Mishmover Recap

For those of you who missed all or some of it, here's a brief recap of Thursday nights festivities:

First, in a shiur entitled "Women are What?!?! Dealing with Troubling Texts," I got myself into some trouble by learning a גמרא that got everyone pretty upset, but hopefully in resolving the problem, we learned a general approach to dealing with sources in the Torah that we find troubling.

After a delicious dinner (thank you, EJ's), we had a choice of activity.  Ma'ayanot alumna Rachel Friedman gave a terrific shiur "Is There Such a Thing as a Bad Question: The Mysterious Saga of Rav Yermiah" to almost 30 Ma'aynoters.  Next door, some of the 14 alumnae who attended Mishmover shared their wisdom with the seniors over a round-table discussion about the year in Israel & college.  Finally, most of the students chose the chesed activity of making bead decorations for kids in need (thanks, Mrs. Weiner & Tali).

Rabbi Rosenblatt was, as always, a real treat.  In a talk entitled "Crossroads," he analyzed the mixed emotions that Yaakov felt as he left C'naan to go see Yosef in Mitzrayim.  He discussed how sometimes even when things are going best in our lives, and we stand on the threshold of great new opportunities, we feel our subconscious insecurities creeping back in (Friday morning I heard about a student who fell asleep in class, only to be awakened by a whiny "Yaakov Yaakov").  Elisheva Cohen dealt with a similar theme this week in another fine issue of Talelei Orot.

After that, we heard a shiur from the Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, Harav Moshe Lichtenstein.  He got us all ready for Asarah B'Tevet with a classic chakira about the nature of Asara B'Tevet as either a yom avelut or yom teshuva.  He traced this dispute from the Tana'im to the Rishonim.  He concluded with poignant mussar about our ability to truly feel the pain of human suffering that occurred hundreds of years ago.  Just as we are able to cry with terror victims half way across the world, our emotions must cross the barriers of time as well as distance.

Simultaneously, Rabbi Josh Rossman was entertaining a large portion of the student population with his interactive presentation demonstrating some of the 39 melachot.  To get a feel for this popular and informative program, see Rabbi Rossman's website here.

A highlight of the evening was our teacher panel at which Ms. Gordon, Ms. Kur, Mrs. Kahan, Mrs. Cohen, Ms. Appel & Mrs. Slomnicki shared there thoughts on a wealth of topics including aliya, theodicy, how much of the secular world to let into our lives and their favorite movies (Shawshank, Dead Poets Society, Spiderman II, Awakenings, pass & Gattaca respectively - how did you get that through, Rachel?).  Thanks to Mrs. Block for expert moderation.

After an all-star lineup of Senior Chaburot and with Ms. F's famous midnight shiur about to begin, it was time for me to head home for a few hours (RZP still had some good schmoozing to go).

All in all, over 150 people participated in the biggest (& IMO best) Mishmover ever.  Thanks to the Torah committee (especially Tzippora), Rabbi Prince & Ms. F for their hard work.  Same for the custodial staff who went beyond the call of duty.  Yasher koach to all of the speakers & panelists who participated as well as the alumnae who helped out.  Most of all, thanks again to Michal Novetsky, who as a student came up with the idea for Mishmover several years ago.