Our
first Shabbaton started on November 21st. We
first got our room assignments and headed to our rooms to prepare for Shabbat.
It is a Diller tradition for everyone to wear white on Shabbat. When we
finished getting ready and we all met up in our little conference area. It was
very interesting to see everybody's different interpretation of what is a nicer
and more special thing to wear for Shabbat.
After seeing everyone again we lit
Shabbat candles together. We then sat down at the table and did a jelly bean
activity. This activity was to show how different and similar we all are. We
got three different colored jelly beans and then passed around cups that had
questions on them, like what we plan to do after high school (college, gap year, joining the Israeli army) to our political beliefs to how often we go to synagogue. We read the question and answered it by putting a specific
colored jelly bean in the cup. Then we passed around the cups so everyone could
answer. After everyone was done we walked around the table to see the results.
I saw many different results, but none which worried me. We then discussed the
results and conflicts with each other. Diller is a very good environment to do
this, because even though many people had different opinions we were able to
talk about the issues calmly and have no one's feelings get hurt.
After that
our extra staff member Maxwell was introduced. He is a Diller alum from Montreal who now lives in Chicago. He introduced himself and led us
in an icebreaker kind of game so he could get to know us better. The game was called
"Die Die Die". Everyone stood in a circle formation and when the
person standing in the middle (which was Maxwell) pointed at you, you had to
say an object that pertained to the subject if you hesitated everyone would point at you and would say "die die die!". Then you died in a
melodramatic way.
After the game ended, we went over to the other part of the
room to do Kabalat Shabbat and Maariv. Lizzie led a beautiful Kabalat Shabbat
while also teaching everyone the tunes so we could participate. Then Matan took
over for Maariv. He had just learned it for the Shabbaton and we were all very
proud of him and what a good job he did. All in all, services went very well
and people were able to learn new things. Afterwards we sat down to dinner. The
Shabbat 101 group taught everyone about the Kiddush and about the traditional
Shabbat meal. We had a very tasty meal and it was relaxing to sit down and talk
with everyone. After we finished dinner we what I like to call benching or
"Ruach" which literally means spirit. The songs group put together a
bunch of songs in both Hebrew and English and taught them to everyone.
Following the benching we finally finished the meal with saying birkat hamazon
(blessing after the meal).
We then had free time until our ma'agal laila (night
time circle). In our ma'agal laila (night time circle) Jessica, and our junior
counselors Robby and Amanda, explained to us that we do one every time we have
an event that goes over night. We did an activity where we went around the
ma'agal (circle) and answered personal questions about ourselves. I found it
very thought provoking and interesting to see what other people are like and get
to know them better.
By: Barbara Sodos
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