So I arrived at the Kibbutz in company with two of my other kvutzot-in-progress hevre (we really have to come up with a name for our kvutzot to make my writing life easier if for no other reason. Right henceforth I will refer to us as KIP -kibbutz in progress). There were tables piled high with fresh watermelon slices, vegetable plates, blintzes and all sorts of other good things but I only got a chance to snatch a slice a watermelon (and I was starving!! I didn’t eat all day, being too busy, and had planned…!!) the whole evening because we were so busy.

The 6 of us in our KIP immediately found each other and banded together with the addition of Kobi, a computer programmer who may be joining us. Then we were all herded into the large community room where we had a short educational reading and lecture on just how cool Ruth and Noami were. For those who don’t know anything about Shavuot (which means 99% of Jews and everyone else), the section of the Torah dealing with Ruth always gets read at Shavuot because the descriptions of the barley and wheat harvest and Ruth’s desire to become a member of the Jewish people totally fit with the theme of the holiday which is, itself, a celebration of the day that the Torah was given at Mount Sinai after years of wandering in ye olde desert wilderness. So the Torah was given and here we have Ruth converting and accepting the Torah herself and it makes quite the happy little match. As a side note and really quite fitting with the holiday as well, I read on Ha’aretz yesterday that particularly in light of incidences such as the case of a woman whose conversion was recently annulled by the Ashdod Rabbinical Court, the State is going to do massive reform to the conversion process stating that “Rabbinical courts are intimidating converts as well as rabbis by setting unreasonable requirements,” and thus they plan to strike back. Good on them!

Then we went to the first chinuch –and it was our last as our little KIP made a mini rebellion and chose to use the rest of the time to start getting into the details of what it is we want to do and how we want to live and so forth (more about that in a further post). But now for a brief description of the Chinuch which was titled: About the Wealth Problem. Our little KIP along with two of the leaders of Tamuz sat at a table outside and we took turns reading (nu, I was like noooo way am I reading but it didn’t come to public embarrassment because we never got that far) paragraphs of the educational material in front of us and then discussing each one. Here is a breakdown of the paragraph topics:

    Why people want to be wealthy?
    What is wrong with this?
    What to do?
    (subsections: limitations of ownership, limitations on privitization, inheritance taxes)
    Fears and Misgivings of the democratic formula (and why the democratic formula is important to maintain

We only got so far as limitations of ownership because our discussions got somewhat side-tracked earlier on arguing what are the differences between Bill Gates and Gaydamak and applying liberal doses of Weber. Then we got sidetracked in a discussion of Calvinism particularly as it relates to Weber vs Marx theories. Take 2 Webers and 1 Marx and call me in the morning.

At that point we were called to come join in either the singing or another chinuchi discussion (also eating < ---waaaaahhh) and the KIP plus Kobi rebelled and remained at our little table to toss aside Weber and Marx (well not entirely) and get into KIP business. I was honestly quite relieved because, while I did jump into the conversation surrounding the chinuch topics I have a)covered this topic in innumerable "chinuchs" in my past life as a Dror kid --good g-d not again! and b)while, having covered it so much in previous chinuchs, I can argue the nuances of Weber in my sleep --but not so well in Hebrew.

Our little group sat together discussing the future of KIP until 3 a.m. by which time I was no longer able to communicate in any language. More later on what was communicated, however :)