Dear NCSY Camp Sports Parents,
I hope you are doing well. Here at camp we are pretty exhausted from another great week and I would love to share some high lights with you.
Last Shabbos was the first that we had together with the whole camp and it was a spiritual Shabbos and a bonding experience for all the campers. It was filled with dancing, an oneg, great meals and an opportunity for everyone to catch up on some sleep. As Shabbos was ending we all came together to sing and hear words of encouragement about helping each other out in all we do. Not only does this help the other person but it helps you as well. After Havdala we went bowling and had pizza. After that late night, wake up was an hour later on Sunday.
During the week we had intense sports, but I am very proud of all the NCSYers for keeping their cool on some very hot days. Each team plays hard, but as I told them at the beginning of the summer, if you take out the ties, for all the games, it is guaranteed that one team will lose. We made sure to remind them often to drink and to wear sunscreen.
On Monday we went on a trip to a 3 level laser tag, as well as batting cages and bumper cars with a basketball net. Once we had finished with laser tag, we left Hanover PA (home of UTZ and Snyders chips and pretzels) and headed to York PA, to watch the York Revolution minor league baseball team take on the team from Bridgeport. Before the game, 40 NCSYers got to play wiffle ball on the outfield grass, and had a blast doing that. I hope we did not do anything to the field when we played, because by the third inning the Revolution were losing 7-0, and lost the game 13-3. Even though the home team lost, everyone had fun and enjoyed a very scrumptious mid game barbecue.
On Wednesday most of the NCSYers went on a 3 mile water tubing trip near Gunpowder Falls in Monkton, Maryland. It was a very hot day and everyone enjoyed the cool water and hanging out with their friends. A smaller group of NCSYers went biking on the path next to the water but went almost 30 miles instead of the three miles that the tubers trail took them. The bikers made it all the way to New Freedom, Pennsylvania and stopped off at a Rutters convenience store to refuel for the trip back. What was amazing, is that a thunder storm hit the NCSYers while they were biking but did not get the tubers, it missed them by a mere 5 miles. Both groups came back very wet.
On Wednesday night we had a special class that dealt with the transmission of Oral Law in Judaism. It culminated with a reading of a list of rabbis and who taught them and who they taught from Moshe until today. This was a very graphic showing of how the oral law has been transmitted all the way down to us. This afforded us an opportunity to discuss the death of Rav Elyashiv, one of the leading rabbis of our generation, and how that loss makes a difference to us as he was a link in that chain.
On Thursday after a great day of sports we had a fundraiser for Chai Lifeline and raised over $5oo with a free throw shooting and Frisbee skills contest. A big thanks to our advisors Eli Weinstein and Eric Sturm for organizing these fundraisers. Chai Lifeline is a wonderful organization that helps children with illnesses and their families. The NCSYers went all out to give what they could for this worthy organization.
At Thursday Mishmar we served kugel after a great night or extra learning and our weekly raffle. This week’s raffle featured a lot of food, York Revolution apparel, a device that turns anything into a speaker and much more. After the raffle we served kugel to help kick off a program that Rabbi Wexler introduced before mishmar. We called it the “No Google, just Koogle” campaign, to have as many members of the Camp Sports family, campers and all staff turn off their cell phones Friday at Shacharis and to keep them off until bowling after shabbos. They will be able to get their phones back from 5-6 to call you before Shabbos. Many NCSYers took up the challenge and I hope they can learn many lessons from this experience. You can find the videos we showed to introduce the concept in these two places. The first features many alumni as dancers in this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?
This second video is about turning of the phone for the day for a program called “day to disconnect” that was organized last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
On Friday we had Zaq Harrison come into camp to discuss the 40th anniversary of the Munich Olympics killing. He spoke to all the NCSYers and ran a program with NCSYers breaking up into groups with the advisors to facilitate discussions on wat we can learn from this tragedy.
I look forward to another great shabbos here in camp and I will fill you in next Friday, about all that happens this coming week.
Thank you for trusting us with your son,
Rabbi Jon Green