Friday – Shabbat #1

Friday’s shiur topic was conversos, keeping Judaism a secret and what it means to be Jewish. Different ages developed the topic in different ways but everyone was challenged to articulate what being Jewish means to them and to think about if they ever keep their Judaism a secret…

Kaytana is up to the sibling rivalry between Yaakov and Eisav, as they move through the drama of Sefer Bereishit.

Followig shiur, each eidah had its own hike! Always a fun and chill part to our busy week:

Kaytana went to Perry’s for their picnic lunch and then…dessert!!

Aleph – berry picking (and then we all enjoyed those berries at Seudah Shlishit)

Vav – trail near camp that surprsingly brings the kids right back to camp at the agam!

Bet – hike to Dollar General store in Sugar Grove – the chanichim were able to spend a few dollars buying snack for Shabbat

Gimmel – Hike to the Kwik Fill convenience store in Sugar Grove  – again chance to use some spending money 🙂

Daled – water hike and then a few minutes in Tops supermarket to … yes…buy some Shabbat snacks!

Machal spent their morning canoeing down the Allegheny river – practicing for Virginia 🙂

While the campers are out on hikes, the tzevet cleans arounds camp and sets up the beit knesset and chadar ochel for our shabbat tefillah and meals. They work hard and we so appreciate it! They have a chnace for special tzevet swim, as a reward!

Shabbat was fantastic and super charged with energy throughout, with tefillah, singing, dancing and learning! The Kabbalat Shabbat Tefilah felt like our third Shabbat together. The singing was loud and beautiful, with dancing in between the tehillim of Kabbalat Shabbat. Dancing and cheering in the Chadar Ochel was similarly energetic and fun! After another round of all of that the next morning (with kiddush and parsha shiur), we had special chavruta time shabbat afternoon. Two chanichim, of the same age,  are assigned a member of hadracha or tzevet for a chance to share a good time learning/shmoozing/bonding. Chavruta sheets are provided (by this blogger, actually 🙂 ), and there are so many choices – Pirkei Avot, Sefer Yonah, Sefer Shoftim stoires, a tefilah in-depth, a mitzvah in-depth, a middah, or a random topic – this week a look at some of Seudah Shlishit songs. Each sheet has questions to think about after the hebrew and english text.  It is such a beautiful moment in our week at machane. There was some menucha time after that and then eidah time, followed by seudah shlishit, where we heard a great story about a son of a converso who finds out he is actaully Jewish!

After havdalah, each eidah had a night tochnit – dodgeball, climbing wall, and swim to name a few.  The fun never stops!! Shavua Tov Sugar Grove!