By Rabbi David Locketz, Bet Shalom Congregation, Hopkins, MN, Avodah Segel
Yesterday was not a regular day at Camp. It was Maccabiah games…our version of color wars. Wednesday night, with great fanfare, the chanichim were all broken up into four different teams…red, white, blue and silver. It is no small feat to create a day full of special activities for hundreds of kids. Every inch of camp is used and the entire staff (a couple hundred young adults!) all had to be shuffled and redistributed and re-tasked to make it work. Major kudos goes to the few folks who organized the entire day. They successfully managed 500 people through this event. As a member of the faculty, I helped lead an all camp service to start the day off and then I was literally on the side lines for the rest of the day watching. What I saw was really great.
As I watched the kids having a fun day, I couldn’t help but be carried back to my time on staff at camp when we did something similar, but on a much smaller scale. We used to do an all camp triathlon, which involved running partway around the lake, swimming back and then going through an obstacle course. Camp has gotten so much bigger in the years since I was a camper and staff member, but ostensibly, it is still the same. The feeling is the still the same. The smiles are still the same.
So the triathlon has become a whole day of amazing and creative activities. And EVERYONE participates in some way. There was something for everyone as the tasks called on all kinds of skills and each camper was given the opportunity to come forth in their own way with their own special strength. Each group created a cheer…partly in Hebrew and partly in English. They each made their own creative version of Abraham Lincoln’s hat. And of course there were contests of a more physical nature. There were water races, gaga games, and a major relay race that culminated with climbing the Alpine Tower. I couldn’t help but kvell from a distance as I witnessed my own daughter running through camp with a baton.
And that was when I remembered my own running of the triathlon way back when. I was on staff and there were two winners…one a staff member the other one a camper. I won the staff title that year…only three staff members participated. But I lost to the camper who went on to be an Olympian. That camper was Garrett Weber-Gale. But that is OK because everyone is not a champion and that is an important lesson to learn. Perhaps summer camp is the place to learn that lesson while in a true community of support.
It so happens that the red team won the Maccabiah. But everyone had a great time. Everyone displayed fervor for competition, sportsmanship, friendliness and enthusiasm…and perhaps most importantly…menschlikeit. When they announced the scores, they started with fourth place…and the cheers were just as loud for each of the four teams even though only one of them was named champion. Whether the campers could put it into words or not, they seemed to understand that there could only be one winner, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun and fulfilling. And that is OK. It was a very special 4th of July at OSRUI.