A large event took place at the “Beit Baruch” Home for the Elderly, a unique social institution of the Dnipro Jewish Community, in honor of the Shavuot holiday. The event featured a new performance, “The Book of Life,” prepared by the creative studio under the direction of Rivka Lazareva, as well as performances by the younger students of the Levi Yitzchak Schneerson Jewish Lyceum No. 144.
The production “The Book of Life” was dedicated to the Giving of the Torah, the traditions of Shavuot, and the most important spiritual values of the Jewish people. The performance, entirely prepared in Ukrainian, combined stage episodes, poetic texts, and musical numbers in Loshon Kodesh. The audience watched a skit about three mountains arguing among themselves over which one would become the site of the Giving of the Torah. Through this narrative, the performers revealed an important idea about the significance of humility and true dignity.
The program also included poetic texts about how the Almighty offered the Torah to various nations and how the Jewish people expressed their readiness to accept it and observe all the commandments. Because many of the songs were well known to the audience, the boundary between the stage and the hall quickly dissolved; guests and participants sang together, supported the performers with applause, and became part of what was happening.
Then came the turn of the lyceum students, who had prepared a large program for the residents, demonstrating their talents and revealing the tremendous creative potential of the younger generation of Dnipro’s Jews. The children recited poems, performed songs, and danced. Particularly touching was the performance by the second-grade students with a song about a happy child and a peaceful sky, accompanied by a melody that one of the students had independently selected and performed on a synthesizer.
The culmination was the recitation of a poem about the Shavuot holiday, read by its author, a young and talented poetess, Karen Morozova, a student of the Jewish lyceum. Because the children chose many well-known songs for their performance, the entire hall sang along with them, and many of the elderly residents could not hold back tears of joy and admiration.
“This celebration, with its atmosphere of unity, shared aspiration, and love for one another, is very much in the spirit of Shavuot, when the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai as one person with one heart,” said Malvina Ruvinska, Director of the “Beit Baruch” Home for the Elderly. “It is very important for us to feel this atmosphere of connection between generations, to see the children who come to bring joy to the elderly, to feel the unity of our large family, which is our beloved Dnipro Jewish Community under the leadership of Chief Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki.”
