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Sermon: Parshat Va-etchanan, 7/23/21

07/27/2021 09:13:13 AM

Jul27

Rabbi Charlie

Shabbat Shalom!

Greene Family Camp is a magical place. I spent almost two weeks at GFC helping with services, teaching, mentoring, and participating in everyday activities. It has everything from mountain biking to ping pong to basketball to boating to dance to arts and crafts to 3D printing and so much more. Campers don’t get phones at camp and with fewer distractions, it’s a lot of fun. It’s a great camp – but that’s not why I spend time there.

When I grew up, I went to a Jew-ish camp. It was a camp with lots of Jews, but not a lot of Judaism. GFC is a Jewish camp. It means that every meal begins with motzi and ends with birkat hamazon – blessings of gratitude before and after we eat. It means that during Maccabia – the camp wide color war competition that the campers draw, teach about and sing about the camp’s four Jewish values: Re’ut – friendship, Hineini – being present, Kavod – respect or honor, and Am Yisrael – Jewish Peoplehood.

Right now at GFC, everyone is wearing white, eating a Shabbat dinner of fried or baked chicken, going to services in an outdoor Beit Knesset overlooking the lake as the sun is setting – and that will be followed by modern and traditional Israeli dancing.

And in the process of trying to have a great summer, GFC is a place where the counselors could talk with me about how they were having difficulty with hurtful comments in a bunk. In response, I taught a lesson about lashon hara and how words can hurt. A story and discussion about this important Jewish value led to an open, honest, tear-filled bunk conversation that helped to heal personality disputes and helped a group of young people become a community.

Greene is a place where about a quarter of the staff are Israeli, many who are experiencing Reform Judaism for the first time – and some of them are world class athletes. They are really amazing people. People like Saba Ron – Grandfather Ron Bernstein, who all the kids just love. Ron is a founding member of Kibbutz Yahel in the Negev and he’s spoken at CBI before. He’s been coming to spend his summer at GFC to manage the garden and teach our children about the connections between Israel, Judaism, and nature. He’ll sit with campers in his makeshift Bedouin tent and share stories and his secret recipe tea after they’ve helped him in the garden and he’s given them a sample of whatever’s ripe at the time.

GFC is a magical place because it does everything it can to be intentional about living our values every day. Prayer and Torah, building community, Peoplehood, connection to Israel – Jewish living is alive and well at GFC. It’s a three and half week session where the words of this week’s Torah portion, the words of the V’ahavta, are a part of everything they do:

וְשִׁנַּנְתָּ֣ם לְבָנֶ֔יךָ

teach or impress [these words] to your children…

וְדִבַּרְתָּ֖ בָּ֑ם בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ֤ בְּבֵיתֶ֨ךָ֙ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ֣ בַדֶּ֔רֶךְ

speak of them in your home and on your way…

וּֽבְשָׁכְבְּךָ֖ וּבְקוּמֶֽךָ:

when you lie down and when you rise up.

The Sh’ma and V’ahavta are among the most well known in all of the Torah. These are words that many of us hold dear. And yet we don’t always put them into practice. It can be hard to bring them home from the synagogue and into our home – into our daily lives.

And that’s one of the things that makes GFC such a magical place. It’s one of the things that enables GFC to make such powerful Jewish memories. It’s an ideal – doing Jewish and making Jewish a part of everything we do – that lives at GFC for two powerful months in the summer and on occasional weekends throughout the year. And it’s an ideal – the teachings in Sh’ma and V’ahavta – living with love and devotion, the commitment to living our values, that God and our tradition asks of us and that each of us can strive to live each and every day.

Shabbat Shalom!

Thu, March 28 2024 18 Adar II 5784