![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Week at Camp: Shabbat Services.
Jul. 27th, 2012 11:00 pmI've been looking forward to Friday all week, because I've heard that the Shabbat evening services here are really special. And guess what? Today was the only day -- out of my entire week at this camp -- when it RAINED! Ugh! It started raining during lunch and continued on and off for most of the afternoon, but during a dry spell, I went for a walk on one of the hiking trails in the woods around camp. The trail ended at the edge of the woods overlooking a little overgrown valley. There was no sign of human life anywhere, just fields and forest, and everything was so still and shushed that it was almost scary. It was raining again, but just barely, and it was so quiet that I could hear the rain falling on the grass and leaves.
For Shabbat services, everyone in camp wears a white shirt and a pair of khakis (or a white dress, if you want to). I was very aware of how horrible my super-wrinkled khakis looked, but I tried not to let that bother me. I arrived at services a bit early, so I got to watch the counselors and campers arrive. As if on some invisible cue, they left their cabins, all dressed in white, and began walking to the dining hall from both sides of the lake, while singing Shabbat Shalom. Services began in the breezeway outside the dining hall; normally, it would've been in the outdoor temple, but it was too wet. We all sang Shabbat Shalom and a few other songs, including this beautiful one that the counselors sang to the campers.
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield from you from shame.
May you grow to be in Israel a shining name.
May you be like Reuven and Esther. May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, O Lord, and keep them from the stranger's ways.
{I found out later it's from "Fiddler on the Roof."}
A neat idea while singing "His Banner of Love Is Over Me," from the Song of Solomon.
Then we sang HaMotzi and went inside to eat. The kitchen staff had the plain old dining hall amazingly decked out for Shabbat. All the tables were covered with white tablecloths and had a big beautiful loaf of challah on a silver platter in the center. The Shabbat dinner is "family-style," meaning that campers can site with their families instead of their cabins like usual, because apparently some parents come to visit on Friday nights. So rather than sit the other staff members like usual, I somehow ended up the single non-relative at a big table full of family members. I felt like I may as well have a billboard over my head reading "Look, she's here by herself! What a loner freak!" Sigh...
The campers holding their mini paper cups of wine grape juice high during the Kiddush.
But it did help a bit that sitting right next to me was a Sassy Jewish Grandmother with a very thick accent who turned to me and said, "Just call me Bubbie! Everyone does!" Haha. She was a pretty funny and sweet old lady, and the food was good.
Make no mistake, the Shabbat services at this camp are beautiful, but they're LONG. After the lengthy, multi-course dinner and song session that never seemed to end, we went outside to the temple for still more praying. The Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics was held today, and I think it was being broadcast during services. So obviously, I didn't get to see it, but one of the rabbis did talk about it in her sermon. She said like Shabbat, the Olympics are a time of celebration and coming together. But just as we pause during services for the Kiddush, we should also pause from the Olympics to remember the Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered forty years ago, during the 1972 Munich Olympics. She read their names before we said the Kiddush, which I thought was really appropriate. The Olympics committee has never had a moment of silence or anything to remember the victims of Munich. There has been talk about this at the staff tables all week, and everyone disapproves. There's a good article about it here. I'm kinda bummed that I missed the Opening Ceremony and the Parade of Nations, which I watch every Olympics. But maybe I can catch it later.
But probably the most memorable part of services was when it got dark and they turned on the lights in the outdoor temple. The temple is right on the lakeshore, so the lights created this glare on the water that looked like some sort of strange mist. It reminded me so much of the verse at the beginning of Genesis: The earth was formless and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep, and the breath of God hovering over the waters. It was almost spooky.
Whew, what a long, exhausting post for a long, exhausting service! Shabbat shalom from camp!
*falls into bed*
For Shabbat services, everyone in camp wears a white shirt and a pair of khakis (or a white dress, if you want to). I was very aware of how horrible my super-wrinkled khakis looked, but I tried not to let that bother me. I arrived at services a bit early, so I got to watch the counselors and campers arrive. As if on some invisible cue, they left their cabins, all dressed in white, and began walking to the dining hall from both sides of the lake, while singing Shabbat Shalom. Services began in the breezeway outside the dining hall; normally, it would've been in the outdoor temple, but it was too wet. We all sang Shabbat Shalom and a few other songs, including this beautiful one that the counselors sang to the campers.
May the Lord protect and defend you.
May He always shield from you from shame.
May you grow to be in Israel a shining name.
May you be like Reuven and Esther. May you be deserving of praise.
Strengthen them, O Lord, and keep them from the stranger's ways.
{I found out later it's from "Fiddler on the Roof."}
A neat idea while singing "His Banner of Love Is Over Me," from the Song of Solomon.
Then we sang HaMotzi and went inside to eat. The kitchen staff had the plain old dining hall amazingly decked out for Shabbat. All the tables were covered with white tablecloths and had a big beautiful loaf of challah on a silver platter in the center. The Shabbat dinner is "family-style," meaning that campers can site with their families instead of their cabins like usual, because apparently some parents come to visit on Friday nights. So rather than sit the other staff members like usual, I somehow ended up the single non-relative at a big table full of family members. I felt like I may as well have a billboard over my head reading "Look, she's here by herself! What a loner freak!" Sigh...
The campers holding their mini paper cups of wine grape juice high during the Kiddush.
But it did help a bit that sitting right next to me was a Sassy Jewish Grandmother with a very thick accent who turned to me and said, "Just call me Bubbie! Everyone does!" Haha. She was a pretty funny and sweet old lady, and the food was good.
Make no mistake, the Shabbat services at this camp are beautiful, but they're LONG. After the lengthy, multi-course dinner and song session that never seemed to end, we went outside to the temple for still more praying. The Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics was held today, and I think it was being broadcast during services. So obviously, I didn't get to see it, but one of the rabbis did talk about it in her sermon. She said like Shabbat, the Olympics are a time of celebration and coming together. But just as we pause during services for the Kiddush, we should also pause from the Olympics to remember the Israeli athletes and coaches who were murdered forty years ago, during the 1972 Munich Olympics. She read their names before we said the Kiddush, which I thought was really appropriate. The Olympics committee has never had a moment of silence or anything to remember the victims of Munich. There has been talk about this at the staff tables all week, and everyone disapproves. There's a good article about it here. I'm kinda bummed that I missed the Opening Ceremony and the Parade of Nations, which I watch every Olympics. But maybe I can catch it later.
But probably the most memorable part of services was when it got dark and they turned on the lights in the outdoor temple. The temple is right on the lakeshore, so the lights created this glare on the water that looked like some sort of strange mist. It reminded me so much of the verse at the beginning of Genesis: The earth was formless and empty, with darkness over the surface of the deep, and the breath of God hovering over the waters. It was almost spooky.
Whew, what a long, exhausting post for a long, exhausting service! Shabbat shalom from camp!
*falls into bed*
