BS"D


I CAN'T SAY "POUGHKEEPSIE"

Wednesday, Augusy 4th
By 9am I woke, showered, davened, visited with Amy over breakfast til 10 (Shimon was on the phone). As I said goodbye to them both & thanked them heartily, R' Shimon reminded me that I had the responsibility of not only breaking new ground for women, but *to make a living at it*, otherwise all my work & struggles would be next to meaningless. He invited me to speak at Oberlin next spring & I accepted.
At 11am I checked the womenstorah.org hit counter & e-mail @ the Oberlin Con(servatory).
Poughkeepsie. I'm heading towards Poughkeepsie & I cannot for the life of me pronounce this name.
There was MUCH highway construction & waiting, it being the summer, so the trip took a good 5 hours longer today than anticipated. I sang in the car. The sun tipped itself down a Catskills slope & then ensued adventures in the dark getting directions from people in Accord who couldn't pronounce the name of my destination but were very nice & helpful.
10pm Elat Chayyim!
Stumbled upon Hayah Gafni on my way through the centre. She was writing away on her laptop, but we took a few minutes to catch up briefly & enthusiastically. It was really terrific to see her & catch some of that light again.
Shoshanah, one of R' Mordechai's maggidim, Joel's cohorts & a Reconstructionist rabbinical student, is really something. A very highly luminous character.
& I FINALLY met Shir-Yaaqov! *please* check out his blog! http://sixthirteen.org/blog/
There were so many bright smiling tired happy young shiny faces to greet, so many souls to connect with - what a brakhah!
It was very late by the time all the introductions had been made, the car had a new home & I was exhausted - too much to erect the tent. A bunch of us slept in Yoga moadon.