Great day!!

Today I had class, as usual. I got to sleep in (kind of... I woke up at 8:35). After a quick breakfast I took the bus to Hebrew U where my first class was Hebrew. In class we shared our collages that we made yesterday with the class and then talked about the origin of the very important and key Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur prayer U'Netana Tokef. I had a 4 hour break in which I went to the gym and did some reading. Yesterday I finished my first book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (it was the best book I have ever read. you should all read it), and so today I started a new book called The Seasick Whale by Ephraim Kishon. Kishon is a famous Israeli author whose books have been translated into English. He wrote the book Sallah Shabbati, and then we watched the movie version of it in my Modern Jewish History class. Since we enjoyed the movie, my friend and I decided to read some of Kishons other works. There is a cute little used book store right down the street, so we bought two of Kishons books, and when we are both done with both of them we will be able to trade them in for other books. It's great. The Seasick Whale is about an Israeli travelling all over the world. It's a satire. So far I am really enjoying it.

Anyway, after my break I had Foreign Policy. It was amazing. The teacher is so relaxed and just talks like he's telling us a story, so it's easy to follow and take notes and understand what he is saying, so it's a good situation. I took the bus home after class, grabbed a quick dinner, and then hung out with two friends who are on a different Israel program.

At 7:30 we had a special program for Yom Kippur. Every Tuesday night is Erev Nativ, which means we always do some kind of activity together. Sometimes it's fun stuff, other times more serious. After Ma'ariv, Yossi, the director, spoke for a little bit about Yom Kippur in Israel and how it is the holiest day of the year. Then we had two 45 minute time slots where we could pick which sessions we wanted to go to. My first one that I chose was with Yossi and it was a introduction to the Yom Kippur Machzor, which was very helpful. Second I went to a class on making the vidui, confessions, personal. We read them in English and then had a chance to write our own, which was nice. We had similar sessions for Rosh Hashana which I think I forgot to write about.

I saw something so exciting today! It's a tradtion done during the 10 days of repentence called kaparot. It's where someone swings a live chicken above their head and then a shochet kills it and someone takes it home and eats it. I think the whole process has something to do with getting rid of your sins, but I'm not 100% sure so you can look on wikipedia or google if you are curious. When I first heard about kaparot a few days ago, I pictured someone swinging the chicken like a lasso. That, however, was not the case. The guy actually swung the chicken quite slowly. There was a tent set up right on the sidewalk where this was going on.

I'm not sure if i'm going to post again before Yom Kippur. Probably not, so, I wish you all a safe and easy fast.

-Sarah