Jan 08 Lee Levin Moishe LA

Jan was fun but hard. My family had emergencies that brought us together again. The retreat was a blast. Feb. has a lot in store. Look out LA is back and hungry. Go Giants

MHSS Alan is a bit shy

The Moishe House retreat was a great little break from the day-to-day. I loved meeting MH folks from all over, and I look forward to visitting you guys and getting to know more of you over the course of the year.

Karaoke night at MHSS was hard core amazing. Who knew Rachael knew Korean? She deftly showed us around the place and explained how to use the foreign equipment. The benefit of "private-room" karaoke as opposed to "open-bar" karaoke is that your friends can sing along with you, dance around you and be totally ridiculous.

The Tu Bishvat seder which we co-sponsored with Shomrei Adamah of Greater Washington was a delight. We provided strictly kosher food and wine for the attendees who needed, and helped set up tables and materials for the seder, facilitate it, and clear out the space after it. There were over 50 people in attendance, and in between ritual foods and thoughts on nature, the soul, and ecology, we told them all about MHSS! Then we all stuffed our faces.

Vacations, ahhh!

It was a nice, relaxing month of January. All of us Moishe House Montevideo residents were off work for vacations, and we all got a bit of traveling in.

My parents visited me! Which was awesome. We spent a few days in Montevideo so they got to know my new city, a couple days in Punta del Este (real nice beach town in Uruguay about two hours drive away), a day in Iguazu (one of the most amazing places I've been in my life--TONS of HUGE waterfalls!), and four days in Buenos Aires. We had tons of fun together, but now I miss them more again. Oh well, it was nice to see them, and things are still going well for me in Montevideo.

After getting out to a hot start as a Moishe House in December, things slowed down a bit in January. Not only were we getting our own traveling in, but it seemed like the entire city was out of town! Everytime we made calls for our events people told us they were in Punta, or Piriapolis, or Rocha, or somewhere on the beach, not in Montevideo. I've never experienced this type of vacation culture before. In the States we all take our allotted vacation at different times. Here pretty much everyone gets off the month of January, and some get February off too. Even some of the restaurants I go to are closed for vacations. So our turnouts were smaller, but in a way it was nice because things were more intimate that way. We're starting to find out who our regulars are too. Although it wasn't the busiest month, I feel we still made progress.

Hope everyone had fun at the Moishe retreat in the North! Looking forward to a great month of February,

Jay Krefman
Moishe House Montevideo

MH Chicago, Caren M. 2/1/08

Shabbat Shalom. It's a nice cold and snowly day in Chicago. It's been a very full week since our return from California. The wet but warmer California air was a nice break, but it's great to be home. We had three programs this week and I started a new job. There are a lot of good things happening here in Chicago and lots more to come. So, all is good! Upon coming home we decided to increase our programs to the next level and are looking forward to making a greater impact in Chicago.

Thank you all for a wonderful retreat. It was a pleasure to meet and spend time with all the American Moishe Houses. It was really special to learn more about the overall program and learn from each other how our various houses operate. Thank you all for being open and making the retreat what it was. It was a treat to spend the weekend together. You all have friends and a home in Chicago so please know you're always welcome. Take care.

Connections

So, what is this Moishe House project we are working on?  Last week's gathering really gave me a context to place my own work building MHBOS into.  The first element is the connection to the other houses.  While we are not bound by any robust set of explicit values, it is clear that just in signing up to be a Moishe House, we share a deep interest in welcoming guests and building community.  I think we even share an understanding of the goals of that community building, that is to improve, in some small way, our corner of the world.  Where we may not share perspectives is on exactly what that change should look like, and how it can be achieved.  This is not a trivial gap, as it turns every Moishe House into its own project, rather than uniting us in one big project.  The benefit, however, is the incredible diversity of communities that are being built under the Moishe House umbrella.

The second element was hearing from Morris.  I've been mulling over his slightly cryptic remarks all week, clearly a sign that they got to me.  What they mean, however, I am less clear about.  Leadership and Tikkun Olam.  Sounds simple, but again, what does this radically transformed world look like?  And how do we get there?  I think these are the important questions for all of us moving forward.

RRR, the House, London

So, there were thirty three people sitting downstairs talking and hearing about whether the method of providing aid to developing countries is effective, and ten people upstairs watching a man use his electric razor to see whether their inner peace could be unsettled by its use out of context.

The House has enabled me to be much more sociable and outgoing than before.
When I say outgoing, I guess it just means leaving my bedroom, because there are forty people beyond it.
And playfulness. I guess I became a mixologist to make myself more outgoing, but I always managed to preserve my personal space because I could stand behind a bar.
But what's to be scared of? Noone has their defences up when they come in here and kick their shoes off.
And it's not a bad progression to make a Manhattan in my kitchen and sip it at our Beit Midrash.

bloggidy blog

Moishe house Tel Aviv is sad that they missed the retreat. Maybe next time we can have it in Israel. That’d be cool. Anyway,…I was thinking about writing a blog…and that got me to thinking about blogs in general. So I asked myself, “Dave-do you actually read any blogs?” and the answer was yes, yes I do. In the spirit of sharing, I would like to provide some links that I am known to frequent:

www.jewlicious.com
-these guys are the kings of jewish blogging in my opinion

http://www.avclub.com/content/hater
-Sarcastic and funny

http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/
-Kanye West’s blog is surprisingly informative