יום שלישי, נובמבר 01, 2005

Beni Akiva Sydney

Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur I davened mostly at the Beni Akiva minyan. I don't think I taken the time to talk about Bnei Akiva here in Sydney yet so I'm going to do that now. Of all the different institutions I've seen here and among the different shuls they have
something really special. They cover all the bases of a proper shul and then some. Big 7ft mechitza, good chazzanim, people join in singing, no speech before mussaf. Very little talking and on RH / YK, (except for page numbers) I heard none at all. The kids that show up
range quite a bit. In a minyan of 30+ there are usually 4-5 hats and 1-2 kids who can't read Hebrew so well. This past Shabbos I sat next to one guy who just finished a masechta of gemora and another guy who couldn't read Rashi.

The minyan holds court in the semi-detached basement of another shul and some Friday nights will fill up with over 100 people. Learning every night with mincha and ma'ariv. I'm am absolutely amazed by the effort all the madrichim (and some of the kids) put in, all on a volunteer basis. They put out a weekly parsha sheet and a monthly newsletter. It's definitly been one of God's brachot to me that I fell in with the crowd that is BA Sydney.

Back to our storyline... Davening at Beni was as it should be. It was a yeshiva minyan on a small scale. The only real difference was the number of guys and 2-3 years in age.

posted by YS @ 3:12 AM