Thurs June 27

Our shiur today focused on Rashi – his commentary on both Chumash and Talmud – and the Baalei haTosafot, the “tosafists”, and their commentary on Talmud. For the older bunks the shiur teachers could speak about all of it! They taught Rashi’s comment in בראשית where he speaks about his goal for his commentary and some looked at a page of Gemara to see how Rashi and the baalei haTosafot provide different kinds of commentaries. The younger chanichim stuck with Rashi and the lessons he gives us, through the midrashim he chooses to share in chumash. They went over the values we learn from some famous Rashi’s – for example, Hashem’s love for Bnei Yisrael or hakarat haTov, acknowledging when someone does something good for you. This was all slightly familiar information for the chanichim, from their learning in school, so it was fun to speak about it in the context of this period of Jewish history we are studying.

As shabbat nears, the cleaning in the bunk houses gets a bit more serious. Tomorrow it will be sparkling for “bedikah”  – the friday afternoon check by the Roshei Moshava. A winner is selected each week from Banot bunks and Banim bunks, and then they receive special ice cream from the kosher Dairy Queen nearby!

We had a beautiful day with all of our regular peulot as well as all activities in the Village up and running. One girls’ bunk and one boys’ bunk (from the same eidah) every day have Toranut, i.e. it is their turn to set up before the meal, serve and refill during the meal and take out garbage bags after the meal. Yes, your children are doing that here in camp 🙂 They play music and enjoy some fun bonding time. The tzevet “does toranut” for Friday night and Shabbat lunch and the Mishpachot (the few adults in Machane who have supportive roles and admin roles) have their toranut for Seudah Shlishit.

Night tochnit (activity) was a camp-wide game that played off of the morning’s shiur. The Roshei Eidah (division heads) will often create a night activity that relates somehow to the content of the shiur. Tonight, the game was about interpreting (get it? Because of the interpretations of Rashi and Tosafot). Someone gets a prompt, draws a picture and then the next person has to guess the prompt. A sort of win-lose-or-draw activity. After the night tochnit, Eidah Daled was given the opportunity for extra learning tonight, with a mishmar (optional) – Thirty chanichim came to learn about Tehillim perek 30 that David haMelech wrote and which kicks off our Psukei d’Zimra every day. They had great ideas about what the poem means and what our intentions should be each morning, They enjoyed a special treat of kugel and (real! fleishig!) cholent after.

Kaytana learned about Bnei Yisrael’s 40 years in the desert and how hard the unstructured time was for them. They had a bunch of fun peulot today like karaoke, time with bunnies, slip n’ slide and making shrinky dinks. One kaytana chanicha told me she passed her swimming test!!

Machal spent the day….hiking! We will see them tomorrow night at mifkad before Shabbat 🙂