Cohort 8's First Shabbaton Part 2 - by Meir Hersson-Edery

Last week's Diller shabbaton was a perfect opportunity to bond with the other amazing people from my Cohort. I learned so much and created or strengthened my relationship with everyone who came on the shabbaton. We also discovered new things about ourselves, mostly about our Jewish identity, who we consider Jewish and the different types of Jews. We learned tolerance towards these different sects of Judaism and to respect their opinion without judging them. We had many activities which allowed us to reflect on our inner values and what we believe.

On Saturday afternoon we started with a spectrum activity. Sarah created a game where a spectrum was created, one side labeled "Agree" with the other end of the room labeled "Disagree". She would then give us a statement ranging from " I believe in God" to " Jews can be better Jews than others if they follow the laws of Judaism". Since these questions are nearly impossible to completely agree with, this was the beauty of the spectrum. I could see how everyone felt about a certain issue. I could also understand how strongly someone felt about an issue. Sarah would then choose several people at either end of the spectrum and would ask them to explain their position. While I didn't agree with everything said, I could sympathize with my friends' positions. I also drew from this exercise the conclusion that while people's opinions are not entirely dependent on their background and history, it plays a huge part in their ideology. Another (perhaps unexpected or expected, I'm still not sure) consequence of the game was that people on either end of the spectrum would respectfully argue their points among one another, trying to understand why the other person had their thoughts. I believe most of the cohort changed at least one of their opinions on the topics brought to the table. This was the usefulness of allowing everyone the opportunity to speak and make their case in front of everyone.

Between every break, we had some time to ourselves where we were encouraged to talk to people who we didn't know very well. I made good use of this time and talked to everyone on the shabbaton. I now feel comfortable around everyone I talked to and consider them all my friends. I hope the sentiment was shared by all. We would just sit in the hallways, talking about anything, having a good time bingeing on snacks and enjoying the company of everyone present. We also had lots of fun exploring the hotel and running around laughing.

After the spectrum activity and a break,  we did Havdala, the blessing of escorting the angel of Shabbat out and mourning the loss of the holiness of this day. We celebrated these blessings in song and camaraderie. It was an incredible experience.

From there, we went to dinner, and then Avital, one of the Diller Shinshinim, created a game that we played in earnest. We were split into four groups. Each group was then given a stream of Judaism about which they were supposed to make a skit with the intention of the other groups to be able to guess which stream of Judaism your skit is representing. I was made to act out "Reform Judaism", which by my own admission, was probably the worst skit out of all the groups. We had lots of fun listening to all the different skits and our friends making jokes and generally embarrassing themselves. We learned a lot about different types of Jews and what they believe are the core values of Judaism while having lots and lots of fun. This program was incredible and I wish I could do it again and again.

We had little time to spare though, since we had to rush to our next event. We were going to play laser tag. We were all ready to go so we walked over to the metro station and made our way to the laser tag arena. Nothing very interesting happened on the trip over. To be honest I was secretly not wanting to play laser tag, but once I arrived I quickly got into the mentality. It was incredible to let off some steam and have some fun with my good friends. We had an incredible time and were all happy and tired as we returned to the hotel.

There were two final activities to partake in still that night though. The first was fairly simple. It was just updates as to what was happening with the situation in Israel. The second activity was Ma'agal Laila. We sat in a circle and reflected over the day's activities.

On Sunday morning, we had the opportunity to give feedback, criticisms and compliments to the staff about the schedule, programs, logistics or any other issues we had with the shabbaton. We also named our mascot, a penguin, giving her the name of Justin Pamplemousse Vegeta Trudeau Diller. I'm still not sure how that name came to be.

To conclude, this shabbaton was nothing short of amazing. I learned so much about my fellow Cohort members. We connected and I learned so much about myself and others. After the shabbaton, I wasn't able to do anything since I was so tired from having such a good time. I suppose you can have too much of a good thing!