Shalom VeShavua Tov!

I was thinking of how I would open this post? There are so many holidays taking place at the moment meaning it is hard to be politically correct with your wishes. I guess that “Happy Holidays” would suit most of us…

Today , Sunday, we are lighting the 5th Chanukah candle, and I am refusing to admit that more than half of the holiday has already gone. May the light continue shine in our hearts all year long.

We are launching a new campaign in the Ulpan this month: the month of Eliezer Ben Yehuda. Eliezer Ben Yehuda was responsible for reviving the Hebrew language in modern era. He was born on the 7th of January 1858 and this year will be his 154 birthday. We decided that we would like to create something to mark this date as a tribute to one man’s life project (after all, without him we would not be in work right now, nachon?)

So, starting from the January 1st make sure that you visit our web site and to find out about the surprises we have got planned for you for this month. You are all invited to celebrate with us! Below you can find a little reminder of the occasion.

This week’s Torah portion was Parashat MIKETS which starts with Pharaoh’s dreams and Yossef’s interpretation. One, (but not the only), interesting thing to see is that when Pharaoh describes the cows he has seen in his dream, he is using the word:

רקות

RAKOT

A common mistake is to think that Pharaoh is saying that the cows were “soft”, the fem. Pl. of the word :

רך

RACH

Soft

BUT, the word “soft” in Hebrew is spelt with a "כ" where as in the Torah the word is written with a "ק".

This indicates that it is a different word entirely and that we need to identify from which word it is taken:

רק

RAK

only/just

This word, in modern language is not an adjective that may be conjugated according to gender or number. It is a quantity description.

However, we see that in biblical language there is an option of conjugating it when wanting to minimize an amount. In fact, it is just like saying: “a few”.

Chanukah Sameach!

Gil Pentzak

Ulpan Aviv- Director

Shalom LeKulam!

I trust this blog post finds you all safe and well.

I am doing just fine, Baruch H', no complaints. The new baby, Ori Avraham, is growing well thank G-d and if he would only sleep just a little more often, then things would be even better. All of his siblings seem to have accepted Ori quite well and despite our worries about how our daughter, Adi, who is almost 2 years old would manage to handle a younger brother at her age, things are going well.  The truth is that Adi seems to have come to terms with the change much better than we could have hoped and has only bitten him twice so farJ.

 Things continue to go well in the Ulpan here in Tel Aviv, and we have seen a rapid growth in on-line courses. People are less likely to visit Israel at this time of year and so we thought that it may be a good thing to iadvertise to increase awareness of the availability of our on-line courses.  This approach appears to have worked well.  I am teaching 7 students on-line these days and I must say that I enjoy every minute of it.  In recent times I had very litttle time to teach. Most of my time was invested in managing, training new teachers, supervision, etc. If I ever needed to focus even more time on things involved around running and managing the Ulpan, I don’t think that I could ever stop teaching completely.  It is so refreshing and energizing…

I was asked more than once this week about the best way of retaining vocabulary. "What is the best way for me to learn the new words?" everyone asks.  Well friends,  let me let you in to a little secret that the Torah has been telling us about for the past 5000 years.  In the "Shema" we commit ourselves to teach and educate our children to follow the rules of the Torah, keep the faith in HaShaem, etc. This command is given as follows:

"ושננתם לבניך"

VESHINANTAM LEVANECHA

"memorize this to your sons"

The Hebrew language gives us the missing piece. The word:

"ושננתם"

VESHINANTAM

which talks about memorizing.  If you notice this word has the same root as the word:

שיניים

SHINAYIM

teeth

Memorizing is best done by “using your teeth”, eg., speaking, or saying out loud the thing that you wish to memorize. I trust (actually, I know) that this is the best way for any student to retain all the vocabulary he/she is trying to learn.

So, off you go to your list of new words…J (Maybe warn the neighbours first so they know that you haven’t comletely lost it!!!!)

Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and warm wishes!

Gil Pentzak

Ulpan Aviv- Director

Shalom LeKulam!

I trust this blog post finds you all safe and well.

I am doing just fine, Baruch H', no complaints. The new baby, Ori
Avraham, is growing well thank G-d and if he would only sleep just a little
more often, then things would be even better. All of his siblings seem to have
accepted Ori quite well and despite our worries about how our daughter, Adi,
who is almost 2 years old would manage to handle a younger brother at her age,
things are going well. The truth is that
Adi seems to have come to terms with the change much better than we could have
hoped and has only bitten him twice so farJ.

Things continue to go well in the
Ulpan here in Tel Aviv, and we have seen a rapid growth in on-line courses.
People are less likely to visit Israel at this time of year and so we thought
that it may be a good thing to iadvertise to increase awareness of the
availability of our on-line courses.
This approach appears to have worked well. I am teaching 7 students on-line these days
and I must say that I enjoy every minute of it.
In recent times I had very litttle time to teach. Most of my time was
invested in managing, training new teachers, supervision, etc. If I ever needed
to focus even more time on things involved around running and managing the
Ulpan, I don’t think that I could ever stop teaching completely. It is so refreshing and energizing…

I was asked more than once this week about the best way of retaining
vocabulary. "What is the best way for me to learn the new words?"
everyone asks. Well friends, let me let you in
to a little secret that the Torah has been telling us about for the past 5000
years. In the "Shema" we
commit ourselves to teach and educate our children to follow the rules of the
Torah, keep the faith in HaShaem, etc. This command is given as follows:

"ושננתם לבניך"

VESHINANTAM LEVANECHA

"memorize this to your
sons"

The Hebrew language gives us the missing piece. The word:

"ושננתם"

VESHINANTAM

which talks about memorizing. If you notice this word has the same root as
the word:

שיניים

SHINAYIM

teeth

Memorizing is best done by “using your teeth”, eg.,
speaking, or saying out loud the thing that you wish to memorize. I trust
(actually, I know) that this is the best way for any student to retain all the
vocabulary he/she is trying to learn.

So, off you go to your list of new words…J (Maybe warn the neighbours first so they know that
you haven’t comletely lost it!!!!)

Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom and warm wishes!

Gil Pentzak

Ulpan Aviv- Director

Shalom…….

I hope everything is BESEDER at your end wherever you are.
I thought that it might be interesting if I shared one of the things that I have been teaching during the past week, something out of the Scriptures. Recently, I started to explore in much more depth the process that the biblical Hebrew has undergone from the era in which it was written, until "modern" life. As I find the subject so fascinating, I was thinking that I might write a little on this subject with each blog that I post. Hopefully, I won’t bore you…☺
Each week in my lessons I like to include some of the Torah portion from the previous Shabbat. It is always easier to speak to students about things they may have already read rather than talking about something which is completely new to them. The students who haven’t read the Parasha do get a general background during the lesson.
Last Shabbat we read the portion called TOLDOT, my Bar Mitzva portion. (It was my birthday last Friday!). "Toldot" literally means 'biography' (same root in Hebrew as the word birth). In this portion we read about Esav selling his birth rights to Ya'akov and as a result, Ya'akov receives the blessing from Yitzchak (not getting into the argument about that one…). When Esav came back from the field and finds out about what has happened, he said to his ABA, Yitzchak:

"הלא אצלת לי ברכה?"

HALO ATSALTA LI BERACHA?

Did you not keep a blessing for me in you?
Esav is using the verb: ATSALTA, which does not exist in Modern Hebrew. In its place in Modern Hebrew we find the preposition: ETSEL ("אצל") which is used when something/one is found in someone's personal space.

"אני אצל משה"

ANI ETSEL MOSHE

"I am at Moshe's"

Interestingly enough, the same root is used in the verb used in Biblical language as the preposition used in modern language.
If any of you would like to comment on anything that I have written about, please feel free to do so: gil@ulpanaviv.com
Back to life….. This week in Ulpan has definitely been a week of "Goodbyes". Tamara, our right hand, has gone back to Europe for 6 weeks and Ruth, one of our long-term students who has been in Israel for the past 3 months, has also left for a couple of months. The big project that we are currently running in Northern Israel for students from Australia finishes this week and has been a great success; meaning Saray (TLV teacher) will be back in Ulpan full time as from next week. I couldn’t be happier but as she is my sister, I certainly won’t be telling her that!!! Also, this week two very nice students finished their courses here in TLV. How much can one teacher take? The comfort in all this I guess is that endings usually point to new beginnings…..
As for Ori Avraham (the NB), he is not a great fan of sleep and decided that he would not let us sleep much for the past month. It is a good job that he is just so cute, otherwise…….. ☺
Shavua Tov to you all!
Gil Pentzak
Ulpan Aviv- Director

Shalom…….

Other than the enormous amount of rain that has fallen this week, which is unusual for November; this week has just been one of those ordinary weeks. At home things are getting back to normal and the children, (all 4 of them…) are settling back in to some sort of routine. We are just about to sign the final papers for us to buy the land that we applied for and in a in the next few months we hope to start building. It is all very exciting, a bit stressful too, but none the less exciting. This week too, my closest friend, Uri, was doing his national army reserve service in the yeshuv where I live, just near my house. One evening I got a pizza and went over to see him where he was on-duty at the check-point between my yeshuv and the Palestinian village next door. While we were talking, I suddenly got the urge to see things from the ‘other side’. It is true, in life that we tend to see things only from our own point of view and just once, I wanted to be able to see things from the other point of view; to see my house the way that the inhabitants of the Palestinian village see it and to see their life how they see it. As I said there is a check-point just next to where I live and people come from as far as Bethlehem to work in Israel. They do a 240km round trip every day and spend as much as 2 hours, twice a day crossing the check-point in order to come in to Israel to work. Four hours a day that I am sure they would rather be spending in their homes with their families; I know I would. Of course, Uri refused to take me over the check-point for security reasons, but I hope that one day that it will be possible. Maybe I should explain that whilst all of my friends and class mates where doing their national service in the army, I was given a medical discharge due to my Chron’s disease, and so as Uri was showing me around the dormitories and the barracks, it was as if I was walking around somewhere totally unknown. Whereas the vast majority of the people that I know would feel completely at home in this environment it was so outside of my own experience and brought home the feeling once more, that I had missed out on something that is such a fundamental part of our daily, national life here in Israel. It was like being a complete stranger in my own yeshuv, only a few meters from my own home. Very bizarre!
Anyway, on that philosophical note I must get back to preparing for my Ulpan students, but wish you a pleasant end to the week and Shabbat shalom!
Gil Pentzak
Ulpan Aviv- Director

Shalom le kulam. Ma shlomchem?

Shalom le kulam. Ma shlomchem?
Doesn't time go by so quickly? I feel like I have only just finished writing the other blog and it is time to write another. I am thankful to say that things have really been getting back to normal this week. Little Ori recovered well after his circumcision, although he is a bit 'gripey' now which leads to fun nights! The whole family is settling down and finding their new places within the family and I am glad to say that our little 20 month old daughter hasn't managed to inflict any serious damage on Ori yet, although she really gave him a good whack when he was only a few days old!! This week was another family event; it was my cousin's wedding. He is only 22 yrs old and there was much talk of how young he is to be getting married. In our culture it is obligatory to find something to talk about…. The wedding was great and everyone seemed to really get in to the spirit of things. The Shabbat after a wedding the whole family and all the friends get together for the Shabbat to be with the newly married couple. It is always a crazy but fun time and I am really looking forward to it. The project up north is going really, really well and as one of the directors here at the Ulpan, I went up to see that everything was going alright. There were glowing reports of Efat and Saray, (of course I would have never doubted for a moment that there would be…) and the students seem to be progressing well.
Well, writing this from a rainy and cold Tel Aviv hope that you all have a good end to the week and I wish you all Shabbat Shalom!
Gil Pentzak
Ulpan Aviv-Director

Shalom le-kulam

This week I hardly know whether I am coming or going! I normally start with what is going on here in Israel, but today, I want to start with what is going on with me! As I said last week, my wife gave birth to our 4th child, (3rd son). When a boy is born, there is always so much to do and for me it was no exception. Trying to get the Brit Milah arranged, the Sandak (godfather), the Mohel (the circumciser) and all the family in the same place at the same time and all on the 8th day of his life, whilst making sure that all is going smoothly at the Ulpan, and that all of our students and potential students are taken care of. Eventually, it all came together beautifully yesterday. The weather was fantastic and all of our closest friends and family were there as well as all of my colleagues from both the Tel Aviv branch and the Jerusalem branch along with a few of my long term students. There was a real mixture of people, backgrounds and languages. It would have been an anthropologist's dream! As the Parashat ha Shavua was "Lech Lecha", this week where G-d told then Abram to leave his country, home and father's house, I spoke a little bit of Abram's character and the importance of what he actually did, becoming the first Ivri (the first 'Hebrew' from the root 'To pass over'), also about his heart to take everyone with him. It was important for us to choose a name which reflected firstly, what our new little son meant to us and secondly, what we hoped he would be and become and so we chose the name 'Ori Avraham'. (Ori meaning 'my light' and Avraham after Avraham, Avinu.) We look forward to the next many years that we have together; getting to know him and seeing our little Ori Avraham grow in to what we hope and pray will be an exceptional man and especially a man of G-d.

Other than that, there were a few significant days this week; there were the memorial days for Rachel, emenu and for Yitzak Rabin, after his assassination, 16 years ago.

Shabbat Shalom le kulam!

Gil Pentzak

Ulpan Aviv-Director