Shalom from Camp Ramah in the Poconos, where I am surrounded by pine trees, an amazing Israeli, international and American teaching and counseling staff, and many eager campers -- including my own ten-year-old who is experiencing her first full-month summer session experience, and my seven-year old who bunks with me, but is very busy with her own cohavim bunk during the day.
I have just finished my last teaching session of the day, and thought I would check in with you. I am responsible for teaching the Judaism and Environment and Getting Ready for Your B'nei Mitzvah & Adulthood courses. I have also just been asked to give a Dvar Torah on Parashat Chukim, this Shabbat. Teaching at Camp Ramah, outside in the fresh air with campers, is VERY different than teaching in the weather-controlled confines of a suburban synagogue setting. Informal education requires a lot of cutting, pasting, creativity, and above all, patience and FLEXIBILITY. In the middle of a unit today, I had campers making value-based decisions based on colored paper which I paper-punched in small squares and put in various cups this morning,. In the middle of the lesson, the wind picked up and took my cups with it. So you improvise and smile ... a lot!
For the Dvar Torah on Chukkat, I want to focus on that moment when Moses loses his sister, Miriam, and then is immediately confronted with the people demanding water. Moses, as you might recall, disregards G-d's instructions to talk to the rock, and instead, hits it -- getting water but denying him the opportunity to enter into the Promised Land, because he disobeyed G-d.
With the campers help, I want to talk about anger -- and how easy it is for us to lose our cool. Informal education requires a lot of interaction and validation, so I will want the campers to share with me what triggers make them lose their cool. I will explore what tactics they might employ, if they could anticipate those triggers, in order master their emotions rather than have their emotions master them. I will especially, based on my own sad experiences, warn them about the pit falls of using social media, from E-mail to Facebook, to express anger in a large forum. Finally, I will want to share with them the teaching from that 1800 year-old treasure trove of rabbinic wisdom, Pirkei Avot, which states: "Eizeh gibor -- Who is mighty? One who can control his passions." (Of course easier said than done!)
On an unrelated note, just before the rock-hitting story, Miriam, Moses' sister dies, and the next verse in the text proclaims that there was no water. Based on the proximity of these two events, the rabbis speculate in the Midrash, B'midbar Rabbah, that during their desert wanderings, there was a well of water which accompanied the Israelites because of Miriam's virtues. This water source was called Miriam's Well. When Miriam died, the well disappeared, and THAT is why the people thirsted for water. In remembrance of this Midrash, and in celebrating the important role of Miriam, and by extension, several other key women in the Exodus story (Shifra, Puah Yoheved, Batya and Tzipporah), a Cos Miriam, a Miriam's Glass, filled with spring water, is now placed on many Passover tables, sometimes next to Cos Eliyahu, the traditional cup reserved for Elijah the Prophet the harbinger of the Messiah.
Discovering the source of Miriam's Cup in this week's Torah portion might serve as my "hook" to get the Ramah campers into my bigger subject of anger management, something I think both tweens at Camp Ramah and adults alike, can relate.
L'hitra'ot from Camp Ramah. Will return to my office on July 8th.
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