The First MBI Shabbat

After another early morning wake up call the MBIers headed out to Kibbutz Eifat to see their museum on early settlement life. The museum had 8 stations setup with actors who portrayed and presented different aspects of their lives during the pre-state time period. The MBIers learned about the building of the roads, the sacrifices of those who made aliyah, and a lot of the issues that faced the early Kibbutzim. From the dining hall to working the fields to the Children's house, the interactive museum was great for looking back at Israel's foundation.

For lunch they stopped at a Chinese restaurant in Katzrin called Chai Tai. The MBIers enjoyed their lunch and were even more excited to stop at lovely ice cream shop nearby where they slowly waited in line to get their own scoop of delectable Israeli ice cream. They are all slowly (or perhaps quickly) learning about the joys of eating Israeli ice cream especially during the heat of the summer.

In the afternoon the buses had to split up and two of the buses had a short tour of Tzfat (Safed) and the other two went to Mizpe Gedut. In Tzfat they got to see bit of the city, its architecture its place in Israeli and Jewish history. The buses that went to Mizpe Gedut got to hear about the Golan Heights and the role of Eli Cohen and the Six-Day war in Israeli society and geographic makeup.

They came back to Ohalo in the late afternoon and had a chance to rest and clean up for the coming Shabbat Queen. They had mishpachot(family time) which is a custom at most if not all machanot to split up into smaller groups before Kabbalat shabbat and have some to reflect on the week and be with friends or family from camp. On MBI this means spending time with your home machaneh(camp) kvutsa(group and getting a chance to touch base with everyone despite all the travel and being split at times.

After a filling Shabbat dinner they went down to the beach of the Kinneret which again is a stone's throw from their rooms. The madrichim(counselors) performed this week's oneg(play) which I am sure was quite hilarious. Afterwards they danced Rikud(Israeli dancing) on the beach which as I write this they are still dancing with the Kinneret nearby and the moon in sky above.

It so far has been a magical first Shabbat and the relaxed nature will continue tomorrow.
They will get to sleep in until 9am(On Friday they woke up at 7am and 6:15am the day before) and have a peula(activity) in the morning. After lunch they will have Shabbat Chugim(activities that the 
individuals get to choose which to go to)lead by their madrichim
(counselors) which are relaxed and often more serious discussion 
groups about various topics. Afterwards they will have Musicale(open-mic)
where anyone who wants to perform will have the chance and
later they also have Havdallah. Finally in the evening they will head to Hamat Gader
which is a wonderful, relaxing and ultimately fun hot
springs.  They will get swim or float in pools filled with water 
from hot springs and enjoy its health benefits and the 
wonderful smell that is sulfur.

I hope you all have a wonderful Shabbat. I generally speaking try not to work on Shabbat so I will try to post an update either tomorrow night or definitely on Sunday.

Shabbat Shalom.