a balloontwister’s aliya saga

Shavuot was very nice. It IS alot different that shavuos in the states. Its all packed into one day. Here the main part really is staying up and learning… its also more difficult to stay up during davening as ruth and yiskor makes the davening longer. In RBS we have alot of choices where to learn and to hear shriurim. I took yoni to a shiur to start the night, then we went to a shiur by Rabbi Enkin and then I went to hear Rabbi Andre / shimon Issacson at beis tefilla. Its a nice atmosphere as people were all out and about going to shul etc. All over the streets people were filling up the shuls in RBS. SOme shuls had shiurim. Some had tikun leil shavuot. At Aish Kodesh it was tikun so I went to the other places to catch the shriuim and the daf. Speaking of the daf, Beit Shemesh got a mention as the daf spoke about the aron being returned by the pelishtim. It was returned to the closest city …… beit shemesh. We also got a sort of mention in yesterday’s haftorah. Shimshon lived between tzora and eshta’ol, right nearby. He is out most famous resident. Most famous that Yudie Ballooney I’m told. The same shaiylos were talked about… meat.. or cheesecake…. fast davening… or slowish.. I guess some things do not change no matter where you live.

After shabbos I took a cab which I split with Mendy Newman and made it to the airport. He was heading to cHicago using el al, I went to NY using israir. I was told horrible things but… it was actually a good flight. THe seats are cramped… but they lean back pretty far. They give out an eyemask, airplane pillow, earplugs and the food is a bit better than el al. The weird thing is the flight attendants wear orange t shirts… or polo shirts. but…. all in all it was a good flight. I’m not much of a movie watcher…. so the lack of personal screens was no big deal for me. Speaking to other passengers, everyone had the same comments. They heard bad things, but it was ok. One area where it was actually better was the checking in. Israir is on the ground level and there is no line so I was done checking in in 10 minutes. Mendy who went with El Al took about an hour. El Al had several flights on sat. night. Israir had 1.

Well, I’m going to sign off as I just got off the phone with Penina. SO far kids arew doing fine. We actually have a guest over, Estie Buchsbaum who came by to say goodbye and to return my gemora. It was nice having her over for sukkot and for shabosim. Hopefully she gained alot from her year in Sem.

have a good day,

j