Orot Israel College’s Library Hosts “Song of Colors” Exhibit

by Amalya Tsoran - Library Director, Elkana Campus

Bold colors. Reflections of light and water. A feast for the eyes. These are a visitor’s initial impressions upon entering the library building at Orot Israel College’s Elkana campus.
On display on the walls of the library’s ground floor are artistic works by Dr. Chana Schmerling. The highly-acclaimed exhibit – which opened on Tuesday, 28 MarCheshvan 5773 (November 13, 2012) in the presence of the artist and her family and friends – will remain in place throughout the 5773 school year.
In his remarks during the exhibit’s opening ceremony, Rabbi Professor Neria Guttel, President of Orot Israel College, noted that art can serve as an ideal way for man to express his faith – especially when the art is based on complete emunah (faith) in HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Rabbi Professor Guttel also focused on the significant bond between the intellect and the emotions – as reflected in the combination of art (the emotions) and the library (a stronghold of knowledge and the intellect).
The exhibit includes an assortment of drawings in different styles. Small descriptive signs appear next to several of the drawings. For instance, a series of drawings of palm trees are accompanied by a sign reading, “Efrat (our relative), who was expelled from Gush Katif, asked to memorialize the place as a pleasant experience of her youth. In her eyes, the palm trees and the sea represent the lost dream. Her request inspired a number of drawings.” A small bookshelf containing books about Gush Katif sits below the sign and the drawings.
The Elkana library’s staff believes that art should be integrated within the world of books and digitized information. Like literature and poetry, cinema and dance, philosophy and faith – all fields of study at Orot, which are represented in the library’s collections - art is yet another manifestation of the greatness of man’s spirit and creativity.
Each year, the library displays the works of a different member of Orot Israel College’s faculty or administration. The library is open Monday-Wednesday from 8:00AM–7:45PM and Thursday from 8:00AM–3:45PM. You are welcome to visit!

The Spirituality of Sarah

By Rabbi Reuven Spolter

Parshat Chayei Sarah begins with some very unusual language:

וַיִּהְיוּ חַיֵּי שָׂרָה, מֵאָה שָׁנָה וְעֶשְׂרִים שָׁנָה וְשֶׁבַע שָׁנִים--שְׁנֵי, חַיֵּי שָׂרָה.

And the life of Sarah was a hundred and seven and twenty years; these were the years of the life of Sarah.

I'd like to focus on the phrase at the end of the verse: שני חיי שרה – "these were the years of the life of Sarah." Obviously, this phrase screams out for interpretation and clarification.
Netziv, in his commentary Ha'amek Davar, offers a unique insight into the difference between Avraham and Sarah that explains this unusual language. He explains that the word חיים has two meanings, the first being "life", the normal interpretation of the word. But the word חיים can also refer to a sense of joy, and excitement – what the French called "joie de vivre." 
Netziv notes that according to Chazal, Sarah was greater that Avraham in prophecy, which is somewhat difficult to believe. How could it be possible that Sarah, who never spoke directly with God (to our knowledge), could be a greater prophet than Avraham Avinu, who communicated with God directly numerous times?
To answer this question, Netziv distinguishes between two types of "prophecy." In the first type, direct communication with God, Avraham clearly outshone Sarah. But Sarah excelled in a second form of prophecy called רוח הקודש – "divine inspiration"

הוא מה שאדם מתבודד ומשרה עליו רוה"ק ויודע מה שרואה. אמנם לא דבר עמו ה'.

This is where a person secludes himself and the spirit of God dwells upon him, and he knows what he is seeing, but the word of God is not with him.

Why was Sarah greater than Avraham in Ruach Hakodesh?

הוא משני טעמים. א' שאברהם בצדקו היה מנהיג העולם ומדריכם לעבודת ה'...ומי שעסקו עם המון רבה אינו יכול להתבודד כ". משא"כ שרה היתה יושבת באהלה בקדושה וטהרה (וע' מש"כ הגאון חתם סופר בהקדמתו בזה דברים ראויים אליו ז"ל). שנית דאין רוה"ק חל אלא מתוך שמחה...ושרה זה צדקתה להפלא שהיתה באמונתה...ע"כ לא נתעצבה בכל ימי חייה והיתה שקועה ברוה"ק.

For two reasons: First of all, Avraham in his righteousness, was a world leader who guided the people to the service of God…And one who deals with the masses cannot isolate himself that much, which is not true of Sarah who sat in her tent in holiness and purity. Secondly, Ruach Hakodesh only rests upon a person through joy, and Sarah was exceedingly righteous in that she had great and wondrous faith…for this reason, she was never saddened nor worried throughout her life for all of her days, and she was therefore immersed in Ruach Hakodesh.

Sarah, explains the Netziv, was a woman of חיים – she had a joy for life, a deep faith and a positive attitude. Thus, the meaning of the phrase, שני חיי שרה is, "the years of a life of joy of Sarah."
This beautiful depiction of our great matriarch also challenges us today. With the confusing division of roles prevalent in modern society, we no longer laud the concept of התבודדות within the "tent." (And, to be honest, it's not really feasible today either.) But, we must acknowledge that this reality does have a cost, as we no longer have a sense of deep faith and often lack the חיים – the joy of life – that can only come from התבודדות.

Aliyah: Finding our Home

By Michal (Vogel) Mandelbaum

Growing up, I was always a spunky kid. I recall being in seventh grade and telling my mother that I was going to go to Bar Ilan University for college. I would make aliyah, and if she wanted to see me, she would need to come and visit me in Israel. Clearly, at a young age the importance of living in Israel was instilled in me.
While looking into schools in Israel for my year of study after high school, I wanted a school where learning to speak Hebrew was a priority.  Throughout my formal education, I did not receive a proper Hebrew language education, and wanted a way to converse with my Israeli relatives (of which there are many) without miming. Orot was the perfect choice. It was a small school, in an out of the way area similar to where I grew up.  I loved Orot so much, and learned so much while I was there, that I chose to spend another half year there.
I must insert here that I was already going out with the man who would become my husband in high school. At the beginning of my second year, I had a conversation with my father that I still remember like it was yesterday. He said I needed to make a choice, and only I could make it. To stay in Israel or return to the United States. So I did what any girl in love would do, I turned to my then boyfriend. He and I discussed our future at length, in terms of where we wanted to live and raise our family. The answer from both of us was here in Israel.
So the choice was simple. I left Israel to return to the States for college, with the agreement from my boyfriend/soon to be husband, that we would finish our degrees, and then move to Israel.
Many things happened along the way, one of them not being Aliyah, as we had originally intended. Knowing that our Aliyah would not happen for a few years, we bought an apartment, sold it and bought a house, with the intent of selling it when we moved. We also started our family.
So what helped us along? A few things. First, really good friends of ours, who we intended on moving with, moved; and we were still in America. Second, when we named our kids, they were given Israeli names, so that when we moved, they would not feel completely out of place.
When my second daughter was born, we gave her the name Idit. My little sister asked if we realized what would happen to her name if an “o” was added in. My mother immediately responded that we would be living in Israel before that became an issue.
We moved right as children in her class were starting to read in Pre-K.
A year before we moved, I came on a pilot trip with my 2 kids for 6 weeks.  I, as a Hebrew first grade teacher (thank you Orot) had the summer to spend traveling throughout Israel, looking for a community to move to. So the 3 of us embarked on a great adventure to find where we wanted to live.
My husband and I came up with a list of what was important to us, and our family, and what we were looking for. Nothing outlandish, in my opinion, just what mattered to us. We wanted something small, but near a city. Bare minimum 90% Hebrew speaking community (we wanted and still want our kids to speak Hebrew outside the house at all times, or as much as possible). We wanted a cohesive community, 1 Beit Knesset, 1 Rav, a school in the community, an open mind to practice the religion in your own way (head covered/not covered, pants/skirts, length of sleeve), a “winter” of some sort, and if possible, someone we know from before to help make the transition easier.
Thanks to a very good friend, we came upon Moreshet (near Karmiel, in the lower Galil) which had everything we were looking for.
Moving to Moreshet has been the best decision we could have made. My older kids are fluent in Hebrew. Those who know both English and Hebrew, ask Idit to show off her Hebrew as they love her “raish”. We have found a community in the true sense of the word. Everyone looks out for each other, and we all help each other out. 
While on Shabbat Klita here, and after we moved, everyone would ask me where I learned to speak Hebrew so well, that I sound like an Israeli. Some had no idea I am American, born and bred. My answer is always the same. I spent a year and half in Michlelet Orot in Elkana, where I learned to speak Hebrew. I often think about our “little school on a hill” and how much fun I had there, the friends that I made, the bonds that have lasted over a decade, and will for many more to come.
I look forward to taking a trip with my family to Orot to show my kids where I spent my time learning Hebrew and forging friendships that remain with me to this day. Without the help of Orot, I would not have had the opportunity I had in America, teaching Hebrew to children. I was able to do what I love, teaching children a love for both the language and the country. At the end of the day, one thing is important above all, and of this I know Orot is proud when I say, I AM HOME.

Welcome to the Moodle Age

by Sarit Cohen - Computing and Information Systems Department, Orot Israel College

With 12 million users - and counting! – in over 200 countries, Moodle has certainly taken the world by storm, and here at Orot Israel College, we are proud to be a part of this global sensation. In fact, Orot is the first Israeli college to use Moodle 2.3, the newest version of the popular e-learning environment.

Moodle– an acronym for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” – is an online e-learning platform. Based on open-source software, the free system is designed for cooperative learning and offers a wide range of sophisticated tools for producing and distributing content. Moodle’s flexibility allows each educational institution to tailor and customize the system to meet its own particular needs.

In Israel, Moodle plays a major role in both the educational system and the academic world and has sparked a paradigm shift. Today, courses across the country are comprised of four distinct elements: the lecturer, the students, the classroom, and Moodle.

At Orot Israel College, our computing department worked together with the faculty to upgrade all of our online courses using Moodle. The dynamic platform enabled us to build dozens of websites, which correspond to each of our online courses. At the same time, we increased our online course offerings and also added new courses, and eventually, we hope to design websites for all of our regular courses as well.

Should we be Worried?

By Rabbi Reuven Spolter

Director of Student Recruitment

As we approach the coming New Year, it seems that we've got a lot to worry about. The Prime Minister keeps beating the drum about the impending danger of a nuclear Iran; rockets are still falling on Sederot (which is pretty close to where I live), and gasoline reached an all-time high this week (what goes up doesn't seem to want to go down, either!) All of these worries don't even begin to touch on the personal concerns each of has for our families; for their health and well-being; for our children's continued growth and development. As I said, there's a lot to worry about.
But should we worry? Is worry something good and positive, or is it an emotion we should specifically try to control and minimize to whatever degree possible? The answer, of course, is that it depends on the subject of our worry.
In the classic Mussar work אורחות צדיקים, the anonymous author describes worry as a negative, destructive trait.

הדאגה. זאת המידה היא רעה ברוב ענייניה, והיא ניכרת על כל הפנים, כדכתיב (בראשית מ ו): "וירא אתם והינם זועפים"; וכתיב (נחמיה ב ב): "מדוע פניך רעים, ואתה אינך חולה". ואמר אחד מן החכמים: איני מוצא כלל באנשי נפשות העליונות סימן דאגה. הדואג על עולם זה להשיג מאומה – הוא מגונה מאוד, והיא לא נמצאת כלל באנשים הבוטחים בשם ומאמינים בו. הדאגה והיגון הם מכלים הלב, והם חולי הגוף. והדאגה הרעה שבכל הדאגות היא שירדוף אחר העבירות, ובעת שלא ימצא כל חפץ לבו – אז הוא דואג ומצטער. הדואג על עולם זה הוא רחוק מאוד מן התורה והמצוות והתפילה. לכן יחוש מאוד לתקן המידה הזאת, להסיר אותה ממנו. ואין צריך להאריך ברעתה, כי כל הטובות הבאות מן השמחה – הן היפוך הדאגה.

Worry. This attribute is almost always negative, and is recognizable on every face, as it is written, "And [Yosef] saw them and they were sad." (Bereishit 40:6) and it is also written, "Why is your face sad, and you are not sick." And one of the scholars has said, I have not seen worry in the spirits of the higher-level souls. On who worries about achieving anything in this world – this is very obscene – and is not found in those people who trust in God and have faith in Him. Worry and anguish destroy the heart and they are sicknesses of the body…Thus, a person should make great effort to fix this attribute and remove it from himself. And there's no reason to write at length about the negative nature [of worry] because all of the goodness that comes from happiness – is the direct opposite of worry.

In essence, "Don't worry, be happy."
But there is a type of worry that is positive and productive. We find in the Gemara in Brachot (4a) that although David Hamelech considered himself generally righteous, telling God שמרה נפשי כי חסיד אני – "Save my soul, for I am righteous" (Tehillim 86:1), nonetheless at the end of Chapter 27 of Tehillim (לדוד ה' אורי – which we recite twice daily throughout Elul), David seems to think differently of himself.

אל תתנני בנפש צרי, כי קמו בי עדי שקר ויפח חמס. לולי האמנתי לראות בטוב ה' בארץ החיים...

Deliver me not over to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen up against me, and breathe out violence.  If I had not believed to look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living! (Chapter 27:12-13)

On this verse the Gemara quotes David as saying to God,

רבונו של עולם, מבטח אני בך שאתה משלם שכר טוב לצדיקים לעתיד לבא, אבל איני יודע אם יש לי חלק ביניהם אם לאו!

Master of the World – I am sure that You give proper reward to the righteous in the future. Yet, I do not know if I have a portion among them or not.

What happened to the confident, self-assured Chassid? Where is the righteous David Hamelech, who declared his goodness to God? The Gemara answers: שמא יגרום החטא – "perhaps he would lose [his reward] because of sin."
David Hamelech was indeed worried. He wasn't worried about his enemies attacking him or global warming or even whether he'd be able to afford the new iPhone. Rather, he was worried about himself, and whether he'd be able to continue to serve God properly in the future.
This, says אורחות צדיקים, is the only proper type of worry.  We can and should indeed worry whether our actions over the past year have drawn us away from God. We should be concerned, even anguished over the mistakes that we've made. And we should definitely use the power of worry to keep us from sinning in the future.
It seems, then, that we're worried entirely about the wrong things.
Should we worry about Iran? That's not really in our control, and worrying about it will only make our lives more miserable. Should we even worry about our livelihoods and the exorbitant price of gasoline? Again no. We should try and work on ourselves, so that we recognize that our sustenance lies in the hands of the Creator, who "provides bread to every living creature." We of course should pray for good health and blessing, but worrying about it won't help at all.
Still, there is something we can and must worry about: ourselves. We must worry about the insidious, seductive nature of sin, so that we can learn from our mistakes and commit ourselves to improvement, return and renewal.

Orot Israel College Students Visit Yad Vashem

by Dr. Amnon Hever,
Department of Jewish History, Elkana Campus

As Holocaust studies play a major role at Orot Israel College, our first-year students recently participated in an intensive, full-day seminar at Yad Vashem.

As part of the seminar, which focused on the plight of the Jewish child during the Holocaust, the students toured the Holocaust History Museum, the “No Child's Play” exhibition, the Children’s Memorial, and the Center for Major Questions Arising from the Holocaust. Throughout the day, Orot's students were shown how to use objects, photographs, monuments, statues, memorial sites, exhibits, and art to teach about the Holocaust, and also how to respond to Holocaust-themed educational questions.

Over the past ten years, Orot Israel College has worked closely with Yad Vashem to develop appropriate programming for our students. What began as a single course for the history department has since expanded into a wide range of courses, which are open to the entire student body. Course topics include the history of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, Nazism, religious Jews and the Holocaust, and rescue efforts. The courses are given by some of Yad Vashem’s top lecturers and incorporate documentary films, survivor testimonies, unique presentations, and other didactic materials produced by Yad Vashem.

In addition, Orot and Yad Vashem joined forces to design a unique practical course devoted to didactic techniques for Holocaust education, and last year, Orot offered a series of didactic workshops about Holocaust education. Each workshop was geared for a different academic department and served as part of the students’ practical training. Moreover, during the upcoming academic year, we hope to offer a general course that will concentrate on the Holocaust in Jewish thought.

Every course has proven to be very popular with the students, who made every effort to avoid missing even a single class.

Much of the credit goes to Mrs. Lea Roshkovsky, director of the Israeli Teachers Training Department at the International School for Holocaust Studies (ISHS), whose dedication, enthusiasm, and persistence made these programs so successful.

Special thanks also go to Uri Shalev of Yad Vashem. In his affable and serene way, he managed to transmit the legacy of the Holocaust to his students.

Orot Israel College Gears Up For the Education Ministry’s New Tanach Curriculum

by Rabbanit Nomi Shachor,
Tanach Department Head, Elkana Campus

During the month of Tamuz, Orot Israel College hosted a three-day conference on teaching Sefer Breishit to seventh graders. Designed to prepare the participants for the launch of the Education Ministry’s new Tanach curriculum, over one hundred teachers from across the country took part in the well-received conference at the Elkana campus.

Recently, the Ministry of Education released a new Tanach curriculum emphasizes the pshat, or simple meaning, of the text and the importance of studying Sefer Breishit in its entirety. Yet, at the same time, educators must ensure that their students are exposed to Sefer Breishit’s profound messages and ideas. In particular, educators hope that their students will come to understand the significance of the events that led up to Am Yisrael’s birth and establishment.

With these competing goals in mind, the conference’s organizers invited a wide array of distinguished rabbis as well as experienced Tanach teachers to address the participants. Some of the speakers – such as Rav Yitzchak Ben Shachar shlit”a, Rav Professor Neria Guttel, Rav Uriel Touitou, Rav Menachem Shachor, and Rabbanit Nomi Shachor – delved into many of Sefer Breishit’s central themes: the Avot, Brit Bein HaBetarim, cheit v’onesh, nisayon, and so on. Other lecturers – such as Rabbanit Dr. Yael Tzohar, Dr. Rivka Raviv, Dr. Ayal Davidson, Mrs. Tafat Halperin, Mrs. Hadassah Stoffel, and Mrs. Hila Nachteiler – focused on essential tools for teaching Sefer Breishit. Examples included a program for teaching bekiut (i.e. a pedagogic approach which leads to a broad, surface knowledge of the text), a timeline, assorted maps of Eretz Yisrael, relevant stories, and much more. Each participant received a CD containing these tools, lecture source sheets, and the presentations.

In her talk, Mrs. Miri Schlissel, director of Tanach studies at the Education Ministry’s Religious Education Department, noted that Sefer Breishit is an ideal way to begin junior high school. In addition, she showed how studying bekiut is well-suited for the early adolescent temperament. The conference proved to be a great success, as evidenced by the feedback forms and the dozens of thank you notes we received: “I enjoyed it and gained a lot.” “Yishar ko’ach on the welcome initiative. It was enlightening and beneficial.” “Thank you for the valuable and interesting conference and the gracious accommodations.”