By Claire Rawson-Dannenbaum and Emma Scheinbaum
The Shabbaton began with a blast in the parking lot of the Westside Pavilion at 2:15. The fellows boarded the bus and we were on our way! We got to know one another in a new light—in a way different than a Jewish classroom setting. After picking up the rest of the fellows in the valley, we made our way to Alonim, the place we would call home for the weekend.
Upon arrival, we grabbed our warm jackets and jumped on the bus again to the neighborhood Chabad, for many of us, our first time in this kind of prayer setting. We walked inside, and the strangest feeling fell over me. It was warm, and smelled delicious, the TV was unplugged and the family was all standing together, just enjoying each other’s presence. It was beautiful. But for me at least, it was a little uncomfortable. Right away, we were separated, boys to wrap tefillin and girls to light the shabbat candles, lead by the Matriarch of the Chabad household and our fellows, Emma and Ellie. This part didn’t seem right to me, because in my tradition, everyone is included in both parts, if they want to. After these prayers, we headed around back to the Chabad, and begun a new learning experience. In the shul, there was a mehitzah, something new and strange to me. As we went through the prayer service, the girls on my side were pretty clueless as to what was going on, since the majority of us were unfamiliar with the melodies and language. After the service, we walked back to camp, ate dinner, said the Shabbat prayers lead by Shane and myself, participated in some ice breakers lead by Talia, Adam, Gabi E and Emily, and held a Maagal Laila (night circle). This activity was led by the Diller Staff, and included several cups with questions and options, each option a different color jellybean that we would place in the cup. After all the cups worked their way around the room, we dumped them out and discussed our answers. It was a great way to get to know each other anonymously. After this activity, we went back to our bunks for some late-night bonding.
The next morning, after breakfast, we took part in some ice breakers lead by Justin and Noah, where we literally supported each other and made a circle that could not be supported if one fellow left. After this, we split into two groups—those returning again to the Chabad and those going on a spiritual walk/hike (me!). As we walked along one of Alonim’s several paths we stopped several times to say a prayer, sing a song or just appreciate our surroundings. Eventually, we came to the end of the walk, a campfire area thought to be once used by the Native American peoples in the area. Aki, our walk guide/leader, pointed out some rocks she thought were used by the Native Americans for storage. Slightly ahead of schedule, Sami gave us the ok to climb the mountain and check out the rocks. We scaled the mountain in about 10 minutes, and sat in the ancient storage units. The view was incredible. After a few minutes of sitting in awe, we realized that we were running behind schedule (again) and ran down the mountain and back to camp. I loved this tefilah. It was new to me, and as a Reconstructionist Jewish camp kid, prayers in nature are common, but this felt different. I’m not sure if it was because of the new group of people, the new surroundings or the peace and focus of the group, but this is a new holy I had yet to experience.
Back at camp, we took part in more ice breakers, this time lead by Maddie. She lead us through a human knot exercise, which took us a few tries, but after a few minutes of scrambling through each others arms, we finally found ourselves in a circle. After Maddie’s ice breaker, Sami lead us in a musical memory game, which we continued to play throughout that weekend.
After lunch on Saturday, two of our fellows, Blake and Micah, led everyone in the Dvar Torah. They handed each fellow a piece of paper with a different image on it. It was our job as a group to put the pictures in the correct order so they could tell a story. After we had successfully put our pictures in order we had about an hour and a half break. Most people walked around the camp, exploring the soccer field and basketball courts. After our break, everyone came together again for our first Jewish Identity program. We walked in the room and noticed pictures all over the floor. Some were generic pictures of families and others were landscape pictures of Israel, symbols for holidays, and even some empty ones. We were each asked to pick four pictures that represented our Jewish Identity. Then we were given different color post-its which each represented something different such as: community, family, and history. After we placed the post-its on the pictures we thought they corresponded to, we were put into small groups to discuss. We went around and shared the reasons why we picked each picture and which post-its we attached to it. It was really interesting to listen to what other people chose and how their Jewish identity differs from mine.
After our Jewish identity program and a short break, we all walked over to the Havdalah garden to begin our Havdalah ceremony led by Natan and Grace. Personally, Havdalah is my favorite part of shabbat because of my experiences from camp.
Shortly after Havdalah ended, we went to meet the Alonim staff to play some bonding games. For one of the games we were put with a partner. One person was given a pad of paper while the other was given a picture of several shapes which formed a confusing image. The person with the picture couldn’t show their partner what it was so they had to describe the image and the other person had to draw it. This activity was difficult for some and not so difficult for others.
Later that night after dinner and our last ice breakers led by Hanah, we had our second Jewish Identity program. This program was more of an individual activity than the others. There were several sheets of paper taped around the room, each with different aspects of Judaism such as God, Torah, Israel, and women’s roles. Each paper explained the topic and then had spaces for people to draw their anonymous symbol under the category which was closest to their belief. We later learned that these categories represented Jewish denominations such as Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and Secularist. This program was controversial throughout our group. Some fellows said they didn’t like being put into a box or classified and there should have been more options, while others said they understood that the program was showing us how we can connect to several of these labels and agree or disagree with certain aspects. 
Shortly after we ended our program, our junior counselors, Rachel and Leora, led us in a bonding program. We were all very confused when we were told to get blindfolds and line up. We were then escorted to a grass area where we were able to remove our blindfolds. We were each given 2 glow sticks which we were not supposed to break until we had all gone around the circle and said what we were looking forward to and a fear we had. Most people were really looking forward to bonding even more than we already had during the weekend and for our trip to Israel. A common fear was that we would lose some of the bonds we made because we wouldn’t see each other until the next meeting, a month later. After we all shared, it was time for our campfire led by Liv and Gabby. We walked up to our campfire area and made s’mores, sang songs, and played games.
The next morning we found out that we would be volunteering at the camp by painting an area to make it look nicer. This reminded me of my camp where we work on a project every session to give back and enhance the beauty of our camp. I believe that it’s very important to give back especially to a place that has affected you in such a positive way.
Our Shabbaton was coming to a close and we all came together one more time to evaluate the weekend and give our positive and negative feedback. Overall, the weekend was a success and we all had such an amazing time. Everyone bonded so much and we are all looking forward to our next meeting and the rest of our time in Diller!
No comments:
Post a Comment