Monday July 29

Today was an exciting day at Machane with the big teshuva movement going on! You didn’t hear? King Yoshiyahu found a Sefer Torah as they were cleaning up the Beit haMikdash. We haven’t seen one of those in a while!! We learned all about it in shiur (and the king’s role in an appropriate response, i.e. being an example for responding with teshuva for all the mitzvot we have abandoned) and then actually experienced it at the beginning of Mincha – we danced and sang with the Sefer Torah 🙂

Well, all of that excitement led to a massive hunt for all of the altars and idols around…which look like pinatas to us 😉 The camp-wide scavenger hunt for each eidah, right after shekem today, led everyone to the avodah zarah we were looking for…and to the papers that announced LINA TONIGHT! Each eidah has its own camp-out at its own site in the woods around camp (we actually own hundreds of acres here in Sugar Grove, PA). They all had the traditional cook-out and singing around the camp fire.

Of course, we had all of our regular peulot today too – and eidah bet boys even had their dream come true with…triple agam (that means 3 peulot of activities at the lake!). Archery, swim, beach volleyball, ceramics and hockey were some of the favorites enjoyed by everyone today!

Kaytana learned about Eisav threatening Yaakov’s life, after he found out that their father was tricked into giving Yaakov the blessing. Yaakov had to run away, right? So they left camp to their own LINA!! Just like all the big kids, they are eating hot dogs and sleeping out 🙂 Their day of peulot consisted of music, sports, slip n’ slide and ultimate tag!

Machal is on another water hike today, this time they are doing approx. 8 miles. Their sleep-out tonight is at our Machal Chutz site. Aaaahhh, home sweet home for them 🙂