Tues Aug 5 – Chutz Day 2
The pictures say it all – it has been the most gorgeous perfect weather at our Chutz this year, and so fun and relaxing to hang out cooking around the fire for hours. The campers really enjoy getting to know nature, while playing and talking with others of all ages. The Melechet Yad tent was open for activities all day, and tefilot broke up the day and helped us keep to some sort of schedule – otherwise we really wouldn’t know what time it is 🙂
After tefillah, everyone was served a simple cereal-and-milk breakfast before shiur began (the real meal came after…stay tuned!) The Shiur today was by eidah, and each eidah went on a little walk down “Derech Avot” – a well known hiking path in the area of Gush Etzion that takes you from Chevron to Yerushalayim, along the ridge of the Judean mountains. This was the path our forefathers walked! There are many old mikvahs that have been discovered along this path, since people traveled northbound to the mikdash along this route and they would purify themselves in preparation. The chanichim “walked along the Derech Avot path” and “met” some of our ancestors alongside more modern heroes of ours. In each skit the point was that a template was made by our ancestors that has been followed and repeated throughout our history. This concept is known as מעשה אבות סימן לבנים. For example, Yaakov woke from a dream and vowed to build an altar to Hashem, and so too Rabbi Zalman Baruch Melamed had a dream to build a yeshiva in Bet El, after the 6-Day war. Another example: just as Shlomo HaMelech built a temple for Hashem once he had some peace – so too Mayor Teddy Kolek, after the Six-Day war, founded the Jerusalem Foundation which raised money to build and enhance the city of Yerushalayim, especially the Old Jewish Quarter. The skits was fun, inspiring and really thought-provoking. Thank you Ayala Feder and Hillel Schwab, our Roshei Beit Midrash for this excellent presentation!
Following shiur, the fires were were lit and away the kids went…for hours… Each group (a plugah, led by eidah daled campers and supervised by madrichim) was given ingredients (bread, eggs, cheese etc) and they spent hours making whatever they could think of to eat: scrambled eggs, french toast, grilled cheese… It was yummy and fun!
Another movie will be projected up on the big screen tonight, and then tomorrow morning the whole camp returns. Eidah Daled stays behind to help plugah do the clean-up. With great privilege comes great responsibility 🙂
Kaytana spent their last day doing one last art project (you’ll see what it is), doing the favorite activities in camp, like agam and susim, and packing up their suitcases ☹ Since Kaytana has been learning through the stories of Chumash, of course the big finale is entrance into Eretz Canaan – so they needed to celebrate that in some way….a carnival with a bouncy house, a blow up slide, popcorn etc of course! The chanichim had a great time running around, jumping, sliding, eating (treats before dinner for the last time!!) We will miss these youngest campers and hope to see them back here next summer. Thank you to Benny Romm and Maayan Kronenberg for running this mini camp within our Machane 🙂
Machal did the drive from Sugar Grove to DC today and made it with time for a fun dodgeball game before dinner, in Silver Spring. They spent the evening out in DC touring the monuments.