it’s sooo hot here… my brains are so sluggish and i’m shvitzing like crazy. thank gd the day’s moving on and it’s getting a least a little cooler. i love it when it hits 5 pm.

welcome to israel. where the summer days are unbearable and laneia turns nocturnal.

in other news… time for the breakdown of the past couple of weeks!

so. isralight.

isralight is an umbrella organization that offers a couple regular programs— one, orayta, a men’s yeshiva, two, international workshops, and three, inward bound, which is the one i participated in. inward bound is a ten day program consisting of classes in the old city and tiyulim (trips) around jerusalem and israel. it’s hard to truly sum up the program in one sentence because it’s so dynamic and encompassing, but in a nutshell: inward bound helps jews to love judaism.

so for ten days i learned to love judaism with two of my roommates, sadie and rachel. with nearly twenty other participants, we explored insightful teachings with truly amazing teachers— rabbi david aaron, reb mottle wolf, rabbi leibowitz, rebbitzen manolson and rabbi binny. honestly, i can tell you all about the program and the what— but truly, it was the who who made the program what it was. the participants, the teachers, the madrichim (like camp counselors)— everyone played a special part in making the experience uniquely incredible.

every day, we had a different schedule. on the first day, wednesday, we had a wine and cheese party/ registration/ getting to know you event.

on thursday, we had class all day and a tour around david’s tower museum in the old city. at night we hiked to lifta (the abandoned arab village i had hiked a couple weeks ago with friends). there was a bonfire, s’mores, storytelling and so much singing… what a beautiful night. the next day, we prepared for shabbos and davened kabbalat shabbat on the isralight roof— an amazing way to welcome in shabbos.

shabbat was lovely and it flew by; havdallah also quickly came and went in a blur of singing and dancing and union. there were more classes throughout sunday, monday and tuesday and wednesday brought a full- day tiyul to the north. we stopped by a yom kippur war memorial “museum” in the morning and headed to tsfat by afternoon. there, and by hashgacha protis, i was able to catch up briefly with my chabad rabbi and his family from u of o.

we ended the day at a fancy restaurant and grill on the shores of the kinneret in tiverias. the food wasn’t great, but the sea with the red sunset hills was a beautiful sight.

thursday morning we went to the southern wall excavations. i remember going on birthright but this time it seemed much more real– with reb mottle’s vivid stories, it was easy to imagine what the area was like around the second temple period. in the afternoon, we had a few more classes and a kumzitz on the roof (minus the bonfire).

which brings us to my friday morning post. the second and last isralight shabbos was, again, powerful and vibrant— we were all sad to see the program end with havdallah. our group grew so close it was surprising we only knew one another for the past ten days (of course, there were quite a few exceptions for me— i knew many of the particpants from before).

many participants left soon after the program ended motzi shabbos. a few remained. in the past couple of days, i chilled with two girls from ny and nj, rami and jordana, and victoria (from seattle) on another brief program called eco- beit midrash. it was a two- day workshop that combined environmental issues, living sustainably and torah.

now the question is: what to do for the next week, my last week in israel?