Chillin' Out! Moishe House on ICE!

On Saturday, November 24th, Moishe House Minsk took a little field trip. After everyone handed in their signed permissions slips and participated in a loud count-off, we made our way over to one of the most popular places in Minsk, ICE PALACE. Natasha and I were happy to have Moishe House sponsor this post-shabbat, chill-out activity. It proved to be an interesting experiment in trust building and group cohesion!

When planning the event, we feared that bringing a large group of first-time-ice-skating Jews to the rink might prove catastrophic (or hilarious depending on which way you look at it...) but we learned that most of our Belarusian friends have innate ice skating powers. And most of us non-native Minskers were just as impressive as the famous Jamaican Bobsled team of the distinguished film, "Cool Runnings."


After a frenzy of fastening rental skates and making sure we still had each member of our group, we hit the ice. Literally, for a some of us. But when our Talmudic sages of blessed memory first uttered the famous quotation "All Jews are responsible for one another," or

"כל ישראל ערבין זה לזה," I'd like to believe they had us ice skating Jews in mind.

The most important lesson of the evening was that when ice skating with Moishe House Minsk, you can always count on someone to hold your hand and scrape you up off the ice when you're sure you've bruised your tuchis.

"A" for effort!