Expecting an 18 percent larger attendance over last year, coordinators of the National Jewish Retreat announced that Park City, Utah – home of the Sundance Film Festival and the United States Ski Team, and location of several 2002 Winter Olympics events – would be the venue of this year’s retreat.
“We grow from year to year,” said Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Efraim Mintz, director of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, which hosts the retreat. “The facilities are larger and more conducive to learning.”
Some 300 people attended last year’s get-together in Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain resort. The participants, who came from all over the United States, pored over Jewish texts, dialogued with inspirational speakers, and availed themselves of the resort’s outdoor activities.
This year’s 350 attendees can expect more of the same in Utah, said Rabbi Heshy Epstein, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of South Carolina and chairman of the July 2-6 retreat. But the retreat’s theme, “Advantage 3000,” will put more of a focus on Torah-based problem solving.
“We will look at the power of our tradition to inspire fresh thinking,” said Epstein. “We will look at contemporary problems through the lens of the Torah.”
Rabbi Manis Friedman, the S. Paul, Minn., founder of Bais Chana Women’s International, is slated to give the keynote address. New faculty members include Shimona Tzukernik of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Rabbi Dov Greenberg, co-director of the Rohr Chabad House at Stanford University; Rabbi Eliezer Gurkow of Friends of Lubavitch in London, Ontario; Rabbi Eli and Chana Silberstein, co-directors of the Roitman Chabad Center at Cornell University; and Rabbi Asher and Sara Esther Crispe of suburban Philadelphia.
Tzukernik’s classes will include healing workouts, a demonstration of self-massage techniques, and a scenic hike to learn about the environment and meditation.
A special children’s program will include activities like fishing, swimming and boating.
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