Category: National Blog

Be one of the first to own the inaugural “InTERPretations on the Parsha”, University of Maryland’s newest Torah Journal, compiling more than 50 unique insights on the Parsha, written by undergrads at UMD. Your purchase will go directly to strengthening Jewish life on campus through JLIC.

April 08, 2010 By Rabbi Aryeh and Sharona Kaplan It is amazing to consider how many of the milestones in our personal life are intimately intertwined with equally notable milestones of the Orthodox community at UCLA. We arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004, happily settling into a spacious two-bedroom apartment in Westwood near campus, luxuriating in our SUV with an empty back seat and cavernous trunk, while marveling at the personal journey that lay ahead. We quickly made the Hillel at UCLA our home away from home, for JLIC is located there. We hunkered down in the Beit Medrash, the Jewish library, studying the sheet of names that was the complete list of men and women participants in the JLIC community at UCLA that we inherited from Rabbi Uri and Julie Goldstein, who built the program there in its first three years and left us much to work with. Now, almost six years later, we have moved ourselves, and our three Angelino children (ages, 5, 3 and 1), out of our very full apartment, are anticipating the arrival of our new eight-seater SUV which is scheduled to arrive only weeks before our fourth child, and look back astounded on all that has transpired. The Beit Medrash is alive with a steady buzz of learning and daily minyamim-- prayer services; the new bookcases that were installed to accommodate the additional Jewish texts are full beyond capacity; and our Excel spreadsheet cataloging the members of the JLIC community boasts over 450 names. JLIC programming is the pulse of an Orthodox student’s life on campus. With a wide range of study opportunities, including ones specifically tailored to law school students, Iranian students, men’s and women’s learning groups, advanced learning opportunities and classes for those just beginning – not to mention over 40 one-on-one study sessions each week – the calendar of learning is diverse and exciting. With personal classes for brides and grooms; support for newly married couples; classes for young professional alumni delivered at their workplaces and ongoing mentorship; counseling and shared celebrations, the relationships formed through JLIC are often deep and long lasting.

Rabbi Mordy Friedman, JLIC co-educator at Penn, wrote a letter to his students about purchasing ice cream from Ben and Jerry's after Pesach. Ben and Jerry's is owned by Jews and they do not sell their chametz. Can students buy ice cream or is it considered "Chametz She'avar Alav HaPesach?"

Shabbos Mishpatim was a back to basics Shabbos as our campus community was bolstered by a visit from a few now married alumni and some travelers from out of town. Building off the momentum of a strong Kabbalat Shabbat, the Hillel dinner with a special menu of Greek food was especially hopping with a constant buzz of excitement at old friends and new.

The Cornell Eruv has been completed, and we thank the Cornell Eruv Committee for its hard work and dedication.

In the first Shabbos back after vacation we saw a very nice turnout for all the events of the weekend. Friday night saw our largest minyan of the year with a good number of women also representing. Dinner numbers were above average. Divrei Torah focused on the Kiddush Hashem of Jews in the Media during the last couple weeks, and urged a student effort in response to the earthquake in Haiti. The Oneg Friday night saw a nice increase in participation as well as many more students had time this early in their semester to stay and sing and share words of Torah with us. Shabbos day was truly the day of the minyan men. After davening Shachrit and finally musaf with only 9 present, 2 students came in and saved the day allowing for Torah to be read, Baruch HaGomel to be said, and for a special guest maftir to be said. All in all, it was a strong Davening experience with lots of singing and divrei Torah as we kept our hopes alive for our minyan.

by Mordechai and Nisa Harris This past weekend saw a resurgence of life to the SUNY Albany Shabbat community (despite the fact that it's right before finals). Hillel brought in a comedic duo to tell us all about the difficulties of dating in college, and the result was a student turnout that rivaled opening week turnout. The orthodox minyan alone had almost twice the usual turnout. It also meant that dinner was longer then usual to accommodate the usual divrei Torah and announcements on top of the show. By the time the show finished, it was already an hour after the usual end time of dinner, nevertheless our Oneg regulars joined by a few new faces to Friday night still managed to stay for another couple of hours, singing and discussion. Inspired by the weekly Parsha's wrestling match, we wrestled with the topic of what it means to be Bnei Yisrael, and our responsibility to struggle with... well, everything. Needless to say, conversation got lively, and it was clear pretty quickly that this was only the beginning of many future conversations. Saturday resumed it's usual course as we were reunited with Chabad for the first time at full strength since the beginning of the semester. (Our other trips had found that at least the Chabad Rabbi was away which gave us an opportunity to fill in, but it was good to again work with.) For the first time in recent campus memory we had a minyan within the first half hour and prior to the first Kaddish opportunity. Latecomers were happily shocked to find that instead of being the 10th man, they were the 15th or 17th. The davening reflected that positive energy, and that energy was carried into a delicious lunch filled with divrei Torah and the first snow storm of the season. Following lunch the men and women went their own ways as a special womens' shiur on Chanukah was given upstairs. The men had a lively discussion on Israeli politics and In vitro meat's Kashrut status over a Sudah Shlishit which no one really had the appetite to eat (short Shabbos at fault and not the discussion of test tube meat...) After Shabbat there was a quick Mariv and a nice Havdallah before the Chabad Rabbi drove everyone home through the bitter snowstorm. Due to weather and finals, there was no Sat. night event. We look forward to a great next semester.