"In an old house in Paris all covered with vines, there were twelve little girls in two straight lines."

Angela, pictured here, had her first aliya today and we all cried. She is now really officially a Jew, and has been called to the Torah. Her parents and grandmother came. We met at Chase-Duckett for breakfast, then got buddies and walked over to the Synagog in two lines with Abby leading the way and shouts of "Do you have your buddy?" and "She pinched me." and "Are we there yet?" "If you two don't stop I'll pull over right now..." (Said by Abby to Little Nora and I.) "And what, we'll have to walk?" asked someone, maybe Allie!!! (There were ten of us on the way back because Caitlin and Angela walked with us. It was funny, many of us (not me, I was cold) had pants on under our skirts and had boots on...Big Nora and her Sarah and Sarah Bolts, and Allie...and Rachel had only pants on...It was fun feeling like a delegation of Smithies setting out with our tallises (I can spell tallis now, I looked it up so I could post on Angela's wall!!!!) ...and the building looked like the synagogs I'd been in in other places other than Vermont and the Rabbi was nice, and there was lots of Hebrew and trying to follow along (with is the fun part!!!) and lots of congregational participation leading things!!! And then we stayed for Kiddish and ate food!!! And it's cold...but I feel really good after the morning walk...I feel like a "real" Jew, whatever that means...I mean that we didn't drive on the Sabbath, we wore skirts...I sometimes wish that I lived ina small community where we were close to a synagog and could walk over to it as a group...a small European village like setting...without the killing at the end of it all...but that's what living on a college campus is like, I guess...and it was fun to see all the old men and women there...the men with their tallises and all with the things the synagog has to help them hear better...little ear pieces which get sound off of the mics, I think. Dane had a friend with her at the K. yesterday...but unfortunatly she says that he can't sing...damn. The Torah portion today was what I just studied in class and it was very excited...then I discussed stuff from class with Caitlin later... the Torah portion was Mt. Sinai!!!!!! So it was Moses recieving the "Ten Commandments" It was really cool to be there and hear it read out of the Torah...I didn't follow along in the English, unfortunatly because I was having fun tying to follow along in Hebrew and enjoy the chanted tune and the Hebrew words...which I couldn't understand, but "you can't have everything" (as Dane wrote to me this morning) We had to rise just when the Ten Commandments were read!!!! Rabbi Bruce (the chaplain to Smith College and Amherst College) chanted the Haftorah (Hebrew commentary on the Torah)...at one point his wife brought over to Angela their youngest, and most adorable child because she wanted to sit with Angela...it was really sweet...she was talking...but she was whispering...I guess if you are a Rabbi's child you learn how to whipser from a very early age. (She's two or three...I think.) Which reminds me that at the K. last night we were talking about children and most of us said we wanted to have them, but Marquela said she does not...that she would adopt if she was going to have them. It was fun because Rachel (different one from the one mentioned at the begining of this) and Emily kept making funny gestures about being pregnant...and I wouldn't have been suprised if people had looked at our group funny. I have proven that my blog was well named..."You really don't have to read all of this!!) Also...Little Nora was playing with a ribbon and I offered her one of my tallis fringes to play with...I used to play with my dad's tallis before I got my own. During this guy's speech about the Torah portion we'd read today Rachel nudged me and whispered, "We're all playing with our Tzit-Tzit....(fringes)...I looked, a long row of Smithies, fiddling with our prayer shawls...I could almost imagine us all holding knitting instead...steriotypical females...I did feel like I went to an all women's seminary, walking back from services!! : )