HaMirpeset Shelanu - Issue 1
This is the first edition of HaMirpeset Shelanu - Our Mirpeset - a weekly e-mail from Camp Ramah in Wisconsin. When I was a madrich, a rosh aidah, and, finally, assistant director, I loved to end my day on the back porch of the Sifriah, watching the glorious sunsets over Lake Buckatabon. I would reflect on the day, enjoy a few moments of solitude or schmooze with the others who came to see the miracle of sunsets, and prepare myself for whatever evening was coming next on that given day. While I visited the Mirpeset HaSifriah a number of times this summer, I look forward to daily visits as the new director of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin during the 2010 season.
HaMirpeset Shelanu is a place to share ideas, reflections, thoughts about the parashah, news about Camp and about the Jewish world. We hope that as you have news to share with the Camp Ramah in Wisconsin community that you will let us know so that we can include it in the weekly e-mail. We look forward to joining with you, leaning on the railing, gazing out from HaMirpeset Shelanu, and envisioning together what a bright, succesful Camp and Jewish People will look like in the years to come.
Beginnings
This was a week of many personal beginnings. The branch of the gym that I belonged to in Atlanta, LA Fitness, opened up a branch on Randolph St. just west of Michigan Avenue and I went to work out for the first time in months. My first international chevruta with my friend and teacher, Noah Greenberg of Tzfat, who is both an incredible artist and tzaddik, took place on Monday. I learned via Skype with my friend and colleague, Rabbi Baruch Plotkin, for the first time since we were classmates in the Melton Senior Educators Program of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007-2008. And I made my first official enrollment preparation trip to a community this week.
This is a great week for beginnings. While Rosh HaShanah is the "official" beginning of the new Jewish calendar year, the New Year begins for me, in many ways, this week when we return to the first Beginning, to reading Parshat Bereisheet and to starting the annual cycle of Torah readings by recalling the Creation and The Creator. In reading these same narratives each year, we come to the text new - new in perspectives, new in ideas, new in challenges, new in questions and new in understandings. And as we bring this newness to the ancient text of Torah, the text is renewed and resanctified, its specialness and holiness reaffirmed.
I am studying Mesillat Yesharim, The Path of the Just, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, with my friend Noah Greenberg. Written in the early to mid-eighteenth century, Mesillat Yesharim formed the basis of what would become the Mussar Movement or Jewish Moralist Movement in the later half of the eighteenth century. This phone-based learning was not only my first foray into cyber-Hevrutah, it was also my first real time spent delving into this deep Moral text. In our hour on the phone, we did not even make it to the end of Luzzatto's introduction, which was just fine because our conversation was rich and deep.
Luzzatto opens the work by telling his reader:
"This work was not created to teach people things that they don't already know; rather, it is to remind them of that which they already know and to remind them of that knowledge with a major sign"
In introducing us to himself, Luzzatto humbly teaches us something new right away: Beginnings don't always have to be about new things. They can be about starting old things in a fresh way, rediscovering things we already know, learning that which is always deep in our souls, not hiding but waiting to be brought to light once again. This Shabbat, we will revisit Creation, we will be reintroduced to the Creator, we will meet our Mother, Havah, and our Father, Adam, and we will see the beginnings of beauty and joy, fear and shortcomings. And in each of the stories within this first story, we will have the opportunity to see ourselves.
As we begin the New Year of the Torah reading cycle, I hope that this will be a time of Beginnings for each one of us. What new beginnings do you hope for? When God calls out to us "Ayeka?" "Where are you?!" how will you answer? And where will you want to be? I know that I will be thinking about the view onto Lake Buckatabon and the ways that Camp Ramah in Wisconsin can and will continue to enhance my Jewish soul and countless Jewish souls throughout the Midwest.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Loren Sykes
Director
If you are interested in reading Mesillat Yesharim, there is a wonderful new version that was just published and includes both the Hebrew text and an English translation. Titled, The Complete Mesillat Yesharim, the book can be purchased at http://www.alljudaica.com/The-Complete-Mesillat-Yesharim-p/9190.htm
A Hebrew version of Mesillat Yesharim in .pdf format is available at HebrewBooks.org at http://hebrewbooks.org/31536