a balloontwister’s aliya saga

Gordon is sleeping well.
Not sure about anything else but with Little Hillally (baby hillel) here in Israel.
Noach is sleeping.
Of course Rochel is up half the night.
Last night, when my mother in law and sister in law went to a Bar Mitzvah, Hillel woke up and stayed in our room…. where’s daddy? Where’s daddy?
I said he’s happy and sleeping.
All in all its been alot of fun.
Friday Penina drove them all to the Kotel.
They didn’t quite make it.
They had to stop for breakfast somewhere, then they had to stop to get Penina’s driving license… then they got lost.
At 11:45 I gave them directions on how to get back home.
I’m like just look for a really old wall, in an Old city.
They went this morning again so I think they’ll find it this time.
Last night we went to hear Rabbi Reisman’s Navi Shiur.
Rabbi Reisman wasn’t quite there…. but the shiurim were.
They started a program in Ramat Beit Shemesh where they play the videos of last years shiurim in the yeshiva here.
I found out an oleh, Yitz Inker, a friend of Spud, once lamented to a yeshiva boy on a flight to Israel on how he missed the shiurim. Turns out the person used to organize getting the tapes played in Jerusalem.
So he brought Inker all the tapes to be played in Ramat Beit SHemesh.
SO if you miss a shiur in Brooklyn, you can come in a year and hear it.
Yup, we have last years’ tapes.
As Inker said “Yirmeyahu hasn’t changed much sinch last year”.
NOW I see why people are so INTO the shiurim.
I see why my folks go.
Why people from Staten Island go.
ITs an incredible shiur. History. Mussar…
fantastic.
The shiur is played in LEv Torah so I brought of Cake for Zanvy. Not so much as being nice, but trying to decrease the amount of cake in the house.
Also, yesterday I learned gemora with Yoni for the first time in Hebrew.
I was totally impressed. His hebrew is coming along great. I think its better than mine already. After his tutor last night, I brought the kids to father / son learning. Where Moshe won a prize. Impressive. Only three prizes for 100 boys.
Its a storybook in hebrew.
Great, more work for me.
In shul friday night, we had a united nations.
Jews from every imaginable background were there.
Chassidim.
Asians
Blacks.
Yeshiva boys from Reishit. Including Jeffrey who I shlepped to a kiddush the next day.
Must have been a shabbaton of some sorts because the place was packed.
At shalosh seudos a black kid sat down and people were engaging him in conversation…
hmmm, is he from ethiopia? Africa? Morrocco? Bed Stuy? Boro Park? Turns out hes from Silver Spring, MD.
kind of a let down. We were expecting a great story. Nothing against Silver Spring, besides the obvious.
Well, that was shabbos in a nutshell.
I got myself on a softball team for the spring and the good part is, the organizer invited me to watch the Giants game tonight.
SO I get to see a decent NY football team, something Jet fans can’t say.
See YA!
U.D.