Goal: This week the theme is personal values.  Why do you do what you do?  Every day, all of us have to make lots of little choices. We hope that they live up to what we think our values, but we all know that it doesn’t always happen the way we want it to.

Anyway, enough with the serious stuff.  This game can be adapted to suit all ages and all attention spans.

While your teacher is out of the room, somebody in your class sneaks up to the teacher’s desk and looks at your class’s next test.  Do you listen to what the questions are going to be?

More people than expected show up to a Bnei Akiva Tochnit, and there are just enough slices for everyone to have two.  You’ve had two and you’re still hungry.  Knowing that some people are still on their first slice, do you still take a third?

You enter your name into a $100 UJA raffle, but you still haven’t paid when they do the draw.  You win a trip to Israel!  Do you take the trip?

After a few friends stay at your house for a shabbaton, you find a Camp Moshava shirt.  You’re pretty sure that you know whose it is, but this is the shirt that you lost, and you really liked that year’s shirt.  Nobody knows that you lost it.  Do you keep the shirt?

One day, the pop machine at school suddenly starts spitting out cans for no reason.  Do you take a free can?

You really want to be on your school soccer team.  But, you are good at basketball, and you are told that you are needed badly for the basketball team.  You don’t really want to be on it.  Do you agree to join the basketball team?

Walking to snif one Shabbat, you see your favorite pen that you must have dropped on the way home from school on Friday.  Do you pick up the pen?

You are participating in a Chidon, and you get a look at the answer sheet.  Do you still participate as if you hadn’t seen the answers?

You sleep in during a shabbaton, and by the time you get to Shul, a really fun peula is starting, and you’d really like to participate.  Do you take the time to daven first?

Your brother’s madrich calls to remind him about a shabbaton.  You forget to give him the message, and he misses the application deadline.  All his friends are going, and he’s really upset.  Do you tell him about the message that you forgot?

You are being the umpire during a baseball game with your class.  You see one of your best friends making an illegal play. Do you call it?

You are making a call from a pay phone for your mother to pick you up from a tochnit.  After you hang up, your quarter comes back out.  Do you take the quarter?

Love Story…or is it?

David was a typical Jewish kid. He went to a mostly Jewish public school, hung out mostly with Jewish friends and never really thought about his people or his religion. David went to Sunday school and synagogue on the high holidays, but it never meant very much to him. It was just something that everyone did. He knew he was Jewish, but it was never really an issue.

One summer David worked for a mostly Jewish summer camp. It was a hard job - but David really liked working with kids and he liked the challenge and the opportunity to make new friends.

One night the camp decided to sleep out in the woods. David took his group out on a nature hike and a swim on the lake. When the time for dinner came, David built a great campfire- and all the kids ate hot-dogs, hamburgers and smores (they didn't even think about kashrut). The kids sang songs and told ghost stories and David went to sleep content and happy.

For some strange reason (maybe it was all the hot-dogs) David didn't sleep for long. He woke up and everyone else was still asleep and it was hours until morning. Try as he might, he could not go back to bed. Frustrated, David decided to go for a walk. He found the trail to the lake - he'd always wanted to see the lake in the moonlight - and began walking. It was a short trail and when he got there and he sat down on the sand and gazed out at the water.

Suddenly a voice called his name. He was a bit startled, but it was only Catherine - a counselor for one of the girls groups. David didn't really know Catherine well, but when she sat down next to him and smiled, he fell head over heels in love with her. She was so pretty and so kind and so amazing. The two talked all night and held each other as the sun came up. Both of them knew then that they were meant for each other, and they have been together ever since. Now, three wonderful years later, they are engaged to be married. They are so happy and everybody else is happy for them too.

There's only one problem - Catherine's not Jewish 

Suitable for Shabbat