Session 3 – Only 6 days left: Torah and a Cupcake

Hi Herzl Family!

Today’s topics include Jewish art, talented kids, empowered young women, and a cupcake. 

It was a beautiful day at Machaneh Paradise! And there’s an interesting buzz in the air. Kids are starting to say things like “this is our last Tuesday of camp” and they’re not just getting sad about the looming ending, but, better, they’re leaning into all the fun. 

I was strolling along during Chug Bet, and I saw something really cool stuff that may be happy and proud.

Third session we have a Mural Chug. Last summer when I got here, I was sitting in the teyelet before anyone arrived looking to the west and in my view was our maintenance shed and old building that meant a lot to a lot of people, but has seen its days. It is now as unused and relatively condemned. As I sat there, I thought to myself that we have this awesome and talented facility staff, and if they had the time to do it, I thought why not build a fence covering that, for lack of a better word, eyes sore. The I thought if we’re going to put a fence up there, why not camp it up and make it a mural fence for the Mural Chug. So last year we had the Mural Chug start and they painted a cool picture with a bunch of kids standing on what looks like the Earth and all the flags of all the countries represented here at camp last summer. The two that stood the tallest was the Israeli flag and the American flag of course. So while on my stroll around camp today, I came across the Mural Chug sitting at that fence with one of our Israeli staff members who is very artistic and they were designing the mural for this year, which gets painted over the next four days. It just gave me awesome warm fuzzies.

It’s going to be six squares and each square is going to represent a color that we use for Bikkurim, however, the teams are going to be symbols of Jewish life… like the red team will be Challah, the green team will be an olive branch and the dove, the yellow team will be a menorah, and so on and so on and then, of course, our Israeli staff member designed it with words both in English and Hebrew. It’s perfectly Herzl Camp.

During Gimel, I was walking the poad going to I can’t remember what, and I came upon 17 young woman from Kadima and B’yachad who are in the fan favorite chug of the summer, Torah for the Girls. Their subject today was a story about Esther and her bravery and the chug leader partnered up with the Mitbach (teaching kitchen) and she ran the hug and discussion while they cooked these awesome cupcakes. Then they went walking around camp and stopping random people, (including your pal, Tommy) and askedd them about their bravery and gave a quick example of Esther‘s bravery and then handed out a cupcake.

This is why when people I meet ask me what I do for a living, I say, “I help raise proud Jews, who love Israel.“

So, once again…

All is well, safely rest. 

Thank you for sending your kid to Herzl Camp. 

‏לילה טוב

Tommy