Summer Camp

Each summer Sean & I spend some time at Ramah.  I have done this for 16 summers.  For ten of those summers I was on staff at Ramah Poconos.  For the past six summers I have spent between one week and one month at Ramah Canada.

It's a wonderful opportunity.  Studies show that the #1 indicator of Jewish continuity is summer camp.  Choose your affiliation, and send your child.  There's something unique about living Judaism for 4-8 weeks without the imposition of the outside world.  Does this mean kids without summer camp won't have the same connection?  Of course not.  There are many factors, from family to school to community, but summer camp is unique.

Camp is also time away.  Camp time moves at a different pace.  It is exhausting and renewing at the same time.  Peace can be obtained in an afternoon of staring out at the lake.  Equality can be reached when everyone has to take a turn cleaning the bathroom.

Since I've become a parent I've developed a second perspective.  It's one most parents can never hope to experience.  At camp I get to see my children in their element.  Jesse's second summer was spent toddling around Ramah Poconos.  Keren & Gavi have almost grown up at Ramah Canada, from Gan into camper age.  It's their world.  They live apart from us; eat apart from us. Sometimes they walk right past us, but not in the obnoxious teenage way.  They're simply in their own world where parents don't exist.  It's an interesting space, a bit of a throw-back to a simpler time, and a generally safe environment to work out the dynamics of growing up.

For Sean & me this summer was a bit different from previous summers.  Usually Sean & I teach.  This summer we cleaned out the library.  We examined old siddurim and buried them in the camp geniza.  As we covered them up with the kids, we discovered staff names on books from their camper years, and pastic covers from siddurim long returned to the soil.  It was an interesting moment looking back and seeing the cycle from past to future, from our antecedents to us.  Humbling and proud at the same time.