Sunday July 1 / 17 Tamuz

Today was our fast day commemorating the breaking through of the walls around Jerusalem, along with 4 other tragedies from history – including Moshe smashing the Luchot after seeing the golden calf.

The chanichim had a later-than-usual wake up and tefillat shacharit with some slichot. The slichot were chosen very carefully and explained before their recital with a short skit.

After shacharit, the campers all had shiur with their regular shiur teachers and then some menucha before our early Mincha at 1:00. After the Tefillat Mincha was over, Rabbi Jeremy Weider (our scholar in residence and a Rosh yeshiva at YU) explained to everyone that the heat and humidity made it dangerous to fast and that everyone needed to drink. This is the halacha for this fast in this weather. He made a bracha and took a drink and everyone was given juice boxes. He taught that IF you felt good with just drinking then you should keep drinking, but if you developed a headache or felt dizzy, you need to eat too. Estee Fleischmann stood up after and explained that drinking – and even eating – when necessary does not mean the day is any less significant and the “avirah” / atmosphere needs to be maintained and all programming will be related to the fast day.

Our day continued with our regular schedule for a fast day with round robin stations exploring the many themes of the day as well as movies for each eidah. We all had slow shira, a story and maariv to close the fast.

Kaytana joined aleph for their programming.

Machal was on the bus headed to DC. More on their itinerary tomorrow.

May we all be in a Camp Stone in Jerusalem celebrating a newly built Beit haMikdash at this time next year 😉