Cohort 7- 1st Shabbaton
By Deena Levitan
Leading up to our first shabbaton , I was very excited to spend a whole
weekend with my fellow Diller Teen Fellows. We only had several
meetings before this shabbaton, and I definitely believed that this gathering
brought us a lot closer together as friends and fellows.
We brought in Shabbat with a wonderful ceremony led by our own
two Jordans .
It was very special for me because I always celebrate Shabbat with my
family so it was very different and also very nice to spend it with
friends.
The big question of the weekend
was, "What does being a Jew mean to me?" Sami and our J.Cs thought up
of ingenious ways for us to bring our Jewish beliefs and thoughts and to put
them to work. On Saturday morning, we had the choice of taking a wonderful hike
or taking time to pray. All of us went on the hike, and during the hike, we had
time to chat amongst ourselves and get to know each other better. During the
hike, we would take short breaks, and in that time Sami would give us a sheet
filled with quotes. She then asked us to analyze the quotes and choose
whichever one related to us the most, whichever one caught our eye and we would
then have a small discussion about the quote that someone chose.
Giving the Dvar Torah was a wonderful experience for me because it was
very nice to teach the fellows about that week's torah portion. It also felt
good to be able to answer their questions about it and to hear their comments
and what they thought the portion represented in correlation with our Dillar
pillars and values.
After our beautiful hike, we then had the task to match values of Jewish
people and their denominations. I think we can all say that it was a bit
challenging, but that in the end it was very interesting to find out which
denomination believes in what, and to see which denominations we would fall
under. I learned a lot from this exercise because now I can acknowledge why
certain kinds of Judaism pray like they do and live the way they do.
Our bonding as a group was very fun! I think that the most fun thing
that we did was the low ropes course. We brought together all of our ideas and
finally figured out a way to jump over the obstacle that was keeping us from
getting to the other side. We did a lot of fun things including our jelly bean
activity, in which we got to learn a lot about each other and the way we view
different issues in the world.
We also got initiated by our J.Cs, which was a very fun and
interesting experience, to say the least. We learned a lot about each when
we sat down and talked about what our goals were for the following year. Now
knowing this about each other, we can always help one another when we see
each other struggling or down.
Other things include our campfire, crashing Camp Or Ami's song
session, enjoying the very fun icebreakers brought by our fellow
fellows, our very relaxing massage train, and last but not least Tour de
Summer Camps. Even though we had to wake up at 6:00am, I think that I can
speak for everyone when I say that it was a very gratifying and fulfilling
experience to be able to send these hardworking bikers, who
ride insane distances (up to 100 miles) to support and raise money for the
Jewish Federation so we and kids like us can get sent to camp.
All in all, I had the most amazing time with all of the
fellows and can not wait for us to become even closer and spend more time
getting to know each other. This will be the most amazing benefit to 