Week of Chanukah 5771

This week was not a regular week in any country for Jews as we celebrated eight glowing nights of Chanukah. In Yeshiva we spent Sunday and Monday exploring Israel on our own. We relaxed, went to museums, visited historical sights, and just hung out with friends.

This happy chag had a bittersweet taste as through Sunday we all kept close to the news headlines to watch as negligence caused the worst fire in Israeli history. A teenager who chucked a coal into the forest and didn’t notify anyone about the fire set the Carmel ablaze on Thursday. The disaster claimed forty-two lives, 50,000 dunam of land, and caused 17,000 people to be evacuated from their homes over a three-day period. 

Tuesday: At 9:00am we left Jerusalem to explore the north. We stopped on Kibbutz Ginosar for lunch. We then continued our drive to the Hula Valley for a tractor ride through the reserve. We saw thousands of cranes migrating and a bunch of other birds and animals. Davening in such a natural place gave us a sense of Israel that one does not get on a daily basis. After our bird watching we drove to Kiryat Shmona: davened, lit candles, learned a bit, and went out for a fantastic meat dinner in the city. Afterwards we all headed off to sleep, learn, or wander the city a bit.

Wednesday: As always, we woke up early to daven and get ready for our day. We bought our breakfast on the run and continued to our tiyul starting point at nachal ayun. We enjoyed seeing the Israeli-Lebanese border up close on our walk that had beautiful waterfalls and a breath taking landscape. After two hours we headed off to Tel Chai. Tel Chai is the story of Trumpeldor death, which we learnt about with an intensive interactive tour. The tour guide explained to us that Tel Chai is special since it was the first location that Zionistic pioneers fell in battle who where simply trying to settle their own land. Back at Yeshiva we davened with the Kibbutz (always a fun experience), lit candles, had a shir, and then celebrated the last night of Chanukah with the whole Yeshiva together. We danced, ate, and sang into the night with our shiluv, the bogrim, and our rabbeim.

Thursday: Started with davening at 7:00am as we do every day in Yeshiva. The morning was the final piece of our shiur klali frenzy (the whole Yeshiva learns together and one of the Rosh Yeshivot give the morning shir). We had the opportunity each day of chag to hear from a different Rosh Yeshiva. Following lunch and mincha Rav Yehuda gave his Parshat HaShavua shir which was followed with our daily afternoon chevrutot, and a unique shir from Rov Yossi on the possible differences in tradition with general Jewish thought and Italian practices in the thirteen hundreds. After dinner, arvit, and night seder we had our Thursday night special sicha. Rav Bigman elaborated on a sicha we had in the past on Chiluni religious practices.

That was our week, we hope you enjoyed hearing about it. Shavua Tov.

Shabbat Shalom.

-Kyle Blank

Rain and Chanukah

Ma’ale Gilboa has shown us extreme heat, cold nights, windy days, and cloudy skies, but it has never shown us rain. In fact, it has barely rained at all in Israel this year.  Therefore, on Monday, we said special prayers to ask for rain. Also, because this week is right before Chanuka, we concentrated our studies on learning about the laws and customs of Chanuka.


Here is what we did last week…


Since no one else has done so before me thought I would just fill you in on what a week looks like here in Ma’ale Gilboa.


Sunday: Remember, Sunday is a regular work day in Israel. Nevertheless, there were not so many people at the Beit Midrash for Shacharit. Perhaps it was because people stayed up late on Saturday night eating pizza, watching movies on their computer, or talking with friends—usual Saturday night activities. Everything else was normal except that during Rabbi Yehua’s shiur he mentioned that tomorrow we would be saying a special prayer for rain. Some people planned on fasting as well.


Monday: We continued learning about the laws of Chanuka in our Gemara classes. During the break, I participated an art class. It usually takes place on Fridays, but because we missed it last Friday, we had it today. In the class, we practiced sketching the tree outside the Beit Midrash. At 3:30, we said the special prayer for rain with the members of the kibbutz. At night, we had a class with Debora, the art history teacher. She showed us a slide show of examples of Chanukiot throughout history. She started with the Menorah taken away from the Second Temple to a Chanukia shaped as the security wall.


Tuesday: We had a group Gemara class today about Chanuka with everyone studying at Ma’ale Gilboa. (Usually we just study with the students in our group.) At about 4 p.m. we left MG for our weekly volunteer activity at Beit Alfa. Beit Alfa is an absorption center for Ethiopian immigrants. I help 18 to 22 year olds study for the exams needed to earn a high school diploma. Other volunteering options include: helping high school students with their tests, playing with kids, and helping with the agriculture on the kibbutz.


Wednesday: Like Tuesday, today we also had a group Gemara class about Chanuka. After that, we had the weekly Wednesday room cleaning to do.  At 4 p.m. we davened Mincha and Maariv with the kibbutz. We lit the Chanuka candles. For the Chanuka celebration, we joined our Gemara groups and ate with our Rammim (Rabbi / teacher). I went to Rav Meir’s house. The celebration was fun. While on the bus, we listened to the radio, we laughed when we heard that the Palestinians claimed that the Kotel is not a Jewish place. At Rav Meir’s house, we told stories about miracles that happened to us, and after that we ate some good Israeli Chanuka jelly-filled donuts


Thursday: Because of Chanuka, we all left the Yeshiva after Shacharit, breakfast, and a shiur with Rav Bigman.
So, there you have it—a week at MG. Hopefully next week would be just as good.

Daniel Felber

Bar Mitzvah, The Maccabees, and Chabad

Ma’ale Gilboa weekly blog- Parashat Vayeshev/ Joel Weiner

Apart from Shabbat, Thursday is my favourite day of the week, so I thought I’d write a little about what went on in the Yeshiva yesterday:

We started the morning with the Bar Mitzvah of a boy from a nearby Kibbutz in the valley, whose family had decided they wanted it to take place in our Beit Midrash (a good choice, I might add!). It was wonderful to be able to join in the family’s celebration.

This year we are learning Masechet Ketuvot in our Iyun (in-depth Talmud-study) Shiur, but for the week preceding Chanukah we’ve made a slight diversion to learn what the Talmud has to say on the matter of Chanukah in Halachah. What’s particularly interesting is the way in which Chanukah is perceived in the modern day to be a fairly important festival, and yet in the Gemara there are almost no references to it at all (interestingly, Sefer Hamakkabim, which tells the story of Chanukah, was one of the books left out of the Tanach). We studied the main source for the laws of lighting Chanukah candles, which appears in Masechet Shabbat as a side point to the central discussion on the Shabbat candles. In my Shiur, we argued about why the Gemara allocates so little space for the discussion of Chanukah. We came up with a couple of possibilities: Either the events in the story of Chanukah were fairly recent at that point, and therefore the ‘laws’ that we have now were little more than minhagim (traditions) then; or, because the Rabbis weren’t the biggest fans of the Maccabim, who after the story of Chanukah anointed Kings from the tribe of Levi (even though the Priesthood and the Royalty were meant to be kept separate) – and therefore the Rabbis tried to belittle the miracle of the war against the Greeks.

Yesterday we also marked “Yat Kislev”, the anniversary of the Ba’al Hatanya’s (the first Lubavitcher Rebbe’s) release from prison in the 18^th Century. For Chabadnikim, this is a big calendar event; in Ma’ale Gilboa, we did our bit by singing Nigunim, eating (a necessary part of the celebration), and telling stories late into the night, and ended off with our traditional Thursday night ‘Spontaneous Dancing’ (normally at 10pm exactly, but a little late this week). Afterwards, we had our weekly Yeshiva-wide Sicha with Rav Bigman, who spoke about his own thoughts on the Ba’al Hatanya and his world.

And hence, we brought to an end another week of learning at Ma’ale Gilboa, and in that spirit we prepare to welcome the Shabbat bride.

Praying through the Mind of Yishayahu Leibowitz, R. Kook R. Hutner and beyond

After a week of eco-construction, Niggun-singing, malawa-absorbtion, Gemara-deduction and Tanakh-exploration, I finally have time to reflect.
The week has reached its culmination in Thursday night. The communal clock of our Beit Midrash reads 9:10 PM. At 11:00, we will hear from a member of the chiloni, or secular, community of Israel on the meaning of prayer. Last night, in our weekly sicha,  or open forum discussion, with Rav David Bigman, we talked about the benefits of prayer. To the sound of the tranquil eloquence of the kibbutz night, Rav Bigman presented three models of Tefillah, each illuminating in a different way the significance of daily effort to communicate with the realm of the beyond. The respective models were as follows:

1) Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, true to form in maintaining his powerful and poignant view that the sole purpose of religious commandments is to unconditionally accept God and the “Yoke of Heaven”, opined that the purpose of Tefillah is in it of itself exclusively a manifestation of the obligation to obey God’s commandments.
2) Rav Abraham Issac Kook suggests an alternative approach. His esoteric philosophy of prayer highlights process, and not action, as the crucial element of prayer’s significance. Through the process of Davening, one experiences internal change and hence becomes more deserving of receiving divine reward. To Rav Kook Tefillah should ideally repair thoughts and restore spirit. Within this framework, the combination of the two aforementioned growths provides for the awakening of the soul. Through prayer, one encounters and embraces the journey of becoming a better person. Through consistent praying, one continues on his or her journey to the esteemed, albeit vague, plateau of reaching one’s own ethical potential.
3) Rav Yitzchok Hutner approached Tefillah as a meditation meant to invigorate the senses of man kind as expressed in the prayers of the Jewish tradition. When one prays with Kavannah, or consciousness, intention, and awareness, one becomes more receptive to the ideas and values found in the siddur, among which are Binah, wisdom; Refuah, healing; and Seleicha, forgiveness. Rav Hutner felt that God does not necessarily answer specific prayers, but nevertheless, through meditation man benefits from both a deeper consciousness and a strengthened connection to God.

Tefillah was presented to us as a mitzvah, a stepping stone towards, and in, improvement, and a mediation, and therefore an act, of self -improvement.  

Although our sicha continued late into the night, it was only the beginning of a conversation that will be extended by the presentation this evening. The experience of Wednesday evening’s sicha framed the question of why and how Jews pray, and will serve as a fitting framework entering the discussion of secular prayer.

In preparation for this evening, my mind has raced through the possibilities that could make traditional Jewish prayer pertinent even to the chiloni. Rav Hutner’s opinion could suggest that even the non religious have what to gain in the mediation that Tefillah offers. With an understanding of Rav Kook’s philosophy of prayer, perhaps a secular Jew could benefit from the contemplative and self-improvement aspect of Davening. Through tefillah, perhaps a secular person could recognize the merits of the committed lifestyle advocated by Professor Leibowitz.

The ideas of three modern Jewish scholars provoke the realization that the community of the halachic observant does not hold a monopoly on prayer. What they clearly assert, is, regardless of affiliation, dedicating time for prayer contains a powerful message particularly relevant to becoming a contemplative, disciplined, and appreciative human being.

-- Gavi Brown and Josh Trachtenberg