This past shabbat was filled with even more awesome than the last. First of all I had dinner at Lisa and Alans. The Magills and their magildren were there and I got to talk to Danny a bit about stuff which is always really nice. I was wearing my purple scarf on my head (cause I felt like not wearing a kippah) and Alan said to me “You know Gella… you’re looking very traditional. Very (small c) conservative. Except you’re wearing pants. It kind of throws the whole thing off.” There was a pause. I thought about this for a minute. Then I started giggling. “What? What’s funny”

I hesitated.

“You only think I look conservative because I have my tzitzits tucked in.”

Much laughter. More on this subject in the next post.

Dinner was lovely, and there was, of course, scotch to follow. Funnily enough, it was Danny’s scotch. See, Lisa and Alan’s friend Adam was there, and he had brought a flask of scotch. Danny’s response? “Oh, I have some nice scotch with me. Lets open that up.”

Danny Magill, ladies and gentlemen. It was an 18 year old Glenfiddich. Very nice.

In the morning I went to Kehillat Kedem, a progressive egalitarian minyan that also meets at a school, and consists largely of American students, many of whom were folks I’d met in the Beit Midrash. Some were from CY, some from Pardes. Again, everything was conducted in Hebrew. This time around I did bring my Sim Shalom and my tallit. Turns out they use Sim Shalom there. I went to Kedem because Hillel invited me for lunch and told me that it was where he was going, so I decided it was worth checking out. The first guy to daven was someone I’d seen in the beit midrash. He had an interesting style of davening/reading… he really pronounced his ע and every dagesh. It was almost like listening to Arabic. I was given the third aliyah. That’s a nice thing about being new somewhere… you always get an aliyah. After services Hillel introduced me to some people, and I actually introduced Hillel to someone… a young rabbi dude (JTS trained) whom I had met at tfillah and who (sidenote) actually took me for a little walk around the area past kikar tzarfat. I think his name is Adam Rosenthal.

Ok so here are some pictures from that walk… NOT to be confused with pictures taken on shabbat. I do not take pictures on shabbat.

This is a tomb from the time of the Hasmoneans. It’s just… there. In the middle of this residential neighborhood.

This is the ancient graffiti on the wall… they think it’s a boat.

This is a giraffe. It is in a playground. Apparently it is famous.

So back to shabbat…

After shul Hillel and I and his brother Gilan, his brother in law Ariel, and a girl named Aviva all headed over to Hillel’s place for lunch. Hillel’s roommate Ben joined us. Conversation was lively and we discussed Aviva’s job as a Tzahal prosecutor of terrorists, Ariel’s research project on Jewish right-wing nutters, Yiddish, genealogy, and various other things. After this we played Taboo, which I had never played and which was fantastically fun.

After a little bit of quasi-napping during which Ariel and I discussed the nature of Conservative institutions, two other folks showed up for Seudat Shlishit, Juan and Abby to whom Hillel had introduced me at shul. They are JTS student. They are geeks. They are awesome. And they could easily be my new best friends. We were regaled by Juan with stories of naked men doing strange things in and around mikvaot.

…

It wasn’t what it sounds like. But it was hilarious.

After Ma’ariv and Havdalah (we also had Mincha in there after lunch) Hillel set up his laptop and projector so we could watch a movie on his wall. We watched The Chosen, which I hadn’t seen in a very long time. We all had fun (mostly Hillel and Abby) pointing out mistakes in the film regarding Chassidic and Jewish practices, things that the characters were doing and saying that would never happen in real life (and also that didn’t happen like that in the book) etc.

Abby and Juan walked me home and we stood on the corner of HaPalmach and Kharlap talking about JTS. They said some very nice things to me which I will not soon forget. They have also informed me (not suggested, but *informed* me) that I will be at The Yeshiva for two years, not one. We shall see.

I am happy. I am happy that I can make friends like that, and that people get excited to meet me. I’m happy that I’m here.