Family's Here!

My family is here. I'm estadic. We're doing the tourist thing and I'm speaking a ton of Hebrew to distinguish myself from the hordes of birthrighters and tourists who have filled the city.

Today: Israel Museum, Windows at Hadassah Hospital and dinner at a yummy meat restaurant.
Tomorrow: Tel Aviv.

Love to all...Happy Chanukah!

Who Needs Sleep?

When you don't go to bed until 4am, being away at 1pm is a miracle.

Get it, miracle...Chanukah? Sorry, the bad rabbi humor sneaks out sometimes.

Dave got here at 1am and we were back in J'lem at 3:30am. I was up at 8:30 and took my Rabbinic Literature final at 9:40 and my Biblical Grammar final at 10:30.

Now it's 1pm and I'm awake and very happy. Half my finals are done AND my brother is here!

We're off to explore the Promised Land in the rain (we pray for it, remember?), meet some of my friends here and eventually end up at Burgers Bar for dinner. Then hopefully I'm going to get a job for next year. It's going to be a busy day yet.

Chanukah starts tonight and I'm so excited that tomorrow night my whole family will be here to light candles together. Now thats really a miracle. Love to everyone everwhere...

LAST DAY OF CLASSES

Yes folks, its true. Today was my last day of classes as a first-semester Rabbinical student. I celebrated by having a couple drinks with some friends and getting my hair cut. I went to Dave's Salon in Baka and had my hair cut by Dave himself, a native born Bostonian who after 21 years still has the accent. He did a great job, second only to Margaret, my favorite stylist in the states.
I'm very happy with the results and will go back there if I decide to cut my hair before leaving Israel.

Tonight I'll be celebrating my friend David Segal's 25th birthday and hopefully getting a very good night's sleep.

Tomorrow will be a hard core study day of biblical grammar and bible before hosting Shabbat dinner for the L Word crowd.

Sunday morning (1:15am!) Dave comes and I'll also be taking my Rabbinic Literature and Grammar exams. Hopefully I'll also be having an interview for a teaching job in New York.

So in my last post I introduced everyone to Rena's new puppy- his name is Asher Garbayim (socks in Hebrew- because his paws are white like he's wearing socks!). He's 8 weeks old and amazingly cute and cudly. Yesterday while playing on my bed hge decided to adopt my dog stuffed animal- here's the two of them sleeping together. Adorable!




It's been a long semester- but it's not over quite yet...here's to the final FINAL push. Love to everyone reading...happy winter break!

I'm so glad I'm not in

NEW YORK CITY.

Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to move there next year.

But I'm not so sad not to be walking to school in 20 degree temperatures or having to rescheduled my finals if I couldn't get into the city.

My friend David Singer, is living this right now.

Or read this to get the scoop on what it's like to be in NYC right now.

But for now, I'm happy to be in the Promised Land even with the rain and chilly temps at night.

Tomorrow is the last day of the semester- afterwards I'm getting my haircut for the first time since moving here and celebrating my friend David Segal's 25th birthday.

Shabbat will be busy with work and the Bar Mitzvah of my Jean's son. Then I'm off to the airport to get David! Monday the parents come! Tuesday I finish finals! 10%!

But for now, I must go back to conjugating lamed hey pual verbs and trying to figure out what the world is a tashlum dagesh. wowie.

Love to all, everywhere. If you are of a faith that has an important (or commercially enhanced) holiday, hope it's a good one for you.

Back to work now...love to everyone reading!

More pictures of the yet-unnamed puppy

Karen and puppy Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupy!

How Cute Am I?

Yesterday, while walking to a birthday party, we ran into a family of dogs- a mom and seven puppies- Today Rena adopted one of the puppies. He may be the runt, but I think he was the cutest of the litter. I'll post more details soon. For now, enjoy a picture of Puppy Fraade. (Sorry, blogger was being slow- I'll post more pics tomorrow)


Quick run of the numbers before bed:
144 hours til my brother gets here
5 exams left to take
1035 sheckels we've raised for Ride 4 Reform
2 Shabbat services I'm leading for birthright
5 1/2 months since I've cut my hair
54 days til my 24th birthday
35 minutes I've spent working on this post

Love to everyone, everywhere, especially if you read my blog. Yes you Robert!

New York

Last night we met with Rabbi Shirley Idelson, the Assistant Dean of the HUC NY Campus.

As part of the discussion we all had to say what we were looking forward to the most when we returned to New York.

I said Coffee. People laughed. I meant it seriously.

This morning I woke up at 6:15 to finish my homework, hoping to indulge my coffee desire. However, someone had finished the milk.

Now it's 6:44 and I'm making the final edits on my history paper with a cup of tea.

What I would do for a a vente cup of a house blend right now...

In other news, Vincent, our resident photographer and Miriam's other half, has completed our class website. Check it out! http://www.yii5766.com/

Back to the grind...love to all...

Spreading the good word

If you ask any twenty-something about the best place to look for an apartment, buy or sell something locally, or just laugh at the randomness of the world, they would probably say Craigslist.

Well, I bet you didn't know that Craigslist founder, Craig Newmark is Jewish! He talks all about it and lots of other stuff in an interview he did with SomethingJewish.co.uk.

http://www.somethingjewish.co.uk/articles/1665_craig_newmark_interv.htm

In other good news, it's 6:12pm and I've already had 6 hours of class, a voice lesson, dinner and am about to start my work. yay me. Hopefully by the time I talk to my mom tonight, my paper will be well on its way.

Lots of work for Karen + Need to procrastinate = Lots of blog entries. Enjoy! Love to all...

Yom Shabbat...yom avodah?

I almost never do homework on Shabbat. It's a rule of mine.

However, I had the realization yesterday that if I didn't do something today, I would be paying for it all week. So I did all of my Bible work and wrote about 2 pages of my history paper thats due on Tuesday. I even had time for my favorite part of Shabbat, the Shabbas nap.

I didn't really like doing work today and it certainly didn't make Shabbat as restful and enjoyable as I usually like it to be. But I'm in a much better place with my work than i was yesterday, therefore ensuring a much happier and better week.

Motzei Shabbat, Rena and I went out to Burgers Bar, one of my favorite places here and I had a grilled chicken salad that will go down in history as, well, a fabulous dinner.

These next couple weeks are going to be tough academically-
Dec 12. History Paper
Dec 18. Chazal Paper
Dec 25- (Dave gets here!)
Dec 26- Bible Exam (Mom and Dad get here!)
Dec 27- Liturgy Exam
Dec 28- Biblical Grammar Exam
Dec 29 Israel Seminar Paper

Just keep swimming...happy weekends to all! Love to everyone reading!

Promises Kept

As promised, pictures from last week's tiyul (trip) to Haifa and the north. Enjoy!

share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AaNWTlq2bOXVA

It's almost Shabbat here so I'm off to services at school, dinner at Edie's apartment and a good nights sleep before, hopefully, a very productive and restful Shabbat so I can survive the upcoming week.

16 days til my brother gets here! 17 til my parents get here! 19 til I'm done with my first semester of Rabbinical school (10%)!!

Love to all reading...Have a wonderful weekend! For all those with snow days (or just snow in general), I'm jealous- enjoy it for me too!

Where are you guys from?

Last night I saw Matisyahu, a Chasidic reggae performer at The Lab- a very cool bar/venue here in Jerusalem. Although I had seen him last year at Hillel Staff Conference, I was really excited to see him again, in a different place.

Ever since I bought his amazing live album, "Live at Stubbs" last year, I have been a huge fan. And that's hard to say as a woman studying to be a Reform Rabbi. Matisyahu, formerly Matthew Miller, of Philadelphia, belonged to a Reform synagogue before becoming involved with Chabad and the Lubavitch movement. Someone joked that this is what happens to Reform Jews who aren't kept engaged within the movement- they become Matisyahu.

The people at the show represented his amazingly huge fan base. There were religious couples, sitting in the back, older secular Israelis, at least a couple of Lubavitch Rabbis, tons and tons and tons of kippah and tzit-tzit wearing hippie yeshiva boys and us, the future Reform clergy of America. I couldn't help but think of the sociology of it all- here we were, all of us, seeing a fabulously talented Chasidic Jew rapping, in a club in Jerusalem. One of our professors, Rabbi Doctor Michael Chernick and his wife were also there, making me even more excited to have him as a teacher next year in New York.

Matisyahu puts most American hip-hop artists to shame. He writes his own stuff and his beatboxing (can I use that as a verb?) is fabulous. His lyrics certainly reflect his current values: rebuilding the Temple and bringing the Mosiach (Messiah). But if you strip away the super-religious lyrics, I think his stuff has a pretty good message- and his show was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had since being here. That's intense.

He hardly spoke during the show except to ask people to be careful crowd-surfing and to ask us where we were from.
Matisyahu: "Are you guys from American or Israel"
The crowd: "Ammmmerrrrriiicaaaaaaa"
Matisyahu: "We're all from Israel- this is where we're all from"

And that's something we both can agree on. Rock on Matisyahu.

A pitty post

I know I know I know.

I'm terriable at this.

But you should know that I have negative time here, and yet, lots to tell you. And it's almost midnight here and I have a Hebrew mivchan tomorrow.

However, the weekend is soon a'comin and so I'll have lots of time to update including pictures from our Haifa tiyul, pictures from tomorrow night's Matisyahu concert and a long update about giving my first d'var Torah as a Rabbinical Student!

But before I go:

If you're interested in reading my d'var Torah, email me, or leave a comment.

If you're interested in contributing to the Ride4Reform (or just getting more info) I'm starting to collect names and addresses. Let me know if you want me to add you to my list.

And be sure to check back before the end of the week for lots more from the Promised Land.

Love to all still reading...I'm impressed...

Home from Haifa

I'm back. It was a pretty good couple of days, nice to get out of Jerusalem (even nicer to come home) and I can't wait for the weekend...I mean, going back to school tomorrow. This week begins the three weeks before my family gets here so it's going to be all work and no play makes Karen a successful and dull girl.

Here's the schedule:
Dec 5- d'var Torah
Dec 12- History paper due
Dec 18- Rabbinic Literature paper due
Dec 26- Bible Exam
Dec 27- Liturgy Exam
Dec 28- Biblical Grammar Exam
Dec 29- Israel seminar paper due
Dec 31- Chanting Torah at services

Hope I make it...feel free to leave encouragement...love to all reading...