A Hard Day's Night (09/08/09)

Well my first day at the Yeshiva was quite an experience. I had my first class bright and early at 8:45. This class is Advanced Tanach with Mefarshim, which are commentaries. The teachers name is Vered Hollander-Goldfarb, who is very interesting and very engaging. We are learning the book of Jonah from start to finish and going much more in-depth that I have ever taken it before. I look forward to continuing that class.

After 3 hours of that class I took a break for lunch and met some people back at base and we went for a walk to the Shuk. It was my first time to the Shuk this year so far and my first ever trip to the Shuk in my times to Israel. It was quite the site to see. Fruit, veggies, nuts, fish, bread, I was in heaven. I even saw a former Regional USY staff members father who has a fruit stand in the Shuk. It was a great time.

After the Shuk we went and grabbed some pretty solid pizza by my standards. After eating pizza we headed back to base to daven Mincha with the Yeshiva and stayed for announcements. I then had a break for about an hour and a half which is when I stayed in the Yeshiva to work on some stuff and write yesterdays post. After my break I ran across the street to SuperSol to grab a bottle of water for the next class which, well lets just say is a little tortuous.

This class meets once a week on Tuesday for 3 and a half hours for all the Nativers studying at the Yeshiva. The class is called Modern Jewish Thought with Aryeh Tepper. It is a mixture class that covers Zionism, the History of Israel, and the inside scope to the Arab-Israeli Conflict. It is a great concept, however it is something that I have been studying for many years and tends to be repetitious because everyone is at such a different level.

Dinner with the rest of Nativ after a long day of learning at the Yeshiva and then we had a first of a weekly program with all of Nativ called Erev Nativ, Nativ Evening. Every Tuesday all 80 of us come together for various types of programming. We start all together and then depending on the week split up by group. I am in the Kehilla Group and the other group is the Kibbutz Group. Our program last night was improv games. It was pretty funny at times and not necessarily the most PG ratings.

After Erev Nativ a bunch of us went to Ben Yehudah for the IDF Concert. It was a pretty amazing thing to see so many people packed into such a small area with music and large military vehicles. We were there for a while and then I walked some people back and forth from Ben Yehudah to Base about 3 times and then came back to Ben Yehudah around 1am with some friends cause we were hungry. Got to love the late night of Israel compared to the non existent night life of Kansas City.

Anyways that was it for today. Tomorrow is the first day that we are learning Talmud at the Yeshiva so that is something to look forward to.

Until next time...