Aish classes

We had our first classes today. In the first, we discussed Shabbat. I know a lot about Shabbat, but as a liberal Jew, I don't feel obligated to keep all the rules and regulations surrounding it. Instead, I celebrate it by staying off Facebook to remind me about making and keeping real relationships rather than technology-driven relationships. Sure that is harder since I don't live in a city with my family and I have friends all over the world, but to me, it is more about face to face, intimate interactions between people. We can hang out together and not necessarily discuss important things, but having a conversation and understanding the nuances of human interactions are very important.

Then, we had a class using the Cain and Abel story to discuss jealousy on a basic level. This will be an ongoing class during which we will explore themes of jealousy in the Torah and how that relates to our lives.

After lunch, we boarded a bus for the Old City where we took a tour of the Aish HaTorah building. The roof has a great view of the Kotel and Temple Mount. We took pictures. One thing that came up was when we heard the call to prayer. I think it is so amazing to hear the call, but I get the feeling that other women in the group have clear biases against Muslims and/or feel that the call to prayer is offensive in some way to their own experience here, unnecessary or illegitimate in the state of Israel. I don't have the language (yet) to explain why I disagree with the views of the other women in the group, but hopefully by the end of my year here, I will be able to say something to this.

The first class at Aish discussed Abraham as the first monotheist. The same idea of questioning everything arose in this class. The second class was the most interesting to me, and it followed the ideas of the Five Levels of Pleasure as written by Rabbi Noah Weinberg that I found on Aish's website at <a href="http://www.aish.com/sp/f/Five_Levels_of_Pleasure.html?tab=y">this link</a>. The ideas follow Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs somewhat closely, in that physical pleasure is the least advanced form and it goes up to love, doing good for others (or having passion about a cause), creativity, and  then having spirituality, specifically with having a relationship with a higher being. Pretty similar to the Hierarchy of Needs in my opinion. Finally, the third class was taught by a professor from New York, who spoke about the upcoming election and what it means for Jews. I liked the class, but he spoke like a political science professor and it was hard to keep up. It was really his opinion on how Israel and the Jews figure into the upcoming election, in politics generally, and the meaning of that. It wasn't necessarily new information, but good to consider nonetheless.