By Chase Foster, Program and Judaic Studies Director

Hinei mah tov umah naim shevet achim gam yachad –
How good and pleasant it is that we sit together

With the start of a new session at GUCI and the welcoming of 220+ impassioned campers, we get the joy of hearing the stories of everyone’s year. Who had a great time at school, who loved sports, who was in the school play, and so many more. Every story helps us to learn about our campers, and every story gives us an avenue into the ways we can engage our campers with their passions.

We are familiar to hearing stories at camp, and not only from our campers. Counselors tell stories during lights out programs. Unit Heads tell stories throughout the day, and Faculty members tell stories around the campfire. This final tradition, of a story on Shabbat around the campfire is an iconic GUCI moment. Generations of GUCI campers have been regaled with stories of the Ball Shem Tov and so many others stories steeped in our faith’s values.

That tradition was the springboard for our Kallah Bet 2015 educational theme: GUCI Storytellers. We will be exploring as a camp, as units, as cabins, and as individuals fifteen stories and the Jewish values that these stories teach.

Our stories come from a variety of sources. We will explore the story of Jonathan & David and other stories from TaNaKh. We will learn the stories of Nachshon and Honi the Circle Maker from Midrash and the Talmud. We will read from the great Yiddish author I.L. Peretz and so many more. In each of these stories, we will challenge ourselves and our community to examine the values that come from these stories.

Yesterday, we began this journey in our first All-Camp Shiur. Sitting around a (fake) campfire, we began our learning by singing together. Then, Rabbi Mark Miller of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, MI, enchanted us with a beautiful story about the importance of community that became the impetus for our packed 90-minute program. Our cabins planned bonding activities for other cabins, we created moments for diverse conversations between campers from different units, and we offered moments for every person to reflect individually on their role in our camp community.

The program was a beautiful beginning to our session. Seeing Anaf campers meeting with Shoresh campers and Geza campers with Garin campers to learn about each other and their excitement for the month ahead was both cute and inspiring. To see our entire community thinking about the importance of our camp’s openness and welcoming nature was a striking foundation for all of our interactions for the next four weeks.