BK Designs & Photography Ateres Star Issue 4 | Page 3

The Ateres Yaakov Star

January 2015

3

Thanksgiving Father-Son Breakfast a Huge Hit
By Eli Babad-11th Grade
This Thanksgiving, Mesivta
Ateres Yaakov celebrated their annual
father-son Thanksgiving breakfast with
students and their fathers. During the
breakfast, the attendees enjoyed speeches from the
Menahel, Rabbi Yaffe and from
the renowned speaker, Rabbi
Zacharia Wallerstien. After the
speeches, the Fall Essay contest
winners were announced and
received their cash prize.
Rabbi Yaffe reminded the
attendees how easy it is to forget tough times in moments of
happiness. The week before
Thanksgiving, the tragic Har
Nof massacre occurred and
Jews around the world cried over the
horrible loss. Rabbi Yaffe explained
that in these times, Jews must come
together, and even in these dark
times, see the light up ahead.
Rabbi Wallerstein continued the
theme by providing an answer for the

natural human response in the face
of such tragedy. People question,
“Why did this happen? What was
Hashem’s plan?” Rabbi Wallerstein

presented a crucial p’shat: it is not
our job to understand what is going
on or why we’re doing it; we must
simply do as Hashem has commanded us. As Rabbi Wallerstien
stated, “Our job is to push the
boulder, Hashem’s job is to move

it.”
After the speeches, the breakfast ended a lighter note with the
announcement of the essay contest
winners and a raffle for the
GO-members. The firstplace winners of the essay
contest from 9th to 12th
grade were Shmuel Weiss,
Moshe Goodstein, Moshe
Dembitzer, and Aryeh Horowitz respectively.
Rabbi Yaffe explained
before the breakfast that,
“Having a nice breakfast
wasn’t the goal of this
event. The point was to
bring the community together.”
Rabbi Yossi Bennett, the
Assistant Menahel/Principal asserted that, “We believe strongly in
bringing fathers to sons when they
have a day off to learn, to gain nachas from and with their kids.”

MAY Continues Undefeated Torah Bowl Streak
By Natan Samson-10th Grade
The MAY Torah Bowl
team swept their second consecutive Torah Bowl Tournament, going
a combined 4-0 against DRS,
Shaarey Torah, and Rambam (who
they played twice). That brings
MAY to a perfect 8-0 in Torah Bowl
competition this year.
In the early rounds, MAY
survived two tight matches against
Rambam, winning 21-12 and 21-19.
Then MAY proceeded to dominate
DRS and Shaarey Torah, beating
them 23-12 and 35-10 respectively.
That brought their total point differential on the day to an impressive 100-53.
The team was led by senior
Yosef Samson, who scored an

astounding 66 of the team’s 100
points, more than the other 3
teams’ players combined! In fact he
now leads all Torah Bowl players in
points through the season’s first 8

games.
Their undefeated record
and strong start has bolstered
hopes of a division title for MAY.
MAY won back to back Torah Bowl

Championships in 2010 and 2011
but they fell just short over the last
2 years. Senior David Levene, the
Captain of the Torah Bowl team,
said, “I`m very proud of our how
well our team has done so far. We
have started out strong and I`m
hopeful that we can keep this momentum going.”
The team is coached by
Rabbi Tsvi Greenfield, Ateres Yaakov’s activities coordinator. A typical Torah Bowl meet involves the
teams being assigned a specific
area of study, such as 3 parshiyos
with all Rashis. The teams then face
off head to head and answer difficult questions on that area of Chumash.