SAC Shabbat in Review
Here is a recap of our first Shabbat of the SAC 2019 season.
For starters, our campers and staff had a fun pre-Shabbat photo session all dressed in their Shabbat finest. Our SAC communications team was on point to cover the many photo opportunities. Once we received the stamp of approval from Haham Aryeh Greenberg that our camp eruv was complete, we were ready to begin Kabbalat Shabbat services at our camp Kal. After services we all headed to La Kafeteria (the Mess Hall) for an incredibly delicious chicken dinner prepared by Chef Shuli and team! After dinner, we recited Birkat Ammazon, including Ya Komimos in keeping with our Ladino heritage and SAC tradition. We were lucky enough to use our brand new, beautiful Pizmonim booklets for the first time! These special waterproof (and grape juice proof) booklets contain not only Shabbat blessings, and Birkat Ammazon, but also include some favorite camp songs, plus Shabbat and Ladino favorites which we dove into with great enthusiasm after Birkat Ammazon. Our roaring rendition of “Ain’t Gonna Work on Saturday” got everyone in the Shabbat spirit! A huge shout out to Hazzan Ike Azose for all his hard work in helping us put this very special booklet together!
Shabbat Day at camp was graced by beautiful sunny weather here in Ocean Park. We enjoyed a double parsha at morning services. So many campers were able to participate in the honors and reading. Shabbat at SAC, among other wonderful benefits, affords a tremendous opportunity for our young cohort of campers and staff to learn to run services from start to finish. Services were followed by a Kiddush break of M & M brownies and milk, then Musaf followed by a delicious dairy lunch of salads, salmon, borekas, mac & cheese and more. A very special thanks to Josh & Elana Zana for sponsoring our Kiddush Lunch! And also to the Ezra Bessaroth Ladies Auxiliary for the delicious borekas. We are so appreciative of your generosity and support!
Our delicious and plentiful lunch was followed by Torah sessions, free time and games. It was so refreshing to see so many of our campers playing good old fashioned board games such as dominos, Sorry, chess and Connect 4. We then gathered back at the Kal for a stimulating round of “Stump the Rabbi”. Our campers came up with a variety of interesting and thought provoking questions. Shabbat concluded with Arvit and our first SAC 2019 Havdalah service.
We were honored to have several guests join us in Ocean Park including Board Member, Esther Avrhamy and her husband Yosi who joined us from Valley Village, CA, Rabbi Ben and Sharona Hassan & Family (of Sephardic Bikur Holim, Seattle), Rabbi Benjy Owen (former SAC Director) of Memphis, TN and lastly, SAC Board President, David Jacoby.
While sitting at dinner on Friday night, Rabbi Owen remarked that we really have “something unique here”. And that perhaps this is the only place on earth that has a group of its kind doing what we’re doing. If you could see us here in our stunning camp environment participating in our beautiful Shabbat program with all our SAC vigor and positive energy, we think you would agree.
Thank you for the glimpse into the first Shabbat at camp. It sounds beautiful and I look forward to seeing and reading more about the camp.
René and Janet Ragetli
Thank you so much! We’re having a nice time so far! Bonus that the weather has been gorgeous!
Hazakah uv’ruha Beth,
I am reacting very late to your post because I got stuck at a stop sign while riding azno( donkey). I waited a couple of weeks but it never changed to GREEN. I finally got off and walked past the sign ( it doesn’t apply to pedestrians).
At any rate, I was worried for the Rabbis whom the kids were going to “stump”. I know there is a lot of logging in the Pacific Northwest so I can imagine there is no shortage of TREE stumps…but “stumping” Rabbis sounds a little extreme to me! – and on Shabbat! I would suggest, instead, that the kids asks the Rabbis hard questions they have always wondered about. If the Rabbis hear one they can’t answer, I’m sure they will tell the kids that they have no good answer.
But there is no need to “stump” anyone.
I’ll close with Shalom, which means “Hello”.
Oh, and BTW, to show I was reading carefully, I notice they read “parsha” at Camp. I remember when they used to do something that sounds similar. When I used to visit they read “Perasha”. Oh well, I guess this is that “progress” I read about.
Also, when you listed the old fashioned games the kids played you mention ” dominoes” and then you apologize (“Sorry”) and you change it to “chess”. I think you should apologize for you apology! Dominoes is just as old fashioned a game as chess!
I heard they did not play ParCheesy because the desayuno was already very ‘de kezu’ ( cheesy).
That was a little joke.
VERY little.