Soup Kitchen, Pomegranates, Leadership Institute

In the morning, yet again, many people were late for morning davening but made it to breakfast in just enough time to eat and catch the bus for the soup kitchen. Although I had never volunteered at a soup kitchen before, it was quite interesting and amazing to see the programs run by this particular soup kitchen that has locations in many Israeli cities. The programs included hot lunches for school children, free dental clinics, meals and groceries for holocaust survivors and vocational training so that people who are in the poverty cycle can go out and have the proper training and opportunity to be employed. Our volunteer work were in two different shifts, both like assembly lines and both help hundreds of people daily. The first shift I was on was for Rosh Hashanah groceries, we lined up the items that were meant to be in the grocery bags and from the first people with the bags put their item into the plastic bags as they passed; in total we made about 240 grocery bags for people who may otherwise might not be able to afford the groceries needed for the upcoming holiday. The second shift I worked was for the more daily part of the soup kitchens work, the hot meals passed out to the people in need, our volunteer work consisted of the assembly of the tray meals that were served to the people at the soup kitchen, we also were in a sense quality control, making sure that each tray consisted of each different component of the meal, making sure each had fruit, soup, meat and rice, cutlery and pita. It was a very proud mitzvah to experience today and I would be happy to volunteer there again. On our return to Beit Yehuda we went to lunch and then went our first Jewish history course for Leadership, my course choice is "The Holocaust: Remember, Reflect, React", that means that instead of learning just historical facts and figures about the Holocaust, we discuss accounts and different media and how we think about them in general; only after one class I'm already excited about the rest of the classes. We continued learning with an "Israel Update" that is a continuing fixture of the leadership institute where we learn about current events that affect Israeli life, economy, culture etc. After supper and evening davening, while the boys had a free evening the girls had an art workshop inspired by Rosh Hashanah, making paper covered pomegranates stuck to a board with a small jar of honey for a kind of gift for our families.