Goooooooood morning readers of my personal online diary!
It’s 2nd session!! For those of you that are just tuning into the blog, I’m your author and Rosh Aydah (unit head) Ravi Brenner. I’m from Albany, NY and go to the University of Pennsylvania. You’ve trusted me with your child’s life. Th
anks for trusting me! One time I kept a bag of flour safe for over a week, so I’m pretty sure I can handle 54 human beings.
As I said before, 2nd month has begun! As a second month camper myself, I am supremely excited for this session. We have some great trips, plus KTV, Rikudiyah, Maccabiah, and so much more! We kicked off the first night of camp with some speed dating followed by Erev superhero, where all of the chanichim (campers) dressed their madrichim (counselors) as made up superheroes. It was a blast, and the winning group made a superhero named Isaac Brenner (my true first name and alter ego).
That was Thursday night, so we launched straight into Shabbat the day after. Shabbat was blissful as usual. We enjoyed a very spiritual tisch together, the first one for 2nd month. A tisch is basically all of the campers sitting together in a dark, slightly stuffy room, singing beautiful songs together. I’m certain that when your children come home, they’ll all tell you about how tisches were one of the highlights of their summers.
Sunday was Tisha b’Av, a fast day and generally a sad day on the Jewish calendar. We had a lot of pensive and reflective time, and got to have a really good sicha (conversation) about Jewish poetry with Professor Justin Cammy. It was a great chance to talk about Jewish memory and the way we connect with traumatic experien
ces in our past. The fast ended with a delicious meal of salmon, garlic bread, and cheesecake. Woohoo!!!
Last night, we did boundary breakers with the boys and girls bunks. We basically sat down in circles and shared personal stories from out lives based on different prompts/questions. I wasn’t at the girl’s one, but the boys one went wonderfully. They really got the chance to open up to each other and bond as a group. Hopefully we’ll do a similar activity later in the month with the entire aydah.
Today we’re headed to Water Country. Yippee!!!! We’ll be soaking wet by the end of the day but I guarantee it’ll be fun! I’ll try to take a lot of pictures so that you can all follow along carefully with how your children look after being apart for a week! Write you again soon!
Ravi
