The Evening of Chabad friends and Purim Celebration

The evening of Chabad “friends” will be unforgettable. Hundreds of “Chabadniks” from throughout the country along with numerous supporters gathered on the night of February 14^th 2014 for a powerful display of spiritual unity at The Binyaney Hauma,The International Convention Center in Jerusalem. Notable guests included the Mayor of Jerusalem and a number of Knesset - parliament members. 

Reserve IDF Captain Ziv Shilon emotionally touched the thousands of attendees when he saluted the delegates with his amputated hand. He was injured defending Israel in Gaza.

Mutual salute: Captain Ziv Shilon and Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov (Photo: Mendy Hechtman) Taken from: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4490068,00.html

Binyanei Hauma is the largest convention center in Jerusalem.  It annually hosts dozens of international conferences, shows and events. The center is located just a short walk from the central bus station. The center of the city is reachable by foot or a short ride on the new tram or light rail.

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The event included performances by the delegation’s children's choir from Beitar and a wonderful movie was produced specifically for the event. The world renowned singer Avraham Fried traveled from New York for the historic activity.  He performed for the first time a song by Rabbi Nahman from Braslev, "The Song of the Weeds" together with the 'Gat Brothers' and the 'Sol Key' choir. The synchronization was just perfect. It was done under the musical management of Yuval Stopel.

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I was honored and thrilled to attend the activity as one of the quests from the city of Haifa. I received the invitation from our Dan Panorama Chabad Rabbi, Levi Yitzhak.  Our community Chabad center is located in the Dan Panorama mall in the Carmel Community of Haifa. I live nearby and take part in weekly lessons in Judaism both in Hebrew and English.  

About a year and a half ago while searching for a gift for a friend in the mall, I came across the Chabad center, which includes a Jewish learning program and a gift shop. I quickly developed a warm friendship and strong ties with the Rabbi and his family. He has six wonderful children ranging in age from a year and a half to eleven years old.

We often hold a Friday Kiddush either at his home or in the mall. During the past several months, Rabbi Yitzhak Levi and I, joined by our friend and scholar, Zecharya Gonsher "Zack", have developed a program for English speakers – who reside in our community.  “Zack” is an immigrant from Nebraska.
The program includes meetings twice a month, usually discussing the weekly Parasha (section of the Torah read on Shabbat).  In addition, there are special events for the holidays – the last ones we celebrated were Sukkot and Hanukkah. We are now working on a festive Mishte (feast) for the upcoming holiday of Purim. (An announcement is followed)

I am happy that I have had the opportunity to take part in the many activities held by the Dan Panorama Chabad.  My participation in the moving conference in Jerusalem added even more satisfaction to our warm relationship.
This is another example of life in Israel which does not receive the proper media attention. Despite all the challenges we face, we continue to study Judaism and celebrate our faith in the land of Israel – the place where it all began.

PURIM SAMEACH!!  Come join us for our Mishte Purim (festive meal) on Sunday, March 16th!!  Open to both English and Hebrew speakers, the Chabad Panorama is pleased to invite you to take part in celebrating and fulfilling this year's Chag Purim.  Megillah reading will take place at 15:30, followed by an RSVP only catered dinner at 17:00. All activities will take place at Bet Knesset "Avot U'Banim" on Keller 5, Carmel Center, Haifa. Please speak to Zecharya for details and reservations: 058 5454 770. Chag Sameach!

The Importance of Hanukkah.

Hanukkah is one of the most and misunderstood holidays of Judaism. I am looking forward to celebrating the festive occasion with my Chabad friends in my home of Haifa Israel. We have just started a Jewish study group for English speakers in our community. This will be our first Hanukkah together in the land where it all started.

The eight-day Jewish celebration known as Hanukkah or Chanukah commemorates the re -dedication during the second century BCE of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, where according to legend Jews had risen up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors in the Maccabees Revolt. Hanukkah, which means "dedication" in Hebrew, begins on the 25th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar and usually falls in November or December. The timing is based on the ancient lunar calendar. The celebration is based on events that occurred on about the year 200 BCE. However, there are no written records of any holiday observance of Hanukkah until about 500 years later, in the Talmud. Christmas, was not officially celebrated on December 25th until the third century. I have learned from studying both the old and new testament in Haifa that there is no certainty that the date of either is exact. The spiritual significance of the holidays is what is important and should be celebrated and coveted.

The Festival of Lights holiday is celebrated with the lighting of the menorah, traditional foods, games and gifts. Many Jews and non- Jews consider the holiday to have special significance with the return of the Jewish people to the land of our roots. Many of us in Israel and elsewhere consider Israel to be the third "Bayit" (home) or Temple.

According to the Tanakh, Solomon's Temple was built atop the Temple Mount in the 10th century BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Second Temple was completed and dedicated in 516 BCE. Two thousand years ago Jews were expected to pray in The Temple. According to classical Jewish belief, the Temple acted as the figurative "footstool" of God's presence and a Third Temple will be built there in the future. Traditionally, Jerusalem has been the focus of longing for Diaspora Jews who were forced from their land and the Temple of their God. Psalm 137 is the well-known lament of the Babylonian Jews who wept "by the rivers of Babylon" and declared, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither."

The History of Hanukkah

The events that inspired the Hanukkah holiday took place during a particularly turbulent phase of Jewish history. Around 200 BCE, Judea region —also known as the Land of Israel—came under the control of Antiochus III, the Seleucid king of Syria, who allowed the Jews who lived there to continue practicing their religion. His son, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, proved less benevolent: Ancient sources recount that he outlawed the Jewish religion and ordered the Jews to worship Greek gods. In 168 BCE, his soldiers descended upon Jerusalem, massacring thousands of people and desecrating the city’s holy Second Temple by erecting an altar to Zeus and sacrificing pigs within its sacred walls.

Led by the Jewish priest Mattathias and his five sons, a large-scale rebellion broke out against Antiochus and the Seleucid monarchy. When Matthathias died in 166 BCE, his son Judah, known as Judah Maccabee (“the Hammer”), took the helm; within two years the Jews had successfully driven the Syrians out of Jerusalem, relying largely on guerrilla warfare tactics.

For an entire generation, the ancient Judeans waged a struggle for freedom, which, in terms of intensity, has almost no parallel in human history. It was among the first recorded wars of liberation and it laid a model for nearly every revolution that followed. With an unbreakable faith and willingness to sacrifice, a handful of valiant Hebrew fighters forged the eternal covenant that resistance to tyranny is the highest and truest service to the universal creator and the highest moral value. Judah called on his followers to cleanse the Second Temple, rebuild its altar and light its menorah—the gold candelabrum of which seven branches represented knowledge and creation and were meant to be kept burning every night.

The Hanukkah "Miracle"

According to the Talmud, one of Judaism’s most central texts, Judah Maccabee and the other Jews who took part in the re-dedication of the Second Temple witnessed what they believed to be a miracle. Even though there was only enough untainted olive oil to keep the menorah’s candles burning for a single day, the flames continued flickering for eight nights, leaving them time to find a fresh supply. This wondrous event inspired the Jewish sages to proclaim a yearly eight-day festival. .

Jewish families across the world are celebrating this Inspiring holiday. Our children enjoy spinning dreidels, lighting menorahs and opening presents on the first night of Hanukkah. I enjoyed eating "Sufganiot" or donuts at the Dan Panorama Mall in Haifa. This is holiday tradition that our of us enjoy. Jewish and non Jewish children sing holiday ballads for mall visitors - many of them visitors from all over the world!

On the first night of Hanukkah, Jewish families began by lighting the menorah, the nine-branched candelabra. Two candles are lit on the first night: the shamash (the helper candle, which is usually the tallest) and one other. On the second night, the shamash and two other candles are lit, on the third, the shamash and three others are lit, etc. This continues for eight nights. To pay homage to the miracle which kept the oil burning, it is typical to eat fried foods such as latkes (potato pancakes) and jelly doughnuts. Children play dreidels (spinning tops), open gifts, eat gelt (chocolate coins) and families say prayers together. It is also customary to increase the amount given to charity during the holiday.

Nearly two thousand years after Judah led his successful revolt, the Jewish people are again free to practice our faith in "The Third Temple". This year marked the sixty fifth of our return to the place where it all started. Hopefully, we will all understand that the greatest message and truest message of Hanukkah is that freedom is worth any price that needs to be paid. Next year in Jerusalem is now!

Invitation for Hanukkah Celebration! Chabad Spiritual Home for Anglos in Haifa -

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Zecharia Gonsher, his wife Liat and twins

I am sitting at The Dan Panorama Mall writing this post at my favorite café. The upscale mall houses high end clothing and jewelry stores. There are several restaurants, a beauty salon, and a pharmacy. The community Chabad center is located here as well. It is my spiritual home and favorite place to buy religious artifacts and handmade paintings and home décor. The Rabbi is named Levi Yitzchak. He is about thirty, razor thin, dark hair, and smiles consistently. He has six children ranging from eleven months to eleven years in age. My favorite is his eleven month old daughter named Devorah or bee. She already beams her father’s smile. I visit the store almost daily in the hope that the kids will be there.

In the course of two years Levi and I have discussed the need to promote English language courses in our community in various topics of Judaism. Chabad is recognized throughout the world for the superb quality of its spiritual teachings. I chose to study at a Chabad center for a year before immigrating to Israel. My classes included Talmud, Tanach or Bible, and tutoring in Hebrew. They have my deepest appreciation for their support.

What is Chabad-Lubavitch?

Chabad-Lubavitch is a major movement within mainstream Jewish tradition with its roots in the Chassidic movement of the 18th century. In Czarist and Communist Russia, the leaders of Chabad led the struggle for the survival of Torah Judaism, often facing imprisonment and relentless persecution for their activities. After the Holocaust, under the direction of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchaak Schneerson and his successor, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, Chabad became a worldwide movement, caring for the spiritual and material needs of all Jews, wherever they could be found.

Today, over 3,000 Chabad centers are located in more than 65 countries, with a new center opening on the average every ten days. In South Africa, South America, Russia, Australia, the UK, and many parts of the USA, and of course Israel. Chabad has become a dynamic and dominant force within the Jewish community.

This week Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and I decided to act on our dream of establishing a study center for English speaking immigrants and visitors in Haifa.

We visited the Habad center in Safed to meet their leader there Eyal Riess. www.tzfat-kabbalah.org). He has decades of experience in planning and administering programs for English speaking individuals. He speaks the tongue of Shakespeare wonderfully but sounds a bit British. He actually was born and raised in Israel.


He is housed at The International Center for Tzfat Kabbalah was founded in the Old City of Safed in 2007 by the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach, Florida, in cooperation with the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and the Jewish Agency for Israel to promote Safed as a kabbalah center.

The center has a "Visitors center on the history of the Kabbalah of Safed", a lecture and study room, and a library. The center holds seminars and workshops in receipt of Safed rabbis, visitors, and local residents.


Eyal Riess (on the right), yes, with Paula Abdul!

Eyal Riess and Rabbi Levy Yitzchak have a list of English speakers from Haifa and the surrounding communities who have inquired about starting classes in our city. We added a team leader Zecharya Gonsher, who was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. He made aliyah at the age of 28 where he met his Israeli wife through the help of a Chabad shadchanit (matchmaker). Zach earned his MSW in family clinical therapy in St Louis, MO, where he connected to Chabad. He lives in adjacent Kiryat Ata with his wife, Liat, who works as a doula, pregnancy and birthing coach, and newborn twins.

The Reform Jewish Movement has some classes in our community. My very close friend Rabbi Edgar Nof hosts a Pirke Avot group one day a week, for example. However, there are those Jews who are more oriented to other streams of Judaism. We are planning to have an open house in the fall to build a garin or seed of those interested in supporting this program. It will be sponsored at our Dan Panorama center.

On August 20th, we held our first activity. Rabbi Riess hosted and spoke at a “meet and greet”. He presented a spiritually uplifting lecture about Jewish values. We had more than two dozen participants. Most committed to attend and support further activities in our program. They did and our group has grown.

We added a crash course on Yom Kippur, our most holy day of observance on September 10th. Two days later we celebrated the holy day together. We converted the upstairs café in the mall to a bet Knesset or synagogue. Dozens of people attended prayer and thanked us for the convenience of a prayer site in our community. “Several of us are senior citizens or have medical limitations and came to pray by local homes” noted one of those attended our make shift sanctuary. Israel does not generally permit transportation on Yom Kippur. I loved the fact that my home is directly across the street from the new place of prayer.

The host also hosted a Party in the Sukkah on the 23rd at the largest Synagogue in our community. Thirty to forty of us sang, told stories about Sukkoth, eat lots of food and drank a bit of Jack Daniels. Kids danced and laughed to the joy of us all.

We now have a Parashat Ha Shavuah twice a month led by Zacharia. Women study together in a group hosted by Zach’s wife Liat. Our group continues to grow and share the joys of studying our faith, Judaism together. We host people from all streams of the Jewish world joining together to learn and enjoy friendships new and old.

Come and join us this week for our first Hanukkah celebration together and share the joyous occasion together. Come all and bring a friend!! Special Mazal Tov to our friend and mentor Rabbi Eyal Riess and his Bat Mitzvah “student” Paula Abdul.

Zecharya for details – 058-545 4770 from Haifa! 

 

Sukkot Chabad

We are home. The Jewish people have returned to our ancient homeland after a two thousand year exile. We have learned a tragic lesson from our bitter history. It is only when we are a free and safe people in Eretz (the land of) Israel that can we can truly enjoy and celebrate our faith. The journey became thousands of years ago in the Sinai Desert.

For forty years, as our ancestors traversed the Sinai Desert, following the Exodus from Egypt, we were sheltered by a cover of miraculous "clouds of glory" shielding us from the dangers and discomforts of the desert. We remember G-d's kindness and reaffirmation of our trust in His providence by dwelling in a sukkah--a hut of temporary construction. It has a roof covering of branches and can be located anywhere that we choose. For the seven days and nights of the holiday we eat all our meals in the sukkah and otherwise regard it as our home. Some celebrants choose to sleep in the temporary dwelling.

Sukkot is also called The Time of Our Joy. There is a special joy that pervades the festival which includes a nightly Water-Drawing Celebrations, reminiscent of the evening-to-dawn festivities held in the Holy Temple Jerusalem housed our most revered sites three thousand years before the rebirth of the Jewish homeland in 1948. People fill the synagogues and streets with song, music and dance until the wee hours of the morning.

I celebrated Sukkot this year at the main Orthodox Synagogue in my community. The Sukkah was built by our local Chabad community, but visitors came from all streams of Judaism. There were also a few visiting European Christians who stopped by to share in our joy. We ate Hummus and Pita, Burekas, Falafel, and drank a bit of Vodka. There was a lot of singing, dancing and kids running about. Our group of roughly fifty celebrants included old friends and a few new ones. My favorite visitors were the Rabbi Levey’s six children aged one to eleven years old.

This is my seventh year in Haifa. As an Oleh Chadash or new immigrant to Haifa, many challenges exist to succeeding in building a new life. There is the need to learn a new language, understand a different culture, make new friends and find employment. However, the joys of celebrating my faith in this wonderful city have make it all worthwhile.

Chabad "Open Shul," at Yom Kippur

The sun began to set, and the Neilah or closing Yom Kippur service drew to a close. Rabbi Levi Tzeitlin's voice grew stronger and more eloquent with each sentence that he spoke.  This was due in part to the inherent emotions inspired by our prayers during the Jewish Day of Atonement. There was also a palpable sense of excitement aroused by looking at the throng of more than forty congregants from several streams of Judaism and many personal backgrounds. We joined together to celebrate the most solemn religious event of the Jewish year. Yom Kippur is the last of the ten days of penitence that begin with Rosh HaShanna or The Jewish New Year.

We were holding our first annual "Open Shul," a makeshift, yet comfortable, Bet Knesset or Synagogue. The public was welcome to attend a free prayer service In the Dan Panorama Center. It is an upscale hotel and shopping mail located in the Mercaz or center neighborhood of Haifa. The services were appreciated by all those who attended.  We had received permission to proceed just a week before Yom Kippur. Our Rabbi Levy, with the help of his valued assistant Zecharya Gonsher, scrambled around Haifa to secure an Aron Kodesh, Torah, prayer books, and everything else that we needed including refreshments to break the fast. Fasting is expected during this solemn holiday. We try to atone for the sins of the past year and commit to do better for the coming one.

I believe that due to the open atmosphere, and vibrant personalities of both staff members, that we received positive feedback and many thanks from those who attended. Chabad which is a large Hasidic movement is known for its hospitality, expertise, optimism and emphasis on Jewish spiritual growth.

In addition, Gonsher, who heads the "English Speakers of Chabad Panorama" branch, was able to give instructions and inspirational words to the number of Anglos or English speakers who attended.  In an area lacking English language spiritual programs many of those attending expressed gratitude for this thoughtful act.

The successful program plans upcoming services which include a number of Shabbatot, upcoming holiday celebrations (including a Sukkot gathering), and other educational events throughout the year.  The goal is to serve the vibrant and exciting English speaking population in The Carmel Center. I live in the community and enjoy the convenience of walking to activities. Many of my friends new and old share the same point of view.

"When the country shuts down and everyone goes to vacation on Chag Sukkot, an exhausted Rabbi Levi and I could easily convince ourselves to do the same...." says Gonsher, "However, after seeing the appreciation and satisfaction of our make-shift congregants, well, it gives us the inspiration and strength to push forward and have another event in the Sukkah.  We look forward to expanding our services and programs exponentially, and hope you all can be in touch.  Chag Sameach!"  

For needs, assistance, and anything Jewish, please feel free to contact the Chabad Panorama, Panorama Center, Sderot HaNasi 109, Carmel Center, Haifa.  Rabbi Levi Tzeitlin (chabadp2@gmail.com), 077-411-2770, and for English Speakers, Zecharya Gonsher (ChabadPanorama@gmail.com), 058-5454-770. On Facebook: English Speakers Chabad Panorama.