Shabbos Mishpatim was a back to basics Shabbos as our campus community was bolstered by a visit from a few now married alumni and some travelers from out of town. Building off the momentum of a strong Kabbalat Shabbat, the Hillel dinner with a special menu of Greek food was especially hopping with a constant buzz of excitement at old friends and new.

You are cordially invited to attend The Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus's 10th Anniversary Celebration

Sunday, March 14th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
The Rose Art Museum
Brandeis University
Waltham, Massachusetts

To RSVP and donate, please visit www.jliconline.org/brandeis10

The Cornell Eruv has been completed, and we thank the Cornell Eruv Committee for its hard work and dedication.

Please see the full article in The Cornell Daily Sun at: cornellsun.com

or on the JLIC website at jliconline.

In the first Shabbos back after vacation we saw a very nice turnout for all the events of the weekend. Friday night saw our largest minyan of the year with a good number of women also representing. Dinner numbers were above average. Divrei Torah focused on the Kiddush Hashem of Jews in the Media during the last couple weeks, and urged a student effort in response to the earthquake in Haiti. The Oneg Friday night saw a nice increase in participation as well as many more students had time this early in their semester to stay and sing and share words of Torah with us. Shabbos day was truly the day of the minyan men. After davening Shachrit and finally musaf with only 9 present, 2 students came in and saved the day allowing for Torah to be read, Baruch HaGomel to be said, and for a special guest maftir to be said. All in all, it was a strong Davening experience with lots of singing and divrei Torah as we kept our hopes alive for our minyan.

by Mordechai and Nisa Harris
This past weekend saw a resurgence of life to the SUNY Albany Shabbat community (despite the fact that it's right before finals). Hillel brought in a comedic duo to tell us all about the difficulties of dating in college, and the result was a student turnout that rivaled opening week turnout. The orthodox minyan alone had almost twice the usual turnout. It also meant that dinner was longer then usual to accommodate the usual divrei Torah and announcements on top of the show. By the time the show finished, it was already an hour after the usual end time of dinner, nevertheless our Oneg regulars joined by a few new faces to Friday night still managed to stay for another couple of hours, singing and discussion. Inspired by the weekly Parsha's wrestling match, we wrestled with the topic of what it means to be Bnei Yisrael, and our responsibility to struggle with... well, everything. Needless to say, conversation got lively, and it was clear pretty quickly that this was only the beginning of many future conversations. Saturday resumed it's usual course as we were reunited with Chabad for the first time at full strength since the beginning of the semester. (Our other trips had found that at least the Chabad Rabbi was away which gave us an opportunity to fill in, but it was good to again work with.) For the first time in recent campus memory we had a minyan within the first half hour and prior to the first Kaddish opportunity. Latecomers were happily shocked to find that instead of being the 10th man, they were the 15th or 17th. The davening reflected that positive energy, and that energy was carried into a delicious lunch filled with divrei Torah and the first snow storm of the season. Following lunch the men and women went their own ways as a special womens' shiur on Chanukah was given upstairs. The men had a lively discussion on Israeli politics and In vitro meat's Kashrut status over a Sudah Shlishit which no one really had the appetite to eat (short Shabbos at fault and not the discussion of test tube meat...) After Shabbat there was a quick Mariv and a nice Havdallah before the Chabad Rabbi drove everyone home through the bitter snowstorm. Due to weather and finals, there was no Sat. night event. We look forward to a great next semester.