Session 2 – Day 6: Yom Yisrael…and a moment of moments

Hi Herzl Family!

When I walked out of the porch this morning, it felt as if a wet, heavy wool blanket had been lifted off the entire Machaneh. 

The temperature dropped about 15° in the humidity just must’ve gotten on a train left. You could see it in the pep in the step of every camper and every staff member as they walked to the flag circle.

Today was Yom Yisrael for second session and I’m not going to tell you much about it because I’m including a video here at the end that will tell you everything about it. I don’t need words for this one. Our campers are showing up learning, proud, and having a blast.

It was about as perfect as it could get for a summer day 76/77° with a light breeze. At one point today, I was on the Pickleball court (I’m still trying to improve) playing with a couple of campers and another staff member in a mean doubles match and I paused to look around at the beauty of camp in action. We had the slip and slide going down the hill, we had kids playing over in the farm with the goat and the lamb and the chickens and someone was tending to the garden, and we had a cool frisbee game where it’s somewhat like the game Spikeball but with a frisbee out on the sports field.

The picture was like a Camp postcard. 

But the gem of the day is that part of Yom Yisrael celebration was that we were visited by the Israeli Scout Friendship Caravan, a staple year over year over year here at Herzl. Our campers love it when we announce that it was happening and 10 of our Ozrim got up and did the actual friendship caravan intro dance, which they worked on all night memorizing, I’m sure. The camp went crazy “Scouts, We love the Scouts!”

The Scouts show is a lot of song and dance and our campers jump right in there. No one shy and there’s no one off to the side and if there is, there’s a staff member or fellow camper who brings them all in. We had multiple circles of the Hora going at one point and we had some kind of dance that they were doing with, what looked to me like a bunny hop but faster with a lot of Hebrew and the shout “Hey! Hey! Hey!” … lots of “Hey!’s” today…it was crazy and so much fun.

But the pièce de résistance… at the end of their show they say, “please join us in singing Hatikvah.” Every one of our campers, staff, & Ozrim… over 500 people, stood up, stood at attention or arm and arm, and sang loudly and proudly to the point where the Israeli scouts (and I could see it from where I was standing) they actually stopped singing and watched our campers and staff sing to them, and everyone of them came up to me and a couple of our staff afterwards boasting on how proud they were and how it brought a tear to their eye and how these kids own their love for Israel. It was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve seen here since I’ve been back after my 30 year hiatus of adulting. I have video of this moment of beauty, but I’ll have to call in tech-support tomorrow and get it done, my skills have their limits. But it was quite a sight and I can’t wait for you to see it!

And now, as Camp is quieting down, there’s a nice cool breeze coming off the lake. I can hear our nightly Loon chatter behind me and if I look up every once in a while, I see a distant flashlight running across from a cabin to the Haks (bathroom),  of course it’s two flashlights, because we go in two’s and we wear our shoes… so folks,

All is well, safely rest. 

Thanks for sending your kid to Herzl Camp

לילה טוב

Tommy