Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! I can not believe how incredibly fast the time has been flying so far this year. It literally feels like yesterday that it was scrambling for the High Holidays and taking summer ulpan. Suddenly, I know how to lead a weekday morning service, have translated from the Torah, read Haftorah, traveled to Haifa and Tzfat (yes, again), and saw a Yiddish concert! Oy gevalt! Here is an update on what has been going.

School has definitely been keeping me busy. Besides my regular classes, cantorial students are given the opportunity to lead Shabbat services a few times throughout the year. My first time was last Shabbat. I led the morning blessings with the nusach that I've been learning in class (always great practice). Leading services now are getting more and more interesting for me because of all the Hebrew I'm learning. I'm understanding what the Hebrew is saying and it allows me to put so much more feeling into what I'm singing. I found that as I connect more to the words, in return I also get such a positive response from the congregation. It's so wonderful and fulfilling. I got to lead with a wonderful cantor, Michal Shiff-Matter, who is also my voice teacher and vocal coach. We sang a beautiful duet of Sim Shalom after the Amidah. And because I wasn't doing quite enough in the service (catch the sarcasim?) I also read the Haftorah. I left services thoroughly exhausted, but also thoroughly happy.

Mondays, I think I have mentioned, there are student led Shacharit services. Included in this service is a Torah service. I volunteered to read an aliyah. An interesting tradition that HUC has is that after chanting from the Torah, the reading also translates what they just read. At first I was honestly dreading this a bit and ended up pushing it to the side for awhile. But when I finally sat down to figure what exactly my portion said, I found that I loved translating! It helped my a lot with learning the trope actually and transfering from the vowel to the non-vowel side of the Tikun (where you practice reading Torah). The day I read, it all seemed incredibly seamless. It was a lot of fun.

Wednesdays are one of my favorite days of the week at school. We do not have our regular classes, but instead get to use Israel as our classroom. We go on different trips thoughout the country, hear interesting lecturers, and learn things that would just not have been nearly as meaningful if we only read a book. The most recent trip was a day trip to Haifa and Tzfat. In Haifa, we visited the Leo Beck school. They have the first Israeli Reform day school in the country! After getting a tour of their gorgeous building, we sat in on the elementary school's Shacharit service. It was grades kindergarten, first, and second. 5 children "led" the service alongside the rabbi. We later learned that they wrote everything the said ahead of time. All the children wore a kippah and had a children's siddur. Interestingly, they sang many songs that by American Jewish composers such as Debbie Friedman, Craig Taubman, and Jeff Klepper. They sang Debbie Friedman's Mi Shebeirach, but the English was translated into Hebrew. They were all incredibly cute. After the service we got to meeting with some High School (which is completely secular, no Reform aspects to it) students in the Enrichment program. They had incredibly interesting views particularly on Judaism. They all identified themselves as completely secular. One of the girls said, I'm secular, but one of my favorite things to study is school is Mishna(!). I'm beginning to learn more and more that the term secular in Israel is not the same as when people say "I'm secular" in the United States. In Israel (generally speaking) you're either secular or Orthodox. People who are not Orthodox do not want to be close to that category so they automatically box themselves into the secular category, even though they may keep kosher, or celebrate Shabbat. It was an incredibly interesting day. And as always, wonderful to see little kids again.

Another recent highlight was the ordination of rabbincal students from the Israeli program. Rabbi David Ellenson, the President of HUC, came to Israel for the ordination. It was so amazing to see an ordination and think that it will be me someday! The entire morning was really very beautiful. It was particularly beautiful when one student was ordainded with his mother (also a rabbi) at his side. It was very moving.

Thanksgiving! Yes, we celebrated. Our class decided to hold a huge dinner at school. In order to make sure that we didn't end up with 7 stuffing dishes and only 1 turkey, we made a sign up list for different dishes. I opted to try my hand at apple pie. It turned out absolutely gorgeous! (tasted pretty good too, although I have a few adjustments that I need to make). I was very proud of my pie (I have attached a picture of my picturesque pie -- the second picture is with Amy Goodman, my roommate. She is a rabbinical student at HUC). It was an incredibly fun evening with friends. I definitely missed being home though to see friends and family.

I am so thankful for each and every one of you. I miss you so much, especially now around Thanksgiving. I hope you are healthy and happy back at home, or school, or another country. I hope to talk to you soon! Enjoy Turkey and pumpkin pie!