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A Gitten Erev Shabbos My Heilige NCSY JOLT Israel Family!! Today was a powerful day. After davening and breakfast, our awesome advisor Jed Zaslow began his summer "Story Chaburah". He uses stories as a spring board to draw out important Hashkafic ideas. Beginning next week many more of the advisors will be starting their own unique optional learning Chaburas and learning with the kids one on one. This morning we met our Israeli chevra from Zichron Menachem who we will be working with while running the camp. It was awesome. Not only did we have a great time, but we reviewed some really important information regarding the kids who we will be working with and the things we need to be aware of. We heard from several different people and reviewed everything. There were ice breakers and an awesome lunch of fresh falafel that was brought to us. Today was powerful because it is beginning to hit home. Understanding that what we are doing together as a group is real and serious. We are going to be impacting the lives of hundreds of people through our act of Chesed and that can not be taken lightly. After our meeting we took everyone to the Kibbutz store for food and drink if they wanted to buy for Shabbos. Also, those who were interested were able to buy Naot at the outlet store. We gave the kids some well needed down time and in about 15 minutes we will be gathering to take our pre-shabbos pictures. We have a beautiful and relaxing shabbos planned for the group and that time will be important. We have a big week ahead of us. I hope you are starting to get some amazing feedback. From our end, the kids are coming together beautifully. They are making new friends, laughing, and spending time together. They are doing great. Many parents have asked me about the right amount of time they should be spending talking to their kids. The answer in short is: the less you speak to your kids the more they can focus on themselves, their growth and their experiences. I always like to remind parents: You know your children best. If they need more communication great, if they can deal with less, that's even better. The most important thing to remember is that they need to learn to have these experiences on their own as much as possible. We had that opportunity before cell phones came a long and we need to give that to our children as well. Again you know your children best, this is just my general answer to the question that so many of you have been asking me over the past few days. I want to thank you for entrusting your children to me and our amazing staff. I am looking forward to an amazing Shabbos with everyone. With warmest wishes for a beautiful Shabbos from Artzeinu HaKedosha, -Rabbi Weinberg |
