theyellowhobbit

Best weekend ever!

For one thing, Yom Kippur services were actually good. This is something I've never experienced before, with the exception of student led CJC Kol Nidrei last year.

So last night was Kol Nidrei. Beforehand I was running around like crazy getting ready. I was also feeling sick. But I took 4 advils, and they set in by the time I got to services.

Ari Levine led Kol Nidrei, and he was amazing. The only way you could understand this would be if you cam to Penn for Yom Kippur next year and if he led it again. Which he should, if it isn't too insane for him.

Then there was Yom Kippur Across Penn. I went to Yoni Heilman's discussion goup, which was small, but good. This RJC girl Jenny asked me to teach an up and coming freshman how to songlead. I told her if she found me a freshman, I'd do it. After all, I feel bad having left them without a songleader.

Then there was sleep. Before that, I encountered Dan, a freshman who lives next door in 310. We had a discussion about teshuva and stuff. He's a cool kid.

Sleep was nice. I woke up at 6am, and went back to sleep. Then I woke up at 8:25. Perfect for services.

I went to the explanatory service for shacharit, and then normal OCP for Mussaf, Mincha, Neilah, and maariv/havdallah.

Mussaf is really long and weird. We do the service that the Cohen Gadol used to do in the Holy of Holies. We kneel down on the floor. And we sing the Cohen Gadol song. I love it!

There was so much singing in the service. More than would be in a Reform service. And they did all these shalshuddis tunes. Here I was thinking that Orthodox services were supposed to be more boring than Reform or Conservative. They are longer on Yom Kippur, but at Penn they are wonderful.

After Neilah ended, I felt like a great weight had lifted from me. According to Artscroll, that means that God accepted my prayers, and all of my sins are atoned for. The key is for me not to sin now.

At havdallah Stu chugged the grape juice. There was a 4th of the bottle left, so I had most of that. Then Noam from my Hebrew class offered me some Oreos. At first I forgot to say mezonot on them. So much for that not sinning thing.

So after breaking the fast there was a melava malka in 403. I made a deli roll before that for Brett's birthday. I still haven't given it to him yet. Tomorrow I shall.

We had even more singing. Yosef was nice and let us do Maarei Cohen, but he vetoed Chad Gad Ya, despite the fact that they didn't do it at the tisch 2 weeks ago, and Yoni Ray was there.

So then we found out Shimon and Lauren got engaged [they both graduated last year]. So we went to 209, and then the 2nd floor hall, and sang for 2 hours.

One of those songs was Chad Gad Ya.

Yoni Ray is my favoritest person ever. Ari Levine is my 2nd favoritest, cause he was also singing Chad Gad Ya. And for all the Kol Nidrei awesomeness. Reuven is my 3rd favoritest, cause he taped Chad Gad Ya. Ari Gilder is my 4th favoritest, cause he did a little bit of Chad Gad Ya, and brought 2 deli rolls to 403.

I hope that I get engaged while I'm still at Penn. This was amazing.