NCSY Stollel (Week 5)

NCSY Stollel is slowly winding down. With just a little more than a week left and a beard still on my face I'm destined to make some drastic decisions in the upcoming hours.

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Sunday was chabura trip day. For the uninitiated: The way the NCSY Stollel works is that every five or so kids are in a "chaburah" and have their own madrich who is supposed to individually brainwash them. They meet usually once a day to learn for about an hour and a half. Since I don't have a chabura I was exempt from chaburah-trips and stayed back in Beis Meir for the morning.

In the afternoon, I drove in with Witty to meet up with Yoni Miller and Ari Strulowitz's chaburah-trip, one of the few chaburah's who didn't opt to play frisbee or go to the mall. They went to Rav Neventzal in the morning and in arranged to have Rav Machlis speak to the fellows in Netzach Yisrael in the afternoon. Of course Rav Machlis couldn't understand why they wanted to hear him speak when there are at least a million rabbis in Jerusalem who might have something meaningful to say. Of the hour of time that he had reserved for us he spent about 50 minutes going around asking each NCSYer their name and where they were from and talking to them.

I guess I had never told him that I am the "photographer" on the kollel. When I did, he said,

"Oh, you mean you're like G-d? G-d is also a photographer."
[On a similar note, a few weeks ago at shiur in his house he also mentioned that he once was talking to a homeless person and was telling them that they are very much like G-d because just like they don't have a home, G-d is also without a home since the destruction of the Temple.]

After R' Machlis the chaburah's went up the block to Yoni's friend, an upcoming Hassidic rapper, Mor-to-Life who gave the guys a sample of his music from his upcoming CD.



The day concluded with "Yom NCSY," a gathering of all NCSY programs in Israel for the summer (Kollel, Midreshet, TJJ, Ice, Give...) They had a few speakers and a slide show presentation. For the "frum" programs the background music to their pictures was Yeshiva Boys Choir. For the public school kids who gave up their Summer to come learn about their heritage in Eretz Yisrael they blasted Z-100 emo-rock. Ridiculous.

The night was not entirely wasted as it concluded with a concert from Chaim Dovid and the Good News Bearers. They played some great new songs from their new album.


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Tuesday was official tiyul day with options of 1) Darja (intense hike for the well-fit), 2) the Blind Museum/Palmach Museam, and 3) the Yerushalayim Gedolim Tour.

I opted for number three. We started the morning with Shachris in Beit HaRav and then made our way with R' Benji Levin (R' Aryeh's grandson) to the Jerusalem Prison where R' Aryeh used to go to visit the inmates. R' Benji was great and shared great stories about his grandfather and R' Kook along the way. I dont think I had ever been to the prision before but it's a really eye-opening museum. Aside from the R' Aryeh part of it, its amazing to see and learn about the original fighters and those who gave up their lives for the modern state of Israel.

At the conclusion of the tour he shared the following teaching from his grandfather:

A famous writer saw R' Aryeh in the street and asked him:

"Rabbi, is it true what they say about you, that you are one of the lamed-vav tzaddikim?"

R' Aryeh responded, "Sometimes I am, but sometimes I'm not." R' Aryeh explained: "People think that the lamed-vav tzaddikim are 36 people who hold that title for their entire lives and they sit in one of those special thirty-six chairs until they die. But it's not true. Any person at any time can be one of the lamed vav tzaddikim. All it requires is that a person looks beyond themselves to do something for another person. So sometimes I am and sometimes I am not."

The remainder of the day consisted of visits to the renowned Belz Beis Kenesses, R' Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, R' Tuvia Weiss of the Eida Chareidis, and R' Yitzchak Sheiner, Rosh Yeshiva of Kaminetz.




Dinner was in Meah Shearim. Each person was given 35 shekel for dinner. Inspired by the morning of R' Aryeh, I recalled that in the biography R' Aryeh writes that there were days as a bachur when they didn't have what to eat and they survived on "eating" Rashba's, and so I took my dinner money and opted for 9 shekel worth of lemon-barad and 26 shekel worth of seforim.

The night concluded with a trip to R' Elyashiv who was giving shiur to a packed beis midrash.



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Not much else happened this week. The place in OJ where I live is a three room complex which they call the "Pluatone." This week, Witty and I decided that we needed a different place to study and so we opened the Plollel.



We're off to a great start, though we could use an urn.
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NCSY heads to the Old City for Shabbos which is bound to be enjoyable. Next Shabbos, R' Dovid'l and Rina will G-d willing be here and all are invited for Shabbat on Rechov HaAri (likely feat. AP HaLevi, Gabi, Ben-Oded and more...)

Mazal Tov again to Mr. and Mrs. Ash and we hope they enjoy their first complete Shabbat together.

Wow, we are so old.

For those who need extra reading material...this is what I'm supposedly doing here at the NCSY Stollel
CLICK HERE