An Update
I'm sorry for not blogging recently - my 7 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. schedule at the yeshiva and the High Holidays has kept me pretty busy.
So, here's a full update, to the best of my knowledge...
Last week was the second week of classes at the yeshiva and I did attend just about everything. However, by the weekend rolled around, I discovered that I just couldn't maintain such an intensive schedule. Thus, I'm cutting back on some of the afternoon classes and will only take one afternoon class each week. This leaves me, nonetheless, with classes until 3:15 p.m. every day but one day I'll stay until 6:15. 7 to 3:15 is plenty of time to be in school four days a week. Certainly, college had much shorter hours and 7 to 3:15 is a longer day than high school.
Today was my first afternoon off so Jen, Eve, and I went to the Old City and it was Eve's first trip to the Old City in many years. It's an awesome experience to go to the Old City and so very much fun to take a friend who hasn't been there before. While there, I had to buy new items in anticipation of Yom Kippur (YK) this upcoming Sunday. White is the color of the day for YK so I splurged on a new tallit and kippah. I'm going to be so very fashionable!
Friday night began Rosh Hashanah (RH) - the two day Jewish new year's holiday. Friday morning started the holiday with a morning service at the yeshiva (Friday is not a yeshiva class day but one of the head rabbis suggested we meet for morning prayers since the morning before RH in quite important. We spent the day cooking because we hosted a larger dinner that Jen and I hosted (Jen promises a thorough description and photos very soon). The evening services which began RH were at 6:30 and then afterwards, we hosted our guests.
Saturday morning was the first day of RH services and they lasted from 8:30 until 2ish. Unfortunately, since it was Shabbat, there was no shofar blowing. We were entirely exhausted from dinner the night before so we fell asleep pretty quickly for most of the afternoon (although it's tradition not to take a nap on RH because it's the new year and thus symbolic of how one's year is going to go so you don't want a lazy year so you don't nap but I in fact would enjoy a lazy year so I'm glad I was asleep for much of the day.)
We woke up Saturday afternoon with barely enough time to get ready and run out the door for the evening services. I was pretty groggy after the nap so I don't really remember much of what happened but after services, we had a great dinner, hosted by several friends. THe dinner kept us up late again but it was so very much fun not to be cooking!
Sunday morning was an fantastic service that included the shofar blowing by an amazingly talented shofar blower. It's not easy to make sounds come from a ram's horn and to make every note perfect was incredible.
We went to Eve's after services on Sunday for a fantastic lunch with lots of great folks. After a nice warm Sunday lunch, we went to the botanical gardens for the ceremony known as Tashlich where one casts bread into a body of water in a symbolic gesture of casting one's sins away. It's great if the water body where you cast your bread contains fish and it must've been an especially good omen that fish gobbled my sins up! They loved eating my sins - they tasted good to the fish, ducks, and even a turtle!
Speaking of casting one's sins away, there's an "interesting" ceremony known as kaparot that involves swinging a chicken above one's head. After swinging said chicken, the chicken is slaughtered and given to the poor for food. I was invited to participate in this event yesterday but declined the invitation. Some nameless friends did participate and once they put their photos online, I'll have to link to them (update: here's a link to Eve's post and photo on the topic. I'm glad I missed it.
We were so excited the other day when we received a package pickup notice from the post office. They have the coolest automated package pickup system. It's a kiosk outside the post office and you simply place the bar coded slip under the scanner and within a few seconds, the package is delivered at a window. It's open 24 hours a day and very convenient. Unfortunately, the package was not for us. While it was our building number and our last name, the package was a large collection of disposable contacts. I'm going to have to go to the eye care center from where they were mailed and take them back. Fortunately, it's not far away.
YK is just a few days away and I'm just not ready but at least I have some afternoons off to prepare.
So, here's a full update, to the best of my knowledge...
Last week was the second week of classes at the yeshiva and I did attend just about everything. However, by the weekend rolled around, I discovered that I just couldn't maintain such an intensive schedule. Thus, I'm cutting back on some of the afternoon classes and will only take one afternoon class each week. This leaves me, nonetheless, with classes until 3:15 p.m. every day but one day I'll stay until 6:15. 7 to 3:15 is plenty of time to be in school four days a week. Certainly, college had much shorter hours and 7 to 3:15 is a longer day than high school.
Today was my first afternoon off so Jen, Eve, and I went to the Old City and it was Eve's first trip to the Old City in many years. It's an awesome experience to go to the Old City and so very much fun to take a friend who hasn't been there before. While there, I had to buy new items in anticipation of Yom Kippur (YK) this upcoming Sunday. White is the color of the day for YK so I splurged on a new tallit and kippah. I'm going to be so very fashionable!
Friday night began Rosh Hashanah (RH) - the two day Jewish new year's holiday. Friday morning started the holiday with a morning service at the yeshiva (Friday is not a yeshiva class day but one of the head rabbis suggested we meet for morning prayers since the morning before RH in quite important. We spent the day cooking because we hosted a larger dinner that Jen and I hosted (Jen promises a thorough description and photos very soon). The evening services which began RH were at 6:30 and then afterwards, we hosted our guests.
Saturday morning was the first day of RH services and they lasted from 8:30 until 2ish. Unfortunately, since it was Shabbat, there was no shofar blowing. We were entirely exhausted from dinner the night before so we fell asleep pretty quickly for most of the afternoon (although it's tradition not to take a nap on RH because it's the new year and thus symbolic of how one's year is going to go so you don't want a lazy year so you don't nap but I in fact would enjoy a lazy year so I'm glad I was asleep for much of the day.)
We woke up Saturday afternoon with barely enough time to get ready and run out the door for the evening services. I was pretty groggy after the nap so I don't really remember much of what happened but after services, we had a great dinner, hosted by several friends. THe dinner kept us up late again but it was so very much fun not to be cooking!
Sunday morning was an fantastic service that included the shofar blowing by an amazingly talented shofar blower. It's not easy to make sounds come from a ram's horn and to make every note perfect was incredible.
We went to Eve's after services on Sunday for a fantastic lunch with lots of great folks. After a nice warm Sunday lunch, we went to the botanical gardens for the ceremony known as Tashlich where one casts bread into a body of water in a symbolic gesture of casting one's sins away. It's great if the water body where you cast your bread contains fish and it must've been an especially good omen that fish gobbled my sins up! They loved eating my sins - they tasted good to the fish, ducks, and even a turtle!
Speaking of casting one's sins away, there's an "interesting" ceremony known as kaparot that involves swinging a chicken above one's head. After swinging said chicken, the chicken is slaughtered and given to the poor for food. I was invited to participate in this event yesterday but declined the invitation. Some nameless friends did participate and once they put their photos online, I'll have to link to them (update: here's a link to Eve's post and photo on the topic. I'm glad I missed it.
We were so excited the other day when we received a package pickup notice from the post office. They have the coolest automated package pickup system. It's a kiosk outside the post office and you simply place the bar coded slip under the scanner and within a few seconds, the package is delivered at a window. It's open 24 hours a day and very convenient. Unfortunately, the package was not for us. While it was our building number and our last name, the package was a large collection of disposable contacts. I'm going to have to go to the eye care center from where they were mailed and take them back. Fortunately, it's not far away.
YK is just a few days away and I'm just not ready but at least I have some afternoons off to prepare.
posted by Matt | 9:00 AM
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