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.

Keshet seminar

So over the weekend along with being our last weekend with the boys before Yeshiva and Midrasha, we had what is called a Keshet Seminar. A Keshet seminar is something that the organizers of the Zionist youth movements create so that different movements can meet and learn about different ideologies and movements, Bnei Akiva was the only religious youth movement among many reform movements that have all come to Israel for a gap year program. While it was really interesting to socialize with different movements, it was mostly the British youth movements so the Americans were pretty much the minority and knew no one from other movements; a majority of the Americans on Lehava, except for three of us left for the weekend, but three of us stuck it out and had a pretty nice time. It was interesting to have discussions about Israeli politics and different ideologies, and the way that the different movements had difference opinions from each other as well as when different movements that would usually disagree, ended having the same views of some things. My peulot were on the theme of Jewish music and film, so we really could discuss different traditions and orthodox practice with reference to music and film, it was really quite interesting and enjoyable. Otherwise we had the usual Shabbat, with singing, eating and rest. After a closing peulah we came home to Beit Yehudah for the last night for Machon.

Last week of Machon

This week was the last week of Machon or Leadership Institute for our group before we split to go to Yeshiva and Midrasha. We had the last classes of most of our tracks, as well as a seminar about the Kibbutz Movement. All in all a pretty average week except coming up to Tuesday when, me and three other people from Lehava were invited by our program leaders to represent Bnei Akiva at the Knesset, in a afternoon listening to the Knesset speaker and Education minister about the importance of youth movements in the future of Israel. I was really honored to be chosen amongst the four to represent the movement. On Wednesday, we had a fun day that including ATVing in Jerusalem and of coursing packing up at Beit Yehuda for the last time. After that we spent a couple of hours volunteering at an absorption center for Ethiopian immigrants to Israel where they learn about society and how to live in a more developed place, using money, learning Hebrew and other things such as that. I found it very heartwarming to see the appreciation of all the children for our visit and the gifts we made for their families as well, I now understand what my stepmom was referring to, what it truly means to appreciate everything that's given to you. After volunteering, we had a closing seminar from our Rosh Machon about the importance of what we learned on Machon and really how it applies to our leadership in the future. We then went to a restaurant for a special last night of Machon dinner that included speeches from some avid Machon students and some impressions of the memorable characters in Machon.

Aliyahs,Midrasha and Yitzhak Rabin

This week was themed around the mitzvah of Aliyah as well as the minorities of Israeli society that were caused by this mitzvah. On this week's Israeli film night we watched a fantastic movie called Live and become which told an amazing story about an Ethiopian boy who gets passed off by his Christian mother as a Jew by giving him to a Jewish woman who lost her son that morning, his mother did this during the time of Operation Moses to save him. The movie tells the story of his life and how he deals with racism and keeping his big secret in Israel, as well as his adoption, bar mitzvah and marriage. I highly recommend it but I warn that it has a very strange ending which was quite unnerving. Besides the interesting movie we learnt about minorities in Israel and met people who made Aliyah and how the process was and what their challenges/regrets have been since their Aliyah. We had our normal tracks in the week as well, sometimes a waste of time otherwise can be interesting. Wednesday was special because of Yitzhak Rabin's memorial service at Har Herzl, where we heard the Prime Minister and Simon Peres speak about Rabin's memory. On Thursday, we went to the Yitzhak Rabin Museum in Tel Aviv which was very interesting but I definitely would've liked it more if it had been earlier in the day. As well as the man activities and many opportunities pertaining to Yitzhak Rabin's memory, we also had some light shed onto the next section of our program, Midrasha. I have new found excitement with the information about our schedule and activities in Midrasha that have made it more appealing to me, I'm now kind of excited more so than I was before.

Shabbat in Ein Gedi

The Shabbat this week was very special in its location, in one of my favorite places in Israel, Ein Gedi. It began on Friday with another session of Ulpan and packing in a hurry. Then we were on our way, the journey from Jerusalem to Ein Gedi isn't long around an hour and a half, but we made a bathroom/water stop, at the same spot on my last trip to Israel that I rode a camel, it was a deja vu moment for me. When we arrived to Ein Gedi we had lunch and then went on a hike to the waterfalls, its always so lovely to walk in Ein Gedi it really is amazing. During Shabbat we stayed in the Ein Gedi field school right above the park which was quite amazing because of the ibex that just wander around the bunks and dining hall and well trafficked areas of the field school. I really enjoyed the desert environment that we were in that Shabbat it was a very unique weekend. We had seminars about brotherhood, trust and responsibility, as well as drama skits about scenes from the Torah. After lots of card games on Saturday and Havdallah that evening we came back to the Jerusalem, after a really great weekend in Ein Gedi.

Sderot, the Gaza border and East Jerusalem

Today was an especially fascinating day for our group,Lehava. We learnt more about the conflicts that face Israel regarding the two state agreement and settlements. We started the day in East Jerusalem learning about the settlements and that considerations that the municipalities and government needs to consider in the agreement of a united city of Jerusalem. I really found this to be an interesting thought, whether Jerusalem should become a united city and take down the ever controversial security fence, facing dangers that the fence reduced; or they can keep the status quo, what seems to be the safer option. After this we went to lunch and then continued our journey to the once unknown city of Sderot back in 2000, it has now become what some call the bomb shelter capital of the world. Sderot is a city about a kilometer from the Gaza border making it very vulnerable to terrorist agendas in the Gaza strip. Since the beginning of rocket fire from the Gaza strip towards the city in 2000, bomb shelters have become essential to the lifestyle of people living in Sderot. Since the Second Intifada, thousands of Qassam, mortar and Grad rockets have been shot at the city, since then the rocket fire has decreased significantly to around every other to every two days, which is unbelievable to think of as a reduction. These attacks has caused lifetime psychological and physical trauma and shock for the people living in Sderot, especially the children growing up in such an environment. It was very interesting to listen to the stories of people living in Sderot and their families and how they have been affected by the rockets, for instance one of our guides worries constantly about his grandfather who has a lack of mobility in his age and his grandson worries about him when a siren goes and whether his grandfather will make it to the bomb shelter in the allotted time. The radar based alert system, gives citizens 15 seconds to get to a safe place such as a bomb shelter before the rocket hits, this is an unbelievable life to think about, to only have a 15 seconds to live, to come out of the safe place to find the rocket hit right where you were standing 15 seconds prior. I can't even imagine what it's like to live that daily. We went to the overview towards and actually saw a live rocket shot within the Gaza borders which was unbelievable to see, also quite frightening. After that we went to the security fence at a military compound near the Gaza border, near to where Gilad Shalit was abducted and has since been in captivity for around 4 years since 2006. I was really amazed by this day, it really opened my eyes to the truth behind what we see on the news. After our day in Sderot we went back to Beit Yehuda to pack for our free weekend.