Machon United

The following is what I said to Machon last week before our mahazemer/musical:

Throughout the summer, while many things have changed, you
have always remained yourselves.  I
have seen you listen to many people tell you who and what your edah/division should be.  And
through it all, you have said, “Whatever…we are who we are.”  And your staff and I could not be
happier or more proud of that attitude. 

You have shown us how to not take things too seriously and
that the most important thing in life is recognizing the amazingness in the
people sitting near us.

Tonight, we perform Yosef
U’Ktonet Ha Pasim/Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the
whole camp.  How perfect is this mahazemer for our edah.  The essence of
this show is that there are different kinds of people that make up a family or
a tribe.  But that family is not
complete without every single member. 
Perfection and bliss can only be attained when everyone in the family is
together and heading in the same direction

~~~~~~~~~

I leaned over to one of your madrichim during one of the run-throughs and said, “You know, we
are watching these kids truly transform into one of the greatest edot camp has ever seen.”  I (really) believed that then.  And I believe that now! 

Tonight, we put on the greatest show of the summer—and we do
it together.  We are forever a
family and we will achieve unbelievable levels of success, and we will do that
as a whole. 

~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the camp does not really know who we are.  They have seen bits and pieces, but
they have not seen the whole thing. 

But they will see us
tonight.

And by the end of tonight—they
will know who we are!

But more important that all of that is the fact that we
already know who we are—We are who we are—We
are Machon 2010!

~~~~~~~~~~

Immediately after this, Machon put on the best show that Camp
has ever seen.  The edah had such
an enormous sense of pride that their smiles were bursting off of their
faces.  They did it together, and
they had a great time doing it.

This Shabbat, during Shira/Friday Night Singing, the edah
was called upon during a responsive shir/song.   What did they do? They got into their dance lines from
the mahazemer and did the whole song
and dance for one of the full cast numbers.  They did this because they wanted to show again to all of
Camp that they were an edah.  But
more than that, they wanted to show Camp that they wanted to be a united edah.
And you know what? That is exactly what they did. 

Tomorrow they will leave Camp as one, together.  Machon United.

-Ezra