Thursday Night, Already?!

I can't believe a whole week has already gone by! It was the first week of the second summer session so there we lots of people to meet and talk to and we had to go to all our classes to see which ones were the best and which ones were not the best.

In addition to Hebrew class, I'm taking an ongoing class about the development of Halakha (Jewish law), and a class on liturgy, a class about women in the Bible. In a special lunch session, I was able to meet Avielah Barclay, a female Torah scribe; it was a thrill to hear her speak and meet her since I've been a big fan of her blog for a long time.

Wednesday was an important day in the Jewish religious calendar. It was the first day (Rosh Chodesh) of the Jewish month of Av. The period between 1 Av and 9 Av is traditionally a mourning period so since I didn't get a chance to get my hair cut before Wednesday, it's going to have to keep growing until next week.

The 9th of Av (a.k.a. in Hebrew, Tisha b'Av) is the saddest day of the Jewish calendar. On 9 Av in the year 586 BCE, the First Temple was destroyed and in 70 CE, the Second Temple was destroyed. Tisha b'Av is a day of mourning and a 25-hour fast day.

We're moving next Tuesday to our "permanent" place of residence - we're very excited about that.