Things that work...

Jeremy

Today, we thought we would write about the Hadar Alumni Shabbaton. This involved over 100 former and current students of Yeshivat Hadar descending on the Stamford Hilton (as the sign outside the town said: "Stamford—the city that works"). I wanted to start by reminiscing on the awesomeness of almost constant eating and/or davening. A room full of really committed, experienced people doing the shabbat morning service was something really not to be missed.

Miri

You're right, the davening throughout the weekend was really fantastic! I've never been at a more enthusiastic, engaged and song filled Sunday morning shacharit. It was also great to see the diversity and strength of the Hadar alumni community. People flew in from all over the country (which in America means they came a really long way). The faculty came without their families seemingly to spend the weekend almost continuously answering halakhic, religious and personal questions from their alumni.

Marbim beSimcha?

Miri

We, like everyone else in the Jewish world, 'had' Purim this weekend. I had a wonderful time. Jeremy, did not. He doesn't like Purim. He says this is because he doesn't like the things about Purim that are 'fun'. But I think it's something more significant and important, that can tell us something about the nature of Purim itself.

Jeremy

This is true, there are many things about Purim that I don't like: things like fun, gift-giving and -receiving, drunkenness, dressing up and a general lack of structure. I like structure. I had a lovely time on the Sunday morning at the sedate Kehilat Hadar megillah reading. Not too much fun, just a good service and good reading.

Israel and peoplehood

Jeremy

We've been rather busy recently. But we've finally managed to be in the same place at the same time for long enough (without our Talmuds on our tables) to talk about the College Winter Learning Seminar that happened at the beginning of this semester.

Miri

It was really great to be back and learning in depth on a really contentious topic: Israel. We had around 20 college students join us for 2 weeks. They were here for davening, for learning and for chilling out. And there was quite a lot of diversity of opinion about the topic at hand. The goal was not to have political conversations but to put together a shared canon of sources around which the conversation could be framed, from Tanakh to Talmud to modern religious Zionists.

Teaneck and Queens

Jeremy

We moved seamlessly from discussing the state of the Jewish community to the good and bad points of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. We talked about the anti-kabbalah culture of Yeshiva University, we talked about my ideas on God, Torah and mythology. He recommended I read Planetary; I recommended he finish The Sandman. He gave chassidic wort (i.e. a word of Torah) about the kabbalistic significance of the dreidel, while I the previous night had been discussing how one can simultaneously hold that the universe began in a Big Bang and was created by God in seven days, without contradiction.