HaMirpeset Shelanu - Issue 17: from Jacob Cytryn, Program Director

It is one of my favorite times of the year, and one of the most exhausting: staff interview season. Each year, from mid-January through early March, the professional leadership of Camp Ramah in Wisconsin touches base with the hundreds of candidates for our educational programming staffs. In phone calls and face-to-face meetings; from the barren, snow-covered Midwest (and, at least this year, similarly blanketed Eastern seaboard) to the thawing, pre-Purim Israel; with candidates we meet for the first time in the moment and those we have known for their whole lives, we reconnect, schmooze, and get down to business: staffing the most important positions in the lives of our campers for the upcoming summer.

This is appropriate work at this time of year, as the process we undergo on micro- and macro-levels with the emerging picture of staff for this summer echoes major themes of a three week cycle in Torah readings. Last week we read Parashat Yitro, focusing as it does on the climactic scene at Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments. This week we read Mishpatim, the nitty gritty first glimpse of the Torah's revolutionary, elaborate, and empathetic code of civil law. Finally, next week we read Trumah, where we read of the tangible construction of a deliberate Jewish communal structure in the wilderness (something with which we are quite familiar).

From where I sit, these Torah readings, broadly considered, recall a process that begins with a powerful event that lingers eternally in the mind, coalescing a community and setting the stage for all that follows. In the Torah, this is the revelation at Sinai and God's statement: "I am the Lord your God who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;" for many of our staff it is their indelible experiences at camp as campers and in Israel on Ramah Seminar, developing relationships with their best friends and exploring their Jewish identity. Next, we deal with the specific framework of Israelite society and, in parallel, the professional requirements and parameters of working at camp. Finally, we begin to build something real and precious together.

I ask your indulgence as I attempt to share with you some of the spiritual nourishment and pride I get from speaking to our prospective staff members. I do this in the spirit of one of the earliest phrases in next week's Torah reading: "kol ish asher yid'venu libo," "each individual whose heart moves him to give." This is the spirit of our staff. It is the spirit I have heard this year in Chicago, interviewing our Junior Counselor candidates; in New York City at the Jewish Theological Seminary this past week (barely avoiding the blizzard) meeting with undergraduates and graduate students, veterans and prospective staff members; over the phone speaking with more than fifty candidates of all ages, from Palo Alto to Washington, D.C., from Florida to upstate New York; and, next week, on campuses in Ann Arbor, Bloomington, Urbana-Champaign, St. Louis, and Madison.

The spiritual nourishment comes from reconnecting with old friends and getting excited, once again, for the potential of another summer at Ramah. The pride is in our amazing staff as individuals and in the camp as a whole for playing its part in helping to develop many of these young adults, and for attracting such a talented pool of candidates year after year.

There is the veteran candidate who prefers to converse with me in Hebrew, a rare treat for both him and me. The first-year student at an elite school on the West Coast who recently founded a pro-Israel group on campus and, when asked if there was a significant anti-Israel sentiment on campus, responded "not really, but I wanted to make sure we were ready if there is." The palpable joy in the voice of the prospective staff members applying to work at Ramah for the first time when they hear about opportunities we offer in education, the studio and performing arts, and outdoor education. The self-aware and committed undergraduates who are eager to return to camp in specific capacities but ready to move on if camp cannot continue to challenge them and allow for the development of their talents; these staff truly grasp what it means to take responsibility for the effective administration of an educational institution. The names of legendary staff members of the past seven years whom the junior counselor candidates identify as their favorite counselors from their camper years. The staff members pleasantly surprised by the Jewish communities they have found or created on campus, and those disappointed in the challenges they unexpectedly face. These are just a few glimpses into the endless gems that are part of the process of these interviews.

Truly, kol ish, asher yid'veinu libo; each individual whose heart moves him to give. Each one of them.

I conclude with two powerful vignettes from two anonymous junior counselors. I asked each of them, as I do each of our JC candidates, why they wanted to return to camp this summer. Many of their peers respond, as these two did, about growing up at camp and not knowing what else they would possibly want to do during their summer. Other parts of their particular answers struck me as particularly powerful. One spoke of her hope that returning to camp would allow her to continue to "push and develop" her own Jewish identity. She truly sees camp as a crucible in which she is compelled, in a safe and nurturing way, to grapple with who she is as a Jew, to further refine her own self-definition, and therefore to grow as well. The other, wise beyond his years, was able already to acknowledge that the Ramah experience is truly about the campers. He said, "Ramah was an unbelievable experience for me - it really shaped my childhood. And as much as I want to go back to the place and the setting and the people, I recognize the importance of providing other kids with the same experience I had. Experience through other people's eyes the great experience I had there. Secondarily - I love the place so much."

In this wild and crazy tail-end of winter, as the Torah moves us ever-forward towards the building of the mishkan, my heart is warmed by the opportunities to interact with our staff, ever so briefly. It is a process we need not take for granted; not every camp invests the time we do reconnecting, visiting campuses, chatting about coursework, extracurricular activities, Jewish life on campus, and ideas for camp. It is one of many parts of my work for Ramah that I truly love, one that reminds me of the first crucial step in the process of building our Ramah community every year - our talented prospective staff dedicating themselves to give of themselves. Indeed, kol ish, asher yid'veinu libo.