[Written by Ora Hochberg, Teaneck, New Jersey]
After getting ready for Shabbos, we took beautiful pictures outside of the AJU dorms. Then we went out to a large balcony and davened Mincha and Kabbalat Shabbat as the sun was setting over the hills. After davening went inside for the meal, there was a lot of ruach, singing, and dancing. Tiferet Mondrow spoke about what we can learn from the contrast between Avraham and Bilam. After the meal, we had a Question and Answer session with Rabbi Katz from MMY, who answered any question that we had about an array of topics in Judaism, Torah, and Halacha. Then our advisors ran an optional tisch with snacks and singing. Afterward, I continued to speak to Rabbi Katz with some friends. My favorite part of Shabbos was davening outside because I don’t usually get to daven in that setting, and when everyone was dancing around at the meal. Thank you so much, Mommy and Abba for sending me on this program.
[Written by Leora Cohn, Boca Raton, FL]
Shabbos morning began with davening and Parsha Shiur with Rabbi Katz. He gave us a beautiful insight on how to better our relationship with our peers. Following Kiddush, we had free time and lunch. After lunch we had Chabbura with our advisors, they taught us about Rocel and Leah and the importance of Bein Adam L’chaveiro. After the Chabburot, we had a really fun advisor panel, where we got to hear from the advisors about their personal experience through life, we got great advice on how to go through High School with a positive outlook and how to better our relationship with Hashem, our peers, and ourselves. We learned so much about our advisors and got to relate to them on a more personal level. We then had free time, during free time, our director, Leah Moskovich, gave an optional shiur about how we can actually take a message from the game of basketball and the all-star player, LeBron James. She spoke about the different aspects of basketball and how they correspond to Judaism. Optional Beit Medrash time led into a shiur from Rabbi Katz about the Halachot pertaining to the Three Weeks and Nine Days and what we can gain from fasting, not only refraining from eating and drinking but also a more spiritual message. We then had Seudat Shilishit with a nice singing to conclude Shabbat and a great Havdala by Rabbi Katz. Motzei Shabbos was filled with yummy pizza, dancing, an awesome game of PANIC, and we then headed to bed pumped and excited for San Diego!