Tanya Printed in Manitou Springs

Yonason Waller, Yossi Dalven and Saadia Liberow are on Merkos Shlichus in Colorado Springs and the surrounding cities:

The city close by, Manitou Springs, is a beautiful and illustrious tourist attraction with the altitude of 6,412 feet above sea level, also being at the base of one of the tallest mountains in Colorado, “Pikes Peak”.

The locals are very interesting people, to say the least, having amongst them people claiming to be from the 10 lost tribes; owners of a coffee shop called “mateh” (tribe), as well as many bearded Harley Davidson guys and the like, consequently we didn’t stick out so much with our beards.

Like any place in the world, there happens to be some Jewish residents there, so we decided to print a Tanya. We did so partly in the home of one of the local Jewish residents and partly in an Israeli-owned store on the main street of town, both feeling extremely privileged hosting the printing of such a special sefer.

As the Tanya sheets were rolling off the machine we went round the city to find some Jewish tourists wandering the streets. We happened to stumble across a few who were very happy and surprised to see us in this location (most of them actually approached us) and we spoke to them briefly, giving them different brochures to read.

Our travels continued up to “Pikes Peak”, in which there was an incline, a foot trail, made up from an old wooden railway track, enabling all to ascend its summit. A middle aged Jewish man doing his weekly fitness climb was pleased to bump into us, readily agreeing to put on Tefillin, stopping in middle of the track. Thereafter, continuing the conversation up the mountain, we came to discuss the connection of science and kabbalah with regards to outer space and creation, being he was an expert in that field.

That evening we went around visiting the homes of the Jewish residents in town.

Later in the week we had a Tanya shiur on chapter 32, learning from the newly printed Tanyas, in the home of one of the Jewish residents, attended by the locals.

One local man remarked that despite his lack of Jewish education he always had this question mark inside him, and as he gets older it grows, and the Tanya shiur opened a new light to him.