Where should we live?

Background:

The first 2 Peulot were about the ideology of the Kibbutz. This was the mainstream of 30-70 years ago.  Now we have learned were it came from we need to look for the best place to settle according to our ideology today.

Goals:

Þ    The Chanichim will realize that there are many different ways of settlement in Israel Today.

Þ    The chanichim will see the ideology behind each type of place.

Þ    The chanichim will understand that as Bnei Akivaniks we believe that the decision on were to live is an ideological decision.

Steps:

Round robin:

-        The groups stay in their places, and the madrichim go between them

-        Each madrich will give an introduction

-        Each madrich will explain one type of settlement in Israel

-        Each chanich will choose what he wants to hear more about

-        Each Madrich will give an example for a place and explain the importance of living there

-        The madrich will explain the power of a group decision

-        Each group will send a representative to the stage

-        The group rep will try to convince all to go to live in that place

-        We will have a group vote

-        All the chanichim will go on Hagshama immediately to live in the chosen place.

The Peula:

Introduction:

The whole of Israel is smaller then NJ, in America we would think that there are only very few choices of were to live in that tiny area. As we know the tiny Israel has many more places to offer.

In order to decide were to live in Israel it would make sense to learn more about the types of settlements available.

Ask the chanichim what would help them define a place so that they can decide whether to live there?

We put together a suggested list of criteria’s to places, you can use them all or some or none.

Location           - central, suburb, quite

Population        - small, medium, large…

Type of houses - apartments, small houses, big houses…

Community life – active, calm, 

Education         -

Jewish life         - shulls, kidushim, shiurim,        

People like me – Americans, religious,

Type of jobs available   - a big hospital, movie land (like LA), politics, 

Cost of living    - high class, cheap

Transportation  - private cars needed, good train and buses

Am Yisrael’s Needs – this is what the peula is about.

A type of place:

Now each madrich will describe one type of settlement without naming a specific place. Go through the criteria’s to define the place and add the importance for am Yisrael:

Kibutz:

working the land

socialism, common property

Ayeret Pituach:

Settling in needed places before the Arabs / druse / beduim…

Helping people in need

Connecting to Am Yisrael

Teaching Torah

Yehuda, Shomron, Gush Katif:

Settling land we might lose.

Jerusalem:

The holy city

Arab population growing

City:

Be part of the nation

Have affect on the Jewish life (opening stores on Shabbat, public transport)

Mizpe in the Galil:

Settle the land before the Arabs

Setting up the structure for the next big cities (there are still 6,000,000 Jews on their way)

Building role model communities

Tel-Aviv:

Bringing the Torah to the Chilony land

Being a part of the nation

Settling in the hearts of the people and the country

Where would you like to live?

Now its time for each chanich to decide where he would like to live.

Each Madrich should have a group of chanichim who want to go to the place he represents. The madrich will take a more specific place and work out why all of Bnei Akiva should go to live there

Kibbutz on the Gaza Strip boarder - Saad

Ayeret Pituach in the Negev between the Beduim with a Garin Torani - Sderot

Yesha – Beit el

Jerusalem – the old city

Moshav –

City – Raanana

Mizpe between the druze settlements on a beautiful mountain – Mizpe Netofa

Tel Aviv – down town

Now let’s play imagine:

Imagine you had 2,000 families committed to our ideology who would go on the mission we vote for. They would all go within 5 years to settle one place.

So we could change the political, financial, religious, educational and any other measure of the place.

So it’s not just an imagine game as all we need is to unite our Bnei Akiva forces:

Every year we have over 2,000 Madrichim and other position holders in Bnei Akiva in Israel, and at least another 1,000 around the world., that’s 3,000 a year.

So lets be pessimistic and say that only half of them are serious, that’s 1,500 a year.

And lets say that half of them agree with the choice, that’s 750 a year

And lets only believe that half of them will actually do it, that’s over 300 families a year.

Within 5 years we can easily have 1,500 families.

It’s time to Vote!

After explaining this we will send a representative to speak up for 1-2 minutes about their place and to convince everyone to vote for them.

Lets vote.

Summery:

After the vote we can use this short Dvar Torah as a summery:

Source from Megilat Ester Attached:

When Mordechai hears that Ester is Having trouble with going to Achashverosh to stop Hamans plans he comes up with an amazing response:

Don’t worry about Am Yisrael the will certainly be saved, the question is what will your part be in it. did you get to were you are for no reason or to help Am Yisrael, do you want to become important to our nations history? Or do you want to be a lost Jew who no one will ever know about?

Mordechai understands that Am Yisrael will succeed some way or another, but each one of us has to find a way to utilize all the power and skills we have in order to help our people.

Now the question is if we are serious about our ideology or do we only enjoy talking about it?

Bnei Akiva is known as a youth movement that takes ideology seriously, is up to you if the movement will continue to change the face of am Yisrael .

It might be true to say that Bnei Akiva as a movement will continue to affect Am Yisrael, the question each one of us has is if I will be part of this or not?

I hope we all take this message with us and make a real change in Am Yisrael