On Shabbat Vayakheil-Pikudei, the Barkai Center conducted a special alumni weekend for past program participants. The weekend featured a collaborative learning session about Shabbat Hagadol, as well as workshops and programming geared toward strengthening the family unit within rabbinic families.

One of the central challenges faced by the rabbi’s family is the ongoing influence of the father’s communal role on the rabbi’s children. The impact is multi-faceted. The rabbi spends a lot of time providing for the needs of the community, which necessarily demands a lot of his family. In order for the rabbi to devote himself to the community, the entire family needs to be on board. On occasion, the father’s communal role compromises his ability to devote himself to his own family and spend time with his children. In one of the workshops, the men and women each discussed this challenge separately, and then conducted a joint discussion devoted to possible ways to address the challenge and methods for transforming the objective difficulty into an opportunity. At the end of the workshop, each couple sat together and shared with one another the different points raised in the separate discussion groups.

The uplifting weekend was a special experience for participating families. Not only did it recharge them, but it also endowed them with strength and vigor ahead of the Pesach season.