Date: July 29th, 2015
By: Jordan Pike
Today was an incredible day of both beginnings and endings. We said goodbye to an incredible community week where we shared unforgettable experiences with our Israeli buddies. Starting nice and early at 6:45 AM we had a beautiful, scenic drive from Eilat to Gan Smuel where we had the opening ceremonies for Congress. Upon our arrival at Gan Smuel, we ate our lunches and got sorted into tribes, groups of approximately 20 people from all over the world that we'll be spending most of our Congress Experience with. After the sorting of the tribes, we watched an extremely entertaining opening ceremonies with hilarious dances from the junior counslers to inspiring words from Diller international staff. It was such a meaningful experience to be in the same room with 500 other Jewish kids my age all connected by the same passions. After the opening ceremonies we headed to givat haviva, the community we'll be spending the next 5 days in. Next, we did some quick ice breaker activities in our tribes to familiarize ourselves with one another. Then, we went to dinner where I ate with a mixture of kids from my tribe, Toronto kids and international fellows. Following dinner, we had a thought provoking discussion with our tribes about family, where our families come from and what defines a family. It was incredibly fascinating to hear the diverse opinions, some responses resembled my thoughts well and some were perspectives I had never gotten a chance to ever think about. After this fantastic activity, we ended with a fabulous maagal Laila where as a Toronto cohort, we reflected on our experiences thus far and our expectations and wishes for the rest of the trip. Overall, it was a busy, eye opening day full of new experiences.
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