much of the day (sleeping and) working on college stuff. Tuesday evening was the Nativ formal, but I went to the Old City instead to hang out with Navah and Raffi and Alex by the Kotel
It was great to see Navah. Alex and I walked to the Old City from Beit Nativ together, but Navah was at a pharmacy getting meds for her kids so we had some time to kill. We walked up and down Mamilla and went into a bunch of stores. When we finally went into the Old City we saw Navah's group immediately but not her. We sketchily tailed them to a spot overlooking the Kotel right next to the Muslim quarter and then broke off on our own when we saw Navah down below. We ran and gave each other a hug and it was lovely. Navah brought me a goody-bag of stuff from home with pumpkin bread, twix bars, SI (see above for my Kotel reading material of choice) and two tshirts from Navah (the UNChallenged 100 years of UNC basketball one and the State Radio one she got me at the concert they played at UF). We davened maariv at the Kotel then she and her group went on the tunnel tours and Raffi, Alex and I sat in the cold and rainy grossness outside. Then Navah came out and we said goodbye and went home.
Wednesday was my last day of classes. I had double Isaacs as a makeup for an earlier class that he needed to cancel. During Talmud I gave my presentation on Metatron (an angel in Jewish mystical literature who is pretty cool/crazy and often equated with Hanoch, the minor character in Genesis). A brief digression into the realm of Jewish text: The book of 3 Enoch, also known as the Hebrew Book of Enoch or Sefer Heichalot (Heichalot literature is a whole rabbinic genre that talks about the efforts of various rabbis of the Talmud to get to Heaven to learn secrets from God) is an apocryphal work about Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha's ascension to heaven with the angel Metatron. The book describes Metatron thusly: Metatron is the size of the world and made out of fire, he has 72 wings, 36 on each side, with each wing also the size of the whole world, he has 365 eyes, each eye like the sun, with eyelashes of lightning. I once knew a girl like that (alternate line: what was Rabbi Ishmael ben Elisha smoking?!)
On Wednesday night we had Erev Nativ (it was moved to Wednesday because that's the date that worked for our speaker) with Adina's dad! Rabbi Allen is the founder of Hechsher/Magen Tzedek, the justice certification that came out of the whole Rubashkin's/Agriprocessors balagan. Basically they are working to put a certification on products of companies with fair workers practices. They aren't really up and running yet, but look they are doing good work. Look for their symbol in the coming months:
Thursday was New Years Eve. We spent the day hanging around (I was working on college apps) and then we all went out. Sorta. The bar that we usually go to had a cover that night, but since Gabe and I don't drink we weren't going to waste our money there. We went with Ariella and Britty (a friend of mine from Schechter and of Ariella's from Nyack who is at seminary) to get ice cream and then went for a walk through Mamilla to right outside the Jaffa Gate. We talked (Ariella did most of that) about the New Year and about life in general. The intellectual atmosphere was fun and we were all happy with how we spent New Years.
On Friday I submitted a college app and then I went to Shira Hadasha with Navah. After services we talked to Rachel Immerman for a few minutes and then Navah, Joshy and I headed off to Navah's friends from Columbia, Michael and Adina. They are a lovely couple and dinner (with them and four other friends of Navah's including Yael Steiner who I know) was delicious and fun.
On Shabbat morning Navah and I couldn't amicably decide where to go to shul, so we ended up just walking a little and then hanging out in the room. For lunch we went to Navah's friend Sylvie's apartment. Lunch was with a bunch of people Navah's age but it was fun. After lunch, Navah and I walked down to meet Bentzi and we walked with him for a while. When we got back to the room we hung around a bit and then did maariv and havdallah/walked around for a while trying to find Nativ maariv and havdallah, failed, and went and sat in my room again. On Saturday night Adina's parents and sister took Ariella, Josh, Jesse, Debbie, Jonny, Shara and me out to dinner at River Noodle Bar. Dinner was great and Adina's parents are really nice (surprising, right?) In all seriousness, Adina is one of my close friends here and it was great to meet her family.
On Sunday we had our Silicon Wadi final which went well, I think. That night I spent time studying and working on Isaacs stuff.
On Monday I had my Isaacs final which also, hopefully, went well. After that final I went back to bae and hung around for a bit. At night, Raffi, Alex, Elan, David, Gabe Co, Navah and I went out to dinner...sorta. We were going to go out together, but Japanika sushi had a long wait for big groups. Navah and I went there and had a lovely dinner. After that I went out with Raffi, Alex and Elan for a few hours.
Today Gabe, Jesse, Jonny and I went out to lunch at Yummi's with Peter, our 45-year-old friend from our Talmud class. We had a great time hanging out and then we came back to base. Tonight our Erev Nativ Speaker was Rabbi Steven Wernick, new CEO and Executive VP of USCJ and son of the great Rebbe Wernick, my teacher through high school and fearless leader of the Men's Minyan. He spoke about his vision for the Movement and values that he feels the Movement needs to adopt in order to achieve his vision. I'm still digesting so I have no clear opinion on him yet, but I generally liked what I heard.
That's all for now - the internet is down in Beit Nativ so I'm freezing my fingers off to get this to you sitting outside the Yeshiva.
Talk to you soon,
Seffi
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