Located in present-day Tanzaniaand south of Kenya on theIndian Ocean, Mount

Kilimanjaro, the “Roof of Africa,” roseup from the sea eons ago as a volcano.At 19,340 feet, the mountain’s sum-mit, Uhuru Peak, is the highest pointon the entire continent. The length ofnearly fifty-four football fields placed

vertically one on top of another,Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Thename is likely a condensed version ofthe Swahili words kilma and njaro,meaning “mountain of greatness” or“mountain of whiteness.”

Reaching the summit necessitatesnearly fifty miles of mostly steep,

uphill climbing on uneven, dusty andbarren terrain in very high altitudes,where at the mountain top the oxy-gen level is roughly half that found atsea level. During the day, unfilteredsunlight must be reckoned with. Atnight, subfreezing temperatures andthe risk of altitude sickness plaguehikers. Symptoms of the illnessinclude nausea, vomiting, light-head-edness, hallucinations, headache andloss of appetite.

So why would three OrthodoxJews leave the comfort of their subur-ban New Jersey homes in exchange for

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Climbing MountKilimanjaro

By Saul LandaCo-authored by Seth Landa

Rabbi Dr. Saul Landa, a graduate of YeshivaUniversity, recently received semichah fromPirchai Shoshanim in Israel. He is a foundingmember and past president of the Young Israelof East Brunswick.

Rabbi Dr. Seth Landa, a graduate of YeshivaUniversity, also recently received semichah fromPirchai Shoshanim in Israel. He is a member ofRinat Yisrael in Teaneck, New Jersey.

Adventure

Photos: Saul Landa

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Summer 5767/2007 JEWISH ACTION 15

seven days and six nights of arduoushiking in a hostile environment?

The three of us—me, a fifty-eight-year-old dentist; my brother,Seth, a forty-five-year-old anesthesiolo-gist and my good friend, Josef Beer, afifty-four-year-old businessman—shared similar motivations. Kilimanjarois possibly the tallest peak in the worldthat one can scale without requiringtechnical mountain climbing skills orequipment. Reaching the peak does,however, entail weeks of extensivetraining and preparation, and we knewthe hike would test our physical limitsas well as our will to succeed.

Mount Kilimanjaro is also one ofthe few places in the world where onecan trek from a lush tropical rain forestthrough an alpine desert to the frozenarctic zone in just a few days. In Psalms(100), we read “Ivdu et Hashem besim-chah, Serve Hashem with gladness.”Rabbi Shimon Schwab explains that theword simchah doesn’t just mean joy butappreciation. We must serve God byappreciating His wonders, the beauty ofHis natural world. How better to attainsuch an appreciation than through ourown grueling efforts! After trekking upthis mountain for days on end andbecoming one with nature, we wouldsurely gain a deeper, richer appreciationfor Hashem’s world.

Finally, we were intrigued by thespiritual challenge. From the outset, werealized we would have to face a varietyof halachic questions, including severalwe had little familiarity with. Thiswould require extensive preparation,study and consultation with rabbanim.We would have the opportunity to per-form mitzvot in the most remote envi-ronment imaginable; the climb wouldtransform a journey of the body intoone of the mind and spirit as well.

Our wives were understandablyconcerned about the safety of such atrip. For two months, we receivednumerous calls from family membersand friends expressing their concern.We assured our loved ones that thou-sands of people make this trek each year(although only about one third make it

to the top), and that with proper condi-tioning, precautions and planning, therisks were negligible. After much cajol-ing, our wives gave us their blessings.

Getting ReadyTo begin planning, we needed reliableguides to take us to the summit. Wechose Good Earth, a group which waswilling and, in fact, eager to accommo-date our needs regarding kashrut andShabbat. From the Chagga tribe inTanzania, our group consisted of tenmen, including porters, guides and acook, all of whom had never seen a Jewbefore, let alone one who wasOrthodox. Normally the tour operatorsupplies the food, but in our case weonly allowed him to bring fresh fruitsand vegetables. We tried our best toduplicate the high-calorie, high-carbo-hydrate menu designed to replace thethousands of calories we would burneach day. Our provisions needed to belightweight, easy to store and, of course,certified kosher. We brought powderedmilk, cocoa, juices, soups, pasta, cous-cous, porridge and pancake mix. Forprotein, we had packaged tuna andsalmon steaks, and to complete ourmenu, we brought along power bars.For Shabbat, we packed boxes of grapejuice, challah rolls and our most prizeddelicacy—vacuum-packed salami. Wealso bought new pots and pans andtoiveled (ritually immersed) them; ourguides provided disposable dishes andplastic ware.

Most people who climb MountKilimanjaro make the hike in five or sixdays. We chose a longer route—sevendays and six nights—and designatedShabbat as a day of physiological accli-mation. That Shabbat would literally bethe highest Shabbat of our lives, spentat 14,400 feet, giving us an opportunityto rest and adjust to the altitude beforeour final push up the summit.

Weeks prior to the climb, we pre-pared our bodies for the challenge byrunning on the treadmill, biking, usingthe Stairmaster and hiking. We got vac-cinated against yellow fever, typhoid,polio, hepatitis A and B and took pro-

phylactic malaria pills. We also familiar-ized ourselves with the symptoms ofaltitude sickness. We had to take specialgear with us including wicking shirts;waterproof pants; fleece jackets; hikingboots; wind and cold resistant gloves;heavy wool socks; ski caps; a balaclavato cover our nose, mouth, cheeks andears; thermal underwear and a Gortexwinter coat, which is wind and mois-ture resistant. We also needed a sleepingbag that was suitable for sub-freezingtemperatures as well as a headlamp foruse at night. We packed our trekkingpoles and were ready to go!

The HikeOn August 14, 2006, we arrived atKilimanjaro International Airportwhere a tour company representativemet us and brought us to our hotel. Wequickly fell asleep under the protectivemosquito netting surrounding ourbeds. The next morning our guide,Amani, stopped by to give us some tips.He explained that one of the principlesof successful hiking is “pole pole,”Swahili for very slowly; hiking at adeliberate pace and with frequentbreaks gives the body an opportunity to

Beer davens at a campsite during the hike upMount Kilimanjaro. Against this awe-inspir-ing setting, the hikers’ tefillot were imbuedwith tremendous kavanah.

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physiologically adapt to the thin air. Healso emphasized the importance ofhydration, encouraging us to drinkthree to four liters of water per day. Wethen explained to him the rules ofkashrut and Shabbat.

We left with our porters andguides, only three of whom spoke a lit-tle English, for a six-hour bus ridethrough rural Tanzania to the trailhead.From the bus window, we witnessed thesimple agricultural lifestyle and abjectpoverty of the inhabitants. The lastthree hours of the ride were on unpaveddirt roads, and we got a taste, literally,of the dust and filth that would becomepart of our bodies for the next week.The trail began near a crowded, impov-erished wooden shantytown calledLoitokitok. Despite their poor livingconditions, the locals were friendly andfrequently greeted us with shouts of“Jambo” (hello in Swahili).

After reaching the trailhead, wespent the next five hours hikingthrough cornfields and a rainforest,where we photographed an elusivetroop of colobus monkeys. As the alti-tude increased, the trees shrunk tosmaller, less robust varieties. We dav-ened Minchah along the trail andpitched camp at a small clearing. Toavoid the concern of bishul akum, theprohibition against eating food cookedsolely by a non-Jew, we helped ourcook, Freddie, prepare dinner by stir-ring each course on the fire. All ourwater came from natural sources on themountain and had to be boiled to pre-vent parasitic or bacterial contamina-tion. Freddie prepared drinking wateras well as extra water for ritual purposessuch as netilat yadayim.

The next morning we davenedk’vasikin (with the sunrise). We caughtour first glimpse of the spectacular peakof Kilimanjaro behind us, illuminatedby the bright orange sun blazingbetween layers of clouds. Against thisawe-inspiring setting, our tefillot wereimbued with tremendous kavanah.

The next two days of hiking werephysically the hardest we had ever expe-rienced, as twelve hours of hiking

brought us to an altitude of over14,000 feet. The “path” seemed to growboulders, dust and dirt. The relentlesssun, thin atmosphere and steep inclinetook their toll on our bodies, anddespite the medications we had takento prevent altitude sickness, we began

to feel some of the symptoms, especiallyheadaches and diminished appetite. Weeach carried between ten and twentypounds in our backpacks. (Amazingly,our porters carried between forty- andsixty-pound bags balanced on theirheads throughout the journey!)

A Special ShabbatOn Friday, the third day of our jour-ney, we informed Amani that we need-ed to reach our next campsite earlyenough to prepare for Shabbat. Wecamped at yet another scenic setting atthe base of the smaller of Kilimanjaro’stwo peaks called Mawenzi. We wereabove a sea of clouds, looking down onsmall African villages.

Shabbat presented our greatesthalachic challenges. Firstly, we neededto build an eruv so that we would beable to carry in the small area aroundour tents. At first glance, our campsiteappeared to be surrounded by a naturaleruv—a combination of natural wallformations, embankments andMawenzi Peak. However, we could notbe certain that all these borders quali-

fied as a halachic partition. Instead, wepositioned our three tents to form asemi-circle and set up a tzurat hapesach,or doorframe, using a fishing line andpoles. Thus, we created a small,enclosed “courtyard,” enabling us tocarry between the tents and to daven,eat and learn outside. We tied clothingonto the fishing line so it would be visi-ble at night to the porters and madesure that it didn’t sag more than threetefachim, which would disqualify it asan eruv.

The most complicated and unfa-miliar halachot we dealt with related tothe eruv techumin, which enables one towalk further than the 2,000 amot(approximately 0.6 mile) that Chazalpermit one to walk from his place ofresidence on Shabbat. Before Shabbat,we placed two meals’ worth of challahand granola at a distance from ourtents, recited a berachah and declared anew dwelling place at that spot, fromwhere we could then walk an additional2,000 amot on Shabbat. AlthoughChazal generally only permit the eruvfor the purpose of doing a mitzvah(e.g., visiting the sick), the Rema per-mits such an eruv in order to “walk inan orchard for pleasure”1—which wasessentially the point of our scenicstrolls. During Shabbat, we discoveredthat a bird had eaten the challah wehad placed away from our tents. Wewere unsure when this had happened,but as long as the challah had beenthere at bein hashmashot (twilight) onFriday, halachically the eruv had takeneffect. Furthermore, since safek d’rab-bannan lehakel—in cases of doubt weare lenient with rabbinic law—we safelyrelied on our eruv techumin.

To figure out when Shabbat onMount Kilimanjaro would begin, weused the web site www.myzmanim.comprior to departing for our trip. The website helped us calculate sunrise and sunset times and included an adjust-ment for altitude. Elevation above sealevel delays the arrival of sunset becausethe sun remains visible above the hori-zon for a longer time (Shabbat 119).This is why in Jerusalem (elevation

16 JEWISH ACTION Summer 5767/2007

That Shabbat wouldliterally be the

highest Shabbatof our lives, spent at14,400 feet, giving us anopportunity to rest andadjust to the altitude

before our final push upthe summit.

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18 JEWISH ACTION Summer 5767/2007

2,575 feet above sea level), halachicsunset is delayed several minutes. AtMawenzi Peak, with an elevation of 16,890 feet, shekiah, we calculated, wouldbe eight minutes later than at the baseof the mountain.

Shabbat preparations occupied usuntil right before candle lighting. Wedesignated our dining tent as our shuland dubbed it the Young Israel ofMawenzi, sign and all. After KabbalatShabbat, we made Kiddush on boxedgrape juice, ate our food, shared divreiTorah and sang zemirot as the tempera-ture dropped.

To avoid any chance of violatingamirah le’akum (asking a non-Jew todo a melachah on Shabbat), we toldAmani and his crew that we wouldn’tneed them on Saturday. They werethrilled to spend the day relaxing andplaying cards.

Shabbat also raised other halachicissues. Opening and closing the door toour latrine, which consisted of fourwalls surrounding a hole in the ground,entailed sliding the door over theground. Although this could create afurrow in the earth, a violation of cho-resh (plowing), it was also a davarshe’aino mitkavein, or unintentionalaction, which would be permitted.

In addition, given the strength ofthe sun at high altitudes, one could getsevere sunburn in roughly six minutesof exposure. Would applying sunscreen

be a violation of the prohibition ofmimareach (smearing)? Fortunately,our dilemma was easily solved, as oursunscreen was of such a thin, wateryconsistency that this prohibition didnot apply.

After three days of exertion,Shabbat gave us a chance to regain ourphysical and mental strength. Withnone of the usual distractions we faceat home—newspapers, lunch invita-tions, bickering or bored children inneed of entertainment—we were ableto focus solely on the more spiritualaspects of Shabbat. We davened at arelaxed pace, reviewed the parashah,enjoyed our Shabbat seudah, marveledat the majestic views and rested ouraching bodies. It is no wonder thatHashem chose to give Bnei Yisrael theTorah in a barren environment—thesolitude of the wilderness allows forcontemplation and meditation, andfosters a sense of both closeness to anddependence on Hashem.

At the conclusion of Shabbat, wemade Havdalah. When we stepped outof the tent, we were treated to thelargest and clearest star-filled sky wehad ever seen. The anticipation beganfor the next night when we wouldattempt to reach the summit of thetallest mountain in Africa.

Reaching the TopOn Sunday we hiked for six gruelinghours and reached the base ofKilimanjaro’s highest peak. We lookedat the frighteningly steep path leadingto the top of the mountain and won-dered if we would make it. We had noappetite and sleep was hard to come by,depriving us of two essential elementsfor a successful climb.

At 11:30 p.m., we prepared our-selves for the long, frigid hike to thepeak. We donned multiple layers ofclothing—two pairs of wool socks withchemical toe warmers; two pairs ofpants; three shirts; a fleece pullover; ourwinter coats; two pairs of gloves withhand warmers and a ski cap. The onlylight source illuminating the pathwould be from our headlamps; on

Shabbat, we had recited the blessing forthe new month, so we knew therewould be no moonlight to guide us. Atmidnight we took our hiking poles and,together with our three guides, beganthe longest night of our lives—sevenand a half hours of hiking that took usfrom 15,000 to 19,000 feet, testing ourphysical and mental resolve. The slope,at times as steep as forty-five degrees,consisted of slippery volcanic gravel; thetemperature was in the teens and the airwas so thin we had to stop every tenminutes or so to catch our breath. Aswe hiked, we saw people from differentcountries climbing the mountain, someof them collapsing from fatigue, othersgasping for air, many turning aroundand giving up. We walked in silence,struggling to keep our minds occupiedduring the seemingly endless night.Peering over my shoulder towardMawenzi, I witnessed the molad, thelong, slim crescent moon signaling thecoming of the new month. Looking up,it was impossible to tell where the topof the mountain was; the headlamps ofhikers above us were indistinguishablefrom the stars. Throughout the night,whenever I asked Amani how much far-ther we had to go, his answer was thesame—“about an hour.” Eventually Istopped asking.

Finally, at 6:30 a.m., after somedifficult rock scrambling, we reachedGilman’s Point. From our campsitebelow, we had gained a vertical equiva-lent of three Empire State Buildings

Saul Landa with lead guide Amani near theShabbat campsite at Mawenzi Peak.

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stacked on top of each other. We sat for a while and watchedthe sunrise beneath our feet. To get to Uhuru Peak, we hadto follow ten-foot-wide ledges along the crater’s edge for thenext ninety minutes. Alongside us were giant glaciers, whichhave been steadily evaporating and, as victims of globalwarming, may completely disappear within the next twenty-five years.

At last we reached our goal. Similar to marathon run-ners at the finish line, it was hard for the three of us to holdback the tears. We embraced. I then made two berachot—Shehechiyanu, thanking Hashem for allowing us to live to seethis day and Oseh ma’aseh Bereishit, acknowledging theCreator of the natural wonders we had experienced. We hadbrought along copies of the Daf Yomi, the page of Talmudthat Jews were learning throughout the world, and welearned at Uhuru Peak. We unfurled the Israeli flag andproudly took photos.

Although we could not stay at that altitude for longbecause of oxygen depletion, I had one more thing to do. Isearched for a clear signal and called my wife, Marlene, totell her we had made it. I could hear the relief in her voice,and she said she would call the other wives to pass on theexciting news. Thankfully, descending the mountain wasmuch quicker, and after congratulatory hugs from ourporters, Shacharit, a small lunch and some rest, it was backon the trail for a five-hour hike to our next stop. Despiteour fatigue, the plentiful oxygen at the lower altitude felt sosweet that it energized us. The hike that had started Sundaynight at midnight in freezing conditions and took us to thetop of this relentless, unforgiving peak ended almost seven-teen hours later at our final campsite.

After one last night in a tent, we hiked for ten hoursdownhill through beautiful forests alongside waterfalls and

mountain streams, at last reaching the trailhead and thebus back to our hotel. Thanks to our lack of appetite, therewas plenty of leftover food, which we donated to ourgrateful porters.

Throughout our journey we marveled at the splendorof Hashem’s creation. Seth recalled reading Rabbi Joseph BerSoloveitchik’s explanation of the statement in Proverbs (3:6)“In all thy ways know him.” The Rav defines the command-ment “to know” Hashem as being aware of His existence atall times. One aspect of this awareness is through recogniz-ing that the beauty of nature and the laws that govern natu-ral phenomena are all a “reflection of the glory of G-d.”

2As

we hiked through five different climatic zones, witnessingspectacular sunrises, sunsets and star-filled skies, all the whileunder the watchful eye of a magnificent glacier-capped peak,it was indeed easy to be aware of the Creator. �JA

All three hikers want to express their immeasurable thanksto their wives—Marlene, Riki and Sheila—for their under-standing and support.

Notes 1. Shulchan Aruch, OC 415:12. Peli, Pinchas, On Repentance: The Thought and Oral

Discourses of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik(New Jersey, 2000), 131.

Beer, Seth and Saul Landa at Uhuru Peak, after climbing MountKilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

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