Kisses from the Rabbi?

      We had our third and final preparation meeting on February 12 for all our travelers!  At this meeting, the Rabbi started with an ice breaker to get each member of the group to share an interesting attribute of themselves with the group.  He started by handing out kisses -- Hersey's Kisses that is.  No one knew what the kisses were for, but we weren't supposed to eat them...   The number of kisses each person took, determined how many tidbits that person would need to share.

      Well this was a very interesting exercise, and fun.  By the end of our meeting, however, many of our kisses were melting in our hands.  Instead of chocolate, the Rabbi informed us that he has also previously run this ice breaker by using squares of toilet paper.  Well, I'm sorry, but even melting in our hands, I prefer the melting kisses over toilet paper!! 

      As a side note (one tangent of many) the Rabbi also told us that in Judaism, if a man gives a woman a small token of no appreciable worth, and says 'we're married', then the marriage is recognized as valid.  This apparently holds true even for children (why is that?) which obviously creates some issues....  As the Rabbi was demonstrating this by handing his Hershey Kiss to Anita -- Hal let the Rabbi know quite clearly that Anita was already spoken for!!

On a sadder note - we learned recently that a few members of our group had taken ill, and would not be able to join with us on our journey.  We wish them speedy recoveries back home, and healthier days to come.