After getting ready for Shabbat, we went up to the rooftop of our hotel in Bayit Vegan to pray Kabbalat Shabbat. The view from there was really really beautiful as we felt the Jerusalem wind blowing on us.. We all got into a circle and Rabbi Glaser (the new Jersey regional director for NCSY) spoke to us about the beauty of Shabbat. He also told a lot of jokes and made us laugh! Following that, we sang a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat – we danced and sang and went totally crazy.. Woooohoooo! We then went down to dinner and had a delicious meal. Jeremy Lewis gave us a beautiful Dvar Torah which we all got inspired by – who knew that he was such a good public speaker! Something else really funny happened – a few boys decided to make a ‘concoction’ of many things (orange juice, grape juice, chicken soup, mashed potatoes, and many other appetising things!) and dared our advisor, Ayelet, to drink it! Well, let’s just say that she switched it in her mouth for 30 seconds and then spat it out! Following this amusing interlude, we benched and then went into a room for desert and some snacks. At this point, Rabbi Katz (New jersey’s associate regional director, who also stayed with us for Shabbat) gave us a short talk about what it’s like to be in the israeli army and what kinds of things need to be considered… We then went upstairs to the third floor where Rabbi Rael had prepared some delicious chulent for us! we ate it and then went to bed to get a good night’s sleep (those going to synagogue had to be downstairs at 9am for kiddush and mussaf, and the others by 10.45am!) Yey for sleep 🙂

On Shabbat morning, we woke up and went straight to kiddush downstairs at 10.45. We had cereal and milk, and ruggelach and drinks – it was good! Free that, we prayed mussaf and then went inside to lunch. The food was good… We had two amazing Divrei Torah at lunch – both Liel Green and Steve Gotlib gave amazing speeches about change and life challenges… After lunch we had two hours to rest (Shabbat menucha) and we then went for a long walk to the Old City for seudat shlishit! The walk took two hours, but we did stop for a half hour along the way to have a Shabbat party in the middle of the street! Etanna (our tour guide) who lives on the way to the old city brought down lots of drinks and snacks for us to eat… It was so refreshing!! After that, we carried on our walk to the old city and arrived in one to eat a delicious seudat shlishit at a location close to the kotel. We had veggie sausages and corn burgers, and we dared david buck man to eat 7 of those sausages – he did it!!

We then walked down to the kotel and prayed Mincha. Afterwards, we sat around in a circle and started singing to ebb Shabbat away… People slowly started to join our circle and listening to our singing. Rabbi Rael gave us really inspirational words: he told us about how beautiful Shabbat was and about how we must embrace it as our heritage… Everyone was so inspired and many of the people that were watching came up to us afterwards to tell us that they had been touched by our singing and our words. After that, we went to pray Maariv and we then made havdalah there with such a beautiful view of the Kotel in the dark of the night. We then walked to Ben Yehuda Street and hung out there until 11.30pm. We had free time to eat, get ice cream, hang out, sing, dance, and buy things… it was totally fun! We then went back to the hotel where pizza was waiting for us, and then we went to sleep… Wooohooo we’re excited for tomorrow!