Week two has flown by, and, technically, today is already week three with PT.  Last week we were busy meeting lots of VIPs like Lynn Schusterman from the Schusterman Foundation and Alisa Kurshan, the head of the New York Federation.  It was great to have an opportunity to sit with them and bounce ideas around and hear their feedback on our projects. 

In our PT curriculum we were working on scanning our professional environments and learning whom else was out there doing complimentary things to what we are trying to create.  We each made our own comprehensive and detailed list, and then were able to better understand what was going on in our fields, what we could learn from others doing similar things and how we can best collaborate with other players in the community.  I enjoyed the in-depth look at everything that is going on in the Cleveland Jewish community and it gave me a new appreciation for all the wonderful things that we have in place for us at home.  It also got me excited to reach out to some very talented people in the community that I can't wait to get involved with CYPminyan.  If you are a community member that would like to get involved and lead a discussion with Jewish content for us, or if you are involved with the minyan and want to hear someone speak on something specific, please get in touch and let us know!

This week (week 3) we will be working on charting out what programs we plan on putting in place to help us accomplish our goals, and the problems, costs and outcomes we are expecting.  We also have a field trip to some very cool companies in Tel Aviv coming up on Wednesday.

Today was also the first day of classes for me at the Conservative Yeshiva.  The Conservative Yeshiva happened to have a summer session that fit in perfectly with my PresenTense schedule, and though I couldn't commit to being at the yeshiva full time, they were very accommodating to my schedule and prior commitments with PT.  For the next three weeks I will be taking two classes, one on Nusach and one on the tension between Torah and Philosophy that I hope will give me some interesting food for thought to bring back with me to the minyan.  The Nusach class seems to be very good.  Today we discussed what exactly is meant by the term "Nusach" and how it works as a defining tool to help people identify what day of the week it is, what service, holiday, etc.  We will be working a lot on learning new tunes (mostly for weekday Shacharit, Kabbalat Shabbat and (hopefully) Shabbat morning) and I am anticipating getting more MP3's of tunes and new songs for our resource page.  I am also trying to gain some tips on what works best to teach people how to lead services.  Three of the people in the class work in elementary Jewish education and are specifically concerned with how to educate day school students, so I'm hearing lots of helpful tricks.  I'm looking forward to the next time we meet.  Tomorrow is the first day for my other class, so I don't have anything to say about it yet.

Looking forward to another very exciting and busy week in Jerusalem! 

Shavua Tov!