Work Begins - Day 2

We began our day today with a kavanah about how food is important in connecting with different cultures and communities.  After, we began to work in the high school garden.  We helped clean up the trash, weeded, started to build a walkway into the garden, painted the base color of a mural, started to build tables and chairs out of tires and cement for the students to use outside.  It was a long day, but we saw so much progress and can’t wait to continue working to see more improvement and then the end result.

After lunch and more working, we gathered in a classroom in the school to discuss our relationship to Israel.  We talked about the story of the spies, where Moses sent twelve different spies to scope out the land of Israel and to tell if it was worth settling in.  We had great conversation and everyone had a different interpretation of the story. 

After our discussion, we were dropped off at our host homes where we were able to get ready before going out to dinner with the Druze youth.  At dinner, the food just kept coming.  All of it was so delicious.  We listened to music while we ate, danced, and had great interaction with the Druze. Dessert of delicious baklava was brought out on trays with small cups of coffee to enjoy during and after the dancing.

We concluded the day with a final statement about our kavanah and had everyone state one way that they have connected with a Druze through food. We also went around the circle to say roses, buds, and thorns to debrief the day. Since we weren’t all going to be together at 12:00 for the new year, we pretended that it was 11:59 and counted down to “midnight” and lit sparklers. Today was just incredible. The relationships that we are building are great and can only get better.

Today's post was written by Diana Weinstein and Karen Podorefsky