Students Vacation With 10 Days of Learning in Crown Heights

Young men from around the world took a break from their busy lives of school and work to visit Hadar HaTorah’s annual Yeshivacation in late December. Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, to Ohio, to California, they came to learn the essentials of what the Jewish religion has to offer.

Throughout this action-packed 10 day program, “Yeshivacationers” had the opportunity to explore all facets of Yiddishkeit – starting off their mornings with a riveting Chassidus taught by Rabbi Itchy Zalminov. Following that, there was a daily “Freillechen Shacharis Minyan” with song and dance run by Ahron Berelowitz and Michoel Zion Yaroslavsky, madrichim for the program. Later on, they attended shiurim on Gemara, Tefilla, and Halacha.

Evening programming featured entertaining workshops, guided tours and world-class guest speakers. This included a pizza farbrengen at Rabbi Yakov Bankhalter’s Chabad Meditation Loft, a Tzitzis Tying Workshop as well as a very spirited farbrengen with Rabbi Chanan Krivisky, Chabad of Jericho, who shared his Baal Teshuva journey with the chevre. Rabbi Levi Garelik inspired the crowd, teaching about Moshiach, and discussing practical kashrus laws. The Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Yakov Goldberg, answered Yeshivicationers’ questions using his expert knowledge from over fifty years of teaching Baalei Tshuva.

Binyomin Dasgupta, a veteran of last year’s yeshivacation (who returned for a second visit) said that the program was “truly unbelievable.” Binyomin hopes to come more often to the Yeshiva to learn in the coming year. University of British Columbia student Adam Dobrer said “it was my first real exposure to what Yeshiva is like, I’ll be strongly considering going full time this summer.”

Madrich Michoel Zion Yaroslavsky says, “Seeing this program thrive gives me a lot of nachas. The guys who come spend their college break time to learn about Judaism are unbelievable. I hope to see this program continue to grow even more in the coming years because it’s obvious to me how YeshivaCation changes lives. Through this program, many of the guys are going to Yeshiva or planning to grow in their Jewish learning exponentially. It’s amazing to see what just 10 days of Torah learning can really do!”

To learn more about Hadar Hatorah, visit www.hadarhatorah.org or call 718-735-0250.