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Surrounding Ourselves with Good

Who's ready for another exciting shabbos?!?! First let's fill everyone in on our week’s events starting with the amazing Shana Bet shabbaton in the old city with Rav Jason. Friday night an inspiring kabbalat Shabbat took place at Yeshivat Hakotel. The following day the fun continued at Netiv Aryeh for shacharit, and then a tour of the old city. Later, the Kotel was the scene for mincha. After Shabbos, Dr. Aviva Goldstein hosted the girls for a fabulous Malava Malka at her home. To quote Shari Mayer “Shabbos was sooo good “.

 

On Thursday that week our beloved Bentzi (our caterer coordinator) took us on a tour of the new Shalva building. The progression this organization has made over the years is truly an inspiring story. Starting from a small house and making its way to its own separate building gave us Midreshet girls something to strive for.

 

During this week’s Mishmar, Rav Lerner talked about surrounding ourselves with the right people. Rashi brings a famous Midrash and says that when Rivkah was pregnant, every time she walked past Yeshivat Shem v'Ever she would feel one of the babies trying to get out and when she would walk by an avodah house, she would also feel one of the babaies trying to get out. The question which follows is, we understand why Esav wants to get out when she passes a place of idol worshipers but why Yaakov? There's a famous gemara that says, when a baby is in the womb of their mother, a malach is teaching them Torah and then right before they're born the malach pinches the baby right below the nose, and they forget all the Torah they've learned. So when a baby is learning, they're learning from a malach! You're not going to get a better teacher then that or learn more in the yeshiva! So why did Yaakov want to leave? They say that if you were to have a chavruta like Esav, you would want to leave and get away as well. So the fact that most girls who remain strong in their yiddishkite after their seminary year, is because of the people they’ve surrounded themselves with. Their friends are people who are pushing each other to grow, and so it's much easier to not only maintain religious growth but also to keep growing. The lesson we took away from this is that we should be careful with whom we surround ourselves with and make sure that our friends want to help us maintain as well as to continue our religious growth.

Wishing everyone an amazing week, and Shabbat Shalom!

Atara Braun and Tamar Brodsky, Shana Alef

 

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