First Day at Congress: Our Present, Past, and Future

Today was a great day to start the new month. After creating special friendships and bonds with fellow North Americans, we were joined by our israeli counterparts.

Soon after our friends from Israel joined us, they were added to the thirteen tribe groups that had been created previously. The first activity was ice breakers and ended with the breaking of actual ice! Soon after we ate a somewhat good lunch & were given our sleeping arrangements for the week.

We started to do another activity at 3:30 led by our junior staff. The activity was all about family; our immediate family, our North American Family, Israel and our new diller family. After this interesting activity we got a much awaited break.

At 5:30 we started another activity led by our coordinators, which was all about the covenant-Brit. For Part of the activity we were divided up into five groups & our mission involved taking the Ten Commandments trying to decided that if they're was only five commandments, what would they be? This was very interesting for me because myself and another North American were discussing the sabbath commandment with two Israelis and our views were completely different, as it is easier to observe the Sabbath in Israel.

Pizza and pasta was served for dinner at seven followed by a magal Lilah (circle time) at 8 o'clock. To end the great day, the famous 'white tent' opened at 9:30 for teens to make new friends and socialize.

Michael Salpeter