We woke up Friday morning and enjoyed a delicious final breakfast at the Ramat Rachel Hotel. We then packed the bus and enjoyed a long bus ride to a beautiful park. There we played and hung out. We then enjoyed schnitzel and pitah lunch which fueled us for the day. We then loaded up and headed off to the science museum which had many interesting interactive games and experiments. The museum also had different models of animals from the ice age which moved mechanically! After that we headed off to a supermarket to stock up for the amazing Shabbat to come. We reached our final destination of the day Arad, got our rooms and settled in. We got ready for Shabbos and went outside for pictures. Then we had beautiful mincha, kabbalat Shabbat and maariv outside. Then the theme of shabbos was revealed: Chassidish Shabbos! We went inside for our meal which was full of eating, singing and socializing. We had a niggun off where each table learnt and presented a chassidish song and then after the meal we headed to our tisch . (We took a quick pit stop to look at the spectacular lunar eclipse). The tisch had an Ezras Nashim and the rebbe Zak Bennaroch came! There was heimesh singing, kugel from mesh shearim and a challah that was around 5 feet long. After an uplifting tisch we hung out and then headed to bed. After a long and restful sleep we davened and then had kiddish and insightful learning programs from both Jake and Talia. Talia spoke about halacha in the secular world and how as Jews hold the secret to a meaningful life that all the other nations are looking for. Jake spoke about leadership in Jewish history and how to be a leader which challenged us to look inward and find out inner leader. After we headed to a great lunch and then circle time. Then we had a three hour menucha full of chaburahs and shabbos parties. Then we gathered for a game run by attendance group 1- The Newlyfriends Game (a take on the newlyweds game). Then we had mincha seudah shlishit. We sang shabbos out with slow Shira and a Dvar Torah by Ezra. Then we headed to Maariv and Havdala. After shabbos we headed to our rooms to change our outfits to play senior musical bingo. We had pizza and danced then headed to our rooms to pack and head out of Arad. It was a jam packed Shabbos and it was tons of fun!!

 

⁃ Tali Wolff and Kayla Stelzer