A Weekend of Jewish Geography, among other things...
It's been a while, so I'm sorry, but it's not without reason. My week in Yeshiva passed rather quickly and uneventfully, and for that reason, I decided there was not much to post about. I hope this post will be comprehensive enough for the past week.
The South African delegation of Eretz HaTzvi slowly began to understand who I was and were very friendly to me after a few days, but I still wasn't in the perfect mindset to be spending the week in Yeshiva. I counted down the days until my program began on Thursday. I attended an occasional shiur and spent time shmoozing with some of the Rabbis.
When Thursday morning finally rolled around, I was very excited. I gathered my belongings that really were basically still in my bag, because I felt it unnecessary to unpack during my week in Yeshiva, so it was relatively simple to pack up and get ready for my next destination. I luckily got a ride with one of the madrichim of my Yeshiva, provided I came with him first to another former madrich's new apartment that he just bought to do some cleaning. I gladly obliged, being the cheap little guy I am, saving 20-25 shekel on a cab ride was right up my alley.
I got to the YU Israel building which this year will be housing the Yavneh Olami program about an hour before check-in was to begin. There were a few other people there, including my roommate Mitch from YU. I began meeting people and slowly more people began trickling in. At noon, when check-in began, we headed towards the auditorium to get more info. It was very lucky that Mitch & I got to check-in on time (a former Yavneh Intern from last year strongly recommended that) because we got one of the only 2 person rooms. The girls are all housed in the dorms belonging to Yeshivat Torat Shraga, directly behind the YU building, and the guys are housed in apartments used by a girls seminary, I think. It's funny that way, but it makes sense being that there are about 25-30 guys living on the program (in 3 apartments) and 80 girls. There are a few more guys that are living on their own, but its still basically 2/3 girls.
We had a brief orientation with a few speakers from YU and Yavneh telling us about the program, our internships, and the various night time activities that would occur through the course of the summer. Then we had a BBQ for some more time to meet more people, and then I headed off with a few friends to Ben Yehuda. We came back early because davening was at 6:45 so we could leave for our Golan tiyyul and shabbaton early in the morning. Our bus ride was long, about 4 hours to the tip of the Golan, we first visited Nimrod's fortress, which I had been to already from my Yeshiva's golan tiyyul in October of last year. Although, while our Yeshiva took a 3 hour hike to climb to the top of the fortress, this time we just drove to the top. Following the tour and lunch we went down to the Banyas, and walked around there for a little bit also, nothing too strenuous. Then, we headed to Moshav Keshet Yonatan (I have also been there during Yeshiva for shabbat) and checked into the guest house.
Finally, to address my title. Since the start of the program, there had been a ton of Jewish geography being played. Ian & I even began to discuss a point system awarding more points to for the more obscure connection you would have with someone. Basically, all shabbat consisted of was, "Do you know...?" We had a great session on shabbat afternoon with some very controversial questions on Israel and an overall great time. We took a tour before Mincha to see the Moshav from the top of the hill, it was quite beautiful. Exhausted, we headed back to Yerushalyim after shabbat, arriving back in Bayit V'gan around 1 AM.
Because most people began work today, we set 7:15 as the time for davening, and looks as if it will be that way all summer. As it appears, I will not be working this week, my internship gets into full gear next week, because my supervisor is a professor at Machon Lev. He feels that since he is in the midst of final exams this week he'd much rather give me his full attention next week than shortchange me this week. It is possibly that this week I will shadow a friend of my dad's who works at a computer company in the area, I am waiting to hear from him.
I'll try to keep blogs this week more frequent but shorter, as I did get quite a few comments about a lack of blog, and I hope you enjoyed this installment!
The South African delegation of Eretz HaTzvi slowly began to understand who I was and were very friendly to me after a few days, but I still wasn't in the perfect mindset to be spending the week in Yeshiva. I counted down the days until my program began on Thursday. I attended an occasional shiur and spent time shmoozing with some of the Rabbis.
When Thursday morning finally rolled around, I was very excited. I gathered my belongings that really were basically still in my bag, because I felt it unnecessary to unpack during my week in Yeshiva, so it was relatively simple to pack up and get ready for my next destination. I luckily got a ride with one of the madrichim of my Yeshiva, provided I came with him first to another former madrich's new apartment that he just bought to do some cleaning. I gladly obliged, being the cheap little guy I am, saving 20-25 shekel on a cab ride was right up my alley.
I got to the YU Israel building which this year will be housing the Yavneh Olami program about an hour before check-in was to begin. There were a few other people there, including my roommate Mitch from YU. I began meeting people and slowly more people began trickling in. At noon, when check-in began, we headed towards the auditorium to get more info. It was very lucky that Mitch & I got to check-in on time (a former Yavneh Intern from last year strongly recommended that) because we got one of the only 2 person rooms. The girls are all housed in the dorms belonging to Yeshivat Torat Shraga, directly behind the YU building, and the guys are housed in apartments used by a girls seminary, I think. It's funny that way, but it makes sense being that there are about 25-30 guys living on the program (in 3 apartments) and 80 girls. There are a few more guys that are living on their own, but its still basically 2/3 girls.
We had a brief orientation with a few speakers from YU and Yavneh telling us about the program, our internships, and the various night time activities that would occur through the course of the summer. Then we had a BBQ for some more time to meet more people, and then I headed off with a few friends to Ben Yehuda. We came back early because davening was at 6:45 so we could leave for our Golan tiyyul and shabbaton early in the morning. Our bus ride was long, about 4 hours to the tip of the Golan, we first visited Nimrod's fortress, which I had been to already from my Yeshiva's golan tiyyul in October of last year. Although, while our Yeshiva took a 3 hour hike to climb to the top of the fortress, this time we just drove to the top. Following the tour and lunch we went down to the Banyas, and walked around there for a little bit also, nothing too strenuous. Then, we headed to Moshav Keshet Yonatan (I have also been there during Yeshiva for shabbat) and checked into the guest house.
Finally, to address my title. Since the start of the program, there had been a ton of Jewish geography being played. Ian & I even began to discuss a point system awarding more points to for the more obscure connection you would have with someone. Basically, all shabbat consisted of was, "Do you know...?" We had a great session on shabbat afternoon with some very controversial questions on Israel and an overall great time. We took a tour before Mincha to see the Moshav from the top of the hill, it was quite beautiful. Exhausted, we headed back to Yerushalyim after shabbat, arriving back in Bayit V'gan around 1 AM.
Because most people began work today, we set 7:15 as the time for davening, and looks as if it will be that way all summer. As it appears, I will not be working this week, my internship gets into full gear next week, because my supervisor is a professor at Machon Lev. He feels that since he is in the midst of final exams this week he'd much rather give me his full attention next week than shortchange me this week. It is possibly that this week I will shadow a friend of my dad's who works at a computer company in the area, I am waiting to hear from him.
I'll try to keep blogs this week more frequent but shorter, as I did get quite a few comments about a lack of blog, and I hope you enjoyed this installment!
posted by Ari @ 3:58 AM
1 Comments:
At 11:14 PM, יולי 04, 2006,
Brittle said…
extra points for obscure connections with people is definately an extra fun added twise to the Jewish geography game
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