M'karerrrrrrrrrrr

M'karer is Hebrew for refrigerator. Freshman year I sat in my dorm with Helaina (Matt, too maybe?) memorizing vocabulary words. We decided to come up with different mnemonic devices to help us with memorization. We got to m'karer. Here was my idea: At night when the house is quiet all you here is the buzzing of the refrigerator going rrrrrrrrrrrrr. That's how you remember refrigerator. M'karerrrrrrrrrrrrr. Of course, the story is much better when I tell it in person, but you get the idea. Never did I think that m'karer would come in helpful in my daily life. I was proven wrong. My m'karer appears to be dying. Despite the fact that we have it set for a cold temperature, the m'karer is warm. This is the second time it has done this. Luckily we were able to save the food and put it in a neighbor's m'karer. I shake my fist at you m'karer! The landlord is fixing it tomorrow.

Today was a tremendously busy day. It was one of the first days in Ulpan that I did not feel on top of the material we covered. We studied different prepositions and when to use them with certain verbs. It's a concept that I've never been very good at in the past. It was a fairly frustrating so a classmate and I decided to meet later in the day to review it. Good. Immediately after class I went to a meeting and then choir. Choir was lots of fun as always with Jay. I still find it amazing how caring he is about our vocal health and at his apparent abundance of patience. This is how a music director should be! The music is also fantastic. We sang a setting of Ashreinu by Bonia Shur. It's a relatively simple tune, but very beautiful for a choir. After choir I review Hebrew (definitely a good thing) and then worked on music theory for awhile. It was a very long day, but I happily went home and had sushi for dinner with Amy. Yum!

Tomorrow is the Beit Cafe! Beit Cafe (translated to coffee house) is sort of like a cabaret. We'll be having food, a talent show, and an auction with all of the proceeds going towards the Israeli Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ). They are in a lot of debt and so our class is very excited to help our future colleagues in Israel. I'm one of the three organizers of the evening. It's shaping up to be a fantastic night! It's been a lot of work, but I'm incredibly excited. I think it will be well worth all the extra meetings, emails, and phone calls.

Shabbat this past weekend was wonderful (as always). I went to the southern side of the Kotel on Friday night to pray with Rabbi Medwin's congregation (our intern Dan Medwin's mom). The southern side of the Kotel is where people would go to enter into the Temple. As Rabbi Medwin said, "they can have their mishigas [craziness] with the Western Wall. This is just as holy a spot, if not more! This is where the kohanim entered to go to the Temple." Sitting on the steps overlooking Jerusalem was spectacular. The service consisted of mostly English readings that Rabbi Medwin had compiled from different sidduring, writers, and liturgy: Mishkan T'fillah, Gates of Prayer, Psalms, the Talmud, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Yehuda Amichai, and more.
It was a spectacular compilation that I will keep for further use.

In the middle of the service, I noticed a congregant who appeared to be on the older side. I caught her eye at one point during the service and we smiled. I decided to introduce myself after the service. I went up to her and told her what a beautiful smile she has and we became immediate and fast friends. We spoke for maybe 5 minutes before we had to go our separate ways. Those 5 minutes were probably the holiest I felt that entire Shabbat. I still find it so spectacular to meet and connect with the elderly -- being in maybe a hundred feet away from the Kotel only heightened the experience for me. What a wonderful gift to have met Rachel that Shabbat.