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Choose Below from summer 2006
• CAMP S’DEI CHEMED GIRLS HOSTS 250 EVACUEES FROM TZFAT By Sondra Gottesman “Mitzvah she’baah l’yadecha, al tachmitzenah.” When you are presented with the opportunity to fulfill a mitzvah, don’t hesitate, even for a moment, to complete its performance. Here we are, a group of American girls living the dream that for the past 38 years had belonged exclusively to our brother camp, the privilege and the zchus to “walk the length and breadth” of Eretz Yisrael! Yet, from the moment we stepped off the plane, we understood that this would not be a typical Sdei Chemed summer in Israel. Three Israeli soldiers had been kidnapped. Hamas and Hizbalah were intransigent in their refusal to release them and vicious in their insurgency. All tours to the north were cancelled and replaced with similar excursions in central and southern Israel. Security and safety, always a concern, now became primary. Tefila, always primary, now became more urgent, more fervent, more concentrated, imbued with a greater kavana. The need to participate with our brethren, “acheinu kol bais Yisrael” to remain strong and to prevail, grew within us and struggled to find appropriate expression.
And then, on Thursday our second week in camp, as we returned to our campus in Netanya, after a full day of touring, rumors began to circulate that people from the north of Israel were being evacuated south. By the time we reached Netanya, those rumors were confirmed. A group of people from Tzfat was coming to share our Shabbos. Friday afternoon, as the sun began to set in the west and the tranquility of Shabbos descended upon Camp, our guests, two hundred and fifty men, women, and children walked peacefully and safely to welcome the Shabbos Malka, with the girls of Sdei Chemed. We shared our Shul, we shared our Dining Room, we welcomed them to our dormitory, we opened our hearts, and we davened for their safety, the safety of the soldiers, the safety of the country, the safety of Klal Yisrael.
During Seudat Shelishit, a young woman, Sara, spoke to our girls. She told us that she and her family and those of her community had been living, intermittently, for the last ten days, in shelters. She had been evacuated to Netanya with her daughter but her husband stayed behind. She explained that as residents of Tzfat they are loyal to the tradition of their city. Tzfat—Tzadii, Pay, Tof—Tzadikim Po Tamid. Tzfat--together with Yerushalayim, Chevron, and Teveria is one of the four holy cities of Eretz Yisrael. “The community”, she said, “would never think to abandon their shul and leave it without a minyan for even one Shabbos!” Was she concerned? Certainly. But, she and her family had come on aliya six years ago and this was their home. They are here to stay!
For the Girls of Sdei Chemed, this Shabbos was a special opportunity for chesed. We might have been a little uncomfortable. We might have given up some of our privacy but as we opened our hearts, we came one step closer to the geulah. As we embraced our brethren and gave them chizuk, we felt an expansion of achdus among our People. As we completely, and with a full heart, performed the mitzvos of Ahavas Yisrael and Hachnasas Orchim, we understood that we had indeed been given the special ability to recognize an opportunity and to seize the moment. In this zchus , may we all be worthy to see real peace in Israel with the coming of Moshiach, bimhayra biyamaynu. Amen.
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