Another Week in Yerucham, Purim, and Leadership!!!

I am starting to get back into the swing of blogging again and I am going to be doing it much more often then I did during the first semester, or at least I hope to. This past week has been full of amazing times. Sunday through Thursday were normal days of school teaching English and two MADA shifts from 3pm to 11pm. I was an hour and a half short of going to a huge car explosion out side of Yerucham on Monday afternoon. Five people were killed after their car exploded due to a semi truck swerving because of distraction. It was a horrible site to see on the news, but it is life and things like this happen. I got maybe 4 or 5 calls between both shifts and my Hebrew is getting much better because of the amount of time I am working for MADA. I am looking forward to more shifts in the upcoming weeks and months.

On Thursday after I finished school, I headed home quickly to pack up my stuff and help clean the apartment. We were all heading back near Jerusalem and eventually to Jerusalem for Leadership Week. After loading the bus on Thursday afternoon we drove to the Tel Aviv area for a MASA(organization through which Nativ is an affiliate) cultural arts program featuring a drumming company. It was a great start to an evening despite the rain and the bus driver getting lost. I felt like I was back at home having to ride in the front of the bus and give directions to the bus driver. After the drumming performance we met up with a bunch of the different year programs in Israel for a concert featuring Subliminal, a popular Israeli Rapper. It was a good concert, but it was fairly short. After an hourish bus ride to Ma'aleh Hachamisha, a resort and spa right outside of Jerusalem. We got settled into our rooms and we all crashed pretty quickly because it was a long day and we had an early morning ahead of us.

Friday morning we all went to the Land of Israel Museum in Tel Aviv as well as the Palmach Museum also in Tel Aviv. I had never been to either of the museums before, but I really enjoyed both of them especially the Palmach museum because it is a completely interactive and virtual museum that takes you through the pre establishment of the State of Israel and a underground military force. After the museums we headed back to our resort to get ready for Shabbat. We all davened together on Friday night and then had an incredible dinner at the hotel and then we broke up into different sessions. Jules was into and I got to go to his session on Amalek which tied into the Parasha for the weekend dealing with Amalek and remembering and whipping them out of our memory. After the session we had a Nativ tisch with singing and food and then sleepy time. Shababt morning and the day were pretty relaxing with services, lunch, a session with Yossi about American Jewry and then sleepy time. We also had a light snack before the festivities began.

Saturday night began Purim and we all dressed up. I didn't really put a lot into the costume because I don't normally dress up. I wore these Aladin looking pants and socks with monkeys on them. Nothing to special. We all read the Megillah together which was very nice and then we had a nice dinner followed by a dance and karaoke party to end the night. Purim morning, Sunday morning, we prayed and read the Megillah again and then had a pretty relaxing morning. We went to Bat Yam, about 15ish minutes from Tel Aviv near the water, for our Purim Seudah. It was a nice meal and a good ending note to a great Purim.

Monday we went to Casaria for the day to do leadership and team building activities. We did some fun activities to start and then we went to do low ropes activities. We did an activity where you had to get people over a 20 foot wall and I was spotting someone and they accidentally kicked me in the mouth so I now have war wounds and they look pretty good if I may say so myself. After a good day in Casaria we headed back to our old home of Beit Nativ. We ate dinner there and then headed out for the light show presentation at the Tower of David. It was an absolutely incredible show. It takes the scenes from creation all the way through today and projects them on the walls of the area. It was a first time for most of us and an incredible time it was.

Tuesday and Wednesday are Leadership seminars. We have different programs led by our staff and a few outside guests. They were all pretty solid, but I won't lie, none of them had anything to do with leadership(shhh). Anyways, The weekend is quickly approaching. I am staying in Jerusalem for Shabbat with Jules before he heads back to the states on Sunday morning. We are going to go to shul at Kol Rina(the bomb shelter shul) Friday night and eat at Prima Royal Hotel and then Shabbat morning go to Shira Hadasha and then to David Keren and his family for lunch. It should be a good Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom in advance and please keep your prayers coming for Sarah bat Basha

David

Now some MADA Pictures