Celebrating Shavuot with fun and flavor

At the Chabad Center for Jewish Life, led by Rabbi Shimon Kramer, the Jewish community celebrated Shavuot with a Divine Dairy Party on June 12.

Shavuot is a holiday of great spiritual importance, commemorating when the Jewish people received the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Sinai over 3,300 years ago, after 49 days of exile from Egypt.

The Chabad center’s party had parents and their children eat ice cream, play with arts and crafts and read from the Torah.

“One of the things that we do is we take the actual original Torah, the same Torah that existed 1000s of years ago, and we read once again the 10 commandments,” Kramer said. “As we read, we envision as if we’re standing at Mount Sinai receiving the 10 commandments.”

Kramer combined study with entertaining activities to make studying the Torah exciting and accessible for the youngest members of the community.

“We tried to bring excitement and flavor into it,” he said.

This balance has proven successful, evidenced by the large turnout, which is important to keep the community thriving, Kramer said.

”We had the entire community; it was about 200 people that came, many of them children, maybe about half, which is very special because the children are the next generation,” he explained. “So they’re going to pass the Torah and study to the next generation.”

Celebrating holidays is important spiritually, and it also plays a role in educating young members in ways they can better understand.

“I think the reason why they come to these holiday programs is because this is all part of the same mission,” Kramer said. “It’s a well done, hands on, fun way where we teach them the values and how to work with others, to share with others, and social skills.”

Chabad staff member Allison Perski was delighted to see the community come together.

“It was really nice to have all the parents with their children coming together and enjoying the holiday,” she said. “And it was nice because the kids got to hear the Torah and they got stickers to decorate a Torah, it was just so much fun — and of course we all had fun at the ice cream party.”

Perski was originally a parent with a child enrolled in the Chabad Center’s education program, and she enjoyed the experience so much that she joined the team.

“My child went here last year and I have met so many amazing moms and dads through it,” Perski said. “It’s just such an amazing community and when they have events like this, it just brings us all together. And now, especially with everything that’s going on in Israel and the world, it’s very nice to have a community that’s willing to come together for the good and the bad.”

“They do wonderful things for the community,” Chris Devlin, a volunteer staff member at the Chabad Center said. “They put their heart and soul into this. It’s amazing, what they do.”