Posts Tagged 'Camp'

Cornerstone Excitement

Published January 24, 2012 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Two weeks ago at this time I was at Capital Camps in Pennsylvania. I go there twice a year on a trip for the Cornerstone Fellowship. I am really excited about Cornerstone this year. While it could be the record number of camps participating in our largest seminar yet or the number of campers whose lives will be enriched their Cornerstone role models back at camp this summer, neither is the reason. In every respect, Cornerstone is committed to role modeling. That is not limited to the work that we hope the Fellows do in the summer or even the May seminar. Role modeling is also critical to our winter planning seminar.

We do not just hire staff and tell them to do a job; we bring them up to the site to train them and run through what we are looking to see in May. And we are not just doing that, we take time away to have them model sessions with their peers and get feedback from each other. In the words of Jonah Canner, one of our returning Cornerstone faculty members:

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is, as an experiential educator, to have opportunities to play the role of participant in workshops and activities that are similar in nature to the ones that I am often the facilitator of. It lets me see other facilitator’s styles, remember what it is like to be facilitated, and step outside of my own creative process, to learn from and provide feedback to my peers. Perhaps most importantly it reminds to not over think things, to not be too complicated. It reminds me that in experiential education; most of the heavy lifting is done by the participants. As a facilitator my job is to frame the experience in context and reflection. My job is to create a safe place where the participants can trust me, trust each other, and trust themselves. My job is to bring them in and then get out of the way. (from Jonah’s blog)

At the core we are doing something unique at Cornerstone. Every year we are exploring what it means to be enriched by Jewish pluralism. Cornerstone is not about the small reading of pluralism, meaning orchestrating everyone playing together nicely in the sandbox. Cornerstone aspires to motivate Jewish cultural change at camp by inspiring and empowering fellows and liaisons to develop and implement experiential programming for campers and staff that speaks to the diversity of Jewish life while embracing a variety of learning styles and modes of expression. This starts with the faculty loving being part of a community that celebrates diversity and is enriched by excellence. I left our winter retreat inspired by all of the ways to be and express what it might mean to be Jewish. I am confident that when the Cornerstone Fellows arrive in May they will follow our lead and want to bring their best forward.

-As posted on the Foundation for Jewish Camp Blog

The Long Kiss

Published December 2, 2011 1.07 VaYetzei Leave a Comment
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In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetzeh, we read about Jacob’s enduring love and commitment to marry Rachel.  there we read, “And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept.” ( Genesis 29:11) Jacob is motivated by this love to work for seven years for Lavan. Finally, Jacob has earned her hand in marriage and Lavan pulls the switch.  Instead, Jacob marries Rachel’s older sister Leah. His love for Rachel persists and he has to work another seven years in order to marry the love of his life Rachel. Fourteen years in the making…that was some commitment. It is hard for me to understand Lavan’s work proposal, let alone why Jacob took it. I doubt that many of us could endure for that long.

When I used to work at Hillel the number fourteen is a very important. My goal was and in many ways is still to partner with students to help them make enduring commitments that are personally meaningful, universally relevant and distinctively Jewish.  How can we ensure that these commitments will endure? This is complicated by the fact that the institutions of Jewish life are largely not relevant to students until they find their life partner and start to settle down. Realizing that we are living in a post “Sex in the City “ culture – it dawned on me that most of the students will not get married for on average 10 years from when they graduate. That is scary. We have four years with our students to help them think about how to go it alone for the following ten years. This is what I called for a “ fourteen year plan.” I am confident that the synagogues will help us endure after that point, but first we need to succeed in our fourteen year plan.

I have my theories as to why we have organized our communities in past in ways that do not speak of our current success, but for now I just want to make something that works for the future. We desperately need to pour resources into programs that deal with these fourteen years. Hillel’s need to be working with this in mind. Seeing that some of our best and brightest in this age cohort are working at camp, they too need to give some serious thought to how they will contribute to the fourteen year plan. It is not enough for  camp and Hillel to say we do “young alumni development” and only mean the euphemism of raising money. Long before we will get any monetary support from these young people we need to help them see their way through this fourteen year period of their lives.

While we should hope that the descendents of Jacob have his enduring commitment, we should not bank on it for fourteen years. These peak experiences at camp, on campus, in Israel, or on Birthright are very important, but not enough.  I have no doubt that many will have left by then with only the memory of a kiss. We have to plan for a longer kiss.

Breaching the Tablets

Published July 19, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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It is so rare that Adina and I get a chance to sit down and watch a movie together. Recently we had the pleasure of watching  The Invention of Lying. While it did not have a compelling ending ( Adina fell asleep), the premise was brilliant. Imagine a world in which no one knows how to lie. Every just says what is on their mind and has limited filters. That all changes with the invention of lying.

At a critical moment in the movie the protagonist who invents lying is dealing with his mother’s pending death. Instead of just allowing her to believe that death will be a meaningless void, he tells her a lie. There is an afterlife which is filled with joy. This conversation is overheard and everyone wants to know about this  afterlife. At some points he decides to use his powers for good and lay out other information he has received from the ” Man in the Sky”. After staying up writing all night he rights down his top ten list of things that he thinks would make people better and would justify this “Man in the Sky” who told him about the after life. About to stand in front of the throng of people he takes two pizza boxes to hold up his top ten list.

I think it was a brilliant reframing of the revelation of the Ten Commandments as the revelation of  a much needed lie. Done for good purposes but not necessarily yielding the best results.

Today is the 17th of Tammuz. The day commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem during the destruction of the Second Temple. It has been forty days since Shavuot.  Moses ascended Mount Sinai and remained up there those forty days. Israel built the Golden Calf on the afternoon of the sixteenth of Tammuz when it seemed that Moses was not coming down when promised. Moses descended the next day (forty days by his count), saw that the Israelites were violating many of the laws he had received, and smashed the tablets. Poetically it also commemorates the the destruction of the Tablets of the Ten Commandments.

For many moderns it is hard to understand the ancient myth of revelation as something that actually happened. It is interesting to think of it as a lie. Modernity itself represents a breach in the wall of faith. Today is a day of fasting and prayer. It is important that we look at these lies in our life. Do we spend our time defending, rebuilding, or ignoring that wall? Can we ever return to life before the breach? How might we ever return to a time before that breach? In many ways I believe that these three weeks from now until Tisha B’Av are about a process of helping as achieve  a Second Naivete. At the end of Eicha we will read, “Turn us unto You, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old”  ( Lamentations 5:21) Just maybe we can return Gan Eden.

Maybe it is a lie, but maybe it creates a profound truth. As I write this I am at a summer camp. There is nothing real about camp. It is a completely artificial environment in which we experience some of the most profound, real, and authentic experiences in the world. Camp is really Gan Eden. There is a profound breach in that wall when get older and cannot go back or when we experience a tragedy in that community. All together we can strive to renew our days as of old.

- For more on the idea of the Second Naivete and Camp

 

Tasty Education

Published June 17, 2011 4.04 Shelach Leave a Comment
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When I tell people  I work in camping, their first response is that they want to know what I do the rest of the year. After that I usually get the love. We love camp it transformed our lives. When I tell them that I work in Jewish Education in camping I get a lot of blank looks. What kind of work is that? Camps are just places to socialize Jews. What kind of education might we try to do at camp? There are no class rooms in camp. And if I try to put them into class in the summer  I will destroyed camp. I see it in their eyes. I have been transformed to the Grinch who stole fun from camp.

In these moments I reflect on the wise words of the great educator Geoffrey Canada. In a segment he wrote for This I Believe, he wrote about his belief in camp.  There Canada wrote;

Back in 1975, when I was coming out of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I worked in a summer camp in Ossipee, N.H., for kids with the absolute toughest problems: emotionally disturbed kids, autistic kids, oppositional ADHD kids, kids that everyone — even their parents — had given up on. One of the things that I and the staff would do is cook with the kids. These children didn’t know baking powder from table salt, but once they had eaten a warm biscuit out of the oven, smeared with melted butter and a drizzle of maple syrup, they were very motivated to learn how to make some more.Suddenly, kids who couldn’t sit still or focus were carefully eyeballing ingredients as we measured them out, learning the simple math and spelling lessons we could slip in along the way. By the end of the summer, I remember parents breaking down and crying when they saw the progress their children had made.

The biscuits, by the way, were delicious, and I can still remember the taste of them today — and more importantly, I still remember the lesson they taught me: that if we, the adults, can find the right motivation for a child, there’s hope for that child’s education.

If  a child does not succeed, it means the adults around him or her have failed. It is not that camp is successful because there are no classrooms, it is successful because it has a very complex classroom that strives to deal with all kinds of learners.  Canada goes on to write;

I believe that we adults have to help them, and that starts with looking hard at each child, finding out what excites them and exploiting that excitement shamelessly.

For Canada it came with a plate of steaming, hot biscuits that tasted so good they were ready to learn anything.

Last year I took a group of Assistant Camp Directors to Camp Alonim for a training. We were blessed to spend time with another great educator Dr. Bruce Powell. He shared with us a similar story about how the son of completely acculturated family came to be a leader in the Jewish day school movement. Powell’s mother, a secular Jewess, once went to hear a lecture by Shlomo Bardin the founder of Camp Alonim and BCI. When she asked him what she should do to engage more in Jewish life, Bardin did not tell her to go to a Jewish Studies class or a Synagogue. He asked her what her favorite Jewish memory was. Powell’s mother replied that she loved the smell of Challah baking from her childhood. At that moment Bardin asked her to commit to making Challah for ever Shabbat. As a boy Dr. Powell came home every Friday to the smell of Challah. From there he went to Alonim, and has had an amazing career in Jewish Education staring many day schools.

At the end of Shelach, this week’s Torah portion, we read about Challah. There we read:

20 Of the first of your dough you shall set apart a cake for a gift; as that which is set apart of the threshing-floor, so shall you set it apart.21 Of the first of your dough you shall give to the Lord a portion for a gift throughout your generations. Numbers 15:20-21

Today we call Challah the braided loaf of bread, but it is actually the part that we give away. So too, camp is defined of not being school. When in reality it is an amazing place that we could teach anything we want, as long as we make it tasty. I believe in camp, because I believe the only education is fueled by the students passion. The job of the educator is to connecting a child to their passion. This is truly a gift throughout our generations.

The Jewish State

Published May 10, 2011 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Why do people send their kids to camp? A theme that consistently emerges from market research and focus groups with parents is “resiliency.” People want their children to develop into productive self-sufficient members of society. A summer away in a safe, child-centered utopia gives children space to expand their sense of being. Beyond the watchful eyes of their parents they experience the freedom to own their own emergent identities.

So why do parents send their children to Jewish Camp? These parents want their children to grow into global Jewish citizens. Well as the saying goes, “Jews are just like everyone else, just more so.” They see that sending their child to a Jewish mission driven camp will aid their child in becoming even more resilient.

Today is Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day.  A day in which we celebrate the modern State of Israel. There is no doubt that Israel is the model for how we as a nation strive for independence, autonomy, and self-sufficiency.  This is just another way of saying national resiliency.

In recent years the Jewish community has spent a tremendous amount of money to ensure that every single child/emergent adult has an experience of Israel. This direct connection to this land, people, and culture of Israel can never be replaced. It is telling that in our recent study Camp Works: The Long-term Impact of Jewish Overnight Camp we found that someone who attends overnight Jewish Summer camp is 55% more likely to be very emotionally attached to Israel. Camp plays a critical role in developing the next generation of Jews in Diaspora. Where else can they experience autonomous Jewish space? Where else is the whole community run to the rhythm of Jewish time? Where else do we surround our youth with tremendous Israeli role models? Where else do our memories refract through the prism of layers and layers of communal experience? Well, the answer is Israel, but camp is still doing a great job.

Chag Sameach - Have a very special Yom HaAtzmaut.

- As seen FJC Blog

Returning to Camp

Published November 17, 2010 1.08 VaYishlach 1 Comment
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As we will see in VaYishlach, this week’s Torah portion, Jacob splits his family and live stock into shnei machanot- two camps- as a defensive measure in preparation for confronting his long estranged brother Esav. Under the cover of darkness Jacob sends the two camps over the river and then returns back over the river. As we all know too well. There is where faces an angel by himself and wrestles till day break. There we read:

Vayivater Yaakov Livado vaYe’avek Ish imo ad  olot haShachar. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. (Genesis 32:25)

Rashi explains that the verb vaYe’avek is connected to the word avak- dust. As to say that they wrestled and got all dusty.

As well as we know the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel, we often forget where it all happened. As we learned in VaYetzei, last week’s Torah portion, this happened in  Machanaim. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob resolved to return home. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob realized his fear of Esav. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob split his family into two Machanot- camps. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob realized the value of small things ( See Rashi). It was there in Machanaim that Jacob wrestled with the angel. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob stopped running or could not run any more ( see hip injury). It was there in Machanaim that Jacob realized who he was. It was there in Machanaim his name was changed from Jacob to Israel. It was there in Machanaim that we became Israel. Surely that place was Machaneh Elokim- God’s camp.

I work for the Foundation for Jewish Camp. I have been a camp person since 1983 when my parents sent me off to my first summer at Camp Ramah in the Poconos.  It was there in Machane where I felt most at home. It was in Machane where I felt like I was building a community. It was in Machane where I learned to daven, despite  going to day school my whole life. It was in Machane that I first connected to the people, land, and Torah of Israel. It was in Machane where I wrestled with who I wanted to be. It was in Machane where I realize who I was.  It was in Machane that I no longer felt that I needed to live a bifurcated life.  There in camp I did not have to separate into different parts. It was in Machane that I first experienced being a complete person. It was in Machane where I realized the eternal value of small acts. Is it strange to say at 36-years- old with three children that I miss those paper plate awards? It was in Machane as a staff member where I first earned a name for myself as a Jewish Educator.  It was there in Machane that I first met an Israeli who was not related to me. And for many of us camp people it was in Machane that we became Israel. We are all blessed to have discovered Machane. Surely that place is  Machaneh Elokim- God’s camp.

I feel so fortunate to be able to return to Machanaim. I can tell you as clear as day that camp is under my skin. Camp people do not need to be in camp to have camp in us. We will never brush the dust of camp off. That is what makes us Israel.

I often ask myself what does it mean to me to return to camp as an Adult. Years ago I read  Rabbi Neil Gillman’s  Sacred Fragments. It was there that I was introduced to Paul Ricoeur’s 2nd Naïveté. Ricoeur wrote “Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again.” (SE, p. 349) In this second naïveté, scripture, religious concepts, and camp itself are seen as symbols, (i.e. metaphorical constructs) that we now interpret “in the full responsibility of autonomous thought.” (SE, p. 350) This means we accept that the myths we held as truth in the first naïveté are in fact myths, but having passed through the critical distance, we begin to reengage these concepts at a different level. We no longer accept them at face value, as presented by religious authorities, but rather interpret them for ourselves, in the light of having assumed personal responsibility for our beliefs. (Source of these quotes)

At first for Jacob Machanaim was a place for him to celebrate his return home from years with Lavan. He escaped years are hard labor with a a large family and a large mass of wealth. His first Naïveté was a great story. Jacob was a regular Horatio Alger. But then with the chips on the table when he was about to confront his brother, Jacob returns to Machanaim. This time he does not have his family or his wealth. Now in his return to Machanaim he is as alone as the day he fled home. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob wrestled with his identity. It was there in Machanaim that Jacob rewrote his own narrative. Machanaim was his 2nd Naïveté.

What does it mean for me to return to Machane a second time to relook at the myth of camp? That story I am still rewriting. What I can say as of now is that I have learned is that camp is still magical, but it is not magic. And still after all of these years I can still say that place is  Machaneh Elokim- God’s camp. Now I am trying to figure out how to share it.

 

– This is the product of a conversation I had last week with Jeremy Fingerman, the CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Camp, in preparation for his visit to Toronto to celebrate  Ramah Canada turning  50. It also served as an introduction to a talk I gave this past week to the  Rabbinical School Student Association at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Give and Take

Published September 22, 2010 3 Succot Leave a Comment
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Now that the summer is over we find ourselves basking in the holiday spirit. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur surely gave us time for self reflection. And just when you thought you could not deal with any more self reflection we are gearing up for Sukkot in which we eat and spend time in a booth called a Sukkah, meant to be reminiscent of the type of fragile dwellings in which the ancient Israelites dwelt during their 40 years of wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. As you build and spend time in your Sukkah this holiday, I encourage you to take a moment to reflect on the environment we craft at camp…

Beyond the Sukkah itself, we also turn our attention to the Four Species. About which we read:

On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you are gathering in your produce of the earth, you shall celebrate a celebration of God for seven days… And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of a beautiful tree (etrog), palm branches, the branch of a thick tree (myrtle, hadas), and brook-willows, and you shall rejoice before God for seven days. (Leviticus 23:39-40)

The Four Species are a symbol through which we rejoice and celebrate. It is noteworthy that the verb used by the Torah to describe what we do is to “take” them. This is not happenstance. For many of us the experience of joy is connected to the experience of mastery and ownership. Surely this is something that is taken and not given.

Like the Sukkah itself, camp is a unique environment we create to bring us to joy and celebration. Camp is unique in that it puts youth at the center. Where else in society is an 18 year-old the model citizen because s/he will do anything for his/her 9 year old student or camp? Camp is special in that we give over the space so that youth can take it and make of it what they want. Just as we are instructed to enter the Sukkah to connect to the past, so too we “take” the four species so we experience the joy of owning our tradition today.

-as seen at Foundation for Jewish Camp Blog

Linking the Silos

Published June 23, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Reflecting back on another fantastic Cornerstone Fellowship seminar, I keep coming back to a moment that exhibits the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s “big tent” approach for the camping movement. To start off a meal, the fellows from two Habonim Dror camps led a Devotion to Labor for the group of over 300 college-age counselors in the hadar ochel, dinning room. Afterward, Rabbi Noam Katz, a recently minted Reform rabbi, played guitar with Dahlia Davis, an orthodox dance teacher, leading the crowd of people ranging from teens to their 40s, in dancing to Israeli music. Where else in the Jewish world do we all get to celebrate together? FJC is not pluralistic just because it is nice or good; it is because pluralism represents the optimal educational opportunity. In these moments, we are able to link our silos, leveraging everyone’s passions to ensure that we learn the most, and can take newfound knowledge to the next level.

This idea of linking the silos is being fully realized in the aforementioned Rabbi Katz. He recently started a new position as the Dean of Jewish Living at URJ Camp George and the Leo Baeck, a Reform Day School in Toronto.  As the first of his type, Rabbi Katz’s joint appointment puts a gifted educator in a unique role in the Jewish community. He will seamlessly blur the distinctions between formal and experiential education, making the deepest impact on our kids. This has the potential of revolutionizing the field: getting more kids into camp and getting more of camp into kids. This institutional partnership is a model to watch. Together, we need to figure out how to replicate it.

Linking silos is not just better for the Jewish future—it is better for our Jewish present.

- From FJC Blog

EnCAMPment on Shavuot

Published May 17, 2010 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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In the Torah, we recently started reading the book of Numbers- Bemidbar in Hebrew, meaning “in the wilderness.” We learn in the Midrash:

“There are three ways to acquire Torah, with Fire, with Water, and with Wilderness.” (Midrash Numbers Rabbah 1:1)

It could be understood to mean that we acquire Torah through passion (fire), through immersion (water), and through a trek through the unknown (wilderness).

Soon over 70,000 Jewish children will be headed off to camp where they will meet tremendous role models who will share their passion. They will have immersive Jewish experiences (beyond just passing their swim tests), and there, in the bucolic setting of camp, they will experience community and prayer in ways we cannot even imagine in most of our (sub)urban life styles.

Tomorrow we will celebrate Shavuot, the holiday commemorating our national memory of the Revelation of the Torah at Sinai. In the words of Rashi, it was there at Sinai that we encamped at the foot of the mountain as “one nation with one heart.” The reality is that the memory of Sinai might be hard to access. It is easier to reconnect to our memories when in the place where they were created.  It has been a long time since I was at camp, but I think about it all the time. At camp I felt impassioned and alive. I was on fire. At camp I felt like I really belonged. I was immersed in my Jewish life. Camp was a safe and supporting environment in which I could challenge myself. Camp is that special place where we can all find our own way to acquire Torah. This summer, together we can make profound memories to deepen the Shavuot experience for years to come. Have a very meaningful Shavuot.

As seen on Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Blog

When I Fell for Camp

Published November 15, 2009 1.05 Chaye Sarah Leave a Comment
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She was bubbling over with excitement. She had heard so much about this place. This was her first time away from home. And yet some how she knew that her life was going to be different after coming here. While she knew that she was going to miss her family, she was excited to make new friends, and yes she was excited to meet a special someone. As they arrived she could not stay in her seat.

I am sure that this story rings true for those of us who remember going to camp for the first time or remember sending our children to camp for the first time. All of the excitement, all of those expectations of what that summer has in store. As the bus lurches forward you feel yourself opening up to the people on the bus. You are hardly able to sit in your seat as the bus pulls off the main road and you see that first sign for your camp. You have never been there before, but as you pull in you know that you are home.

And while this is my story of going to camp for the first time, it is also the story of Rebecca as we read in last week’s Torah portion. There we read,

Then Rebecca and her maids got ready and mounted their camels and  went back with the man. So the servant took Rebecca and left. Now Isaac had come from Be’er Lahai Roi, for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to meditate, and as he looked up, he saw camels approaching. And Rebecca lifted up her eyes, and when she saw Isaac, she fell off the camel. (Genesis 24:61- 64)

Rebecca was that first happy camper coming home. She fell in love at first sight. Just as I fell in love as a camper. It was not with a person, those crushes and relationships came and went. It was not with that place, even though it will endure in my memory as a place filled with kiddusha, holiness. I fell in love with the person I allowed myself to be in that place.

Many years ago my camp supervisor mailed me the following story. Once there was a Rebbe who had a yeshiva. His son studied in the Yeshiva. One day the son took off the afternoon to go walking in the forest. The father said nothing. But over time the son took to taking off every afternoon to walk in the forest. At this point the father realized that he needed to confront his son. The Rebbe said to his son, “ I hear that you are walking in the forest every afternoon. Why are you doing this?” The son replied that he was looking for God. The Rebbe was puzzled and asked, “Did I not teach you that God is the same everywhere?” The son replied, “ Abba, I know that God is the same everywhere, but I am not.” When and where in my life was I more open to being all of whom I aspired to become? It was when I got off that bus for the first time, and it was at camp.

While I love the place and I love that time in my life, I realize that I owe a lot to my counselors. More than what I saw in them as role models, it was what my role models saw in me when I tumbled off that bus. They shared with me a glimpse of the person that I am still working on becoming. And that is why I fell in love with camp.

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