HaMirpeset Shelanu - Issue 41: Nivonim Speech from Ari Feldman

Ari Feldman

Shabbat Shalom and Erev Tov.

Something I was told even before my Nivo summer started was that when Nivo ends, your adulthood truly begins. That is, your childhood ends. This sentiment makes sense; the majority of our aidah will be heading to our junior year of high school filled with tests, college visits, and pivotal decisions to make. In most ways, we will need to take a very adult perspective on our future, because so much will be decided in the next two years.

I have heard many other things the end of Nivo represents besides the end of childhood. The end of irresponsibility. The end of things being just about you, rather than for the good of the aidah. These are all very real observations, and I'm sure in the next 72 hours all possible meanings the end of this summer could be will be revealed.

In a sense, many of these metaphors are just distracters. After all these years, after all these experiences, it is impossible to miss the obvious. The unadulterated truth, painful and simple: my life as a camper at Machaneh Ramah B'Visconsin has ended. Other than my immediate family, this place has played the largest role in determining what kind of person I'm going to be. If you were to ask me to list my Top 10 favorite places in the world, the majority of them would be here: the sifriyah porch, the giva, the photo trail, and so on. No matter the weather, thunderstorm of the century or the perfect day afterwards, I am more at home at camp than almost anywhere else. But what is it truly that makes this place unique? I asked myself this question and the answer seemed to be that it is just more real. But what does that mean?

In Plato's book, "The Republic" he tells his disciple Glaucon about a cave which is an allegory about how humans view reality. In the cave, human beings are chained so that they are completely immobile, and can only see one wall of the cave. At the back of the cave there is a great fire, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walkway with a low wall in front. On this walkway there are people carrying figures of humans and animals. The fire casts shadows of the carried objects on the wall. The prisoners, who have been sitting in front of the wall their entire lives, perceive the shadows as reality.

If one of the prisoners (because truly that is what they are) was unchained and allowed to leave the cave, he would come out into the blinding sunlight and experience an entirely new world of interaction. This place would be like nothing he had ever dreamed of. It would take him a while to get used to it, but without a doubt he would feel compelled to run back to his friends in the cave and tell them about his new discovery. But if he went back, his friends would not begin to understand what kind of experiences he had in this new, higher reality.

When I first came to camp, it felt like I was being unshackled, let into the sunlight. It was as though I was being introduced to a new plane of existence, one in which the relationships were capable of going so much deeper, beyond shadows on a wall. As with Plato's Cave, camp's light was so blinding that it took a couple years for me to begin to see it's true benefit. Some friends I had in the younger aidot left because they didn't see beyond the blinding light. But once your eyes adjust, camp opens up to you, and this new reality is introduced.

Instead of camp being more real than the outside world, it is rather a different, enhanced reality, and kinder and more stimulating emotionally and relationship-wise. In the cave that represents the world outside of camp, relationships can seem foggy and hazier. At camp we discover totally new ways in which to interact with people, deeper ways to connect. We find that we have the courage to emotionally invest so much in some people, and tell them secrets that might never be told to those outside of camp. So much life happens here on a day-to-day basis, and the exchanges between people are much more meaningful. At home sometimes I'll go through weeks without having a long, thoughtful, conversation in earnest with a school friend. At camp I can't even go a few hours.

I think my Bogrim summer was when camp truly became this new reality. I had been having amazing summers before that, but it wasn't until two years ago that I began grasping some of the fundamental differences between camp's world and outside of camp. When I came back, I made many new friends that year in my freshman year of high school. When it came time for me to go back to camp for Machon, my school friends didn't understand. I tried to explain to them how amazing camp is, and what an incredible place it is on so many levels, but they couldn't comprehend what I was saying. Just like those who have been outside the cave, seen the true reality, and now wish to tell their fellow prisoners, their peers don't believe them.

One simply cannot understand camp's effect until one has experienced it first hand. After coming back from camp, it's hard for me to grasp how my school friends can live so contentedly in their relatively unfulfilling reality. In the words of Glaucon to Plato, "You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners." I am mystified , that because they have never been to camp, they will never know what they are missing.

This blissful ignorance for them, and lack thereof for those who do go to Camp Ramah, is one of the main differences between these two realities. To paraphrase Plato, if a person were to meet someone who was in the process of adjusting their eyes either to or from the blinding light of outside the cave, they would not immediately pity them. Rather, they would ask them whether they are adjusting to the outside sunlight, or from it back to the darkness of the cave. The first person would pity the man adjusting his eyes away from his own condition, and would consider the man who was turning to his own condition as happy. What this idea means to say is that those at camp, or outside the cave, are happy to see those coming into the sunlight or to camp. To bring this concept to my life on the other side of this example, when I get back from camp feeling sad and melancholy my friends don't understand my sadness, and tell me that I should be happy to be back at "home".

The question then becomes, how do we spread camp's effect back to the world outside camp, and to those still shackled in the cave? Certainly we can't simply convince them that camp is truly a magical place; those who have not been to the Promised Land have a hard time believing it is truly flowing with milk and honey. With all the changes we go through at camp to become better versions of ourselves, and not just better people, we can affect those around us. Maybe after our friends at home have seen that camp is truly great for us, they will understand. Instead of forcing the idea of our utopian reality upon those in the cave of the outside world, the more we depict with our actions the greatness of camp, the more favor it will gain the eyes of the caved prisoners. In order to make camp's higher reality transcend the boundaries of camp, we must bring back all that we learn about ourselves and how to connect to other human beings.

There are a few people I have to thank. Firstly I'd like to thank Seth Berkman and Jeremy Fineberg, two incredible counselors who helped me at every stage in the writing process of this speech. I would also like to thank tzevet Nivonim for being the best staff I've ever had, and both them and Ben Hofkin for choosing me to have this honor.

This aidah is also my second family. Within this group of people, I always have someone to turn to, someone who wants to spend time with me. So long as I am at camp with my aidah, I am never lonely. However, the greatest thing we have in common, being at camp, will no longer be there to keep us physically together. I have the greatest confidence that you all will be with me, at camp or across the globe, for the rest of my life. You know me the most, and you have known me in my most pivotal and crucial years. You have seen me go from the boy I was to the man that I am becoming. For all this and more, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.