Last Friday morning, Beis Rivka High School’s Shul turned into a gameshow room, with darkened lights, dramatic background music, and a line of earnest contestants marching down the aisle. The stage filled with the twenty-two finalists of the second annual High School Chidon, organized by the Batsheva Learning Center.
For the first time last year, a new high school girls’ Chidon was launched for 11th and 12th grade students in the tri state area. After spending months studying a complete sefer of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim, sixteen participants from five schools competed on stage in the final competition and a few weeks later, traveled to a weekend learning retreat in the Poconos. The girls returned feeling exhilarated by their impressive accomplishment and inspired to continue learning. After last year’s success, the Chidon went national, with thirty girls from seven Chabad high schools around the U.S. participating in this year’s competition. These ambitious students spent the last four months mastering the entire Sefer Hamada of the Rambam. They met periodically with their classmates and school mentors to study the material and took five online cumulative tests, each of which focused on another topic of halachos. Those who received an average of over 80% were eligible to participate in the final competition and join the weekend retreat.
At this year’s contest, multiple-choice questions on the material were asked in rapid succession, while the contestants rushed to send in their answers. A crowd of the participants’ classmates, friends and families cheered them on as they competed. Parents who were unable to attend the event in person, watched the event online and sent messages of support. One parent emailed Batsheva Learning Center during the event, saying, “Our high school girls need this! Our daughter is so thrilled to be in the Chidon this year. Thank you for empowering our girls.”
After the game show ended, three winners were announced. The second and third place winners, Brocha Katz, a 12th grader from Beis Chana Miami and Chaya Mushka Baumgarten, an 11th grader from Beis Rivka, both received a three-volume set of the Rebbe’s sichos on Rambam. The first place winner, Chana Zweibel, an 11th grader from Beis Rivka, received a full set of Rambam Le’am. At the event, contestants Shayna Marmulszteyn, an 11th grader from Monsey Beis Chaya Mushka and Chana Silberberg, an 11th grader from Bnos Menachem, spoke about how they were impacted by the learning they did through the Chidon and how the Chidon empowered them to take on new challenges in the future.
Following the competition, all Chidon contestants were treated to a five star weekend retreat in Morristown, NJ. The weekend was packed with learning, singing, dancing, sledding, and bonding with new friends they had just met from around the country. The girls prepared competitive word games and enjoyed in depth learning based on the concepts they had learned through the Chidon. Chidon finalist Esther Weinstein said, “I really enjoyed the learning and it was so beautiful to spend Shabbos with girls who all worked hard toward the same goal”.
The Chidon offered the girls a unique opportunity to master the principle mitzvos and concepts in Torah that are fundamental to our faith, as well as the confidence to study any text of Torah on their own. In the words of Devora Scheiner, an 11th grader from Beis Chana New Haven, “If you want something to become your own, you need to learn inside yourself. I never had the push or motivation to do that until this Chidon.” In her speech at the Chidon event on Friday, Chana Silberberg said, “Chidon not only changed the way I view Rambam. More importantly, it changed the way I view learning in general. Chidon empowered me and showed me that I can sit down after school, take a sefer off the shelf and learn.”
Through the annual High School Chidon and projects like it, Batsheva Learning Center aims to encourage women and girls to challenge themselves to learn Nigla and Chassidus in greater depth, as per the Rebbe’s vision of advancing women’s Torah learning.
You did it!!!!! So proud of your hard work and dedication!
All these girls worked VERY hard! It is incredible to see girls in 11 & 12 grade who have so much work in school and still made the time to study for this chidon. Yeshar Koach!
We are so proud of you 🙂
Chana you are amazing! You excel in exceptional good midos as well as learning.
you girls are an inspiration
We love you Chaya!! Thank you so much for arranging this most amazing program in the world
We are so proud of the finalists and winners
They put in so much effort for this chidon
Simultaneously doing all their school work
And participating in after school events
A special Mazel Tov to all the Beth Rivkah student who
Participated and to the winners
Thank you batsheva learning center for enabling me to realize that its a feasible act to take a sefer off the shelf and learn on your own after school. Not only does it teach you amazing things, rather rambam also transforms your day to day life activities! To all those 11th and 12th graders out there, this is something you NEED to join next year!
We are all chassidim we woke up for Tehillim on Shabbos mevarchim Chidon 5778.
Signed -Yetzer Tov
Thank you Batsheva Learning Center for this opportunity! I learned how to really learn and and got the satisfaction of completing an entire sefer. The shabbaton was the best shabbaton I’ve ever experienced-from the chaperones to midnight slurpee run and of course the learning. Thank you again for everything. Looking forward to next year’s chidon😄
Last year we learned the sefer mamorim of the frierdiker rebbe and this year we learned rambam sefer mada.
Which sefer/sichos did the girls learn?
Is there a link to the list?