Double Purim!

So in Israel there's Purim everywhere except for the Walled city of Jerusalem and then in Jerusalem we celebrate Shushan Purim. 

So Sunday we left Jerusalem in our costumes To go to the gush. We went "bar hopping" which basically going to different teachers houses and having salad bar, potato bar, and icecream bar. (I partook in 1 of 3- guess)

People were dancing in the streets to blasting music. It was wild. So amazing

My friend Adi and I dressed up and brothers. Moshe and Aharon. 

Sunday night back in Jerusalem was our real Purim. We somehow got into Yad Vashem to hear Megillah with Holocaust Survivors. We stamped out EVERY HAMAN AND AMALEK. It felt so right at Yad Vashem. It was also the first time ever that I heard the Megillah from beginning to end while actually knowing the story line in depth. 

After that we had a crazy Chagiga at school with BBQ and dancing and se activities. I LIVE for rikuddim. Rav Lerner showed up before the dancing all "happy" and stuff. Hahahah. 

Monday morning I woke up super early to pray Vatikin at the Kotel. Purim is a huge day for tefillah so I took advantage. We heard Megillah back at school and then had our Seudah and gave out Mishloach Manot. We did mystery Mordechai so everyone doesn't have to go crazy buying for everyone. 

Our matanot leevyonim were collected fr before and were distributed on Purim. 

The highlight of Purim was visiting the hospital. A few of us went to Shaare Zedek and sang and gave Mishloach Manot to kids and the elderly. The best part of it was seeing full families that came. Families spent their Purim giving out candy in the hospital. It was amazing to see the way parents raise their children. ברוךה׳ I'm blessed with amazing parents who take and encourage me to deliver matanot leevyonim on Purim back at home. 

After that my friend and I went to see town and mamilla. It was flooded with people in costume. You really feel Purim here. I was exhausted from everything and eventually passed out in bed. TOPPPPP PURIM 

We should have many more!!

Shabbat in Katamon

This week I stayed by my friend Daniella's cousins in Katamon. Really such a chill family. They're Sephardic (Gibraltarian/Israeli) so I felt pretty much at home.... They have some really cool minhagim. First off, after Kiddush on Friday night, before washing, they put out  בורא פרי העץ ואדמה foods. Since we lose berachot on Shabbat, they try to look for more. The food was amazing beyond. We sang a lot and stayed up late playing cards and stuff. Saturday was also cool , after shul (it was Parashat Zechor) we sat down for Kiddush at about 12 so have a breakfast type meal. Israel breakfast is like salad and tune type. Then we chilled and had lunch which was technically seudat shelishit at 3. This was the meat. We had hamin and it was amazing. We sang some more and then played settlers until havdala. I really enjoyed the chillness factor of this Shabbat, and of course the company. 

Saturday night we went to a restaurant in Machane Yehuda. There was a band playing so it was really fun. We all danced and had a good time on "erev Purim" . It was Purim outside of Jerusalem so people were in half costume haha

Memorable weekend!

Ps they throw challah too!

News Letter

There's a rotation when it comes to writing the Midreshet newsletter. My friend Naomi and I were up last week

It's a plane, It's a bird, It's Midreshet's Super-Hero's!

We had a really inspirational Mishmar last Thursday with Sally Mayer. She spoke about her experience of having of a very premature miracle baby. I think we speak for everyone when we say how much we appreciate the miracle of birth now and how a person's chessed, however small it may seem, can really have a huge effect on someone.

They say Mishe'nichnas Adar Marbim be'Simcha. To illustrate this, we have been celebrating Adar to the fullest.  Last Wednesday night we began at 11pm with the annual office prank turning the office into SuperHero-Ville. We finally finished at about 4 AM (as you can imagine everyone was wide-awake for class the next morning). Rav Eitan led the way as Superman (thanks to Esther for her amazing artistry!), Bracha-Super Woman, and the Berglas's-our Dynamic Duo. Of course we included Batman – Evyatar, Spiderman - Ruthie, Ironman – Lori and of course no one would survive with out their sidekick – Avichayil. We had a great time turning each personal space to the specific character that related to them. No surface was left uncovered! As well as a special poem for each of our super hero's we decided to send them on a treasure hunt as we stole 'prized' possessions from each of them.

We continued the Adar fun by having themed dress-up days.  Monday was Nerd Day and Tuesday was Tiechel Tuesday (or as Lori called it; "Dress up as Shelby day"). Everyone demonstrated how eager they were to get married and have babies which really freaked out our Rabbis, as one of them said: 'It's like looking into the future'. On Wednesday some girls dressed up at hippies which pretty much wrapped up the theme dress-up days.

Congratulations to the Midmo basketball team on winning their final game on Monday night!

Kiddush this week was sponsored by Sarah Chubak and Yardayna Zuller. This Kiddush was for the celebration of Sarah's birth! A bit late, no? 

Lastly we would like to thank Hashem so much for the beautiful rain we received all week so far. (The thunder and hail were perhaps unnecessary - we had already noticed the rain.) 

Have a great Shabbat!

Naomie Bouaziz and Millie Marcus, Shana Alef

 

 

Moshav Modiim

Easily one of my fave weekends. Basically I went to the 60s. It was hippie ville. Shlomo Karlebach started this settlement right outside of Jeru. It's a amazing place

The "house" we stayed in. It was me Frieda Benun and 3 girls from Brovs. (Hey guys!)

Friday night shul was Gorgous. The singing was crazy and we all danced during Kabbalat Shabbat. We sang our hearts out during dinner. The fam are classic hippie vegetarians but we got lucky and they made chicken. They didn't even have meat plates so we mostly used plastic. After dinner we went and chilled with the locals.

We were walking past a house Whoes front door was open and they invited us inside. They started giving us food and drinks and had us sing with them. It was so funny how they just told us to come in and sit at their table. They were an older family Whoes youngest kids are a few years older than us. 

 There were a bunch of guys just a few years older than us who are in the army or just done with it. Such a different life. 

We all hung out all night. Suchhhhh a good time. Great people

To make a long story short, we slept on the roof. Call me for further questions. 

It was crazy climbing up and down wowwww

Saturday we were SO TIRED. We had lunch after shul and bonded with the family we stayed by some more. Really really nice welcoming people. We all enjoyed their company. 

After a (power?) nap we watched the guys play soccer. Yum

We also spoke to some locals. COOLEST PEOPLE EVER IM OBSESSED WITH HIPPIES. They love talking about the 60s. So up my alley.

everyone is just uchh amazing.

Such a special community 

We went on a 20 minute hike through the woods for a bit of an adventure. We were gonna go swimming in a well

Here's a pic I got after Shabbat from my hosts Facebook haha

We climbed down this ladder into a pitch black pool and I basically held onto a tree trunk root for my dear life. WHAT. A. RUSH. I was literally shaking. So much funnnn. At least I'm not jumping out of planes. 

Havdala was TOP

The whole moshav got together and sang . It was a half hour ordeal. Contact me for videos. It was sick. I thought this only happens in movies. 

Everyone had amazing voices and people were playing instruments

Such achdut. Their culture really blew my mind. Unlike any community I've ever seen before

Our new friends invited us to chill afterwords so we did for a couple of hours. It was so nice out so we sat on the back porch while one guy played guitar and we all sang. Such a chill jam sesh. Felt like the summer

Call me for deeeeets. Sickkk weekend!!!!! So happy I get to have all of these experiences. 😄

Adar Bet 🎉

Last week was amazing. So much action. We started off color war by the Kotel at six in the morning for vatikin. We prayed with a crazy minyan from a Yeshiva. They sing and dance and get all into it

We danced with randoms here on the woman's side as well

Our school looked like a cult since we were all in our color war clothes haha

We went to a park for some relay races which was fun. We spent the day preparing songs, banners and dances for the showdown later. We had a dodgeball game, minute to win it, a Torah bowl and some other activities. Felt like camp ha

The teams were Erev and Boker. Boker (obvs yellow) won. Good game good game

Monday morning our teachers made us breakfast. Such a great idea. ונהפוך הוא

Rav Lerner flipping eggs like a pro

Hire him for your next bris

Tuesday night we Pulled a prank on the office. We decorated it as if it was superhero world. Each teacher was a different superhero. we photoshopped their heads onto bodies and posted he picture everywhereeeee. I actually stole an item from each teachers desk and made a whole scavenger hunt for them to go find it

Stole Rav Eitans beloved oatmeal and put it by the girls dorms

Made a bat mobile out of a shopping cart and garbage bags

Can you see the web we made? Ruthie is spider man (she comes on all of our hiking trips)

So kosh

Good times

Memorable week

Beit She'an

It's that time of year...

This weekend we had a Shabbaton in Beit She'an. Probably one of my favorite Shabbats so far. On Friday we had a picnic which was delishhhhh I had tuna salad while everyone had falafel sandwiches, classic. 

Pictures don't do anything in regards to capturing the lands beauty

So our madrichot set up a game for us called "assassin". Simple. Everyone is assigned another girl in secret. The goal is to get her alone within a ten foot radius of anyone else and just say bang bang your dead. So I spent the entire weekend latched onto my friends since I was paranoid I'd get out like I wouldn't go to the bathroom alone.

Shelby- our Em Bayit

The weekends theme was 7 Habits of Highly Effective Jews (based off the teens book which my momma bought me- 'twas good) So all of our sessions were about the book but tied into Pirkeit Svot and stuff. I really liked it

Friday night I gave a Devar Torah at dinner. I never typed it up sorry guys 

After dinner we had a Tish and basically stayed around that table for hours. We started off singing, which progressed to dancing, and then we ended up playing these hilarious Games the girls all know from camp, Ligit hours of fun. I felt us all bond that night.

Anyways Saturday was chilled. Couldn't really read or anything cuz I didn't want to be alone since I would of gotten out haha

After Havdalah was some dramaaaaa

One of our madrichot was holding a tshirts that looked like it was hiding something wrapped inside. She started off my saying as amazing as this weekend was, one room ruined it for all of us. She found alcohol in a room and was asking us to own up to it. Everyone's hearts dropped and we were in shock....no one said a word. I swear it was so scary

That's it. They lost all trust in us. Early curfew for now because no one would say it was them

Then

(Obviously)

She unwraps the shirt, and it says COLOR WAR on it

Classic

So yeah. It was all fake if you didn't get it...

I'm on the blue team- GO BLUES

Shabbat by the Knapels

Last weekend I went to Rav Jason's house in Beit Shemesh with some friends. Probs one of my favorite teachers/I take 4 of his classes

Rav Jason and his wife, Dara used to live in Deal which is funny. He was a teacher at Hillel Yeshiva for a bunch of years. It's nice to have teachers that understand me, knowing the community I come from. One less person that doesn't think I'm crazy. Woohoo.  He even threw my challah at me (ashkis like properly put it on a plate all nicely cut up and pass it lol)

(I'm a sketch Ashkie) 

We had lots of stimulating convos at the table. The Knapels are both teachers so yeah. 

My friends and I walked around the neighborhood for a while on Saturday after lunch. It was 84 degrees out how could we not ?? We mostly talked about food cuz like that's what seminary girls do, no?

The kids were so cute and well behaved. Not that I didn't expect it but it's nice to see. 

All in all great Shabbat, was looking forward for this one for a while

Peace