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

Parashat Vayekhel

Ok so when you look at this Parasha, let's be honest- it appears to be boring. 

Let's look into this. 

So when building the משכן , בני ישראל is given like tons of details. We hear them twice; Hashem's instructions and human carrying it out. In both cases we also get the command of keeping Shabbat. Shabbat overrides building the משכן. The 39 מלכות that we can't do on Shabbat come from the activity done to build the משכן. 

The difference between Hashem's instructions and Moshe telling the people can be seen from פרשת כי תשא and this weeks. Last time- the commandment of Shabbat is at the end - after the detailed instructions. This week however we see Shabbat first. Why??

There's a מחלוקת in the Gemara . One guy says if someone is traveling in the wilderness and gets lost and he doesn't know when Shabbat is he has to count six days since he forgot and observe one. The other guy says: no, he has to keep one and then count 6 days. What's the difference? One holds that it's like the worlds creation and one is like the case of Adam.

This blows my mind- from Hashem's point of view Shabbat is the seventh day. From a human beings, it's the first day. So which perspective do we adopt? 

Ok so clearly Shabbat comes last when Hashem gives instructions and first when Moshe ( a human being) gives it. 

But listen- when it comes to Hashem there no gap between intention and execution. ברוך שאמר והיה העולם. ברוך. הוא ברוך אומר ועושה. Hashem knows how things will turn out In advance. Humans don't. A novelist doesn't know how a story will turn out until it's done, nor a composer a symphony or an artist with a painting. You can't plan human behavior. You can let things happen as they will ( don't do this) or you could reveal the end at the beginning. Shabbat isn't just a day of rest. It's anticipation of how the works will be when yes, Mashiach comes. We don't strive to do, we are content to be. We don't manipulate the world, we celebrate it as Hashem's work of art. 

The ultimate utopia is עולם הבא and we do a dress rehearsal of it every week, one day in seven. We try to act like a social that hasn't come Into being yet but we know what were aiming for because we've experienced it at the beginning. 

The symbolism of the משכן is a miniature universe. It's a prototype of a society. It's a home on Earth for Hashem. 

He wants us to know what were aiming for when we lose our way in the wilderness. That's why when it came to the actual building of the משכן by humans - Shabbat came first. For Hashem it came last. He made the end known at the beginning so could catch a glimpse of the destination before beginning. Only those who know where they are traveling will get there, however how fast or slow they go.

Shabbat shalom

Props to rabbi j sacks 

Rav Lerner

Sorry this is so late!

Last weekend I stayed in Beitar with some friends at my (charedi) Rabbis house. It was so great. Everyone in the area wears a streimel lol. We had no idea what was going on at shul. The Kalaver Rebbe was there. He's like this huge Chassidish rabbi that everyone's obsessed with. He actually came to school last week and we had classes cancelled so he could individually give us all blessings. So fun! Amen

So anyways the Lerner family is so chill. We stayed up with his wife Michelle until 12:30 after dinner. 

We bonded with the kids also. They're adorable.

I love going to teachers houses for Shabbat. Probably my favorite weekends were by teachers 

Neve Michael with the Bargads!

Amazing Shabbat. 

Our highschool teachers Mr. and Mrs. Bargad are on their sabbatical. They're here in Israel for the year so they decided to have all Flatbush graduates for Shabbat. They live in Pardes Chana, 2 hours away from Jerusalem. They were super organized and had a coach bus pick us all up from the Inbal. That bus was ligit a Flatbush seminar bus. 

Jamie Baum (hey, shoutout!) ((CLASSIC-ly)) organized tons of the details. It seriously wouldn't of happened without her

So Neve Michael serves 250 children ages 4-18 years old  from all over Israel who were brought to their doorstep at a tender age and under traumatic circumstances. Many have suffered mental/physical/sexual abuse . In many cases, these unfortunate children’s natural parents are afflicted with mental illness or drug and alcohol addictions.

We spent Shabbat with these Gorgous kids. I couldnt wrap my head around how they seemed like that led normal lives. The girls I looked after had come from really rough homes. I can't even imagine what life is like for them. Not even close. (ברוךה׳) 

Sitting in shul Friday night I looked around and just got so sad for these kids. Their emotional state seemed okay from where I was but a whole world of thoughts were flowing through each and every kids head. They all have a story.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was chilling with my grade. If you asked me to go to a grade gathering  6 months ago you would of had to pay me. I was sick and tired of obnoxious highschool kids. It's incredible what 5-6 months in a wholesome environment can do to a person.  The level of conversations that were going on was amazing. Looking around the room, I heard that everyone was discussing what they learned that week or having a debate over a philosophical issue. That's the way 18-19 year olds SHOULD be interacting. I was thrilled to see us actually becoming adults who use our brains for the first time in our lives. 

Another thing is like to acknowledge is the people who work at Neve Michael. The volunteers are mostly Bnot Sherut doing their national service. These girls are going straight to Olam Habah בעזרת-ה׳ I'm telling you they are some of the hardest workers and most patient people I have ever met in my life. You don't know what looking after crazy Israeli kids is like. Now....you don't know what RAISING them is like. These volunteers start from my age. They literally bring up these girls from the moment they get put into the home until they turn 17 and go to the army. It's really crazy. 

Neve Michael is really an organized institution and it caters to each kids needs. If it were a boarding school, I'd send my kids. It's comforting to see how these kids from various horrifying backgrounds are in really loving, committed and dedicated hands. 

By the way they didn't speak a word of English. Not even "yes" or "no". I got a lottttt of practice