ד"סב What’s Inside: Message from the Yachad NY Staff………………………… Page 3 Divrei Torah…………………………………………………... Page 4 Ask Esti………………………………………………………. Page 33 Yummy Recipes…………………………………………….... Page 34 Interviews …….………………………………………………Page 47 Games and Riddles…………………………………………... Page 54 Coloring Pages………………………………………………... Page 61 Taboo Game………………………………………………..…. Page 65 Answers ………………………………………………………. Page 68 2 ד"סב J A quick note from the Yachad NY Staff! J! 3 ד"סב Avrohom Adler International Director, Yachad We are approaching the awesome holiday of Shavuous. There are so many amazing aspects to this holiday, and many customs. We read the story of Ruth which ends with the Ruth’s great grandson David who goes on to become the King. It is from King David that the ultimate Moshiach will come from, may it be speedily in our days. Many people have the custom to stay up all night learning Torah, eat dairy meals, and buy plants and trees for their homes and synagogues, all of this for a 2-day holiday. One of things that sets the Jewish people apart is the Torah. Hashem chose the Jewish people to give His Torah to. Shavuous is called “Zman Matan Toraseinu” the time of the giving of the Torah. On Shavuous we celebrate being given the Torah and the uniqueness of our relationship with Hashem. The Torah is our guide, it gives us direction. The Torah teaches us how to act and interact with each other and the Torah teaches us how to interact with Hashem through His Mitzvos. So why is the holiday called Chag Shavuous and not Chag Torah? There are many reasons given, but there is one in particular that speaks to me especially during this time. The word Shavuous comes from the word Shavuah- PROMISE. What is the promise related to Shavuous? It is the promise from Hashem to His people that He will never forsake us, and it is a PROMISE from us, the Jewish people, that we will never forsake Him. Through the 4 ד"סב Torah and the Mitzvos we keep that PROMISE and through Hashem watching over us every second of every day He keeps that PROMISE. This speaks to me in such a strong way given all that we are going through. We are all sad that we cannot be together physically and pray for the day to come speedily where we can be together once again. Our PROMISE to you our dear Yachad family is that we will never forsake you. We will always be there for you and know that you are always there for us. We will always be B’Yachad. Wishing everyone a safe and happy Shavuous Avromie Adler 5 ד"סב Rebecca Schrag Mayer Director, Yachad New York As the Jewish nation prepared to receive the Torah, the pasuk in Yisro (19:20) describes “Vayered Hashem al Har Sinai” (Hashem descended onto Har Sinai). Rashi explains that at that moment Hashem combined the upper world with the lower world and thus the kisei hakavod (throne of glory) descended upon the world. Why was it necessary for the kisei hakavod to descend upon earth when we received the Torah? We see from here that the incredible experience of Hashem giving us the Torah was not only meant as a means to receive the 613 commandments, rather it was to receive the laws AND experience the holiness of Hashem fusing the world we live in with the incredible spirituality of the heavens, something that can be accomplished when we come together. If I had to choose a Jewish holiday that best represents Yachad, I would choose Shavuos. As the Jewish nation stood around Har Sinai anticipating receiving the Torah, we became unified as am echad, b’lev echad (as one nation with one heart). Every member of the Jewish nation came together, young and old, male and female and individuals with disabilities and individuals without disabilities. It was only as EVERY Jew came together, with no one left behind, that we became ONE nation. I will humbly suggest, as we experience at Yachad, once we come together in unity, we can better merit receiving the kisei hakavod and the incredible spirituality of combining the upper and lower worlds. 6 ד"סב While we miss seeing all of our friends in person, we hope that this Shavuos booklet, made with love by your friends and staff, help us celebrate together, even from afar, as we receive the Torah and deep spirituality as ONE nation. A big thank you to the Yachad NY program directors for putting this incredible booklet together and for working so hard to bring meaningful programming to us on a regular basis! Wishing you and your family a beautiful kabalas HaTorah and good yuntif! Rebecca Schrag Mayer 7 ד"סב Robin Tassler Junior Yachad In a shiur given over by Rabbi Weil, he explained that the Jewish people live a dialectic existence. In masechet Shabbos (Daf 88a) there’s the famous story of Hashem holding Har Sinai over our head while giving the ultimatum: accept the Torah or else you’ll be buried. Rabbi Yitzchak Avraham Twersky offers a more precise translation and explanation of means that Hashem ” ובציתיו תחתב י ת רהה ... רהה גכ י ג תי “ .what this Gemara is really saying bent the mountain over our heads into the shape of barrel while we stood inside it; he explains that the Jewish nation starts our journey in a protective cocoon of Torah. However, , ומיק ולבקו later on in history during the times of Achashverosh when we said Bnei Yisroel received a new understanding of what it meant to accept the Torah. The other side of choosing to be Hashem’s nation, is subjugating ourselves to being a target of immense amounts of hate and anti-Semitism. The Gemara shouldn’t be taken literally in the sense that Hashem actually held the mountain over our heads. Rather, it’s all an allegory for how the Jewish people accepted the dual nature of the Torah. By being Hashem’s nation, we are faced with never ending enemies, yet at the same time Hashem will always be there to protect us in His cocoon of Torah. There’s another aspect of our dual nature as nation that we see in the holiday of Shavuot. Whether or not we accept HASHEM’s Torah, children of HASHEM. The entire shir hashirim, as well as - ” נב םי קמל ו ם “ the neviim call us many other places in tanach, give over the mashal of Bnei Yisroel being married or in a romantic relationship with HASHEM. Matan Torah also represents the spousal elements of 8 ד"סב , השענ עמשנו - our relationship with HASHEM. A spousal relationship is one of volunteering .( רה גכ י ג תי but a child parent relationship is “forced” and can never be broken (similar to Post Chet Haegel, Bnei Yisroel lost that spousal aspect of choosing and instead we were However, on shavuous night, we have the .” נב םי מל םוק “ just left with the coercive nature of opportunity to restore the spousal aspect by staying up all night learning and showing our enthusiasm for our beautiful Torah. One idea for why we stay up all night to learn, when it would really be more productive to sleep and then learn the whole day, is because we’re in a loving relationship with HASHEM and love makes people do crazy things. The holiday of shavuous is about recognizing our dialectic nature of what it means to be a Jew and taking account of our actions to see if we’re living lives of ovdei Hashem. May the learning we do this shavuous truly show our love for HASHEM and the beautiful gift of Torah that He gave us and be enthusiastic enough to ultimately bring the third beis hamikdash so we can truly be Aliyah l’regel. Chag Sameach!! 9 ד"סב Eitan Schneier Senior Yachad As many of us know, Shavuos is the holiday where we commemorate receiving the Torah at Har Sinai. Often, we celebrate and focus on the excitement and appreciation that we have for receiving the Torah, because that is what defines us as a nation. In truth, though, there are also some practical messages that we can learn from the way the Torah was actually given. The Medrash tells us that the Torah was given with fire, water, and in the “midbar”, the desert. Many commentaries try to explain and point to the significance of these things, and how they are related to the giving of the Torah. One suggestion is that just as fire, water, and the desert are all free items or places, so too the Torah is free for anyone who wants to come and learn from it. This is the first message to take away from the actual giving of the Torah; that Torah is always available to us and is something that we can all gain from in some way or another. Alternatively, others suggest that each item on the list represents a different aspect of Torah. Torah is analogous to fire in terms of the passion or” heat” that we should feel when we delve into learning. The fire is telling us that we should approach Torah with a sense of joy and passion. Next is water, which the Gemara compares to Torah in that just as water flows from a higher point to a lower point, so too, the Torah flows from a higher point of someone who is arrogant, to a lower point, someone who is humble. This represents the fact that only someone who is humble can properly learn and succeed in Torah learning.