Limmud in the UK 2007 - From Todd Shotz

All day I kept forgetting it was Christmas...we were in the bubble of Limmud.

Tomorrow is our last full day of the Limmud London conference. This experience has prepared us well to come back and help in planning the first Limmud LA conference. I have learned that the spirit of Limmud is all for one and one for all – it has the inspiring idealism of the youth groups or camps, providing Jews a short safe escape to learn, meet, connect and grow. There is no way that anyone will leave this conference unaffected or unchanged.

For those of you who know me, I delight in small world stories – when the course of things comes full circle. This time here has proved to show how small the Jewish world can be. I had read in the program booklet that there was a representative from Yad Vashem and I also recognized the name but could not place it. Standing at the help desk a day or so ago, I recognized the woman next to me and realized that this was Tamara who was my guide last year at Yad Vashem and gave me and my parents an excellent semi-private tour of the film exhibitions in the new museum. She and I hung out in the lounge for an hour one of the days and became fast friends. She may be able to come to LA for our Limmud and I hope to help her look into this when I return. I also bumped into a friend who was on the year-long Federation leadership program in Israel, Project Otzma with me, who I had not seen in over 10 years.

When I first arrived, I read in the booklet that Reva L'Sheva, the incredible religious band from Israel made up of mostly ex-pat Americans, would be playing a concert and hosting sessions during the conference. Two summers ago, my brother and now sister-in-law were planning their wedding and my sister-in-law wanted to use a song called “Verastich Li / Wedding Rings” for the processional. She had heard the song during college when she spent a semester abroad at Hebrew Univ. and has always loved Reva L’Sheva since. As I was planning the music for the ceremony, I googled the group and ended up getting on the phone with the band leader/founder Yehuda Katz. He was happy to help and faxed me the chord sheet. The song has a haunting and beautiful melody and its words taken from the tefilin blessings speak of our betrothal to G-d and to one another. As she and my brother circled each other to this song – you truly got chills at how perfect it was. Back to Limmud - unfortunately, I missed their full-on concert last night as I was attending the Limmud International board meeting. But tonight, they had a more intimate just acoustic get-together with another band called Pshutei Ha’am. I got a seat in the front row and as they began to jam together, I realized that the niggun they started with sounded familiar …could it be? And then Yehuda Katz with his long beard, big smile opened his mouth and sang out “Verastich Li.” I was in heaven. It was a very spiritual concert. Yehuda announced that it was his plan to take us all to Yerushalayim for the next two hours. And he did or at least came very close to. Afterwards, I approached him and he remembered completely, gave me a big hug and made me promise to email him when I am next in Israel. They are going to be in Houston the weekend of Limmud LA but it would be great to host them for a future conference.

Then, Shira, Abby and I hung out at the bar with the Reva L'Sheva bassist Brian Levine and drummer Danny Roth – they are both from LA and now live in Israel. Each night, we were at the bar until at least 2am when it shut down in typical British fashion and adjourned with everyone else to the Main Hall. One night, members of Reva L'Sheva, the rapper Y-Love and other musicians had an impromptu jam session that started around 3am. It is these spontaneous events and small word stories that sum up what Limmud can be.