Friday, September 11, 2015

Party at Ulpan

Woohoo!   Par-ty!!!!  Well, since it was a party at ulpan and resembled (more than a bit) a school's kindergarten show, we won't get too carried away.  But it was very sweet.

We stood by class in front of a blackboard fancied up to say "The Ulpan Wishes You a Good New Year" and said our prepared lines.  Our teacher had been very amusing that morning saying over and over "od paam od paam!" (again, again) as we rehearsed.  My class "sang" a Rosh Hashanah song (I use quotes because there are religious issues over women singing in public in front of men.  So the 12 of us who are observant women lip-synced and the three men and three secular Russian women belted it out.  Nice that my class is somewhat diverse!).  I am glad that I finally learned the words to the song "L'Shana Habaa" (Next Year).  I had always understood the second paragraph ("how good it will be next: next year, next year") and was always totally stymied by the first--something about a mirpeset (balcony)?  That didn't make sense.....Mirfleset (monster)?  That made even less sense!  Now that I know the translation, I still don't think it makes a ton of sense, but I do know it's correct :).  So "next year, we will sit on the balcony and watch the migrating birds as the children, on holiday from school, pay catch between the house and fields".  Yeah.....I could have sat with my dictionary for *hours* and not figured out "migrating birds".

Shalom Shachne's class is the advanced class, so they had two parts in the show, each with one person speaking Hebrew and one translating on the spot.  I loved the story told by a woman in his class about feeling a bit overwhelmed as Rosh Hashanah approached and all her family and her husband's family is in the United States and how was she going to make Rosh Hashanah?!  (see my future post with similar sentiment)  She called her sister who told her, "don't worry, Hashem will make it all work out for you" and, as soon as she hung up the phone, it rang with an invitation for a meal.  And then there was an email invitation for another meal.  And then another phone call invitation and she "realized that we are all family here".

Shalom Shachne and his class friend gave over a dvar Torah about Rosh Hashanah that several people commented was very interesting (I agree!) and the woman from my class who had just invited us for RH dinner said that he was now elected to give a dvar Torah at the dinner table.
Taken especially for Chellie: here is a picture of your baby at his show






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