Tuesday July 5
Our Chutz was doing great through the night…and then right after the chanichim started waking up we felt a drizzle. We brought everyone back for tefilah, breakfast, shiur, some peulot, lunch, more peulot, shekem…and then rain seemed gone for good and we all went back out to our chutz site for another beautiful night and some time there in good weather on Wednesday.
The shiur we had in camp was actually four skits that the chanichim watched – there were four representatives of the Jews from the Hellinized Jewish society. (remember, yesterday they all met Alexander the Great as he came to conquer Jerusalem!) Each Eidah met separately and met 4 individuals who had a chance to stand up and explain why and how they integrate Greek culture into their life, their Temple service and their Jewish routine and community. They spoke about the bribery going on in the temple and the effects Greek philosophy was having on their understanding of psukim in Torah. Pretty fascinating and definitely entertaining!
Tonight’s night tochnit at the Chutz was a movie (projected on a screen…feels like a drive-through movie theater out there!) and then a kumzits, followed by time to make smores!! Such a great evening, and we are so grateful we can continue to spend time outdoors with everyone together hanging out, learning, cooking, doing art under the Melechet Yad tent, and enjoying lots of fun games with the balls and frisbees we brought. We will spend at least half a day out there tomorrow, before heading back to finish the week in our regular routine.
Machal is in DC. They met with ADL representatives and were given a fascinating and empowering training session. Then they had time to go around and visit few of the memorials, followed by a fun trip to Sky Zone.