SAC 2017 Shabbat #1

Queridos Madres y Padres,

For today’s Shabbat blog I interviewed SAC’s Sephardic Educator, Aryeh Chacham Greenberg about his personal highlights from Shabbat.

This is what he said.

Friday afternoon I, along with the Eruv crew, was busy working until the last possible minute. We have never been to this campsite, which made the eruv setup challenging, but lo’Ores al dio (praise be to G-d) it stayed up the whole Shabbat. The food Daniel Cohanim made, specifically the carne from Friday night was tasty and professionally done. The kezo desayuno on Shabbat midday was traditional borekas, spinach queshado, and Jeanie Maimon made and brought up panezikos (small sweet rolls). I heard that the girls’ candle lighting was beautiful and heartfelt and soul stirring, but I wasn’t there.

What I did see on Friday night was a lot of spirited singing of Ki Eshmera Shabbat (There’s No Other Day like Shabbat) in the Moroccan tune and Noao Komo El (a la Rabbi Maimon) led by Rabbi Haddar from Florida. Various boys and girls took their turns leading Adir Kevodo (Hok Natan), Mipi El, U’Moshe Hika Al Sur, and a lot of other popular Jewish and Israeli songs.

Tefillah on Saturday morning was great and full. We had a nice Kiddush with brownies at the fire pit where we featured three new Joha stories that have never been told at camp before. Jacob Levy, Eli Almo, Jacob Benezra, Eden Taronto, and Victor Maimon read the Torah, some of whom stayed up, practicing until 1 am the morning before. Especially notable moments were the fine Shevi’i read by David Maimon, and the smooth and effortless Shelishi led by Isaac Levy. The Maftir was led by Moises Tache, and Zack Benezra’s Haftarah reading was loud, slow, and clear, in a haunting Portugese tune, and Victor Maimon led Mussaf with a sweet voice.

I could go on with the wonderful things that were happening all over the place, kids helping each other out, showing affection towards each other in an appropriate way, but I have to say my favorite part was the Refranes game in the afternoon. Each cabin was handed either sheets or books containing hundreds of Ladino sayings with English translations. They were instructed to pick one they thought they could make a skit about that would contain the essence of that saying. After preparation, they presented the skits to the other bunks. The G4 girls tied for second place, and their skit conveyed the saying “De boka en boka va fin a Roma” which means “from mouth to mouth it goes all the way to Rome”. The skit started with a message in detail about how wonderful Sephardic camp was and it was passed around telephone game style, around the world, getting distorted at each stop, until miraculously, right before it got to Rome, it became correct again. The winning skit was done by the G2 girls who acted out the fact that King Solomon had a ring that says “Todo Pasa” which means, “everything passes”.

We ended the evening with Havdallah, which was beautifully led by Rabbi Haddar. The smelling of the besamim was followed by “ooooohooohooo’s” and Arieh Levy of Madrid led the “Sha-Sha-Shavua Tov” chant. Shabbat ended with a bang!

Sephardic Word of the Day: Abolta La Ojica means turn the leaf, or turn the page, which means lets change the subject

Al Vermos,

Rachel Benezra Devine

Communications Director