Like most young Jewish Americans, I have spent the past few
weeks packing and preparing for summer camp. All over the country, the
excitement is spreading.
My family has experienced both participating and staffing
three different Union for Reform Judaism camps, each with its own flavor and
culture. Yet, one very important detail permeates all three: they are training
grounds for the creating of the best and brightest that Judaism has to offer.
All too often, the future of organized Judaism is filled
with doom and gloom. Analysts or anyone with a blog has commented about how far
fewer teens are getting involved in Jewish activities. There have been
countless efforts to make things more enticing, more exciting, more active for
teens to get involved in Jewish activities.
It seems as though summer camp has been a hug part of the
visioning for future engagement. With one summer away at a URJ summer camp, any
teenager has the ability to learn who they are in a way that will totally alter
their Jewish experience.
Jewish camping allows participants to test their limits. A
boy with a deathly fear of crowds receives a guitar and finds his voice. A girl
who has struggled to make friends in school goes home with dozens of new
relationships. A group of twenty comes together in a way that none of them thought
possible a mere 4 weeks prior. Anyone who has ever gone to a Jewish summer camp
knows what it is like to go back to school in August and feel the need to
explain themselves to all of their school friends. “It’s a camp thing. You
wouldn’t understand.”
Jewish camping allows participants to network. I have,
throughout my first two years of college, faced the possibility of getting
stranded in an airport. No matter what city I’m in, I know that there is
someone out there that I can call who would be willing to give me a couch to
sleep on and a meal to eat. Without camp, that would have been impossible. I’m
just two short years out of high school, yet there are far fewer friends from
my school time that I would care to call than from my time at summer camp.
Jewish camping allows participants to grow. From the very
first moment a young person steps onto camp, there are a collection of role
models walking around. It doesn’t take much searching to find someone to
emulate, someone to respect. Growing through the system, those same children
who looked up to their counselors one day becomes the leader for the next group
of young Jews. We have a phrase for that. It’s generational leadership. As someone
who has experienced camp since I was 10, I know what it is like to see those unattainable
goals, those incredible men and women who are the best people I know, and to
grow up hoping to be that cool one day. It isn’t until someone thanks you for
inspiring them that you realize that you have just past down the greatest gift
that camp can offer.
As I get older, camp becomes a more difficult decision.
Internships beckon. Job opportunities abound. The urge to advance one’s career
presses sometimes suffocating. But nothing in the whole world prepares you for
the adventure that is the “real world” quite like summer camp.
If you aren’t already, investigate signing up for camp. It
may seem daunting or foreign, but within moments, you will know that it is the
place where you belong.
If you are already signed up, get ready. Because the summer
of 2013 is gearing up to be the best one yet.
