RISHON LEZION, Israel — In what has become a tradition, Israeli second graders again began their year of learning the book of Genesis by attending a program run by the Chabad-Lubavitch Youth Organization. Called Chagigat HaChumash, or Torah festival, the now 25-year-old program will welcome over the course of a month some 20,000 seven-year-olds from across the country at Chabad centers and in the village of Kfar Chabad.
Israeli Children Immerse Themselves in Their First Torah Lessons
RISHON LEZION, Israel — In what has become a tradition, Israeli second graders again began their year of learning the book of Genesis by attending a program run by the Chabad-Lubavitch Youth Organization. Called Chagigat HaChumash, or Torah festival, the now 25-year-old program will welcome over the course of a month some 20,000 seven-year-olds from across the country at Chabad centers and in the village of Kfar Chabad.
This week, I joined the second grade class of Rishon Lezion’s Neveh Khof school in and its teacher Yafa Vaturi, along with parents and chaperons, during their visit to Kfar Chabad not far from the Ben Gurion International Airport.
The first stop was a meeting with scribe Dov Ben Shachar. The children crowded around him; for many it was their first time to see how a Torah scroll is written with the use of a quill pen and parchment. They bombarded the scribe with questions like, “Why are there no vowels?” and “Is that a feather from a cow?”
Ben Shachar patiently described the process of writing a Torah scroll and how the 304,805 letters in the Torah are hand written; each requires great care and patience. As a keepsake, all of the children received a piece of parchment containing their name inscribed by Ben Shachar.
