Sunday July 28

Shavua Tov! We had such a perfect first Shabbat – from Kabbalat Shabbat through a beautiful slow shira at Seudat Shlishit, everyone enjoyed the time together. One special perk of having such a large tzevet is that our camper: staff ratio is almost 1.5 : 1 which means that we have a very unique opportunity to set up every madrich/a and staff member with 1 or 2 chanichim/ot for a chavruta on Shabbat afternoon, right after Birkat HaMazon. Everyone spreads out onto the fields, into gazebos, at all picnic tables and they learn. 1 to 2 campers per staff member. They met on Thursday and chose what they wanted to learn and had a great time on Shabbat with the attention and learning…and candy some brought

This morning everyone had “bunk night” on their schedule which meant time for the bunk to think about how to best represent their bunk name tonight during presentations. Everyone painted a shelet (sign on wood), plus they need to sing a song or do some sort of presentation. The bunk names being assigned this session come from the period of Jewish History we are experiencing – prophets from the first Beit haMikdash, cities that we are studying, mountains that are significant, leaders that changed the course of history etc.

Something new in Stone: Bunks have been enjoying a peulah called U.F.O. led by a visitor from Israel named Avihu. They are learning how to create very simple low-budget rockets that fly 30-50 ft. in the air due to pressurized water and air. Some physics, some creativity and some flying objects… Recipe for a great peulah!

Kaytana leaned about Yaakov and Eisav today, and so of course they made…lentil soup (and watched the selling of the birthright performed by the counselors)! They had a chance to go on a part of our ropes course and had a nature peulah where they made “lemonana” (mint-lemonade slushy with our very own home grown mint leaves!) They enjoyed a funny talent show with counselors doing talents that were challenges by other counselors, and the boys had some slip n- slide – turned – mud- slide fun after a brief rain shower this afternoon

Machal is out on a “short” 5 mile water hike in a gorge nearby and slept out at the campgrounds there.