by Rafi Anapolle ('15)

This past Wednesday night was the annual MTA dinner for Arista - The National Honor Society. The dinner bid farewell to all the senior Arista members who will be graduating in a few weeks, while welcoming the new, incoming junior Arista members.

The National Honor Society was created in 1921, nearly a century ago, and has since become the nation's premier organization established to recognize outstanding high school students in the areas of scholarship, character, leadership, and public service. MTA Arista members propose school projects upon their entrance into the organization in their junior year, ranging from running blood drives to creating an innovative and free-tutoring program throughout the school, called "Each-One-Teach-One."

One of the dinner speakers, Yehuda Weschler, now the former president of Arista, pointed out one aspect about Arista in particular that applies to life in general as well. "We will not all be leaders, in fact, most of us will be followers; however, even though we will not all be leaders, we all have the potential to be leaders." Another one of our speakers, Rafi Anapolle, now also the former president of Arista, focused on some of the aspects of the life of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, zt'l, who just passed away, that apply to every Jew - every day. Rafi explained how even though our main focus in life should first and foremost be serving our creator - Hashem - we must never forget our duties towards friends, family, and anyone in need.

The main speaker of the night was our own Rabbi Michael Taubes, Rosh Yeshiva of YUHSB/MTA. Rabbi Taubes delivered a powerful Jewish history lecture, which is the custom at the annual Arista dinner, thanks to an endowment from the family of Mr. Bruno Fankel, about complex events that played a role in the creation of Israel - the Jewish State. Focusing on a mysterious murder of a young political leader and the dramatic trials which followed, Rabbi Taubes explained the background politics and ideologies that dominated the time before the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. He described how parties from all ranges of the political spectrum, from religious to traditional, from liberal to conservative, and so on, affected the creation of Israel as a Jewish State. One central figure Rabbi Taubes focused on was Rav Kook, zt'l, and how he fought to make sure Israel would be not only a Jewish State, but a religious state, and yet tried hard to unite all Jews, while standing up for what he believed in.

We would like to thank Mrs. Levitt for such an amazing night as well as everyone who helped to make the dinner so uplifting and enlightening. Also, we would like to thank our outgoing presidents Rafi Anapolle and Yehuda Weschler, and all the senior Arista members, for their hard work this past year. Finally, we would like to specifically congratulate the new presidents of Arista, Michael Kolber and Mikey Hizami, the Vice-presidents Jason Blatt, Ari Hagler, and Rami Nordlicht, as well as Project Managers Ezra Epstein, Yair Gross, Eli Kahn, Max Landsburg, Daniel Mirsky, David Schmidt, and Avraham Tsikhanovski. We wish them luck for the rest of this year and the year to come!