News & Events
United We Stand
This past Thursday was one of the most inspiring nights of our lives. Thousands of people from all over Israel gathered to celebrate the wedding of Sara Tehiya Litman and Ariel Beigel. Sara’s father and brother were killed days before her wedding.
Instead of having a small ceremony after the shiva, Sarah decided that the best way to show that Am Yisrael would not be defeated would be to bring simcha to all of klal Yisrael by inviting everyone to the wedding. So right after eating our Thanksgiving dinner (prepared by shana alef girls in our Midreshet kitchen!), we gave even more thanks by being part of a nation that came together from all over the world, to experience the feeling of unity and hope after these tough few months. The excitement continued with the arrival of many girls’ parents. No matter where we ate our turkeys that night, it was a really special night for everyone.
In this week’s parsha, Parshat Vayeshev, Yosef is sold by his brothers to the Egyptians. His brothers had the worst intentions for him. They originally wanted to kill him, but ended up throwing him into a pit and then selling him to slavery. They didn’t intend for him to get up and make something of himself after going through such hard times. As we know, Yosef prevailed and ended becoming second to the king. We see from this that good can always come from bad, we just have to look for it because Hashem can easily pull us out of the dirt (pun intended) as long as we trust in Him. Sarah Litman was able to find the good from her horrible tragedy and lift up not only herself, but all of klal Yisrael by opening her wedding to everyone to come together and rejoice as one nation whose trust in Hashem will help us get through anything.
On Shabbat, Shana bet held a Shabbaton in the Old city. Tali Golubtchik from Shana bet shared with us some details….”On Friday night we went to the Kotel for an inspiring Kabbalat Shabbat including davening inside the Kotel Tunnels. We stayed at a youth hostel at Kever David and were very privileged to hear Rebbetzin Deutsch who had come to speak to us. It was a beautiful Shabbat!”
A huge thanks to Carly Gordon for organizing the blood drive this past Wednesday. With the help of Sepha Kirshblum, Magen David Adom arrived during lunch and two classrooms were transformed into a reception room and infirmary. Many girls took part in this amazing mitzvah donating blood to the Magen David Adom Blood bank. Now we can feel that we're helping, in some way, the cholim and people who were hurt in all the recent terrorist attacks. We hope the blood donated will be able to save as many lives as possible.
Chanukah is around the corner and we’re looking forward to a truly special chag right here in Yerushalyim. Keep posted for details in next week’s news……
Peri Eckstein and Rena Engel