Thursday Aug 3
This week flew by!!
We learned about Shabtai Zvi today – the false Mashiach whom the Jews flocked to, rallied around and believed in, way back in the 17th century. He traveled all around Europe and the Middle East and all the Jews who were desparately seeking hope and comfort, after the Chmelnicki Massacres, believed he was Mashiach. How disappointing and traumatizing when he converted to Islam!! The chanichim talked about the אני מאמין that we sing each morning about the belief in the idea that a Mashiach ruler/leader will come. Do we really belive? How will we know who? Would we be excited? Disappointed if it didn’t work out? Some thought-provoking questions?
In between all of their peulot today (another beautiful day of so many activities all over the machane), we had a few skits and refernces to Shabtai Zvi:
1) At Aruchat eser (cheese, fruit and chocolate milk snack after shiur and nikayon) the eidah gimmel chanichim followed Shabtai Zvi (their Rosh Eidah ) off into an area away from everyone -reenacting the great following Shabtai Zvi had. In our case today, they then celebrated their friend’s Bar Mitzvah with a special donut treat!! Mazal Tov Erez!
2) At lunch we had a wedding in our Chadar Ochel reenacting the wedding Shabtai Zvi had with a Torah (google it, pretty interesting historical event!) with music and elaborate clothes. When we reenact, we go all out!!
3) At shekem, the roshei eidah mourned as Shabtai Zvi converted to Islam and went off the muslim community.
These chanichim will remember the name Shabtai Zvi for a long time 😉
Tonight, after dinner, we had SHIRA!! That means we all sang Israeli folk songs as our band in machane played their instruments. It was an amazing celebration of culture, nostalgia, friendship, music and Hebrew! Everyone loves the nights we do shira in camp!
Eidot gimmel and daled had mishmar tonight – optional late night learning with a snack after. Eidah Daled learned about the times “mezonot foods” actually get the bracha of haMotzi, and eidah gimmel learned about Chapter 30 in Sefer Tehillim which we recite each morning at the beginning of Shacharit (“page 59”) These budding scholars had a lot to contribute to the learning and showed such maturity and respect for Torah with their commitment to Torah Lishma on a Thursday night. yasher Koach to them!! Thank you to Rav HaMachane Adi Krohn and to Bracha Krohn for giving the chanichim these extra learning opportunities.
Kaytana had color war today!! Moshe (blue) VS. Aharon (red). They had a morning of relay races and sports and then an afternoon with an apache race and presentations. Lots of face paint and cheering and running around! Look for the pictures and try to imagine the sounds 🙂
Machal was out at their chutz site (right around the corner from Machane) doing a lot of cooking, ball tossing, and talking! The time together is helping to build their very tight-knit community.
Tomorrow is hike day!! And we are looking forward to Shabbat #2 with those tefillot full of song and dance, the meals ful of song and dance and Seudah shlishit full of…just song 🙂 And, of course, the chanichim really enjoyed their chavruta time last Shabbat and are excited to pick up where they left off…learning whatever they choose from the Chavruta sheets provided. Shabbat Shalom from Sugar Grove!
