Tuesday June 27

Camp was in Shivat Zion-mode today, with shiur focusing on the Jewish response to the news from King Cyrus that the Jews can all return to Eretz Yisrael and build their temple! Many Jews DID return and grabbed this opportunity, but so many did not. Why would Jews not “go home” when given the chance? The campers discussed and compared to the situation today with so many Jews making aliyah, while so many do not quite yet. Later at night, they had fun sneaking around with pieces of the wall, trying to get to the Old City, at the shekem shack, to rebuild the walls. If Tzevet members caught them (which was hard since they dressed in black and ran around in the dark), they would have to go back to the beginning and try again! This experience, although fun, gave them a sense of the challenge Nechemia and his men encountered when troublemakers from the Jerusalem area tried to prevent them from building up the walls around Jerusalem.

There is an archaeological dig here in camp stone (You didn’t hear about it on CNN?) Near Machal, there are many second-temple artifacts being discovered…one per eidah actually 🙂  Shards of pottery, remnants of a mikvah, even a skeleton!! Through these discoveries, our campers will learn about the people who lived around Jerusalem over the centuries.  It is amazing how these things ended up right here in Sugar Grove 😉

Kaytana had a very full day: Team Moshe and Team Aharon battled it out throughout the day with team marches before each meal, fun activities and games and a ten plagued-theme apache race. They ended with presentations of a cheer, a song, a banner (on oak tag) and a song, dance or stomp about their team name. The campers wanted it to be real! Really real! So score keeping was serious and a winner was announced. But nobody cared or remembers now what they announced 😉 Onwards and forwards to Yetziat Mitzrayim: Pharoah chased them out and they went to have a BBQ at one of our campsites. Complete with hot dogs, smores and…matza 🙂 Ha!

Machal had a beautiful 10-mile hike nearby and camped out at a campsite on the Allegheny river. They had a shiur/discussion about the power of nature and its ability to connect us to Hashem.