Thursday, August 21, 2008

Chabad - Training children to be soliders in G-d's Army

YNET wrote the following excerpt

The rabbi's army

Chabad summer camp includes money collection, love of God; 'the object is to send emissaries all over the world so that every Jew would have the option of receiving physical and spiritual aid,' coordinator says

They stand in a line, fall in a group of threes and are ordered to go to the parade ground, equipped with a discipline manual. Despite the similarities to any army recruitment center, these are not 18-year-old kids who are joining the IDF, these are children, aged 9 to 13 who were accepted to a unique program aimed at training the children as "house managers" for the countless Chabad houses located worldwide. The program is run by the Chabad organization itself.

For this purpose, Kfar Galim, a youth village located near the coastal town of Atlit was chosen. Some 150 children, who are planning to become emissaries of the Rabbi of Lubavitch, still get to go to the pool and field trips, but the bulk of the training is given in an entirely military-like discipline, which includes an intensive program where the children stay at the youth village for more than two weeks without returning home to mom and dad.

Among the activities the children attend are lectures on the various aspects of being a Chabad emissary, from helping the poor to holding Passover Seders for the hundreds of Israeli backpackers overseas who desire a little piece of home.

This course, the first of its kind, was designed and is run by Chabad's youth organization, headed by Rabbi Joseph Isaac Aharonov, and is aimed to instill the essence of emissary work for Chabad, and build up a renewing pool of potential future emissaries.

"This course is designed to continue the Rabbi of Lubavitch's way, to educate the next generation of Chabad leadership and to instill the love of Israel", said Rabbi Aharonov, "These children will be the representatives of Chabad everywhere". The results, he hopes, will be evident in a few years when these children get married, only then, if they wish and are able to meet the criteria required, can they become emissaries for Chabad.

3 comments:

  1. What is so controversial here that it makes blog post material? I don't get it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bartley Kulp said...

    What is so controversial here that it makes blog post material? I don't get it.

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    Not every post is controversial. This was informative

    ReplyDelete

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