This weekend Mark & I had the pleasure of spending a lovely Shabbat in the company of six lovely, extremely excitable, excessively loud Amelim members of Habo Dror. After a short Kabbalat Shabbat service, we launched straight into a Shabbat/birthday feast. This was followed by a peula (activity) in the gym as an introduction to the weekend’s theme of freedom by looking at the Peasch story, and then the chanichim treated us to a unique dramatic extravaganza! Next we made badges, rings and other strange concoctions out of Fimo, and then played some chill-out games before bed.
Saturday started bright and early (slightly too early than those of us who chatted their way through most of the night would have liked!), and we breakfasted and had a brief Shabbat service before doing an activity about lashon ha’ra, inspired by the week’s parasha. The action continued with a peula looking at what feedom means to different people during which the chanichim put their hearts and soul into the creation of a “freedom machine” to help us get to the bottom of the issue. We were joined for lunch by our shaliach Yonatan, his wife and gorgeous young children and this gave us the perfect opportunity to give our first public performance of an old-school Hebrew Habo song which quickly became the anthem for the weekend! Come lets hear you, Habo Dror, kadeema Habo Dror, hey hey…! It is worth making clear that whilst this was definitely our first public performance of the song it certainly wasn’t the last and as we walked to Hampstead after lunch for the infamous scavenger hunt we sang it over and over again. And again. And again.
We ended the weekend with a sikkum (summary) session and the chanichim let us know what they really thought of the whole shebang (you can read their comments below). Finally we did our own version of havdallah where, passing a candle round the circle, we each shared what we were looking forward to in the coming week. And then suddenly, that was it. Time to go home. The buzzer on the front door started to buzz, each time accompanied by shouts of “oh no, I hope its not my parents! I don’t want to go!”
Thanks to Mark for coming from Nottingham to spend the weekend with us and to everyone who came for letting me have so much fun!
If you want any information on upcoming London events or our summer machanot (camps) please do not hesitate to email or phone.
B’Shalom,
Michal
(aka thingummybob!)
Click here to see photos from the shabbaton!
Leora Robinson (aka 'tree')
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Comments:
“I had lots of fun at the Shabbaton. It was Jed’s birthday on the Friday night. We had lots of fun doing the 10 plagues and the next day we went on a scavenger hunt and it was so funny! But I was really sad to go home.”
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Noa Krikler (aka 'the one and only')
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Comments:
“It was so exciting! All the activities were really fun. It was Jed’s birthday on the Friday so he bought a cake. The problem was, Mark can’t spell, and the banner he drew said “Happy Birtday Jed!” I didn’t want to leave at the end. The best part was the scavenger hunt. We had to go up to random people, and ask to tickle them with a feather, and make a human pyramid in the street and things like that. It was a great experience.”
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Joel Sinclair-Horne (aka 'footy')
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Comments:
“It was really fun. We did lots of activities including the 10 plagues and a scavenger hunt. It was also Jed’s birt-day, and I’ve spelt it wrong because mark cant spell for toffee!”
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Jessica Gardner (aka 'fish')
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Comments:
“I really enjoyed the shabbaton. It was one of the best sleepovers that I have ever been to! The scavenger hunt was really good but very embarrassing at parts! I also really enjoyed the supposed-to-be-sleeping part of the sleepover, not that we got any!"
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Maia Stanton (aka 'in the wars')
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Comments:
“On Friday it was Jed’s birthday. On Friday night we had Shabbat dinner and after that we played Egyptians and Hebrews! On Saturday we did an activity about freedom, and then after lunch we did a hunt. Then we went home.”
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Jed Stanton (aka 'wap phone/pupsky')
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Comments:
"It was action packed! We acted out the 10 plagues, and we stayed up til early in the morning! And it was my….Birthday, but it was a shame that Mark couldn’t spell it and he wrote birt-day! The next day we went on a scavenger hunt. It was a shame that I had to go home.”
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