Jewish Summer Camp and Jewish Continuity

To say that I grew up not as a camping sort of person would be an understatement. When I look back at my childhood I never wanted to leave the confines of a city and was more comfortable around computers than climbing walls. I am still very happy within city limits but I have come to realize a powerful truth about imparting Jewish values and tradition to the next generation - the key is Jewish summer camp. Many of you might know that my wife Sharon is a Jewish summer camp rockstar. She spent the majority of her life attending Camp Stone in Pennsylvania, eventually becoming the head of camp for two summers and is now doing her doctoral research for NYU on the topic of gender studies in the Jewish summer camp setting. Sharon introduced me to Jewish summer camping and allowed me to see firsthand the profound impact it has on young Jews.

Imagine close to 400 people gathered around together in concentric circles. All of these people are under the age of 30 and the overwhelming majority are between 8-15 years of age. It is hard to conceive of any situation in which 400 young people are all refraining from chatter and are focused on the activity at hand. Yet, this is precisely what I observed, not once but every time I have been to camp for Shabbat: A chorus of voices rising together singing during Seudah Shlishit as the sun was beginning to hide itself amongst the treetops. Remarkable moments involving hundreds of children of devotion and spirituality do not occur in a vacuum. They are the result of living daily in a community infused with a love for Judaism. They are the result of being surrounded by a community that does not only observe Judaism but celebrates a life of Torah and mitzvot.

It is rare indeed to be situated, at any point in your life, in a place of sustained rejoicing and celebration of Judaism. We may gather a small glimpse of that utopian life but then it escapes us and leaves behind only a faint imprint in our hearts and minds. The search for the cloistered and serene life though is not the purpose of living Jewishly. The raison d’être of the Jewish life is to make the profane sacred, to transform the world and lift it up to holiness. It is not to escape from the mundane to the holy but rather to bring holiness down into this world and suffuse our environment with the Divine. Nonetheless, from a pedagogical perspective the effect of a summer of sustained positive Jewish living as a young person can never be underestimated. Jewish summer camp provides for children the opportunity to be an active member of a mini-society that wholly and unequivocally loves Judaism, where one could find that they are even dancing at a Tuesday morning Shacharit minyan.

My observations may be obvious to many of you but for me they are a hiddush, a novel idea. For those of you with young children I urge you to consider the option of Jewish summer camp. It is, in my opinion and without exaggeration, a crucial key towards the transmission of positive Jewish identity to the next generation.