Shabbat in Tel Aviv

My friend Ilana and I spent Shabbat at our friend Arie (Hackit)'s house from camp. On Friday, before we left Jerusalem, we went to the shuk to buy salad ingredients and challot to bring. We got back to Beit Nativ, packed up our stuff, and took a bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. Before we met up with Hackit, we went to this amazing restaurant on the beach called Yotvata Ba Ir. We both got these delicious tuna sandwiches and chocolate ice cream. Yum. Then we took a taxi to Hackit's apartment where we helped him get food ready. Hackit has an American phone line in his apartment so we both called our parents and some friends which was nice. We then went to shul for kabbalat shabbat. Hackit's shul is very special. It's part of the Masorti movement, but they share some reconstructionist beliefs. It's a small congregation, I forget what it's called, and they use a guitar Friday nights. Instead of doing a full, traditional kabbalat shabbat, they select different verses and parts of the prayers to sing. They also do meditations frequently. I thought I wouldn't like how non-traditional it was, but I actually ended up enjoying it very much. Also at shul we ran into other friends of ours from Nativ! That was a surprise. It was very real and everyone was participating with full kavanah. After shul we had dinner and then played Bananagrams, a game that is kind of similar to scrabble. We went to bed on the early side, and woke up just in time for shul Saturday morning.

Shul Saturday morning was very nice. Hackit is the ba'al koreh there, so he read the whole parasha. They do this funny thing where they read a triennial, but they read the three parts three weeks in a row, so they are not in the same place as other shuls all over the world. Most people were reading Ha'azinu yesterday, but Hackit's shul was reading somewhere in Shemot. The Rabbi gave Ilana and me an aliyah together. He didn't give a sermon, he just talked about different issues from the parasha in between each aliyah. They also don't do musaf because they don't believe in the reconstruction of the temple, so they just gave a few minutes for prayer and/or silent meditation. I liked the Rabbi because you could tell how genuine his davening was. He led services sitting in the front row, often with his eyes closed, clearly focusing on his prayer. Overall, it was a great experience.

After shul we went to the beach with our friends that we ran into Friday night. It was a beautiful day and the ocean was very warm. Then, we went back to the place where our friends were staying for lunch. Their apartment was absolutely amazing. The dad is a big Jewish art collector. Many of his items are on display in museums all over the world, and we got to see his entire collection. He has tons of books, all different kinds of Judaica, and everything you can imagine. The coolest part is how old a lot of it is... I don't even know how old that's how old. He sometimes brings groups of students or other people into his apartment to see his collection.

After that we walked back to Hackit's to hang out for a little before taking the bus back to Jerusalem. A bunch of other Nativ people who were in Herziliya for the weekend were on our same bus, so that was a big surprise! When we got back to Beit Nativ, it was already kind of late so I just chilled there with friends who I hadn't seen for all of two days, and did some homework.

Today so far I had art history, which was fun, and Hebrew, which was also fun. Now I have a little break to eat lunch and relax before Talmud. After class I am going to the gym, and then tonight we have our first girls football practice. There is a Nativ team, and we play against teams from other year-long Israel programs. I'll let you know how that goes.

That's all for now!

-Sarah