Toda Raba (thank you) and Yasher Koach (congratulations) for sending your children to Camp Solomon Schechter! By entrusting us with your children this summer, you are ensuring that they have a very meaningful and exciting Jewish experience, and that we, together, are strengthening our greater Jewish community.
I can’t believe our first week is already wrapping up! Our days are jam-packed with fun outdoor activities, such as our zip-line and challenge course, and the campers love our evening programs. Our 4th of July celebration on Monday night was a great way to start off these first two sessions of the summer. (Take a look at the video on our Facebook page!)
Our limmud (Jewish learning) period has been reconceived as yachat z’man yacht (together time), our t’fillot (prayers) have been reenergized, and we have been introducing lots of new rituals at camp. We started off this session with a program that takes the campers through the Jewish year; many campers said that coming to camp was the most important Jewish experience of their year! As always, we are working extra hard to infuse all of our programming with Jewish content and values. (You can read more about this, and our Derech Schechter program, on our blog.) Here at CSS we are proud of the fact that our camp community (over 325 of us are currently here!) is bringing together Conservative Judaism and creating innovative identity-forming experiences for kids in our region.
Tonight we celebrate camp’s first Shabbat of the summer, which is a time when we see the magic of camp happen in its purest form. Campers spend Saturday resting, playing, singing and dancing with their friends; then wrap up the day with Havdallah to say goodbye to Shabbat and welcome the coming week. And next week is going to be just as special as this past one!
Shabbat Shalom!
Sam
