C16

26 TISHREI 5770

Community

OCTOBER 14, 2009

HAMODIA

Halachah Comes Alive to Rochester Jewish Community At the Living History Museum
The Rochester Jewish community took a trip back to the 19th century on the second day of Chol Hamoed Sukkos. The trip was organized by Rabbi Mordechai Hochheimer, mara dasra of Congregation Beth Hakneses Hachodosh of Rochester. His goal was to have children and adults experience halachah rather than simply learning about it. The Genesee Country Village and Museum is a living history museum consisting of 60 buildings that give visitors an idea of what life was like 160 years ago. The village is humming with activity. Women cook food, weave clothing, and tend gardens. The men farm, do blacksmithing, and make pottery. While the world has changed radically in the past 160 years, daily life in the 19th century was very much the same as it had been for thousands of years; clothes were made on the same type of loom, and food was cooked in similar ovens. Over 120 adults and children participated in the Chol Hamoed excursion. Each was given a scavenger hunt with pictures and explanations of each of the 39 melachos. The goal was to see how many of the melachos they could find by talking to the interpreters and listening to one of three Torah tours. The third through eighth grades of the Hillel Community Day School, under the direction of principal Rabbi Chaim Hisiger and teachers Rabbi Eliyahu Lowy and Morah Nechama Lichtenstein, found most of the melachos. One firstgrader, Chana Wakslak, from Derech HaTorah of Rochester, was the clear champion; she took the tour twice, bringing along her parents, in order to find all 39. Rabbi Hochheimer began his tour at a halachic sukkah constructed especially for the trip. Since the walls were not covered in canvas or wood, the basic requirements for a sukkah were evident. The sukkah was designed to be assembled like the Mishkan to demonstrate the Torah prohibition of writing on Shabbos. Adjacent boards each had the same letter written on them so that they could be easily connected, just as was done with the Mishkan. The tour continued into the fields, where participants saw two huge oxen with large horns.

Rabbi Mordechai Hochheimer discussing the tools used for harvesting, threshing, gathering and winnowing.

The oxen were behind a metal fence, one of the only concessions to modernity in the village. There was a discussion about the use of the horns to make a shofar, whether the oxens color was red enough to be used for a parah adumah, and the signs indicating that they are kosher animals. The tour continued to a pioneer farmstead, where the lady of the house explained what life was like for her in the 1850s. She raised a family of 10 children in one large room lit by two windows and a smoky fire in the hearth. On her lap she held her gray chicken. Vegetables and fruit were strung from the wooden rafters. In one corner was a spinning wheel and mortar; in the other was a thin, lumpy mattress held up by ropes, and another mattress on the floor, both of which had to accommodate all 12 family members. Rabbi Hochheimer showed the many melachos that were evident in that one small room; for example, grinding corn and flour was tochen, and stringing the vegetables was meamer. Hanging on the wall were various animal skins. These animals had to be trapped, slaughtered, skinned, and tanned before they were ready for use, and each stage involved melachos. The next stop was the barn, in the center of which was a large room called the threshing floor, open on two sides to allow for cross-ventilation. The farmer explained all the steps that were necessary to make the flour his wife would use to bake bread. He showed viewers his tools: a yoke to lead the oxen to

plow, a sharp, curved metallic sickle to harvest, a flail to beat the grain, and a winnowing pan to separate the straw from the grain. The steps the farmer described were exactly those used to make bread for the Mishkan. The group visited the blacksmiths and potters shops to learn about mavir, mechabeh, boneh, soser, and makeh bpatish. Rabbi Hochheimer demonstrated how relevant topics from the Gemara, Rishonim, and hilchos Shabbos were in these craftsmens lives. The tour progressed to Amherst Humphrey House. In the first room, a spinner gave a demonstration at her spinning wheel, taking wool that had been sheared, washed, and combed, and directing it through the wheel to spin it into thread. Next to her sat skeins of yarn that had dried after being dyed. In the next room, the weaver sat at a large loom. Remarkably, the technology used to weave fabric in the Mishkan was exactly the same as that shown by the weaver. The last stop on the tour was a large kitchen in a city home staffed by a cook. She had the group help her grind herbs to make spice pie. The cook then prepared a brick fireplace and spacious brick oven, explaining that she stuck her hand in the oven to determine its temperature. It gave the group a whole new understanding of the concept of yad soledes bo. Rabbi Hochheimer used the fireplace and oven to explain why we use blechs and cook cholent as we do for Shabbos. In less than two hours, the group had seen 37 of the 39 melachos in their original form. Participants walked away with a richer and deeper understanding of hilchos Shabbos and their lives as Torah Jews, and Chol Hamoed was transformed into a growth experience for the community. Genesee Country Village is 45 minutes west of Rochester and an hour and a half east of Niagara Falls. For more information about group tours for your shul, school, or camp, please call Rabbi Mordechai Hochheimer at (585) 271-8768.

Rabbi Baruch Davidowitz, RM, Yeshivah Chofetz Chaim of Rochester, and Rabbi Mordechai Hochheimer, Rav of Congregation Beth Hakneses Hachodosh of Rochester, discussing sugyos from Bava Kama about nezek from a shor.

Students from Hillel Community School of Rochester complete their 39 Melachos Scavenger Hunt at the Genesee Country Village on Chol Hamoed Sukkos.

Children learning about pottery-making and Hilchos Shabbos.

Rabbi Dovid Aryeh Caro, rebbi at Derech HaTorah of Rochester, Rabbi Avi Rubin, Chofetz Chaim of Queens, and Elia Rackovsky dismantling the sukkah.