Na'aleh - Day 3 - Liat

After the amazing start that we had yesterday, we were all so excited to go back to Midrasha and see what was in store for us today.

We started off the day with a lesson from our Madricha, Lexi Weinberger, where we learnt from the Ramban’s teachings about anger and how to combat it with gentle speech. This sparked some good conversation and discussion amongst us and got us ready and fired up for the rest of the day.

We then had a class with a teacher from Midreshet Amit. She spoke to us about women in leadership positions and the halachic stance on this idea. It was really interesting to see how the views of different halachic commentators progressed over time, as the secular world evolved.

Next up, we had a lesson with Rav Norman who taught us how “Torah wasn’t given in a vacuum”. He spoke to us about why G-d waited over 2000 years to give the Torah to the Jewish people and the concept of free will. It was really inspiring to see how knowledgeable the Rav was and the way he could quote something right off the top of his head.

After a short trip to the makolet (mini-store) for some ice-cream and a delicious lunch we headed off to a class given over by a Moriah alumnus, Elad Eshel. He spoke about the importance of respecting your parents and how that ultimately relates to respecting G-d. Throughout his lesson, he expanded on the difference between commandments that are between man and man or man and G-d. The lesson ignited many questions and controversial conversations amongst us girls. We are all quickly learning that these types of disagreements in Torah discussions are important and exactly how rabbis conversed with each other in the time of the Talmud.

Our last lesson for the day was with our program director, David. He taught us about how rabbis take a simple phrase straight from Torah and turn it into modern day halacha. He specifically focused on the laws of Kashrut and their origins.

After a long day at Midrasha our mads surprised is with four ex-Moriah graduates who are currently on their gap year in Israel. They spoke to us about everything they have experienced since their own time on IST and graduating from Moriah. It was really nice to see some familiar faces and to have a chat with them about their different journeys. After the talk some of us had a talk about how crazy it is to think about our own personal journeys, and how this period of our lives is only the beginning of our journeys.

It’s crazy to think that this week is almost over, and how quickly time is going. Its becoming ever more evident just how much we need to cherish each day of this trip!

We’re missing you all back home!

Liat Ziegler