By COLlive staff
With its exciting line up of popular speakers and inspirational activities, the 19th Annual SimXa Shabbaton promises to be a huge success. By popular demand, the Shabbaton will again be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Valencia, California, over the Thanksgiving weekend, November 28th – December 1st, 2019.
Many prior participants are coming back this year, along with new attendees. Jewish families of American, Russian, Israeli, Bucharian, and Persian descent are already registered and ready to attend the multi-cultural ‘Am Echad’ experience that Simxa provides in Southern California year after year.
Several generations of extended families come to the Shabbaton to spend time together while learning Torah and getting inspired. In fact, one of the attending families, who started coming to Simxa Shabbatons 14 years ago and has gradually embraced a Torah-observant life, is bringing four generations this year, from great-grandparents to young children.
The speakers this year include the world-renown inspiring lecturer and expert on Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Reuven Wolf of Maayon Yisroel in Los Angeles, a popular Russian-speaking Rabbi Aryeh Katzin of Brooklyn, NY, founding principal of Sinai Academy, director of RAJE (Russian American Jewish Experience) and publisher of a Russian Jewish newspaper, as well as English-speaking Mrs. Miriam Yerushalmi, a psychologist and a prolific author from Brooklyn, NY, and local popular educators, Rabbi Gershon and Rebbetzin Chana Rochel Schusterman.
This year, the opening night of the Shabbaton falls on an auspicious date of the Chassidic calendar – Rosh Chodesh Kislev, which marks the beginning of the month of miracles. To celebrate this special day, the retreat program will include an authentic fahrbrengen (gathering) with inspiring stories and Chassidic niggunim.
As always, the Shabbaton offers a fun-filled children’s program, with the come-back of last year’s popular Simxa Kids’ Club, baby-sitting, gourmet meals and luxury accommodations, hikes and nearby attractions, live music and entertainment, a new wine-tasting experience this year, and the popular poetess and performer Katya Kapelnikova, who will hold concerts for women.
The Shabbaton organizers, Moshe and Esther Davidoff, are hard at work, and they expect this year’s Shabbaton to live up to its excellent reputation.
I’m looking forward again!