Wednesday, August 17 – Color War Day 2

Color War Day 2:

The fun continued for another day here as Team Chachamei Sefarad and Team Chachamei Ashkenaz battled it out.

We woke up and had camp-wide mifkad again. Each team gave one of the divrei torah (the biur tefilah, halacha yomit, and the sha’at shu’t) at their respective minyanim. Breakfast was run by tzevet again, and they are having fun with a “Retro” theme, which they have been having a lot of fun with — let’s just say that breakfast food was delivered on roller skates!

Our shiurim yesterday were about Chachamei Sefarad, the medieval rabbinic scholars of Spain and the Spanish diaspora (which is the namesake of one color war team). In shiurim, the chanichim learned about the particular style of study of these rabbis, and how their method of learning leads to halakhic conclusions, which were ultimately codified by Rav Yosef Caro in the Shulhan Arukh. Today in shiurim, the chanichim learned about the namesake of the other color war team, Chachamei Ashkenaz, the medieval rabbinic scholars of France and Germany, such as Rashi, and the Tosafot. We learned about their method of Torah study, and the ways it was different from Chachamei Sefarad.

The morning was competitive sporting events again, but in the afternoon, we had some new activities today like Chidon (questions about all the shiurim the chanichim have learned this session) and our relay race, which involves so many chanichim all stationed at different places in camp ready to do the task they have.  Some examples are wheelbarrowing, potato sack jumping, arranging books in the beit midrash by chronological order of authorship, piggy-backing, etc.

Later in the evening, after dinner, we enjoyed “the final presentations.” Each team had to present a boys’ rikud (dance), a skit, a girls’ glow dance (so cool!!), a daglanut (“flag dance”), a team song, and four Melechet Yad projects: a wooden sign with their name (their “shelet”), a designed and painted mechitza (based on their team theme), a painted garbage can, and a painted set of corn-hole boards  (an outdoor game…)

The energy in Indoor World during presentations was really high! The chanichim were really into it, with lots of team pride (i.e. loud cheering!) and impressive respect for the other team’s presentations! It’s been a long night, and it will take a few minutes to finish tallying all the scores from two days’ worth of events, but… at the end of the day, it can NOT be a tie… But you’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out which team won…

p.s. kids were all looking forward to Late Kima (wake-up) tomorrow morning.