Camp YavnehCamp Yavneh
August 12, 2016

Maalot Plays In Powderpuff!

Author - Camp Yavneh

“The First Cut Is The Deepest” may have been written by Cat Stevens, but we will all always remember the Sheryl Crow version as the real classic.  In the same way that Sheryl’s version was the #best, our חניכים’s (camper’s) version of being in עדת מעלות is the best version camp has ever seen!!!  I don’t think that was a particularly good metaphor looking back.  Sorry parents.  But the point stands, right?  Right. Monday ended with a great celebration of our Rosh, Talia’s birthday!  The חניכים ate עוגה (cake), danced, performed original skits, watched our old Zimriyah performances, and ate עוגה.  The zaniness never ends with us!!!!
Tuesday morning we awoke to a normal day (one of the last normal days of the summer) for our fun mornings of כיתה (class), מעלות פעולה (time for fun leadership development/games), and חוג (elective)!  With a lunch of french bread pizza to follow, we knew the afternoon would be a blast.  And we were right!  Isn’t it weird how we get predictions right sometimes?  Like, we didn’t know it was gonna happen!  Maybe
time’s just an evolutionary construct of human perception meant to ease the burPhoto Aug 10%2C 2 19 44 PMden of synthesizing a chaotic world where the das-in-sung (the “thing as such,” a Kantian concept about objects as they appear independent of human perception and how they are in fact unreachable
by human thought) remains beyond the pale of human consciousness.

The בנים (boys) went on the “Kangaruach”, a giant inflatable trampoline that is buried in the ground and played on the tennis
courts, and the בנות (girls) did some אומנות (art).  Afterwards they watched the basketball tournament (which some of our בנים played in GREAT JOB EVEN THOUGH WE LOST IN THE FIRST ROUND :'( :'( :'( ) and then got ready for our טקס (performance) for תשעה באב (the 9th day of the Jewish month of Av that commemorates the destruction of the Jewish temple 2000 years ago and the exile of Jews from Biblical Israel). Saturated with meaning, we went to shower and eat dinner.

For פעולת ערב (evening activity), we watched Inside Out!  So funnnnnnnnnnn  woooooooo!!  Inside Out is this writer’s favorite movie and this writer cried five times the first time he watched it. Tuesday seemed normal at first.  And yet… it was אחלה יום (literally awesome day, our day when we have alternative scheduling/trips!) While Debbie considered the idea of becoming the camp Tel Noar director, the חניכים at camp were nervous to see what would happen. It turned out to all be an act and was revealed as this years breakout for מכביה (our multi-day color war at camp)!  I was shocked honestly.

The afternoon transitioned into powderpuff, the מעלות-לביאים (the עידה below us) football game.  While the מעלות בנות may have lost, they are still our #1 heroes and will always have first place in our hearts <3. For our פעולת ערב we had a special game show professional (that exists and is apparently exactly what it sounds like) who came and led a game show called Survey Says (this is also exactly what it sounds like).
After it’s end, the חניכים went to a rope burning competition!  Each team, שורש (root) and עץ (tree), had four people who had to build a fire to burn down two ropes strung above the fire.  It was great and עץ won both of competitions but שורש is still in the race, don’t you worry!
This morning was our last normal schedule of the summer.  Stay tuned to hear who will win for good in our final blog post next week!

באהבה

Jeremy and Talia