Wednesday Aug 3
Today’s shiur was about the 10th century Ashkenazi Rabbi nicknamed Me’or haGolah – The Light of the Exile, Rabbi Gershom ben Yehuda. He taught the man that later became Rashi’s Rebbe!! While staying firmly rooted in the Beit Midrash, “Rabbeinu Gershom” was also actively involved in communal leadership, and famously created many takanot (communal rules) that the Ashkenazi community keeps to this day. The chanichim studied four well-known takanot of his (among the 24 that are attributed to him): a man may marry only one woman, a man may not divorce a woman against her will, one is not allowed to read someone else’s mail or a note addressed to someone specific and lastly, if a Jew “converts” to another religion but decides to “come back” he or she should be welcomed with compassion. They discussed each one and then had the opportunity to experience takanot themselves when the Roshei Eidah put up decrees all over camp every few hours : )
Since Rabbeinu Gershom is the name of one of the eidah alef boys’ bunks, that bunk had a chance to represent Rabbeinu Gershom and receive some special recognition by performing their skit from Bunk Night in front of the whole camp at mincha today.
It was a warm August day here, and the chanichim had a full schedule of regular peulot, such as activities/projects in the Village, horse-back riding, high-ropes and the zipline, kickball, dodgeball, baseball, swim, agam, ceramics, baking in the Baby Bach (our small kitchen for baking and for prepping special gluten-free and vegetarian foods) and more! Speaking of food, do you know how much spaghetti the kitchen staff made for tonight’s dinner? 120 pounds!!! Wow!
Tonight’s night tochnit was a fun creative activity that the Roshei Eidah called Takanot-Ball. The younger eidot and older eidot each played separately. It involved getting a ball across a large space and back with certain rules that got eased as takanot (new decrees/rules) were added throughout the game. The nature of the challenge kept changing as new takanot were announced. So too….our lives were changed and made easier and more meaningful by the takanot of Rabbeinu Gershom!
Kaytana had color war!! Team Moshe (blue) vs. Team Aharon (red)
They had a relay race (official name: The Ridiculous Ravioli Relay) which had each camper doing a task or silly activity before passing the baton onwards…they played dodgeball and 9-square and had agam too just for fun! But the relay race and team marches, songs and skits were all for points! It got competitive during certain moments of the day, and everyone gave “it their all”! The points were tallied and…the winner was…no way!!! TIE SCORE!!!
Machal was out on a 6-mile hike today called Sugar Run, and then they set up their campsite right near machane for the night – at the Machal Chutz Site “around the corner”. They made pita pizzas and s’mores!
