Tuesday, August 15, 2006

A Whirlwind Weekend

It has been a crazy weekend full of joy and amazement. A few states, a district and a commonwealth in which i spent time:

  • District of Columbia
  • Maryland
  • Connecticut
  • Massachusetts
  • New Hampshire
  • Virginia
As I mentioned before I left, I spent shabbat at the havurah institute. It was full of people I was stoked to see. In some cases I had seen them recently, in others not since their return from other continents. I got there as Ruth Messenger was finishing speaking. Soon thereafter I dropped of my stuff and headed to help ChorusofApes* move some benchers around. Then I helped JudgeJosh and MahRabu setup for Kabbalat Shabbat/Maariv which was artfully and intensely facilitated by Benj, Kelly Beller, and (the now slightly less) itenerantrab. They mixed some ruachdic well-known tunes with some American folk blended in. I particularly enjoyed their use of the niggun for yedid nefesh that i think of as the stairway to heaven version.
Davening weaved with dancing and then eventually gave way to eating. I had shabbat dinner with General Anna, all four Levys, Ruby, Julia Appel, and General Anna's folks. It was a fun mixing of families, generations, and stories. The food was slow to come but Papa Levy laid down the boom and scored quite a bit more and all hunger was left behind.
After dinner, there was some singing and then we retired to a poetry reading at which Ruby, Margie Klein, and RDL all spit some stuff. They all had solid stuff. I especially enjoyed Ruby's slight reworking of a poem I heard for the first time at my place as well as Margie's passover work. From there we went to sing and then Margie and I walked down to the beach to meetup with some brothers and sisters already catching the shooting stars.

I have a lot of catching up to do, so I'll hope to have some time to weigh in on Saturday and Sunday tomorrows.

* CoA will soon to be re-entering the blogosphere. Lookout for his triumphant return.

3 Comments:

At 8/16/2006 , Blogger BZ said...

Glad you could be there! And that list includes two commonwealths.

 
At 8/16/2006 , Blogger ZT said...

as usual, BZ saved the day! Virginia may be for lovers, but it is also a commonwealth.

 
At 8/21/2006 , Blogger General Anna said...

Just one correction to your lovely post. It was SoccerMama (my mama) who first aggressively, but politely, went in search of and procured more food for our shabbat dinner table. All props to PapaLevy, but it's true.

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home