by Rabbi Jill Crimmings, the Rabbi Educator of Congregation Bet Shalom in Minnetonka, MN, and Gesher faculty.

One of the best parts about coming to camp each summer is escaping the noise of the outside world and immersing fully in the day to day beauty, joy, and drama that is camp.  There is life to be lived here, memories to make, friendships to build, and regardless of one’s role at camp, each individual is part of the magic that happens here.  

There are few other places where life is this real.  Where time stops and you can sing, dance, play, and talk.  Where you can be the person you never thought you could be.  There are few other places where I can watch and be part of a spiritual evolution of a group of people over such a short period of time.   The transformation of tefilot (services) in Gesher over the past week has been an unbelievable thing to be part of.  For so many campers who are here for the first time, things that once felt foreign now feel so natural.  There are few other places where I can sit in shorts and a t-shirt and be part of a conversation that transitions from the mundane to the holy so organically.  “I have two cats at home.”  “So I have a question – who wrote the Torah, like I mean, who actually wrote it?”  

Camp is one of the few places that feels so intimately and undeniably real, and also so removed from reality.  As deeply engaged as I am in camp life, I also haven’t entirely removed my connection to the outside world, though the poor wifi connection does help.  I have not gone a day without checking my e-mail or, for better or worse, reading the news.  I am painfully aware that while I am here, helping to create and nourish experiences that will build up the next generation, it feels as if the world on the other side of these gates is falling apart.  There is a desire to turn off and shut out the outside world, and that is, in many ways, the easiest path.  But it is not the path we desire for ourselves, or ultimately for the chanichim (campers).  Camp is not about escaping for the sake of escaping.  It is about finding ways to apply that which we learn about ourselves and each other toward bringing peace to a world in need of mending.

The session will be over before we know it. We will all return home and will be forced to face the reality of the world around us.  The hope is that the time we spend together here at camp will help us return as better people.  As people more aware of who we are, what we value, and what we are capable of.  This morning the chanichim in Gesher talked about what it means to be a leader in our different communities and how we can bring the leadership we develop at camp back home.  The conversations were inspiring and give me confidence in the next generation of Jewish leaders.  As we all struggle to reconcile the multiple realities in which we live, we pray that the experiences we are having here at camp will help us move our world forward from strength to strength.