Parshat Re’eh: Looking to the past and the future

Dear OSRUI Families,

It is hard to believe the end of summer has arrived! It has been a great final week at camp! Gesher did an outstanding job hosting our all-camp carnival Thursday night. Moshavah enjoyed their final four-day trip of the summer. Tiferet has been busy preparing for their final show. Tzofim has had a ton of fun swimming, playing sports, and enjoying the Tzofim community. And, Tour La’Agam returns today after completing their 1,000-mile journey around Lake Michigan.

The last week of camp is particularly special as our youngest campers come to OSRUI for the final five days of the summer. This year over 80 campers are here as part of the Kallah Atid program and they have had a packed first two days at camp including climbing the tower, boating, a campfire and s’mores, and a tie-dye project.

Last weekend we welcomed back hundreds of alums for an Alumni Day and groundbreaking ceremony for our new building, Heichal HaTarbut Kaye (Kaye Cultural Center) named for OSRUI’s Emeritus Director Jerry Kaye and his wife Paula.

Alumni day brought together camp alums from every decade going back to OSRUI’s first summer in 1952. It was a great day filled with music, worship, memories, and the community that makes OSRUI special.

The juxtaposition of starting the week with our alums and ending the week with the newest members of our camp community is a powerful way to conclude the summer. Looking around at the Kallah Atid campers loving their first couple of days at camp I know that many of them will go on to be campers for years to come, some will become counselors and unit heads, and decades in the future they will return to OSRUI for an alumni day and think back on this week, their first days at camp.

To me, that image is what camp is all about. The idea of l’dor vador, from “generation to generation,” is lived out here every day as campers learn from their counselors and make friends that will last a lifetime.

Thank you for sharing your kids with us this summer. All of us have loved watching them experience camp, try new things, and have fun as a community!

We wish your family a great school year ahead and we look forward to welcoming our campers back to OSRUI in 2019!

Shabbat shalom,

Solly