Day 3 of the 5784/2024 Chabad on Campus Kinus in Israel is Friday, a shorter day and a big part of it will be our visit to the Kotel and Old City and celebrating Kabalat Shabbat there before walking back through Jerusalem to the hotel. And by then – it will be Shabbos (maybe sometime later to write it up)

Also, this is not a Kinus Blog, these day-by-day posts reflect my own personal experience and lens. Important note because today I met up with some Shabbos House alumni, and therefore couldn’t get to do the Mayanot Yeshiva tour with the Kinus.

ALUMNI MEETUP IN GEULAH

First I met up with J. now known as Y. who was a UAlbany student who transferred/transformed to Yeshiva student in Israel. We met in Geulah, on Malchei Yisrael Street, a busy crowded street with shops and people. A beautiful sight to behold! Then Y. got off the bus, whoa, I almost didn’t recognize him, but yet recognized him in a deeper, familial, closeness way. We hugged tight and I almost cried.

We walked down the busy street and talked and caught up and reconnected. We went to a busy bookstore and aside for getting the few items he needed, it was a great springboard for discussion and learning and we had a beautiful hour and half discussing and sharing so many things. It was a beautiful time, and we had the types of conversations I never would have imagined when he was a student back in Albany.

Friday afternoon in bustling Jerusalem! I could just walk and gawk on those streets for hours! So much to take in, so much to see! Teeming with Jewish life, young and old, all styles, the shops, the merchandise, the signs and the labeling, the aromas. Everything!

ALUMNI MEETUP AT THE HOTEL

I got back to the hotel in time to meet an alumni couple C. & A. and their three adorable kids, we spent another good hour and half catching up on their school and camp, the Shuls they go to, the extra-curricular the kids do, (including a Shabbat Tehillimn Club for some amazing prizes!) and their family time and adventures both in Israel and abroad (especially Europe). They do fun sweet things as a family and that is one of the greatest blessings. Their oldest shared very sweelty about school and camp, their middle child shared a slew of riddles. BH the husband is now more settled in his own consulting/bookkeeping/outsourcing business, took time to take root and seems to be growing. May it continue to grow. And they are now settled in a community with more friends for the children – all great things. And still making chip-salad! We’re super grateful for the deep closeness this alumni couple feels all across the many miles and oceans, like good old friends always!

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WELCOMING SHABBAT AT THE KOTEL

We prepared and dressed for Shabbat at the hotel and then buses took us to the Kotel – a one-way drive, for us to walk back after the Shabbat prayers. Again, we traveled/hurtled through the streets of Jerusalem with all their character and charm. There’s that special feelings when the distinctive old stone walls of the Old City come into view for the first time in a long time. And then when the Kotel first comes into view as you come around that (security barrier) bend.

We took our group photo (later we took another group photo on Sunday at the Cave of Machpela, Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron) with the Kotel backdrop (but for real). We then went down to the Kotel Plaza Mens Courtyard to pray Mincha. And then they set up chairs in a round circle for “Seder Niggunim” an Order of Songs. This harks back to Yeshiva days in Chabad on Shabbat, or maybe in Chabad communities for special occasions, to have a time for just singing meaningful heartfelt melodies, guided and moderated.

This Seder Niggunim was different. We were all very much present, had no other responsibilities or obligations, the setting and context provided so much meaning. Others were drawn in, from various backgrounds, to sing these old heartfelt melodies. We were led by R’ Zalman Lipsker who makes learning and singing Chassidic melodies a priority even for his college students at Emory University.

I met a friend, we spent some yeshiva years together. He and his family are on Shlichus in Georgia. They were in Israel celebrating the delayed Bat-Mitzvah of his youngest daughter. Next to me sat a Chassidic yeshiva student, wearing Chassidic garb. I asked and he told me that he is from Montreal and is studying at The Mir, (one of) Jerusalem’s largest and most prestigious yeshivot. He was trying to study from a text, but I saw he kept strumming on his Shtender and leaning into the melodies, often mouthing them.

Song after song, until a crescendo with Alter Rebbe’s Niggun. Now, to be honest, that melody is reserved in Chabad for a limited number of special occasions: under the chuppah, on a major chassidic holiday, or at the end of one of the biblical holidays. I assume the arrangers felt this was just one such lofty meritorious occasion. When was the last time so many of the Rebbe’s Shluchim gathered together at the Kotel to sing and welcome Shabbat at the Kotel?

As it was at the Rebbe’s farbrengens, the serious and heartfelt Alter Rebbe’s Niggun is followed up by the joyous and frolicking Nyzeu-Ritzy-Chloptzi, which changes the mood completely. And so it was at the Kotel that Friday Night, 3rd night of the Kinus. Nearly everyone got up and out of their chairs, joined into a circle, that condensed and strengthened, more people joined in, and soon enough a group of uniformed IDF soldiers praying at the Kotel joined in, too. Before you know it all the IDF soldiers were carried above on Shluchim soldiers, and wearing their black hats for a joyous dance, more songs, more joy, lots of good energy. (There’s a video of this because all this took place before the sun went down).

When we first sat down the sing at the Kotel there was a blue sky above, and the sun was beating strongly on the stones. By the time (after the Shabbat prayers) the sky was dark, but the stones were illuminated (by spotlights) against that dark sky. Watching the transition from the daytime Kotel to the nighttime Kotel was illuminating! I don’t know which I prefer, each format provides a different type of light, the ancient iconic stones shine differently in each. (There are rich life lesson parallels in Chassidic teaching, this was an interesting visual).

WALK BACK TO RAMADA HOTEL

After the Shabbat prayers it was time to walk back to the Ramada Hotel, about an hour’s walk or so (maybe more). We walked up and around, and up and up again, the stone steps in the old city towards the Jaffa Gate, and then walked all the way up Jaffa, passing through its varied neighborhoods, all the way back up to the hotel. I happened to walk with Dov Oliver of Rockland Community College (a veteran of birthright trips and Israel experiences) and Meir Rapoport, a younger, more recent campus Shliach at Stockton in NJ. We talked and shmoozed and shared stories and the long walk and time passed quickly. But what a sweat! What a workout!

SHABBAT DINNER & FARBRENGENS

At the Shabbos meal R’ Shmuly Brown of Liverpool emceed and Rabbi & IDF Major (or maybe higher?) Liraz Zeira spoke. He told a long story/parable with a great message about helping out a fellow Jew/fellow campus Shliach/fellow IDF soldier. He had a lot more to share but that turned into one of the follow-up farbrengens. This man is a Chabad on Campus Shliach at Hebrew U, but also served for several months this year in Gaza.

Something we may not have realized is how many of the Chabad on Campus Shluchim either serve or served in the IDF, how many worked to help accommodate displaced families on their campuses. Almost all had to counsel and be there for students who lost family members or friends on Oct 7th or in the war that followed. Some had students they knew from their campuses who were killed or taken captive on that fateful day. As we told media and University back home so soon after October 7th: “There’s no 6 degrees of separation here!” But in Israel much, much more so!

The Shabbos meal started late that Friday Night but that didn’t stop multiple farbrengens (or many multiples!) from starting after midnight! There were formal farbrengens with speakers, and informal casual farbrengens around Shabbat dinner tables. Personally I went to bed after 2am, but I know that my brother, my Kinus roommate, Rabbi Shmuly of Union College, came up to the room when light was already streaming in between the hotel room curtains. When I went down at 8am myself, a group of Shluchim were finishing up the morning prayers after being up all night long!