"Zos Chanukah", marked the inauguration of a new beis knesses. The remote but sweet dream of the members of Kibbutz Sde Boker was realized this past Sunday evening, the eve of the eighth day of Chanukah. News of the candle lighting ceremony in the shul spread on wings and brought in many members of neighboring kibbutzim.
"Finally, finally, our dream has come true. After many years in which my father refused to spend Shabbosim by us, he can now begin to do so and even merit praying with us in a minyan," one of the kibbutz members declared aloud, very movingly so.
Some one hundred and fifty people, far more than expected, filled the new beis knesses, whose construction was just now completed. The event was officially inaugurated by the affixing of the mezuzoh upon the entrance way by the official rabbi of the local district council, Rabbi Suissa, who attached the mezuzoh on the right side, and lit the Chanukah candles on the left in view of a large audience.
"For the very first time in the history of the kibbutz," said one mother emotionally, expressing her overflowing sentiments, "my son will be able to be called up to the Torah on Parashat Ve'eyra, in our own minyan and in our own synagogue. This is a very basic thing whose sore lack was so tangible until now."
"I have no words to express our gratitude for this marvelous initiative," said many of the members who approached the initiators, the Ayelet Hashachar organization, to thank them for this Chanukah gift. "We hope that this will be a propitious beginning of a new reality where a synagogue stands in the center of the kibbutz, enabling us to draw our children closer to our age-old heritage," was a sentiment expressed by many members who added their heartfelt request to the organization, "Please continue to maintain an ongoing relationship throughout the year so as to increase the light of Judaism and enable it to spread throughout this entire area."
Sde Boker was where David Ben Gurion spent his last years. Ben Gurion was famously known for avoiding going to shul.
