Diamonds in the Mountains

     For those of you who know me or follow my posts, you must be quite aware of my feelings about the importance and meaning of a summer camp experience.  This holds for the campers as well as the counselors.    Personally, the four weeks I spend at Camp Ramah Darom are four of the most rewarding weeks of my year.  I have the pleasure of teaching in an environment that is all about being open to new learning experiences.  Education at camp is the EXPERIENCE -  being, doing, creating - not just listening and passively receiving.  I am enriched socially, spiritually, intellectually, physically  and professionally from everyone around me, the youngest campers in the Gan to the oldest staff members, rabbis, teachers, kitchen staff.
     This summer, I had the opportunity to stay for an extra week and help staff Camp Yofi, a camp for families with children with autism.  Camp Yofi (Yofi means beauty in Hebrew) is an award-winning program that has been around for 10 years.  The name is a perfect description of the Camp.  The "regular" camp session finishes on a Monday.  In 48 remarkable hours, Camp Ramah Darom turns over to accommodate 25 families with kids with autism.  The staff gets trained, the programs get planned, the physical surroundings get prepared.
     During the week, the parents have the opportunity to do "camp activities" while their children go to their own activities paired with a designated-just-for-them-counselor.  The siblings have special programming as well.   My role at Camp Yofi was working with the older siblings of the children with autism.  This week is also a special, much-needed time for the brothers and sisters of the children with autism.
      That week, I cried, I smiled  a lot, I laughed hard, I sang, I danced.  Everyone did.   Kids performed at the talent show, they sang at the top of their voices during prayer, they got gleefully covered in messy goo during  "ooey gooey sticky night" where they played with shaving cream, ooblick, sand, beads all while the staff and counselors formed a "human fence" around the soccer field.  Each time there was an all-camp activity, our human fence just formed, no questions asked.  The staff instinctively go to their positions to "fence off" an area.  Safety is always of the utmost concern at a summer camp.  This concern exponentially increases with Camp Yofi.  A child can run at any time.  And run fast.  There are countless places they can disappear up in the mountains.  We are all on super-vigilant watch at all times.
     Each segment of our population at Camp Yofi  -  the parents, the kids, the counselors, the staff - shared a week that created lasting impressions.  Some of mine are (in no particular order):

• Seeing the teenage and young adult Ramah staff interact with campers in ways that amazed me.  I have a new-found admiration and respect for some of the 19-year olds I worked with on a daily basis at "regular" camp.  These young people performed in ways that moved me to tears.  Seeing them in action with these special young children gives me a sense of hope and comfort when I think about our future leaders.
• Watching a beautiful young girl who is generally non-verbal sing in almost perfect pitch with no mistakes a song from the Little Mermaid
• Seeing the look on parents' eyes as their children were given an award on the last day of camp.  Thunderous applause, photo- and video-taking, pride, smiles.  The entire room burst with love as each child went up to receive a certificate for something special they did that week.
• Being of part of the congregation as two boys each got called to the Torah as they recited the blessings for their B'nai Mitzvah.  
• My feeling of worth each time I passed my friend (and director of Yofi) Susan Tecktiel as she would tell me how happy she was that I was there.
• The sense of community and love as we sang the Camp Yofi song on the last day of camp. 

     Shining, brilliant, beautiful, unique.  Diamonds!  There is a description that fits.  The facets of a diamond play a part in its value.   Diamond facets are the smooth surface areas which have been cut, polished and positioned at different angles which allow light to enter and reflect back from the stone.   This describes my time at Camp Yofi.  Each component of camp -  the people I worked with, the parents, the kids, the physical environment  -  contributed to the value of the experience.   The light that each of us created there reflected back to all the other parts of the whole.  The brilliance of the light is what we all have taken back home with us.  I hope that light will remain inside and be used as inspiration over the course of the year ahead.

     

"Can't find my way home" -Steve Winwood

“Can’t find my way home"

                        ~Steve Winwood     

I love to take walks.  It used to be that I was happy to meander, and perhaps lose my way and spend time trying to figure out my way back.  Something happened as I aged, and my sense of direction has gotten progressively worse.  I often find myself “ferblunged” to use the term my Dad used to say.  I believe that is Yiddish for mixed up or lost. 

I am happy about the invention of the GPS.  It can be a very helpful tool.  It is a device that compensates me for a deficiency that I readily acknowledge I possess. Sometimes all I need is a little support and guidance, and sometimes I require more -  step by step instructions spelled out clearly and precisely.

Last week, while enjoying a stay at the beautiful Barrack Retreat Center in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania for the annual summer board retreat of the Jewish Educators Assembly, I set out on a walk through a local neighborhood adjacent to the grounds.  Past experience in the very same neighborhood (I took the same walk last year) provided the inspiration for my proactive preparations for my inevitable “ferblungedness.”  I was prepared!  I had my Smartphone, which was a new addition from the previous year.  I was going to use the tools it provided me to assist and support me.

I began my walk.  Each time I took a left or a right at a street sign, I took a picture of that sign with the camera on my phone.  So resourceful!  So proactive!  Soon enough I realized that the sun was shining in the wrong direction so the photos were too dark.

I then used the next tool provided for me in my ibag-of-tricks.  The voice recorder!  Each time I turned a corner, I spoke clearly into the recorder narrating my turns.  All I needed to do, the logic in my mind told me, was to play it back as I was reversing direction to return to the retreat center.  My own logic did not take into account exactly how directionally challenged I was.  Somehow, I could not even find the street that I had dictated into the recorder.

Thanks to my technological moreh derech (tour guide),  I still had at my disposal yet another more advanced tool to assist me in my short but now much longer than planned journey.  My map app!   With but a touch of my finger, there I was as a small blue dot moving on a map right in my hand travelling… east? North?  No matter.  I was able to see my route right on my phone as I wended my way out of this dratted neighborhood  (really it was quite nice and well kept) back to the retreat center.

As I reflected on my personal experience, I began to realize that we all have resources at our disposal to assist us in the various meanderings of our lives.  Sometimes we just don’t know how or where to access them. And in our Jewish journeys, there is support available to us to help us navigate and find our way when we need it.  The resources can span the spectrum in terms of level of support.  Sometimes all we need may be a little suggestion, a creative answer to a query, or sometimes the answers require more in-depth action or education:

·         How can I create a meaningful Shabbat with a special dinner and appropriate blessings when I work full time and have no time to cook? 

·         How do I read and understand the Hebrew in my prayer book when I go to synagogue?  I don’t even understand the structure of the service.

·         I am looking for some ongoing discussions about prayer and its meaning.

·         What does it mean to be a Jew in the 21^st century as we navigate a technological world that did not exist in this form when we were growing up and forming our identities as Jews?

I can be your morah derech - your tour guide - as you meander your way through the streets of an uncharted Jewish course.   I will get a sense of your needs, and ultimately assist you in finding your way, with as little or as much support as you require or desire. 

Allow me to offer support and guidance.  And help you determine your course.

You can find me at www.yourjewishlife.com.  For more information or to set up a free consultation, please email Nancy at yourjewishlife@gmail.com

     

"Willing To Be Disturbed"

The title of this post is the name of a chapter from what will surely shortly become one of my favorite books. I have had an article with this title for years, given to me by my friend Terri Jacobson, when we were both members of a Critical Friends Group. The book is called Turning to One Another by Margaret Wheatley ( San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publshers, 2002) She has a wonderful website now, www.turningtooneanother.com.

A Critical Friends Group, or CFG, is a professional learning community consisting of approximately 8-12 educators who come together voluntarily at least once a month for about 2 hours. Group members are committed to improving their practice through collaborative learning. These groups focus on collaboration and what it means to have a true conversation. There are several protocols that are used, all with the goal of creating a safe space for conversation.

There were a few key points in this chapter which resonated for me when I first read it 6 years ago, and these points still resonate for me today. Wheatley writes:

"We have to be ready to move into the very uncomfortable place of uncertainty. We can't be creative if we refuse to be confused. Change always starts with confusion: cherished interpretations must dissolve to make way for the new. Of course it's scary to give up what we know."

And then this beautiful phrase - this phrase takes my breath away:

"but the abyss is where newness lives." 

Ms. Wheatley goes on to say:

"great ideas and inventions miraculously appear in the space of not knowing. If we can move through the fear and enter the abyss, we are rewarded greatly. We rediscover we're creative."

Ms. Wheatley, are you talking to me?

Creativity starts with confusion! This brings to my mind the ultimate of all creative processes - Creation Itself - B'reisheet. There was tohu va'vohu (chaos) before there was anything. Ruach hashem merachefet al p'nei ha mayim. God's energy was hovering and vibrating over the water. That energy has to be there in order to create. I don't know much about physics (apologies to Sam Cooke) and surely my family and all who know me can attest to this - but it makes so much sense. Chaos, confusion, random movement - is the precursor to true creation.

It is a truism in all sectors of thought. Margaret Wheatley nails it when she writes "going into the abyss." A piece of art, a conversation, a book, a religion, a literal universe, all came into being as a result of confusion, chaos, or uncertainty.

So we need to embrace the confusion if we wish to fully immerse ourselves in the creative process. Willing to be disturbed is not the same thing as willing to be afraid. The only certainty is that there will be uncertainty. The main thing, to quote the great Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, is to not be afraid at all.

Korach, Community, and Life’s Lessons

     Community.  The mega word of our faith.  We all know what it can do for us, both the positive things and the negative things.  And in these times, community has a whole new meaning – we are part of a global community, a local community, a virtual community.  With Facebook, Twitter, texting, and other social networks, our communities are larger and more diverse than ever before. 

     Some deride Facebook, and what is doing to our cultural fabric.  But for me, Facebook is another way of community living.  It can be used for good and for the not so good.  Let’s look at this week’s Torah portion, when Korach and his followers were looking to plan a mutiny around the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

Imagine if you will…..

Korach’s Facebook page:  Status:  “Please join me in showing Moses that he and Aaron have gone too far.  Rise up!” 

Korach gets 250  “likes” on his status. 

Wall to Wall between Moses and Korah:  All the community is holy, all of them, and God is in their midst.  Why then do you raise yourself above the God’s community?

Moses posts on Korach’s wall:  Isn’t it enough that God has set you apart as Levites and given you access to him and to the Mishkan?  Now you want more?

Through his Facebook page, Korah was able to assemble 250 people to join him in a rebellion.  In Torah time, it looks like it took no time at all.  Between verses 2 and 19, the forces were rallied, the people were in place at the front of the ohel moed, the tent of Meeting, and they were ready to rumble. 

But in real time, how long do you think it would have taken to prepare for this? 

Technology has given us the tools to be able to accomplish in literally split seconds what before this decade would have taken us days or even weeks to do.

     This is a blessing and a curse.  One strike of a send key and you have done your work.  Lashon Hara has never been this easy. 

     But community it is nonetheless.  And our virtual community can often provide the same things a flesh and blood community can do, sometimes in tandem when necessary.

     This week our southern Jewish community experienced a terrible tragedy.  It does not matter  that we all were not physically present during this tragedy.  The effect has been like ripples in the water - concentric circles beginning with all the teenagers who were on the river that day, emanating outward to points unknown. A horrible accident occurs in Tennessee, and within moments, people in several states, and I can say, countries, are experiencing grief, shock,  profound sadness, and countless other emotions that are too numerous to name here. 

     This event on the Ocoee river during a rafting trip by Camp Ramah Darom’s Gesher age division, changed many people’s lives forever.  A horrific accident where a 16 year old boy has drowned, has transformed many of us, particularly the Ramah Darom community, and our own children, and has raised the concept of community to new heights.

     What ensued after the tragedy was an outpouring of love and support within the structure of camp.  Camp has had no practice in this (thankfully). What is ingrained in our tradition, what we want all of our children to learn, was brought to life and action in full throttle in the mountains of North Georgia. 

     The amount of support, love, and counseling that has gone on there over the course of this week amid the sadness and grief has been phenomenal.  Support system is part of the camp structure.  Different activities which served as outlets for the teens were put into place, overseen by caring staff, who also had to deal with their own grief and shock.  Other Ramah camps offered beautiful letters of support, former staff people rallied to their side, and came up to camp to mourn and support and offer condolences. 

     We as parents were dealing with our own emotions at home, unable to hug our own children during this heartbreaking time.   But what got us through this was the knowledge that our children were in the best possible environment and with the best possible people to deal with what they were going through.  This is community.  When our kids come out on the other side of this, they will have experienced the most profound community building.

     The parents of Andrew Silvershein z”l, through their grief, also see the beauty of our Ramah community.  They have set up a memorial scholarship fund in his honor, because they too know, what this community can do to our youth, and for our youth.

     Taking advantage of community for not so savory reasons will still go on, as it did in this week’s Torah portion.  But taking advantage of community in the way I have experienced this week, in the face of this terrible tragedy – this is what we need to teach our children and each other.

Shabbat Shalom.  

Tirdefi Nafshi Oz

Tirdefi nafshi oz:  “March on, my soul, with courage.”  

Ever since I read that verse in the Song of Deborah, it has been resonating in my mind.

The Song of Deborah is a very long haftarah chanted every year on Shabbat Shira.  This Shabbat has a special name because it is the Shabbat of Parshat B’Shallach, in which the Children of Israel, lead by Moses, cross the Sea of Reeds as they make their escape from Mitzraim and the tyranny of Pharoah.   Moses and the Children of Israel sing the Song of the Sea as they cross.  Miriam the prophet, Moses’ sister, takes a timbrel in her hand and leads the women in their own song.

The Song of Deborah comes from the Book of Judges.  Deborah was a judge and a prophet, and sings her song in celebration of divine salvation; as did the Children of Israel sing their song in divine salvation.

Often, a verse will jump out as you read.  It strikes a chord, it has a good cadence, it speaks to you.  The verse “tirdefi nafshi oz” jumped out at me, for all of the above reasons.  Sometimes the terseness of the phrase is conversely related to the depth of its meaning.

At the end of a sad week in January which happened to also coincide with one the worst snowstorms to hit Atlanta, this verse in the haftarah was there for me to read.  Wow.

I had spent the week leading up to Shabbat shaking my head in sorrow and disbelief for two unrelated events.  Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords from Arizona was shot point blank in the head as she was meeting her constituents at a shopping center.  Debbie Friedman, songwriter, song leader, and teacher extraordinaire, died from pneumonia at an LA hospital.   I read all I could about the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords.  I had also spent two hours on a snowed-in Monday afternoon watching and listening to the live feed of the funeral of Debbie Friedman.  These two events converged to create a need for me to “call up the reserves” of my soul and to march on with courage.

Perhaps we could have heard these two heroic women chanting this same verse:

“Tirdefi nafshi oz”, chanted Gabrielle Giffords  as she led her supporters in a place where it was difficult to spread her ideas, and now as she struggles to recover from a gunshot wound to her brain.

“Tirdefi nafshi oz” chanted Debbie Friedman, as she struggled with, and ultimately succumbed to an illness that ended her incredibly powerful life.  A life of song and spirit, whose words, each time I listened to them or sang them with her, moved me to a place that allowed my soul to march on with courage.

In one of Debbie’s most well-known songs,  Mi SheBerach, Debbie sings a phrase “help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing”.  In these times in which we live, it becomes more imperative and indeed necessary to find the courage to make our lives a blessing, as well continue to summon up our souls to march on with courage.

May the memory of Debbie Friedman be a blessing for all of us.  And may we continue to recite the MiSheBerach for Congresswoman Giffords for her refuah shlemah, her speedy recovery.

How Hebrew Schools Are Turning The Corner

How Hebrew Schools Are Turning The Corner

A Whole New World

After spending 90 minutes figuring out how to set up a blog, I have officially entered into the world of techno-musings.  Scouring one of my favorite Hebrew texts, the Ethics of Our Fathers, I came upon one of my favorite quotes to be the title of the blog.   I often use this book to look for meaningful quotes to use for lectures, classes, workshops, or just plain pithy sayings.  There will always be a relevant quote to suit my need or mood. This is one of the beautiful things about Jewish liturgy:  it is chock full of useful phrases and clauses to enhance, enliven, or enrich.  Often, when students (adults and children alike) complain about the fact that prayer does not speak to them, or that they have a difficult time, I will tell them that it is completely acceptable to find one or two phrases that speak to them - words that move, uplift, enlighten, or even confuse.  Repeat the words - two, three, four times in a row.  There is beauty and meaning in the repetition.
Words are not always easy for me.  I feel that the English language (or the Hebrew language, for that matter) is often deficient when it comes to matters of spirituality and emotions.  I am hopeful that writing regularly will stir up my lexical pot.  The entire quote from Ethics of Our Fathers is "You are not obliged to finish the task, neither are you free to neglect it."  And so I begin.