Dear Heilige Parents and NCSY JOLT Israel’ers,

I hope this email finds you well. Today was another awesome day! We had a bit of a late wake up this morning (8:00), and then davening and breakfast. After eating our fill, we loaded the buses and went straight to our first stop in the quaint and beautiful Yishuv called Nitzan. It was here that we went to a place that I had never been to before. What made this place special for us is that they have a very powerful Gush Katif museum.  It was brilliantly done and I was impressed with their attention to detail. It told the story through the eyes of the last child born in Gush Katif. Some of what we saw was extremely painful to watch. Yehuda, our amazing Chovesh/Security/Logistics person was actually from Ganei Tal and will be speaking to us about his experiences during the disengagement.  We finished our tour and got back on the bus. Yoel felt it necessary to debrief with the kids. I totally concurred with him and we both spoke to them to give them a historical backstory to what happened. I shared my political frustration with the kids and I thought it was important for them to hear that perspective.

We traveled further south to a place called Shvil HaSalat or in English- The salad trail. It was actually pretty awesome. We learned all about the agricultural scene in the desert. We saw amazing feats of agricultural brilliance that allows a dry arid area in Israel to flourish with tremendous success. We had an opportunity to learn about hydroponics, drip irrigation and some other really interesting things. We walked into the greenhouse with tomatoes and cucumbers and after the talk we were given time to walk around and eat the fresh vegetables off the plants.  We did a bunch of other really cool stuff there. The kids loved it!

From there we drove to Machtesh HaGadol where we hiked up the Snapir HaKatan. It was a nice hike and the kids really liked it a lot. When we got to the top we saw an amazing sunset over the mountains. It was really powerful seeing something like that. It is actually a very humbling experience.

We walked down and loaded the bus. From the “Machtesh” we traveled about 15 minutes to a town called Yerucham where we ate pizza for supper. The pizza was actually very good! I mean who would have thought that there would be a solid pizza place outside of the Five Towns..LOL. Let alone in a small town in the desert!

We drove back to our base and davened Maariv. After davening I gave an optional Shiur entitled “Why it is forbidden to feel guilty about doing the wrong thing.” I must say amongst all of the impressive things that I have seen with this group of kids. One of the most impressive is how much they love learning! We offer so many opportunities for learning throughout the day and the kids take us up on ALL of them. We built something powerful together. We took lots of different kids from all over the country and created a family. We created a culture of respect, growth and personal development. I am really going to miss everyone. I can’t believe how quickly the summer flew by….

Wednesday is going to be a very special day and I am excited to share it with my JOLT Israel’ers. I am excited to share it with you as well.

Looking forward to speaking with you later.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to send me an e-mail they are always appreciated.     

With warmest wishes

-Rabbi Weinberg

© 2024 NCSY. All Rights Reserved.