Solelim Yom American Adventure

The theme for this week in Solelim is how America is a Makom Kadosh, a holy place. Our Jewish identity in America is so much informed by our American ideals of democracy and freedom. So throughout this week of etgarim/overnights, the fourth of July, and our first Yom Meyuchad we have been thinking about American history and ideals.

On Tuesday and Wednesday morning, Solelimers had the pleasure of waking up in tents outside the tree house deep in the woods by camp. Since we have such a wonderfully large edah, our camping trip was split into two parts: the girls went on etgar/overnight (lit: challenge) on Monday night, and the boys went Tuesday night. Both groups had a wonderful time cooking their own food, cleaning the campsite, sleeping out in tents, an America themed medura/campfire, and praying shacharit/the morning service outside with the sun coming up.

Tuesday morning the Banot/girls returned from their etgar and we came together as a whole edah for Yom American Adventure. In the morning we played a complex game in which the edah was split into shevatim/tribes, each controlling a resource in the natural world, for example, lumber and wool. Each shevet/tribe had to create a tribe flag, a tribe dance, and a tribe name, and then each shevet had to complete every other tribe’s challenge in order to secure the other resources for their tribe. Each tribe had to appoint scouts to send out to find out the challenges for the other tribes, and at the end, we came together for a presentation of the dances and flags.

Tuesday afternoon Solelim learned about the Louisiana purchase and Lewis and Clark. We created sheet cake representations of the Oregon trail and enjoyed eating the cake a lot. We talked about what makes America a Makom Kadosh and participated in a scavenger hunt around tzad aleph/A-side that culminated in an epic water fight. After the water fight, the Banim/boys departed for their etgar.


Categories: Solelim
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