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(This and all future posts will be cross-posted to Pardes' student blog, These and Those.)

I can't write about last weekend's Shabbaton at the Beit Yehuda Hostel in the southwest of Jerusalem. To properly capture an experience so jam-packed and uplifting, with so much bonding, learning, singing, eating, hiking, swimming, laughing, I would need to write a song or a poem about it, but fortunately for you, I am not going to try since I'm terrible at both. Instead, I'll try to show it through an experience.

When we first got to the hostel (though it was really a resort) Thursday night, we went for a small hike to see the sunset over the Judean Hills. Imagine the group in the top picture singing these two* songs** while looking at something like the Jerusalem sunset in the bottom only 10,000 times more spectacular.

Then you might know what the whole weekend was like.

* “The Lord is my strength and my song, He has become my salvation,” Exodus 15:2, from the Song at the Sea.

** “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing of your kindness in the morning and your faithfulness in the nights,” from Psalm 92:1-2.

(Hat-tip to Evan Remer for the photos.)