By Rabbi Jim Bennett, Congregation Shaare Emeth

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote:

“A thought has blown the market place away: there is a song in the wind and joy in the trees. The Sabbath arrives in the world, scattering a song in the silence of the night. Eternity utters a day. Where are the words that could compete with such might? Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to the holiness in time. Six days a week we wrestle with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of Eternity planted in the soul. The world has our hands, but the soul belongs to someone else. Six days a week we seek to dominate the world; on the seventh day we try to dominate the self – to set apart a day a week, a day on which we could not use the instruments so easily turned into weapons of destruction, a day for being with ourselves, a day on which we stop worshiping the idols of technical civilization, a day of armistice in the economic struggle with one another and with the forces of nature.”

Today is a cool, sunny, gorgeous summer day at camp.  We are approaching the first Shabbat of the first session of GUCI 2014 and it has been a magnificent week!  It has been incredible watching a community form; it already seems as if we have been here together for weeks!  The energy of the camp community begins early in the morning as the kids and counselors wander up from their cabins, wiping sleep away from their eyes, and welcome a new day singing the Shema and other morning prayers and songs.  Breakfast brings the building energy that continues through the day, as all the different units go their separate ways, learning, playing, swimming, and creating memories as they go.  There is seldom a moment when you can’t hear the sounds of laughter, song, shouts of joy and more carrying on the wind, and simultaneously, there seems never to be a moment when you don’t see friendships forming and caring interactions taking place.  This is a place where people really care about each other, and where our Jewish values play out in every moment of everyday.

Our camp study theme this first session is built around some of the middot, or character traits, that our Jewish tradition celebrates, things like hospitality and honesty and caring for ourselves and others, and similar values that help to create a true community.  As the kids are learning, they are living, these values.  It is really amazing.

And as Rabbi Heschel taught, we encounter this moment of Shabbat, the Shabbat of our week, and the Shabbat of our summer break, as a time set apart from the instruments, the technology, the struggles that fill most of our lives.  Here, we are at one with nature and with ourselves.  Here we are a community.

We can’t wait for the Shabbat walk this evening, that will us to our outdoor Shabbat services under the trees, and our amazing Shabbat song session after dinner, and to a campfire outside under the stars.  Tomorrow will be filled with Shabbat rest and relaxation, and then a new week will begin on Sunday and it all begins anew. Shabbat Shalom!