Shabbat in Arad, a taste of the Future

Just a few days ago, many of the Ohr Chabad Garin families gathered together in Arad for an important Shabbat.

Building a new yishuv isn’t just about building houses, it’s about building a strong community united around the same vision. Far more important than the infrastructure and rods is that the families who will live in the yishuv love and care for each other, and know how to work together as a team. 

In the coming year, our first thirty families will move into a temporary neighborhood in the yishuv together, and begin building the community. Until then, we get together as often as we can with monthly group trips, weekly shiurim, bimonthly community-wide zoom meetings, and more. The highlight of the year is always the Shabbaton. 

We arrived at the Arad location on Friday morning, and everyone immediately got to work setting up for Shabbos. One committee organized the kitchen and catered food, another set up the tables, and some went outside to trim overgrown plants and make beautiful centerpieces. 

Since Shabbos was on the 9th of Kislev, which marks both the birthday and passing of the Mittler Rebbe, the Shabbaton theme revolves around his teachings. The teen girls even prepared a song deriving inspiration from the Mittler Rebbe’s kapelya for the Shabbaton, and taught it to all the kids—dance moves included. These awesome girls also produced an entire themed newsletter just for the Shabbaton! 

Before Shabbos started, the children each decorated a photo of themselves, which was then hung up in the dining room so that they could all get to know each other even better. 

Everything was organized and set up in time to take a quick group photo with almost everyone in it, and then Shabbos began. 

It’s hard to describe the beautiful and peaceful atmosphere, where everyone was so comfortable with each other, and the kids were so busy running around and freely playing together. 

In shul we were serenaded by powerful chazanus from Rabbi Dovid Caytak and Rabbi Dr. Sholomber Shuchat. 

The Shabbos meal was full of inspiring words of Torah, and song, and of course good food. After the kids went to bed (or at least pretended to), the teens and adults each sat down for deep farbrengens late into the night. 

As our community is a mix of native English and Hebrew speakers, the farbrengens and Divrei Torah were all bilingual, each person speaking in the language they’re most comfortable, and gaining practice in the one they’re not. 

Shabbos day began with many homemade breakfast goodies, and chassidus learning. While the adults davened in shul, the teens ran programs for the little kids. 

Shabbos lunch turned into a big farbrengen in honor of Tes Kislev that went late into the day. 

In one of the many adorable games the kids committee prepared for them, the children sat in circles by age group, and were each given a baby picture of another kid. The room filled with laughter and compliments of “you’re so cute!” while the kids guessed which baby grew up to be who. 

As Shabbos came to an end (far too quickly), the men and women each held a moving seder nigunim. After Shabbos everyone cleaned up together, and gathered for Melave Malka before hugging goodbye. 

Many small details went into planning the Shabbaton, from food to rooming, programming to cleanup, all which were organized by various committees through trust and teamwork. It was a great glimpse into how harmoniously our community will work together in the near future, when we will spend every Shabbos together in Ohr Chabad.