Third week of Seminary

So in our third week of seminary we continued with our adventures with Chumash, philosophy, Halacha and the usual suspects of a religious education. What changes is the further continuation and advancement of crocheting kippot as well as our adapting to our kibbutz environment. It's been continually interesting to learn new things about Judaism that I previously was unaware of, such as specific Halachot that I previously was unaware of. During the week we continue to go out Mondays, learn during the days, going to shiurim and studying Chumash. During the weekend, we were with just the girls and we travelled to Allon Shevut to stay with host families. I stayed with the Dutch girls and a British girl, we stayed at a Dutch family there. They were really interesting and spoke three languages which was really cool, especially listening to a Dvar Torah where the father spoke in english, argued with his wife in Hebrew and randomly to talk to our Dutch girls in Dutch, very entertaining. I really enjoyed the Shabbat because it was a lot of relaxation as well as shiurim with our Rabbi and midrasha couple. I really enjoyed catching up on sleep and meeting new people, I really love the hospitality of Israel in general it's truly an amazing place.

Start of Seminary

The start of seminary was marked by lots of complaining about our accommodations the first week, our life of luxury was lost with our new home being the kibbutz Migdal Oz. Our accommodations in the kibbutz guest houses were basic: bed, bathroom, shower, food, it still seemed spoiled because of our additional clubhouse equipped with wifi, fridge, TV...not too shabby. It seems as though that in the coming 6 weeks left (not that I'm counting) of seminary I believe, that either everyone will start fighting or will become the best of friends, I'm hoping for the latter. On another note, the classes that we are taking at seminary are quite interesting and I'm enjoying them greatly, from Chumash to Jewish Philosophy we are really never short of something to fill our day with. But truthfully, there are classes that can bore me a lot which makes me a little bitter about the no crocheting in class rule, which truly inhibits my new favorite hobby of crocheting kippot. But it truly comes down to respect for your teachers, they come from different places so they can teach us these subjects, so I'm giving them my undivided attention, from now on. Another thing which is typical of many places in Israel including Migdal Oz, is a truly large population of stray cats, but the stray cats on the kibbutz are not afraid of people, which the girls in the group are a little bit bewildered by this because it is unusual for Israeli stray cats; as an example of the bewilderment as well as fear of the hoard of strays is the hyper vigilance of the clubhouse and classroom doors being closed at all times, specifically because the cats tend to sneak into our clubhouse and get into our food that we keep in there, there have been a few times in which an errant cat has shocked a girl or two just wanting a hot drink. It is rather entertaining to hear the symphony of girls screaming when discovering a cat in the moadon (clubhouse). As well as the onset of stray cats, there has also been a upset regarding bugs in our personal space especially in my room specifically, earwigs next to pillows, beetles in toiletry bags, flies in our faces, ants and spiders everywhere, it is an average assumption that we probably would have a bug issue in a rural area, but apparently with a group with a majority of urban dwellers they probably aren't the most forgiving folk to the Migdal Oz bug population. This week specifically to classes in the Chaggim class we looked at Hanukkah and Rosh Chodesh; in our Film and Torah class we looked at Escape from Sobibor and the themes of Torah that apply to it, in Chumash we continued with the study of Bereishit and in Jewish philosophy we looked at free choice, quite a good but very busy two first weeks but everyone is getting settled into the kibbutz and into Midrasha schedule, sorry for the blog delay but I truly have been busy this week.