The schedule today was totally clear: A Tuesday morning schedule, followed by a Wednesday afternoon schedule and a Thursday evening schedule. Of course ( Read more... )

So. Tisha B'Av. The saddest day on the Jewish calendar, and a full-day fast. We're commemorating the destruction of the two Temples, and lots of other sad stuff. Sad sad sad. Everyone's very sad. You're not supposed to greet friends. Just be sad ( Read more... )

Reentry from Havurah Institute land. And what a reentry! For the first time in my 10 Institutes, I went back the next day to my (albeit temporary) life of Jewish learning in community. So it wasn't as big of an adjustment as some years. It was made better by how happy many folks were to see me! It was nice to be back ( Read more... )

...I have no idea. I'm taking a week off of yeshiva to attend the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute 2011. A different kind of all-day Jewish learning community! I'll be back in New York next week for the last week of yeshiva, but I won't be blogging this week. (Or at least not every day and not about Yeshivat Hadar ( Read more... )

Not much to say tonight, since I've been behind on sleep all week, and I still have to pack up tonight to spend the weekend in Philly ( Read more... )

So leading services is a kind of daunting thing to do. It's essentially a performance. You stand up there, in front of or in the midst of everyone, and sing, chant, and perform the choreography of the service you're leading. Everyone else is following and paying attention to you. The only mitigating factor is that the point isn't to perform. ( Read more... )

Most anyone who has met a Jew knows that Yom Kippur is a Jewish fast day. Less known is that there are 5 other fast days: Tisha b'Av, and 4 "minor" fast days. On Yom Kippur and Tisha b'av, one who is fasting refrains from all food and drink for 25 hours, from sunset one day to nightfall the next. On the minor fast days, you only refrain from ( Read more... )

A few weeks before yeshiva started this summer, I had a diagnostic/placement test over the phone with one of the faculty members. I was emailed a scanned page from the talmud, and I spent about 15 minutes reading from it and translating (with help, where needed). Even though the part I read was just Hebrew, with no Aramaic, I struggled a lot. ( Read more... )

...the day I hit the wall ( Read more... )

So this is the 4th week of my 8 weeks learning at Yeshivat Hadar this summer. But I'm missing a week later in the summer. So sometime this week is the midpoint. Setting the math to find the exact midpoint aside, I have more time to write on Wednesdays than the rest of the week, so let's call that midpoint RIGHT NOW ( Read more... )