I'm a kibbutznick

My experience on Kibbutz Yavne. Where to begin, wow. I thought my friend and I were going to Netanya to stay by her grandmother but it turned out that her program wasn't off for the holiday. So I just stuck it out and joined her program as a guest for the weekend. I'm glad I made that decision. 

Rosh Hashana went well for me. I felt spiritually connected for many reasons (one of them being my machzor filled with notes). 

Dinner was served in a huge dining room with everyone on the kibbutz. Sitting at the dinner table made me feel a bit homesick. It was an Ashkenaz kibbutz so they're minhagim are different. They don't do the simanim that my family does back home. 

The days on the kibbutz were really relaxing. I got along with the kids on the program. Such chillers. And some of the kids were just hilarious. 

We did Tashlich in the zoo that the kibbutz has. It's called Noah's Ark lol. I walked up to the goat pen afterword to find ten year old boys milking them. Living on the kibbutz comes with responsibilities. Everyone has to help out from 5th grade and up. So these kids had to numb the goats udders and attach some tube to it which extracts the milk. It was so freaken weird to watch these little boys successfully do something like this. They were in charge. There was no one supervising them to make sure that they were doing it right. It's like their regular job. 

I got my own taste of this. I guess one of the madrichim on the program though that I was a typical JAP in seminary (which I'm not, right?!) so he put me on kitchen duty. Basically I was part of the group of people thy had to clean up the entire dining room and set it up for the next meal. This was the most organized ordeals I have ever participated in. These Israeli kibbutznicks have everything figured out down pat. Even a little eight year old girl was cleaning and she knew exactly what to do and what goes where. 

Saturday I got to eat with a family that lives on the kibbutz. So basically a family adopts a kid from my friends program for the year and they invite them over for meals. Home cooked food was amazing even though it wasn't even stuff I was used to. And that's saying a lottttttt. 

The whole lunch was in Hebrew so I was tuning in and out but I was impressed with myself for catching on as much as I did. We spoke about the army a lot since the oldest children were 18-21 and currently in the army. It's crazy how much more mature Israeli kids are than us spoiled Americans. They're faced with life or death situations and are given powerful positions at such young ages. They're in the real world and truth, I don't think we are. We have everything handed to us on a silver platter and they work their butts off for hours on base. So that was an eye opening experience. 

 Happy New Year, Shavuah Tov and have a meaningful Tzom Gedaliah tomorrow (Sunday)

Ruth and I. We've been friends for the past 4 years. She's from LA. How'd we meet? Oh we met on a cruise on winter vacation yeah no big deal. The world is so small 

Oh PS on the bus ride back to jeru I reunited with kids I remember from my 3rd grade class that moved to Florida. (Yaakov and Rena Stern- remember them mom???)

THE WORLD IS SO SMALL

kk לילה טוב