As my days in Israel come near the end, so many fun things are still going on every single day.
If you don't read any of this, at least watch the video towards the end.
Wednesday night
My roommate, Hadassa's birthday was slowly approaching and since she always goes all out on everyone else's birthday, we decided to do as much as we could with as little money as possible for her birthday. At about 10:00 I walked into the kitchen where the preparations had already started happening. I got there just in time to save the cookies. We decided to make the cookies that they usually make on Tuesdays for Hadassa's birthday but nobody who was helping in the preparations really knew what they were doing so they kinda just made it up until I came along and showed them how to do it. They came out a little bit differently than usual, but they were still super yummy. We also made fruit salad, guacamole, cholent, and cheese cakes for birthday cakes. At one point Hadassa actually came into the kitchen and saw everything that was meant to be a surprise. We just told her that it was for something going on the next night. We cleaned up at around 1:00 and I finally dragged myself up to bed.
Thursday Night
The next day was fairly normal.
At night, after classes, we all went up to the roof of Sarah and Eve's apartment. We put out the fruit salad, the cholent, and guacamole and chips. At midnight, we all gathered around and we brought out cheesecake and balloons and sang happy. In honor of her own birthday, Hadassa prepared a really nice lesson for us about Megillat Ruth that we were about to read on the upcoming holiday Shavuot.
Friday
I woke up at around 8:00 as usual and did a few errands around the Rova that I needed to get done. At 11:00, I went to Sarah and Eve's apartment to pick up stuff for the picnic. We packed some blankets and a tablecloth and the rest of the food that we didn't eat from the night before. We went to Salati to get salads for lunch and then we went to Independence Park. We set everything up and then waited for Hadassa to get there. Reva took her to get a fish manicure where cleaner fish eat the dead skin off your feet leaving them nice and smooth, and then they walked over to the park. When she got to the park we all began singing Happy Birthday. Then we just sat out in the park eating and talking and having a good time. Eventually, we decided that it was time to go. When we got back to the dorms, I took a nap because of all the late nights that I've been having and the late night to come. I woke up a couple of hours later and by then, it was time to get ready for Shabbat.
Shabbat was just a normal in-shabbat with all of my Harova friends.
Saturday Night
The next part of the adventure started once Shabbat was over and the holiday of Shavuot started. Shavuot is the holiday of the receiving of the Torah.
After we prayed, we learned the laws about staying up all night which I was planning to do. It is customary to stay up all night learning on Shavuot because there is a story that tells us that we have to "fix" the fact that the Jews overslept on the day that they were supposed to receive the Torah which is why it's called "Tikun Leil Shavuot." For dinner, we had an amazing dairy meal with chocolate milk and pasta and an interesting new invention of tuna balls which dipped in cream cheese tasted very good. Then we went to the school building to learn all night which surprisingly wasn't that hard since we didn't finish dinner until about 11:00 at night.
Sunday
4:30 we went to the nearby Yeshivah where we heard Megillat Ruth. Afterwards was one of the longest prayers I've ever been to in Israel, almost as long as Rosh Hashana. It was about three hours or until 7:30 until we finished, and remember that we had all just stayed up all night. Right afterwards, I went to my room and I was in bed by 8:00. I slept until 1:00 in the afternoon when I woke up for lunch. It was a normal lunch but afterwards we started singing. One of the windows to our lunchroom was open and it was on the street level. People began looking in and they were listening to us singing and I think that we made some people really happy. I went back to sleep for another couple of hours and then the rest of the night we had some nice Harova activities.
Monday
This day was the second day of holiday for some, half a holiday for others, and for some people it wasn't a holiday at all. This happens because there is an argument about whether people living outside of Israel that are in Israel for the holiday, should they keep one or two days of the holiday? So it was really interesting to see different people relating to the day in different ways. For the entire morning we had seminars about going back home and going to college. In the afternoon, we had our Drama and Tanakh Presentations. For over half a year 7 of us have been working on monologues of characters in Tanakh. We first picked a character, then we did a ton of research. Next we had to start writing our monologues and once we were done with that, we then memorized and rehearsed them until they were amazing. We each had very different characters with very different styles. Tali was Chava, Abigail was Noach, Shana was Sarah, Kayla was Hagar, I was Dinah, Daniella was Delilah, and Leah was Devorah. Raquel video taped mine, but the beginning got cut off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHXDEzbh7A You have to watch this! If you have any questions, please let me know because it is a very heavy topic with lots of research put into it and there may be things that you didn't quite get. We were all amazing and I'm very proud of everyone in the class.
Tuesday Night
Sarah and Sara have a night in the Beis...
What a crazy amazing week! I'm exhausted! Don't forget to watch the video! Shalom V'lehitraot!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Yom Yerushalayim!
Part 1: Shabbat in Chevron
My crazy weekend started out with a nice quiet bike ride on Friday morning. Well it wasn't so quiet because Jerusalem was packed with people and it wasn't really that nice because I didn't realize that I was absolutely exhausted. Anyway, when I got back I had to pack for Shabbat. We left for Chevron at about 4:00. This was going to be my second time in Chevron for Shabbat but this time it was going to have a very different atmosphere. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/11/shabbat-in-chevron.html
We stayed again in Kiryat Arba in caravans that are part of a girl's high school. There was six of us staying in our little caravan but there were two bunk beds and one single. I opted to take a mattress and sleep on the floor of the other room, that way I wouldn't have to deal with any snoring people. We started off Shabbat by going down to Me'arat Ha'machpela with six guards where there was a beautiful davening. At about 10:00, we walked back and ate dinner and then went to sleep. Before we went to sleep we sang Happy Birthday to Esther and Dominique. The next morning we went through the usual routine of davening and eating lunch. I didn't take a nap this week, although maybe I should have, and instead I just hung out with people. At 3:00 we went down to Chevron for a tour. We visited the three Jewish neighborhoods which have about 90 families in them. We also visited Hadassa Hospital and the Abraham shul. We ended the night with a quick dinner, where there wasn't even enough food, we packed our stuff and left to get back to Jerusalem.
Part 2: Yom Yerushalayim
I hope you don't mind if I give a bit of a history lesson now. The crazy stories that come after it are worth it.
In 1976, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all attacked Israel. In the span of six days, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed the Egyptian air force, beat the Syrians and Jordanians, and they conquered a large amount of land. They conquered the Sinai Peninsula, which was given back to the Egyptians in an attempt to make peace, the Gaza Strip which was also given back, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank which included the Old City of Jerusalem, Chevron, and Gush Etziyon.
After we came back from an amazing Shabbat in Chevron, we all met up at 11:00 dressed in blue and white with Israeli flags tied on to us like capes. We were going to go around the old city walls. Led by Rav Shames and Rav Yonatan, all of the Harova girls were walking and dancing, skipping and running, and singing through the streets of Jerusalem. We made a few stops to talk about the history of Jerusalem beginning with our forefathers Abraham and Isaac who walked in exactly the same spot that we were standing in. We walked out of Zion gate, past Dung gate, and the Lion's gate. The second half of our late night walk involved going up to Mount Olives. We were escorted up by police as we hiked up the steep incline. We stopped at one particular spot where you could see directly below all of the graves of great people and if you looked out you could see the Old City and right in the middle, Temple Mount. It was an amazing sight to see as we sat there in the middle of the night singing our hearts out. This was one of my favorite nights of the year. We took a bus back at about 3:00 in the morning and a bunch of us decided to go to the kotel. We sat in circle right outside of the kotel area and began to sing again. (If you couldn't figure it out, Harova girls like singing... a lot!) I hung out till about 5:30 when we went to pray at the kotel. At this point it was still pretty empty but we knew that it would be full later in the day.
I slept from 6:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon. I woke up, ate lunch, and then chilled out until the next part of the day began. At 3:30, all of us in blue and white with out flags wrapped around us went to once again walk the streets of Jerusalem, but this time we were meeting up thousands of other Jews who were doing the same thing. As we walked through Mamilla mall, we began to sing and dance and the people around us stopped to watch and take pictures. We walked to the place where everyone was meeting up on King George Street. It was amazing to see how many thousands of people were there. It was also amazing that they had two separate streets for boys and girls. For about an hour we stayed on the same street where there was like a concert and everybody was singing and dancing and proudly waving their Israeli flags. Then, we began to move towards the Old City. There was one point where all the Harova girls just sat down in the middle of the street and began to sing. When we went through Jaffa Gate, the roads were extremely congested with people, so much so that you couldn't move because there were people pressed onto all sides of you. Eventually, I got out of the crowd and was able to make my way to my dorm. It was already about 8:30 and I ate a quick dinner and then a few of us decided to go down to the kotel. Chani, Sarah, Shira, Belle, and I all held hands as we went down to the kotel to make sure that we wouldn't lose each other in the crazy crowds. Once we got down to the kotel and the music began playing, everybody was dancing like crazy.
At around 10:00, I was tired of dancing so I went back. I was really excited because I saw Noga and a few of my other friends so we hung out for a while and then I decided that it was time to go home, write my blog, and go to sleep. So here's the blog post and now I'm going to sleep. It's been an amazing, yet exhausting day and I'm not sure how well I'll function tomorrow but I'm sure I'll get through it somehow. Shalom V'lehitraot!
My crazy weekend started out with a nice quiet bike ride on Friday morning. Well it wasn't so quiet because Jerusalem was packed with people and it wasn't really that nice because I didn't realize that I was absolutely exhausted. Anyway, when I got back I had to pack for Shabbat. We left for Chevron at about 4:00. This was going to be my second time in Chevron for Shabbat but this time it was going to have a very different atmosphere. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/11/shabbat-in-chevron.html
We stayed again in Kiryat Arba in caravans that are part of a girl's high school. There was six of us staying in our little caravan but there were two bunk beds and one single. I opted to take a mattress and sleep on the floor of the other room, that way I wouldn't have to deal with any snoring people. We started off Shabbat by going down to Me'arat Ha'machpela with six guards where there was a beautiful davening. At about 10:00, we walked back and ate dinner and then went to sleep. Before we went to sleep we sang Happy Birthday to Esther and Dominique. The next morning we went through the usual routine of davening and eating lunch. I didn't take a nap this week, although maybe I should have, and instead I just hung out with people. At 3:00 we went down to Chevron for a tour. We visited the three Jewish neighborhoods which have about 90 families in them. We also visited Hadassa Hospital and the Abraham shul. We ended the night with a quick dinner, where there wasn't even enough food, we packed our stuff and left to get back to Jerusalem.
Part 2: Yom Yerushalayim
I hope you don't mind if I give a bit of a history lesson now. The crazy stories that come after it are worth it.
In 1976, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan all attacked Israel. In the span of six days, the Israeli Defense Forces destroyed the Egyptian air force, beat the Syrians and Jordanians, and they conquered a large amount of land. They conquered the Sinai Peninsula, which was given back to the Egyptians in an attempt to make peace, the Gaza Strip which was also given back, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank which included the Old City of Jerusalem, Chevron, and Gush Etziyon.
After we came back from an amazing Shabbat in Chevron, we all met up at 11:00 dressed in blue and white with Israeli flags tied on to us like capes. We were going to go around the old city walls. Led by Rav Shames and Rav Yonatan, all of the Harova girls were walking and dancing, skipping and running, and singing through the streets of Jerusalem. We made a few stops to talk about the history of Jerusalem beginning with our forefathers Abraham and Isaac who walked in exactly the same spot that we were standing in. We walked out of Zion gate, past Dung gate, and the Lion's gate. The second half of our late night walk involved going up to Mount Olives. We were escorted up by police as we hiked up the steep incline. We stopped at one particular spot where you could see directly below all of the graves of great people and if you looked out you could see the Old City and right in the middle, Temple Mount. It was an amazing sight to see as we sat there in the middle of the night singing our hearts out. This was one of my favorite nights of the year. We took a bus back at about 3:00 in the morning and a bunch of us decided to go to the kotel. We sat in circle right outside of the kotel area and began to sing again. (If you couldn't figure it out, Harova girls like singing... a lot!) I hung out till about 5:30 when we went to pray at the kotel. At this point it was still pretty empty but we knew that it would be full later in the day.
I slept from 6:30 in the morning until 12:30 in the afternoon. I woke up, ate lunch, and then chilled out until the next part of the day began. At 3:30, all of us in blue and white with out flags wrapped around us went to once again walk the streets of Jerusalem, but this time we were meeting up thousands of other Jews who were doing the same thing. As we walked through Mamilla mall, we began to sing and dance and the people around us stopped to watch and take pictures. We walked to the place where everyone was meeting up on King George Street. It was amazing to see how many thousands of people were there. It was also amazing that they had two separate streets for boys and girls. For about an hour we stayed on the same street where there was like a concert and everybody was singing and dancing and proudly waving their Israeli flags. Then, we began to move towards the Old City. There was one point where all the Harova girls just sat down in the middle of the street and began to sing. When we went through Jaffa Gate, the roads were extremely congested with people, so much so that you couldn't move because there were people pressed onto all sides of you. Eventually, I got out of the crowd and was able to make my way to my dorm. It was already about 8:30 and I ate a quick dinner and then a few of us decided to go down to the kotel. Chani, Sarah, Shira, Belle, and I all held hands as we went down to the kotel to make sure that we wouldn't lose each other in the crazy crowds. Once we got down to the kotel and the music began playing, everybody was dancing like crazy.
At around 10:00, I was tired of dancing so I went back. I was really excited because I saw Noga and a few of my other friends so we hung out for a while and then I decided that it was time to go home, write my blog, and go to sleep. So here's the blog post and now I'm going to sleep. It's been an amazing, yet exhausting day and I'm not sure how well I'll function tomorrow but I'm sure I'll get through it somehow. Shalom V'lehitraot!
Thursday, May 17, 2012
A Not-Normal Day at Harova
Yesterday, I woke up extremely tired even though I slept for 7 hrs the night before and I went through my morning classes in a bit of a daze. During lunch I decided to take a nap and I was really happy when I woke up feeling much better. Later that day, or at night really, I was hanging out in school and I suddenly became super hyper and overtired. At first I couldn't really sit still and then I was just laughing and going a bit crazy. I was hanging out with my friend Sarah as she was working on Mishmar and we just had so much fun coming up with titles for different topics and me going crazy was also pretty funny. At around midnight, I decided that it was time for me to go to sleep. I walked back to my room and when I got there, I realized that we had both taken our flip-flops off but I wasn't paying attention and I put on one of my flip-flops and one of Sarah's flip-flops. I called her and we both laughed as we decided to trade back in the morning.
The next morning, I woke up, got ready, and then looked at my bag and I saw a huge bug on it with the longest antennas I've ever seen. I told my roommates to quickly evacuate the room while I throw my bag outside. I quickly threw my bag outside of our room and the bug fell off of my bag and then Talia stepped on it. So that was our nice little bit of early morning excitement. I went down to breakfast, did a little flip-flop exchange with Sarah, ate cornflakes, and then went to class. Then came the little ice cream episode. Just a little background on the ice cream, my friend Noga and I hung out on Monday night and we both bought these like tubs of ice cream. I didn't really finish mine so I put it in the freezer so I could eat it later. Things in the fridge/ freezer have a habit of disappearing but I didn't really care too much about my ice cream so I was just like, whatever. Today I found that it was still there so I took it out to eat it. Unfortunately, about twenty people were around and they were all kinda staring at me so I was like, okay I'm just going to put this away now. By the end of the day, almost everybody knew that the tub of ice cream was mine but I didn't mind too much. Maybe I'll eat it tomorrow.
For my Chumash BeIyun class with Rav Yonatan, we all had to prepare a short lesson to present to the class. There were three chavrutas and me and my chavruta, Amy, taught the class about a rebellious son. Afterwards, we had some extra time left so Rav Yonatan took us on a field trip. We went to a really cool rooftop lookout that I've never been on before where we could see a huge portion on the Jewish quarter. Then we sat outside and learned a little bit about Jerusalem being the place that god chose for his temple. When the class ended, we had to run back to our dorms where everybody was meeting to take a group picture of everyone in Harova. After lunch, we went on another field trip with Rav Shames for our class on the Laws of Shabbat.
Tonight, we had a guest speaker who was acting as a Palestinian activist and showing us what a presentation by such a person may look like. I must say, we've learned quite a lot about Israel and we were able to argue with a lot of the statements that he made and defend the State of Israel. Afterwards, Sarah taught us a few life lessons that she learned from Pirkei Avot that corresponded with life lessons that she learned from her friend Zachary who passed away one month ago from Leukemia. Then two other girls, Eliana and Aliza taught us about Jerusalem. This completed the end of a very interesting day at Harova. Shalom V'lehitraot!
The next morning, I woke up, got ready, and then looked at my bag and I saw a huge bug on it with the longest antennas I've ever seen. I told my roommates to quickly evacuate the room while I throw my bag outside. I quickly threw my bag outside of our room and the bug fell off of my bag and then Talia stepped on it. So that was our nice little bit of early morning excitement. I went down to breakfast, did a little flip-flop exchange with Sarah, ate cornflakes, and then went to class. Then came the little ice cream episode. Just a little background on the ice cream, my friend Noga and I hung out on Monday night and we both bought these like tubs of ice cream. I didn't really finish mine so I put it in the freezer so I could eat it later. Things in the fridge/ freezer have a habit of disappearing but I didn't really care too much about my ice cream so I was just like, whatever. Today I found that it was still there so I took it out to eat it. Unfortunately, about twenty people were around and they were all kinda staring at me so I was like, okay I'm just going to put this away now. By the end of the day, almost everybody knew that the tub of ice cream was mine but I didn't mind too much. Maybe I'll eat it tomorrow.
For my Chumash BeIyun class with Rav Yonatan, we all had to prepare a short lesson to present to the class. There were three chavrutas and me and my chavruta, Amy, taught the class about a rebellious son. Afterwards, we had some extra time left so Rav Yonatan took us on a field trip. We went to a really cool rooftop lookout that I've never been on before where we could see a huge portion on the Jewish quarter. Then we sat outside and learned a little bit about Jerusalem being the place that god chose for his temple. When the class ended, we had to run back to our dorms where everybody was meeting to take a group picture of everyone in Harova. After lunch, we went on another field trip with Rav Shames for our class on the Laws of Shabbat.
Tonight, we had a guest speaker who was acting as a Palestinian activist and showing us what a presentation by such a person may look like. I must say, we've learned quite a lot about Israel and we were able to argue with a lot of the statements that he made and defend the State of Israel. Afterwards, Sarah taught us a few life lessons that she learned from Pirkei Avot that corresponded with life lessons that she learned from her friend Zachary who passed away one month ago from Leukemia. Then two other girls, Eliana and Aliza taught us about Jerusalem. This completed the end of a very interesting day at Harova. Shalom V'lehitraot!
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Lag Ba'Omer
Some holidays are celebrated much more in Israel than they are in America. Some holidays are even celebrated more in other parts of the country/ world than in my community at home. One example of this is Lag Ba'Omer. I can't think of anything that I've done for this holiday in the past few years. The night time is the best part of this holiday. All over Jerusalem and Israel people are lighting bonfires. We took a bus out to the middle of nowhere and we made a huge bonfire. One of the customs is to burn old wood that is no longer being used so we burned old doors from our school building. We cooked potatoes, hot dogs, and croissants while sitting around the fire with someone playing the guitar and the rest of us singing.
The next day, we went to the City of David. We split into three tour groups where they showed us around the ruins of King David's Palace. It was a really nice day outside and they had beautiful displays of flowers. One of the highlights was walking through the Hezekiah's Tunnels. Many tunnels were found and had lots of different uses such as moving water, sewage, and passageways. This tunnel was filled with water a little lower than the height of an average person's knee and it was pitch black. It was also so narrow that you could easily touch both sides of the tunnel with your hands and sometimes just walking your shoulders would brush up against it and the ceiling was often so low that even I had to duck. Walking in front of me was Rinat whose knapsack I was holding on to and behind was Paige and we held hands the whole time. Behind Paige were Sarah and Dani and both of them were about six feet tall so they had to go through almost the whole tunnel crouching.
Later on in the night, Raquel and I taught a lesson about the six reasons we found to celebrating Lag Ba'Omer.
1. That was the day that the Manna began to fall from heaven.
2.There is a custom that says that they wouldn't have weddings from the end of Pesach until this day.
3. From Pesach, Rabbi Akiva's students were dying from a plague and this is the day that the plague stopped.
4. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai died, but before he died, he gave over the kabbalistic book called the Zohar.
5. This was the date of the first successful rebellion against the Romans led by Bar Kochva.
6. (This one is my personal favorite) This was the day that they burned Hitler's body.
I hope you too did something special for this holiday. If you didn't there's always next year. Find some special way that you would like to celebrate. Shalom V'lehitraot!
The next day, we went to the City of David. We split into three tour groups where they showed us around the ruins of King David's Palace. It was a really nice day outside and they had beautiful displays of flowers. One of the highlights was walking through the Hezekiah's Tunnels. Many tunnels were found and had lots of different uses such as moving water, sewage, and passageways. This tunnel was filled with water a little lower than the height of an average person's knee and it was pitch black. It was also so narrow that you could easily touch both sides of the tunnel with your hands and sometimes just walking your shoulders would brush up against it and the ceiling was often so low that even I had to duck. Walking in front of me was Rinat whose knapsack I was holding on to and behind was Paige and we held hands the whole time. Behind Paige were Sarah and Dani and both of them were about six feet tall so they had to go through almost the whole tunnel crouching.
Later on in the night, Raquel and I taught a lesson about the six reasons we found to celebrating Lag Ba'Omer.
1. That was the day that the Manna began to fall from heaven.
2.There is a custom that says that they wouldn't have weddings from the end of Pesach until this day.
3. From Pesach, Rabbi Akiva's students were dying from a plague and this is the day that the plague stopped.
4. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai died, but before he died, he gave over the kabbalistic book called the Zohar.
5. This was the date of the first successful rebellion against the Romans led by Bar Kochva.
6. (This one is my personal favorite) This was the day that they burned Hitler's body.
I hope you too did something special for this holiday. If you didn't there's always next year. Find some special way that you would like to celebrate. Shalom V'lehitraot!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Chillin At Rav Ron's House!
Every other month or so, they take groups of us to different staff members houses. Tonight a group of us went to Rav Ron's house in Ne've Daniel. He teaches me Derech Hashem on Wednesday afternoons. http://sarasisraelexperience.blogspot.com/2011/12/derech-hashem-gods-oneness.html
He's a really cool and funny guy and his class is so interesting. We came into his house at about 8:30 and after we all sat down, he began to show us some of his scrapbooks. He had such an interesting life because he did so many unusual things and so many crazy things happened to him. First he showed us a couple of cartoons that he drew. He drew one about Bulimia Girl which was quite funny and there was another one that he drew about the ghost of an arm that got chopped off of a famous general and liked to play pranks on people. He then showed us his subpoena and told us about this girl Carol who was stalking him. She would follow him and call him and talk to everybody in the neighborhood about him. But then he moved to Israel so he never heard from her again. Then he told us the story of how he had to go to the local jail and testify as to whether certain inmates claiming they were Jewish, were or weren't. These big, black, bald guys all pretended to be Jewish so they could be moved to the nicer cells where they would get kosher food.
Next Rav Ron showed us a few of the times that he was on tv. He lived in Richmond, Virginia for a few years and he was the Rabbi of the only shul there, so anytime something happened with Jewish holidays of the synagogue, he would be on the local news channel. While watching these clips, he served us Oreo cake and chocolate covered pretzels. He was also on the show The Weakest Link. He's really smart, so not only did he know so many of the answers, he also kinda figured out how to cheat the system. He realized by watching lots of episodes that people who hesitated or stuttered most often got voted off. He was also really funny whenever the host spoke to him or asked him questions. In the end he only got runner-up and he didn't win any money. We were all really sad when we saw that he missed the last question. We quickly helped clean up and then we had to run out the door because our bus had already been waiting for us for a few minutes.
Everybody loves going to teachers' houses because you really get to know them better and it's always interesting to see where they live and how they live. Getting close with the people that you meet in Israel makes life long friends and ensures that you will always have a place to stay if you ever come visit. Shalom V'lehitraot!
He's a really cool and funny guy and his class is so interesting. We came into his house at about 8:30 and after we all sat down, he began to show us some of his scrapbooks. He had such an interesting life because he did so many unusual things and so many crazy things happened to him. First he showed us a couple of cartoons that he drew. He drew one about Bulimia Girl which was quite funny and there was another one that he drew about the ghost of an arm that got chopped off of a famous general and liked to play pranks on people. He then showed us his subpoena and told us about this girl Carol who was stalking him. She would follow him and call him and talk to everybody in the neighborhood about him. But then he moved to Israel so he never heard from her again. Then he told us the story of how he had to go to the local jail and testify as to whether certain inmates claiming they were Jewish, were or weren't. These big, black, bald guys all pretended to be Jewish so they could be moved to the nicer cells where they would get kosher food.
Next Rav Ron showed us a few of the times that he was on tv. He lived in Richmond, Virginia for a few years and he was the Rabbi of the only shul there, so anytime something happened with Jewish holidays of the synagogue, he would be on the local news channel. While watching these clips, he served us Oreo cake and chocolate covered pretzels. He was also on the show The Weakest Link. He's really smart, so not only did he know so many of the answers, he also kinda figured out how to cheat the system. He realized by watching lots of episodes that people who hesitated or stuttered most often got voted off. He was also really funny whenever the host spoke to him or asked him questions. In the end he only got runner-up and he didn't win any money. We were all really sad when we saw that he missed the last question. We quickly helped clean up and then we had to run out the door because our bus had already been waiting for us for a few minutes.
Everybody loves going to teachers' houses because you really get to know them better and it's always interesting to see where they live and how they live. Getting close with the people that you meet in Israel makes life long friends and ensures that you will always have a place to stay if you ever come visit. Shalom V'lehitraot!
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