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.