First REAL Day of Rabbincal School!

Hi everyone!

Today was a really awesome amazing inspiring day. After months (years) of waiting, today I finally really started rabbinical school. Summer ulpan was kind of a tease; I think it was really a way to help everyone transition back into school mode. That being said, today we started our real fall semester.

The morning started out with Bible. It looks like all of my non-history classes are going to be taught in Hebrew, which will be challenging but thanks to my Hebrew major from The Ohio State University (we beat Akron 42-0 last night, O-H!) I'm pretty used to classes being taught in Hebrew. My teacher for Bible seems really amazing, and I can't wait to learn with him! After Bible I went to Modern Hebrew, which is basically like a continuation of ulpan. While I miss my ulpan teacher Osnat, today I started learning with Zohara, who seems totally awesome. She's energetic and passionate about Hebrew, and I really think I'm going to get a lot out of that class. After a quick break we all joined together in the auditorium for 2nd Temple History with David Levine. He rules. I thought the lecture was really interesting and I'm excited especially because this semester we're going to get to learn about Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls) and I think that will be great because I took a quarter long translation class of the DSS and LOVED it. Then we had a quick lunch break, and then mincha (our afternoon service). I thought mincha was really great today. We have such a musical class, and it's nice that people aren't shy with harmonies because every service we have together is beautiful. After mincha, the three types of students split up. Let me explain: for most of our classes (Bible, Modern Hebrew, Classical Hebrew Grammar, Liturgy, etc) we're split up by Hebrew level, so for the most part my classes are with the exact same 11 people I had ulpan all summer with. In my program there are rabbinical students, cantorial students, and education masters students. So, in the afternoon, the ed. students go to their seminar, cantorial students have special sessions, and rabbinical students joined together with the hilarious Rabbi Michael Marmur for a mini-course on Reform Judaism. He is an absolute riot and I'm glad to have him as a teacher.

All in all it was a really incredible day!

The only snag is that I still have two finals from summer session still to do. But, I'm channeling my inner mustache (have I told you guys how awesome my archaeology teacher's mustache is? Because it is EPIC) and trying to learn as much as I can before the exam on Wednesday.

Thus, tonight it's a short blog. I just wanted to share with everyone how excited and inspired I am to finally be starting what I've dreamed of for so long! =)