A minyan, a group of ten adult Jewish men, climbed Everest for the second consecutive year with a Sefer Torah; Charly Taieb, charismatic and brilliant communicator, one of the architects of the expedition, returned to Paris a few days ago and accepted Shalom’s invitation to tell the profound spiritual meaning of an unforgettable week.
How did the idea come about?
When I turned 60 I decided to give myself an experience out of the ordinary. I trained for many months and climbed Kilimanjaro with three other friends. When I returned I thought I would like to share an extreme challenge with a minyan. Thus the complete minyan was born, not one more man, not a reserve man, to ensure that each of us felt the burden of the project upon ourselves, was fully aware of its uniqueness and of its necessity to be able to recite the tefillot and for reading the Torah.
How did you prepare?
None of us are particularly sporty, we are of different ages, with heterogeneous training, but right from the start what united us was the desire to achieve a common goal.
Faith, resistance and a special dedication?
Let’s start with the dedication: in the months following October 7th we decided to dedicate the expedition to our Israeli brothers who were victims of the Hamas massacres. We hoped with all our hearts that the hostages would be released before our departure. As the days went by we became certain that unfortunately it would not happen. We brought with us the photographs of the two Bibas brothers and other hostages to ask for their immediate release, from the roof of the world we prayed for the immediate release of the men, women and children prisoners.
We always recited the tefillot with the minyan until some of us no longer had the physical resistance to continue and had to stop at 5500 meters above sea level despite their iron will.
How did you spend Shabbat?
During the stages that led us to the base camp we met many Israelis, on Friday we invited them to share dinner with them, there were 35 of us, the atmosphere was wonderful, the personal stories of those who had friends or relatives in captivity inspired us accompanied the following days. One of our guests made a profound impression on us: he was very religious but had distanced himself from Orthodoxy, he was walking between India and Nepal, the previous week he had felt ill, at that moment he had decided that he wanted to return to the observance of the mitzvot, he had asked to Hashem to give him ‘a sign’. I won’t go into the details of the story but I am certain that that Shabbat was the sign for him. We reflected on the profound bond that unites the Jewish people to the mountains: from Abraham, with his ascent of Mount Morià, to Moses, with his ascent of Mount Sinai, to the prophet Elijah.
And Yom HaAtzmaut?
On our journey we carried the Israeli flag both last year and this year, we showed it proudly before interrupting the ascent due to bad weather. This year, as for all of us Jews, it was difficult to celebrate. We observed a minute of silence for Yom HaZikharon. Israel is with us in every moment of our undertaking, she will never abandon us.
Plans for the future?
Returning to climb Everest, fulfilling the mitzvot that make us better men and celebrating the return home of each of the hostages.
Photo: Instagram @minyan.everest
