TEVA REFLECTIONS & NEWS

Teva Highlights

by H.R.

The four days I spent at Teva were filled with fun and educational experiences that my classmates and I shared.These experiences took place during hikes, meals, group time, and at night.

I learned many things during our hikes. One is that there are many different kinds of edible foods in the forest. I ate wild grapes, sucked on pine needles from a white pine tree, and chewed on twigs from a black birch tree that tasted like root bear. There were also red branches that I could brush my teeth with. First I peeled off the red outside coating. Next, I put it up to my mouth and brushed my teeth. There was cream filling inside the branch that was like toothpaste. When I sat in the forest, I wrote a story about how I would feel if I were a leaf that had just fallen from a tree. Once, while I wrote in my journal about all the things around me, I heard an interesting sound that I thought was a bird. My leader told me that it was not a bird, but a squirrel. On another hike, I saw a squirrel fall from a tree. It was as though it was sleepwalking on a tree.

During meals we learned about conserving energy, food, and resources. After every meal, we would weigh psolet.. Psolet is the leftover food that we did not eat. After the first meal we had fifteen pounds of psolet. .You may think that is a lot for our first time, but it's not. Some groups of kids had thirty pounds of psolet. The least amount of psolet we had at the end of a meal was five and one quarter pounds.

In our groups we played games such as "Psychiatrist" and "Camouflage". In "Psychiatrist", one person went out of the circle and the rest of us decided that each of us would answer for the person to our left. Tali was the person who went out. Sasha was the person to my left. When we called Tali back into the circle, she asked each of us simple questions that she knew the answers to. Tali asked me how many sisters and brothers I had. Since Sasha was next to me, I answered the question for Sasha. I said that I had one sister and no brothers. That did not make sense to Tali because my brother goes over to Tali's house all the time to play. Tali was very confused until she was able to figured it out with some help from our advisor. To play "Camouflage", one person counts to twenty, then ten, then five. Everyone hides while the person is counting to twenty and to ten. When he starts counting to five, everyone tries to tag him. If you are thin first to tag him, you win.

We earned Teva beads by doing challenges in our groups. T for the first letter of Teva means "Togetherness". The second letter of Teva which is E means "Ecology". The next letter of Teva is V which stands for "Bal Tashchit", a Hebrew expression which means not destroying the Earth. The letter A is for "Awareness". Together they all stand for TEVA. To earn the Togetherness bead, we had to do a lot of challenges. First twelve kids had to stand on a little three by three square while singing one verse of "Henay Matov." The next challenge was to stand on a swinging log and sing one verse of "Matovu." My idea was that every different person sing a different word. The last Togetherness challenge was to earn eleven points by going through a jump rope, but first we had to figure out how to use it. Then we earned our Togetherness bead. To earn our Ecology bead, we learned about the water cycle, the air cycle, and that if any liquid falls on the ground, we will drink it some day. To earn our Bal Tashchit bead, we had to sign a paper saying that we will shut off all electric things after we use them and use both sides of a piece of paper. To earn the Awareness bead we were blindfolded and we were led to a tree. We touched it and did whatever we had to do to it to remember it. After that we all received our Awareness bead.

Each night we made a campfire. We sang songs and told stories around it. On the last night around the campfire we performed skits on what we learned that week. The adults did a skit on the wizard of Teva. Instead of the Wicked Witch of the West. they used the Wicked Witch of the Waste.

Overall, Teva was great and I learned a lot.

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About Teva

by Drew

    Teva is a organization that teaches people about respecting nature. They have a camp that you can go to that teaches you about nature. At the the camp, they teach Midrashesim, morals, Judaic lessons. Besides the fact you learn about nature and Judaism, you also play games like predator pray and and we go on hikes and see different mountains and sites. For those people who who keep kosher, they have a completely kosher kitchen, and the food is pretty good. You also get a cabin to stay in. They Davin for the people like to pray.Teva is sponsored by UJA federation. Teva is a great place and I suggest that you go. It is for all, not just for Jews, bdut the main thing is that it is the coolest place.

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Teva Journal Entries

November 31, 1998: Monday Night

by H.R.

As soon as we got to Teva, it was 10:30 Teva time and 11:30 regular time. Teva time is an hour earlier and its purpose was to give us an extra hour of daylight. This gives us more stuff to do in the day. When we got to Teva we played a game with Rebecca, Tuvia, and Daniel, Teva staff members.

A few hours later we went on a hike. In my hiking group is Sasha, Tali, Salina, Allie, Mike, Adam, John, and Eli. I thought the hike was neat because I saw a lot of really cool stuff. For example, when the squirrel fell from the tree. It could have been sleepwalking.

For lunch we had grilled cheese, salad, punch, and garlic bread. After the Berkat Hamazon, we weighed P'solet. We had 15 pounds of P'solet which is the leftovers of food that we did not eat. I thought that was a lot of P'solet, but the Teva staff didn't agree. Previous kids at Teva had 30 pounds of P'solet. Now that is a lot of P'solet!

At dinner we had pasta, punch, and garlic bread. This time we only had 7 and one fourth pounds of P'solet.

After we had free time, we went on a night hike. I thought the night hike was really cool with all the sounds that the animals made. I also saw a squirrel fall from a tree. I felt bad for it because it could have been hurt. Then there was an hour of free time. After that was the end of our day and we went to bed.

November 31, 1998: Monday Night

by Mark

Dear Journal,

The first thing we did when we got the the campsite was took our luggage off the bus where we were met by a crowd of yelling staff who greeted us warmly. We then played a few ice-breaker games to get used to our surroundings. After, we were brought to our cabin where Mr. Slovin set down a few ground rules. We spent the next half hour unpacking our bags and setting up our rooms. Next, we went to the "OOLAM" where we were greeted by the director, (Adam) who set up the four schools with a few more ice-breaker games.

After lunch, we were broken up into small groups for hiking, and set out on the trail. We learned many things in the woods, mainly about working as a team, trust, and awareness. We looked at many things in the forest, from Moss to Mushrooms.

That night after dinner, we had the annual 'night hike'. All of the hiking groups went out separately and explored the forest. My particular group went out in the woods, lay down on the ground, and told stories about ourselves and the stars.

 

December 1, 1998:Tuesday Afternoon

by Eric

Dear Journal,

This morning I woke up at 6:30 Teva Time which is 5:30 regular time. I took a shower and we made it just in time for hot chocolate. First we had prayers and it was fun because we got to sing cool new songs. Next we had breakfast and we had French toast. Then we went hiking but my group stayed near the lake almost the whole time. We got to play a jump rope game to help with togetherness. After that we went fishing with nets and Benji found a fish and when I was in the bathroom, somebody found some baby dragonflies. Next we had lunch and listened to a story. We did skits on where the food comes from and my skit was about cheese coming from the moon. Then we went in the forest and found Hebrew letters around us and when we put them together, we found ??? which means the dove gave and is from the story of Noah. That is also really cool because there was a rainbow this morning and I thought it was very beautiful because I was outside when it happened and all the other kids were having lunch inside.

December 1, 1998: Tuesday Night

by David

We were looking for a cave the chef James told us about. It was easy directions. but pretty hard to climb.When we got to the top there was still much to climb.

When we got there we left a note there. We found there own way to get there. We got to the peak of mountain. It was really cool. Click here to see drawing made using ClarisWorks 4.0.

December 2, 1998: Wednesday Night

by Talia

The highlight of today for me was, today my chuge was shelter building, it was fun and challenging at the same time. I learned how to make shelterwhen you are in the woods and you have to build shelter in very little time, so it will help keep you dry, and protect you from animals on the woods. After tjat wa sat down and watched a slide show on garbage dumps. I found it interesting that learning about what we are doing every time we just throw out garbage. I learned that we should either recycle, reduse, or reuse to help prevent throwing out so much. And I also learned that if we keep throwing out so much garbage our backyards will become garbage dumps. After learning this I will most definetly try to be more careful.

 

December 3, 1998: Thursday

by Josh

On our last day at Teva, we packed everything together.Then we went in the main building and had hot chocolate and talked to each other at small tables. Then we went to teffila and prayed. After that we went to another room and had our last breakfast. Then everyone (even the counselors) played a game called "predator prey". After the game we went into our hiking groups and our counselors gave everyone four Teva beads. Then all of the people went around the bonfire and we said goodbye to the people we met there. We went on to the bus and went back to Worcester. I thought Teva was very fun because we learned in a fun way and met other people at Teva.

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How Not to be Cruel to Animals
by David

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