Shoafim’s Jam-Packed Week

Greetings Shoafim Parents!!

    The past week has been very exciting for Shoafim.  After saying farewell to our first session hanichim (campers) on Sunday, the small group of full session campers began their intersession festivities in anticipation of opening day for second session on Wednesday.  Together with the full session hanichim from Solelim and Ilanot, the three tzad aleph (A-side) edot merged into one edah for intersession, which we playfully called Sholenot.  On Sunday night, Sholenot made s'mores around our medurah (campfire), utilizing a bag of percussion instruments to create an interactive drum circle.  The next day, Sholenot welcomed several new hanichim who arrived early for second session and together this growing family took a trip to Rondeau's, watched the Prince of Egypt, and learned a bit about Tisha B'Av and its relevance to our lives today and in camp.

    After a calm and educational day on Tuesday, commemorating the destruction of the Temple and learning about how our lives can be enriched by the concept of ahavat hinam (senseless/unconditional love) rather than sinat hinam (senseless hatred), which is said to be the cause of the destruction of the Temple, hanichim and madrichim (counselors) alike were excited and ready to welcome our second session hanichim on Wednesday morning!  Throughout the day Wednesday, our edah grew to 53 hanichim, with nearly a dozen of those coming in from overseas to create a diverse and exciting camp family that will spend an exciting 4 weeks together from this point on.  The fun began immediately — after dinner we learned our edah song and launched a Hebrew-intensive peulah (program) of Bar Mitzvah games like Bissli-Bamba (i.e. Coke-Pepsi) and freeze dance with Israeli music, in preparation for the Bar/Bat Mitzvah parties that are sure to fill up the following year for most of our hanichim.

    The next day was a full day of chugim (electives) and learning, leading up to our first Shoafim medurah at our classy terrace overlooking the agam (lake), and the weather for this first day could not have been better!  Please check out the photos of some of these activities on the website.

    Right now we are gearing up for our first Shabbat here and we are looking forward to the coming week, which brings with it the excitement of our camping trip on Thursday night!  Check back soon for more updates from Shoafim 2010.