New article on N.Y's Forward check it out

http://www.forward.com/article/14989/

Standing by our brothers

I want to do something for our brothers in the south. I threw some ideas around with my good friend Rabbi Barry Rosen and got very enthusiastic about it. I think the guys in the Yeshivah also want to contribute and that for them it is a great way to feel part of mainstream society.
I spoke to my friend Josh Hasten about sending food baskets to the Hesder Yeshivah in Sderot, Any other ideas???

Shabbaton in Gush

WOW, what a weekend!

We've been planning this weekend for a long time already, with the wonderful advice and wisdom of our Mishna Berura teacher, my friend, Rabbi Barry (Baruch) Rosen (in the picture above, with Beni Horowitz).
We gave out assignments to all the guys; one was in cahrge of soft drinks, one in charge of cakes, others were in charge of spiritual food: prayers, torah reading, speeches. eveything was set, and everyone excited

...and then came the war.



We didn't know what to do, should we stick to the plans or cancel?

we decided to GO FOR IT !

IT WAS AWSOME!!!

it was better than I could have imagined.

The Guys came in large numbers, and the staff came and had a great time.

I brought my family and the staff came in full force:
Rabbi Dr. Gafni came with the family, R' Eli Cohen with his family and his guitar, Rabbi Rosen, our local Philadelphia Rav came with an arsenal of jokes and high spirits
Our social workers, Oded and Tomer were amazing as well as our versitle volenteer Beni Horowitz came out with a long list of songs...
I have to thank all of them individually they made the shabbat.



we began with Beni and a special early Kabbalat shabbat, which put us right in the mood for the great sephardic chazanut of Y. L. Then some great Divrei Torah from the students.

Dinner, more singing, Tefila in the morning, more singing, even dancing, food prayers, good times and more and more of that. We capped it off with melave malka with guitar and wonderfull singing. Wow, there is so much more, but I can't possibly get to it all


Go look at the pictures, they should be linked to the website already. for obvious reasons, I had to blur them out some but the energy should come out regardless...
http://picasaweb.google.com/avihod/ShafYativPics#

some of the people I consulted with told me this is going to be a demanding and hard shabbat. IT WAS!!! It was hard for us to end it after only 25 hours, we demanded to keep it going for another week, it was that great!!!

hope to share a lot more soon.

Rav Guy

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