Thursday Aug 14

We had a beautiful fifth-to-last-day here.

Eidah daled left super early for the traditional Eidah daled Post-color war White water rafting trip 🙂

Meanwhile, for eevryobe else – weather was perfect, peulot were fun, and shiur was about July 4, 1976 – not the celebration of the bicentennial of America, of course …. but rather the raid on Entebbe, i.e. Operation Thunderbolt. This was a famous and mostly successful Israeli counter-terrorist hostage rescue mission that took place at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976 – a response to the hijacking of an Air France flight by Palestinian and German terrorists. The campers learned the general story/history and about the losses that day of one soldier – Yoni Netanyahu  – and three hostages. The story of this raid led into a shiur about the basic mitzvah of פדיון שבויים – freeing/rescuing captives and the particular complexities (and machloket) about how to deal with a situation in which saving a hostage means endangering other lives. Of course, some groups connected it to what is being discussed today with regard to our current hostage situation.

Later in the day, Estee and Yakov  – in their color war costumes (Team Sunshine – ask your kids!)  – broke out the good news…everyone is going to Splash Lagoon, an indoor water park. Dinner was early and then the buses pulled out. Boys play arcade games while girls slide, swim and splash and then the genders switch. late night return means a little bit of a later kima and shorter hikes for each eidah.

We are so excited for our fourth (fifth, for tzevet) Shabbat together and know the Kabbalat Shabbat, singing and dancing will be the best yet!