The summer
after I finished 4th grade and my mother finished law school, my
sister and I were shipped off to sleepaway camp in the mountains of West
Virginia for four weeks. My mother was
studying for the bar exam, and she decided that this would go a lot better if
we weren’t around. In my memory, it went
something like the scene from Poltergeist (“Get Out”), but in reality, I’m
sure it was a much gentler experience, where our parents deposited us at camp
with loving hugs and promises to send care packages.
I loved
camp. Living in a cabin full of girls my
age, giggling and singing songs and doing scavenger hunts and washing our hair
in the rain, was about as good as it could get.
Somehow, even making the bed didn’t seem like such a chore when it
wasn’t your mother telling you to do it.
Rebecca
started going to sleepaway camp the summer after first grade. She started with three days of Girl Scout
camp, then a week. For the past two
years, she has gone to Camp Newman, a Union of Reform Judaism (URJ) camp that
is a few hours away in Santa Rosa. This
camp had me at Hello. It was everything
that I liked about Girl Scout camps – the fun, the silliness, the friendship –
but with a halo of Jewish values wrapped around it. From Newman’s mission statement:
Our mission is to inspire campers and staff to take camp home and apply their Jewish learning to their daily lives, ultimately bettering themselves, their communities and the world.
We fulfill this mission by creating a spiritual oasis that bestows on campers and staff enhanced self-esteem, a more positive Jewish identity, a greater knowledge of Judaism and lifelong friendships. We create an enriching, enjoyable community of living Judaism for all ages, all seasons and all of life.
Last
summer, Rebecca had mixed feelings about going back. In fact, she was pretty much set against
it. Although I had hastily shoed in her
enrollment during one of her narrow windows of nostalgia, she reacted with
horror when I told her that a slot had actually opened up for her. “I don’t want to go!” she shouted, furious
with me for actually doing what I said I was going to do.
“You’re going,” I replied. End of discussion. I wanted to wave my white scarf like the
devil who wears Prada and say, “That’s all.”
I had my reasons.
The weeks
leading up to camp last summer involved a slew of emotional exchanges about how
awful camp was going to be. “They make
us pray all the time,” she complained. I
bit my tongue, knowing full well that they were swimming and playing a lot more
than they were swaying. Nonetheless, I
suggested that she might be more receptive to prayer in her life, being a year
older, and that if she got bored with the prayers, she could just think about
what was in her heart. “That’s what prayer
really is,” I reasoned.
She
insisted that 10 days was too long to be away.
I failed to correct her with “It’s actually 12 days,” figuring that once
she was there, it would be hard to keep count.
Two days
before she left, we were doing some last-minute shopping for a bathing
suit. “Camp Newman has ruined my entire
summer!” she screamed to all the
shoppers in the Sports Authority parking lot.
It was an interesting observation, given that Camp Newman hadn’t even
happened yet. “What a great attitude,” I
shouted back. “You’re right. If you’re going into it with that attitude,
you’re definitely going to have a horrible time. Why don’t you spend the rest of your summer
playing on Poptropica instead!!”
After I
collected my Mother of the Year award, I started to feel pretty bad. I really believed in the Newman
experience. But was I doing the wrong
thing by forcing it on an unwilling child?
Where did this fall on the list of decisions you do and don’t let your
child make?
Fast
forward to July 29, 2012, when we picked Rebecca up from the bus. She was buzzing with excitement. She chattered the whole way home, sharing one
story after another about her camp experience.
She talked about the night they spent tent camping in the wilderness,
the highlight of her week. She described
the games they played to build trust and teamwork. She recounted a beautiful and moving evening
when each of the girls shared something about her personal fears. “Everyone cried,” she told us. She commended the chef for always making
peanut butter an option. She proudly
presented the beautiful candles she had made for Ted as a birthday present in
Arts & Crafts. And she did so with
such confidence and energy that I couldn’t help but feel proud. “And I want to go back for three weeks next
year,” she said, unprompted.
I was
trying to play it cool, but inside, I was ecstatic. Why?
Because Camp Newman is the closest thing Rebecca has to living with a
Jewish identity. Our home life, with the
exception of Ha-Motzi, is remarkably secular.
Ted isn’t Jewish, Paula isn’t Jewish, most of the girls’ friends aren’t
Jewish. But for two weeks, Rebecca lived
a daily life that made her feel connected to and happy with who she is. And for a pre-teen girl, I can’t
think of anything more important.
Did Rebecca
bring home and incorporate her Jewish learning into her daily life, as is the
camp’s mission? I don’t know. She still silently plots the day when she
will take revenge on me for making her go to Sunday School. She still refers to prayers in Hebrew as “a
bunch of gibberish.” But there are
things I care much more about: tolerance, kindness, humility, generosity, gratitude,
respect for nature… all Reform Jewish
values, and all things I see developing in
her as she gets older. Of course, they're not exclusively Jewish values - but they're not exactly cultural norms in today's world, either. I have to believe
that immersion in a community that actively proclaims and practices its values every day,
even for just a few weeks, supports the foundation from which she is growing.
As the mad
scramble of summer camp planning commenced for 2013, we faced a cornucopia of
options to enrich our kids’ lives and keep them entertained. But the one we committed to first was Camp Newman. I can’t wait to hear this year’s stories.
