KFAR CHABAD, Israel — A week before Rosh Hashanah, the buses stream into this Chassidic village in central Israel.
They carry children from public schools and religious ones, from Chassidic neighborhoods and Israeli towns and kibbutzim. They have come to discover what happens before the honey reaches the Rosh Hashanah holiday table: how a tiny bee gathers nectar, how tens of thousands of bees work together inside a hive and how a golden drop of honey travels from flower to jar.
Some schools deliberately schedule their visit for the opening days of the academic year.
“They like to begin with something sweet,” explains Shoshi Rivkin, who runs the center together with her husband, Shlomo. “To open first grade and begin the school year with sweetness. But with us, it’s sweet all year round.”
At M’achoray Hadvash, or “Behind the Honey,” a family-run apiary (or bee farm) and educational visitor center on the outskirts of Kfar Chabad, children encounter the world of bees through a series of immersive activities. They peer into a glass bee hive, meet a beekeeper, watch the honey-production process, dress up as bees, make candles from beeswax and taste the finished product.
Yet the sweetness is not found only in the honey.
Under one roof, Jews who may rarely encounter one another gather around the same hive. Children dressed in every manner search together for the queen bee. Parents from vastly different communities sit through the same performance.
“It’s our Chabad House, staffed by bees!” Rivkin exclaims.
The Teacher Inside the Beekeeper
The “Behind the Honey” story began nearly half a century ago with Shoshi Rivkin’s father—Rabbi Moshe Zalman Schneerson: a farmer, educator and school principal who was raising a family of 20 children with his wife, Uzit.
As the family grew, Schneerson needed an additional source of income. He considered returning to agriculture and wrote to the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, about his plans.
The Rebbe encouraged him, explaining the importance of Torah-observant Jews working in agriculture and demonstrating that farming and a life of Torah were not in conflict. A living example, the Rebbe wrote, could accomplish more than words alone.
A copy of the letter remains displayed at “Behind the Honey.”
Schneerson studied professional beekeeping through Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and established an apiary in Kfar Chabad. But although he had left the formal classroom, he never stopped being an educator.
He became fascinated by the extraordinarily ordered society inside each hive: the division of labor, the communication among the bees, their cleanliness, diligence and collective responsibility.
“He would always say it was such a wondrous and mysterious world,” Rivkin recalls. “Inside the beehive there is harmony and cooperation, but people know nothing about it. To them, a bee stings—and that’s all.”
Schneerson could not accept that children might walk through G‑d’s world without recognizing the wonders hidden within it. He installed a transparent observation hive on the third floor of the family home and invited neighborhood children, teachers and anyone else interested to come and see the bees. Visitors climbed the stairs, searched for the queen and peppered him with questions.
Soon, so many people were coming that the informal exhibit became impossible to manage alongside his work in the apiary.
But the experience convinced Schneerson that Kfar Chabad needed a proper center where children could encounter the wonders of the beehive and recognize the Creator behind them.
Built With Their Own Hands
Around 32 years ago, Shoshi and her husband, Shlomo Rivkin, took on the project. They were a young couple with three children, soon to be four, and almost no financial resources.
The original center was simple. Rivkin describes temporary construction, gravel floors, fans for ventilation and tables made from crates. Nevertheless, visitors came. Over time, the Rivkins expanded, paved and air-conditioned the facility, developing the elaborate program offered today.
There were setbacks along the way. Construction requirements, fire-safety regulations and other unexpected challenges repeatedly forced the family to alter or rebuild parts of the center.
“Each time a new difficulty came, it was like a wave,” Rivkin says. “We drew strength from the Rebbe’s blessings, passed through the wave, and afterward, the center became even better.”
From the beginning, the Rivkins emphasized active, multisensory learning, rather than lectures alone.
“When a child learns something, experiences it and encounters it through all the senses, the child remembers it for years,” Rivkin explains.
Today, children watch a performance about life inside the hive, observe a beekeeper working with real bees and follow the entire honey production process. They take part in interactive games, create beeswax candles and leave with a small jar of honey.
“It was so much fun, my kids are asking to go back again,” mother Tziona Handler wrote in an online review. Another recent visitor reported arriving at noon and remaining until 6:30 in the evening because her children were so engrossed.
But for the Rivkins, the educational program has always been part of something larger.
“All of Am Yisrael Is Here”
In its early years, Rivkin says, few public schools came to the center. Some educators were wary of bringing their students into the religious village of Kfar Chabad.
Gradually, that changed. Teachers discovered a professional program that genuinely taught children about bees and nature, while allowing its Jewish identity to emerge naturally. The presentations include ideas drawn from the Tanya and references to the Creator, but the center adapts the delivery to each audience.
“Some visitors want the Torah-themed songs, while others prefer our track that’s focused on nature,” Rivkin says. “We try to understand who is in front of us and share the bees’ message in the way best suited for our guests.”
The Rivkins do not disguise who they are. Before tasting honey, Shoshi makes a bracha. Her husband appears as both a beekeeper and a Chassid. Children see a religious family living its Judaism naturally and joyfully.
“We don’t preach anything,” Rivkin says. “We just live it ourselves, and often, that’s what makes the biggest and most lasting impression.”
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