by Sam Pollak
Judaic Studies Director

This morning we concluded our summer of learning about miracles with a final all-camp shiur (lesson). For the last time, campers heard from the Wizard of Awes, who had promised them the miracle of an amazing summer when the session began. Because Jewish learning is a lifelong journey, the Wizard challenged GUCI one last time to answer the question, “How do we take miracles from camp home with us?”

To meet this challenge, campers engaged in three learning activities. In the Chadar Ochel (dining hall), campers browsed a “miracle museum,” which was made of personal miracle cards they had prepared in their units during the previous week. Campers and counselors discussed how miracles depend on places, times, and people, and they thought about which camp miracles they would want to take home with them.

In the Beit Am, campers discussed Pirkei Avot 1:14, which says, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me. If I am only for myself, what am I. And if not now, when?” The lesson is that the time is always right to perform miracles for one another. As a reminder of this concept, campers made miracle clocks, on which they wrote small things they could do to make miracles for others at any point in the day. Everyone will take their clocks home as a memento of the summer on Sunday.

Lastly, at the Old Pool, campers wrote miracle notes to each other. Each note began “You were a miracle for me this summer! Thank you for…” The notes were distributed later in the afternoon with the rest of the mail. By writing these notes, campers were able to recognize how others made miracles for them, and when they received notes later, everyone was reminded that they contributed to the miraculousness of the summer for someone else.

In the end, the Wizard of Awes revealed that he had been leading GUCI on so many quests this summer in order to help them uncover that each individual in the community has the power to make miracles in someone else’s life. That is the true miracle of the summer, that each and every GUCI-ite helped make the summer amazing.

This was a wonderful and miraculous summer of learning at GUCI. Thank you to everyone who helped make it happen: counselors, unit heads, specialists, and Faculty—and of course to all our campers, too! We are all looking forward to Kallah Bet 2015 when we get to explore Judaism together again!