Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting the writings of some of our former chalutzim and some of our own staff members. This week, I will share a write-up from one of our counselors, Hannah Samet who, along with Jordan Anderson, attended a weeklong training for over Ramah staff members (from all our camps) that takes place annually in Ojai CA. Hannah is returning to Ramah Outdoor Adventure this summer as a counselor and Rosh Edah for our youngest Chalutzim.
Posts
Dear Blog readers:
I want to share a letter with you that is being sent to all our camper families. Filling our sessions too early is a terrific “problem” to have, and we look forward to many more similar problems in the months and years ahead.
Two Week Camping Now Available for 5/6th Graders in Session I
January 1st marks the beginning of the secular new year, and even though I am a Jewish camp director who feels much more connected to the Jewish new year, I could not help but take a few moments this past weekend to reflect on the year that had passed and the year ahead. I found myself “Googling” Ramah Outdoor Adventure and came across many of the writings and videos I have posted over the past three years as well as the various articles that have been written about this new camp. My secular new year turned into a trip down memory lane.
On Sunday night we had our annual gathering in Denver to celebrate the Ramah camp we are creating here in Colorado. Thank you to the 250+ people who participated in the event. Below, I will paste the words spoken by our own Emilie Helfand. She won an essay context to fly to Denver and read her thoughts about camp at the dinner. In addition to a few speeches, we aired a new video that is directed more towards the fundraising side of the project than the recruitment side. Take a look at this link. Much of it might look familiar.
On most mornings, I begin my day with a few minutes of davening (prayers) while looking out of the picture window. Usually, I am joined in the living room by my twenty month old son Matan, who dons his own tallit (“feefeet” as he call it) and sits next to me holding a small blue siddur. I treasure these moments together because I know that they are helping to forge his own Jewish identity, and because they are a constant reminder of the responsibility I have as a parent to set a good example, as he mimics my actions. While I wish I could say that I have deep religious experiences on most mornings, more often than not, my prayers are said by rote with only a little more kavanah (intention) than I would have if I were reading the New York Times. Inevitably, after a few minutes Matan becomes bored sitting next to me and motions that he wants to head to the kitchen to eat. I usually hurry through the rest of my teffilot and move on with my day.
At Ramah Outdoor Adventure, we pride ourselves on creating a counseling team made up of some of the finest counselors in the camping industry. For the past three summers (we began staff training in 2009) we have assembled a group of relatively older counselors who are able to execute our camp’s mission and build intensive Jewish programming that relates to our camp’s core values. After each of the past two summers, the compliment I heard most often from our chalutzim and parents was just how amazing our staff is and how they created a magical atmosphere where our chalutzim were able to thrive. As we grow, we are committed to maintaining this extraordinary level of staffing and to hire only the most motivated and passionate of college and post college age counselors.
This was a letter sent to all parents today. Our email crashed while sending the letter, so many people might not have received it.
As we enter the Sukkoth holiday later this week, when we move outdoors to eat our meals in the sukkah, I am reminded of the incredible experiences I shared this summer with your children and our incredible staff. While enrollment for 2012 is well underway (we have close to 50 campers already registered!) we are still evaluating lessons learned from last season and are considering how we are going to improve and expand the camp program for 2012.
I want to thank all the parents who provided us feedback on the customer satisfaction survey, which was administered by a third party organization to ensure anonymity. The first 25 pages can be read here. As you can see, we have made improvements in most key areas and continue to rank higher than the national average in many categories. We are especially pleased that so many campers said they would highly recommend this camp to their friends.
If you do not have time to read all 25 slides here are the “headlines” from the results:
n We made huge improvements in all areas related to Spiritual, Cultural and Religious life.
n We received improved ratings on cabins/tent accommodations.
n We received twice as many “excellent” scores for the bathroom/shower facilities compared to 2010.
n We scored very strong ratings on all areas related to cost.
n Our campers’ ratings up across the board compared to 2010.
That being said, we know that we must continue to improve our program and will be working throughout the off season to ensure that summer 2012 is even better than our initial two seasons.
As always, please do not hesitate to be in touch with any questions or comments.
Chag Samaiach.
Rabbi Eliav
A week ago, the idea of running a camper program geared towards younger campers was but a dream. I am happy to report that five days into session III the dream has become a reality and I now know that the Ramah Outdoor Adventure program works for younger campers as well as it does for older campers. This session, 50 campers are spending time at the chava (ranch). Half are entering grades 3-6 and half are entering grades 7 & 8. While we could have enrolled more campers for the session, we decided to cap this session at seven tents in total in order to allow us to focus our resources on providing excellent programming for these younger campers.
So how have we adjusted our program to suit the needs of these campers?
#1 Alternate schedule: During the rest of the summer we wake up at 6:00am and end our program between 8:00 and 8:30. This session we have moved wakeup until 7:00am in order to allow for extra sleep and end our program by 8:00pm. While we had thought that our younger campers would need the extra time to sleep as it turns out, many our campers wake much earlier and many even leave their tents to hang out outside until 7:00am. We have decided to keep this “later” wake up in place because at this point in the summer our staff greatly appreciate the extra hour of sleep, and for those children who do sleep until 7:00, they are able to have more fulfilling days.
#2 Reimagining goals of program: At Ramah Outdoor Adventure we pride ourselves on teaching in depth skills to our older chalutzim. It is for this reason that we ask all chalutzim entering grade 7-10 to choose specific activities at base camp on which to focus. No one in grades 7-10 comes to camp and tries all that we have to offer on our ranch. For our younger kids, we look at our educational program differently. This session, every chalutz entering grade 3-6 will have the opportunity to try almost every activity we have at base camp. Because they are being exposed to each activity, they only spend an hour and ten minutes during this short session in any given area. As a result, the goal of the activity is less about learning in depth skills, and more about having a fun experience that they might want to build upon in a future summer. This session our older campers (those entering grades 7 & 8) are continuing with the more skills based learning model that we used the first six weeks of the summer.
#3 Greater emphases on song and dance: Compared to last year, our teffilot (prayers) throughout the summer have been much improved. This session, Rabbi Ranon Teller (AKA Rabbi “T”), has joined us as our Rosh Teffilah. Rather than assign him the task of overseeing all of the Teffilot at camp, I asked Rabbi “T” to focus his energies on creating lively services for the youngest two groups of campers. Rabbi “T” has put together an age appropriate siddur, he has infused the service with fun stories and easy to sing songs. Teffilot for our youngest campers have become a time for song and dance. In addition, during the session, each group will meet with Rabbi T a few times outside of the formal prayer time to learn new Hebrew songs. We are testing this format of having formal time for learning song and dance with the hopes of rolling it out to the entire camp next year. While Rabbi T has focused his energies on the youngest two groups, our sollelim campers (entering 7 &8) have had a chance to experience the best of the teffilot that we developed and ran over the past six weeks. These have included a learners minyan, a musical teffilah and tomorrow, a sunrise hike followed by teffilah and breakfast overlooking a scenic vista.
#4 Perhaps our most important asset this session that has made our first five days such a success is an extra dose of patience. Especially for our staff members who just spent six weeks working with older high school students, making the transition to working with younger campers has taken a great deal of intentionality. They have had to remember that younger campers often take longer to do basic tasks such as brushing teeth, getting dressed or even clearing the tables in the chadar ohel (dining hall). During our intersession, we worked with our counselors to help them understand how an 8 year old is developmentally very different than a 15 year old. Each is able to engage with our core values in their own way, but the demands placed on a counselor of a younger camper are very different from those placed on the counselor of an older camper.
#5 Age appropriate Masa program. As I write, our youngest campers are all sleeping outside under tents and tarps. As everyone at Ramah Outdoor Adventure knows, our masa program is one of the gems of this camp. Each camper has the opportunity to head out into the back country for an excursion. Because of the size of our youngest campers and the limited amount of time available in this session, it is not realistic to send them out for a multi-day experience. (While we did send our 5/6th graders on a three day hike in session II, this was only after they had had three weeks of preparation on our ranch for this excursion). Instead our youngest campers wore day packs for a hike today and a sunrise hike tomorrow. In between they are sleeping at the back of our property so that they get the feeling of sleeping out under the stars, but do not have to carry their gear a great distance. Before they return to camp, they will all have eaten at least two meals around a camp fire of food that they will have prepared themselves. Of course, our oldest campers this session (7&8) are heading out on an abbreviated masa from Wednesday through Friday.
In the camp world, they say that one day of camp is the equivalent of 3 days of life in the real world. This certainly seems to be the case this session, as we are only 5 days into our session, but it seems as though we have been together for weeks. Friendships are being made, inside jokes are being created, and new memories are being formed by all!
Please note: throughout this blog post there are many hyper links. Each one refers to a Youtube video
Our session II chalutzim have left the chava(ranch). Our Madrichim are in the midst of preparing for our session III chalutzim who will be arriving in less than 48 hours. Beds are being moved, bikes are being fixed and the dining hall is being scrubbed. And just like that we have drawn the curtain on our largest session ever at Ramah Outdoor Adventure.
The past four weeks have surpassed our wildest expectations. We biked, climbed, fed buffalo, witnessed fantastic rainbows, crossed snowy mountain passes and bathed in refreshing Colorado streams. We laughed and we cried, we hugged and we played. We shared scrumptious meals around the camp fire and nicely set Shabbat tables in the dining hall. We learned, and we taught. And perhaps most importantly we all grew spiritually, emotionally and physically through our month together at our alpine ranch.
As we bring session II to a close, I wanted to share three vignettes from the past month that capture the spirit of what transpired here. I have embedded youtube clips throughout.
#1 Returning from bike masa: One of the highlights of each session at Ramah Outdoor Adventure is watching the chalutzim return from their masaot (excursions). These chalutzim enter camp after having been away for a few days; they are excited, dirty and full of wonderful stories. We had three bike massaot return to camp this session, and each time the bikers assembled at the top of the hill on the far side of our pasture. They road down the access road coming to a skidding stop in front of the chadar ohel (dining hall) where they began singing the cheer they wrote while on masa, and then launching into our trademark “Shabbos is coming, we’re so happy” song. The energy these riders brought with them each time they returned was palpable. Most had ridden well over 100 miles up rocky mountain roads and down steep windy paths. All had experienced moments where they thought they could not ride another foot and moments where they felt like they were on top of the world. As they road into camp, they brought these intense emotions with them.
#2 Yom Sport: If I had to describe the day in one word, I would just say WOW! Year after year, yom sport is always one of the highlights of the summer at any Ramah camp. It is hard to pinpoint why children of all ages get so excited about this day of playful competition. From our “yom sport break out” where an olive and a grape debated which one was more important to Jews (check out our session II slide show for a clip), to the actual sports competitions during the day to the singing of the teams’ original songs, all who participated in Yom sport had a spectacular time. Yom sport is one of the loudest days in camp, not only because this year a helicopter landed in the middle of it (bringing some honored guests), but also because when chalutzim are not playing games they can be found walking between activities cheering loudly or standing on the sidelines yelling for their teammates. This year’s yom sport featured a long relay race that included almost every camp activity area on our ranch culminating in a fire building contest where the screaming and cheering reached a near ear popping decibel. I think all can agree that we also witnessed one of the more exceptional “original songs” composed by the yarok (green) team captain, Ethan A. At our closing campfire last night, the entire camp joined in the singing of this upbeat song. It truly became one of the theme songs of the session.
#3 Our Final Havdallah
At camp, we place a special emphasis on our Havdallah ceremony. We form a giant circle with the entire camp and have a chance to give “shout outs” or reflections from the week that passed. We then move into singing havdallah and a series of other songs together. Perhaps more so than any other time at camp, at Havdallah one really feels the sense of community present on our ranch.
This past week, we asked a few chalutzim from each edah (age group) to speak for a few minutes about what camp meant to them. Each spoke in age appropriate way about some aspect of the summer and some memory that they are taking with them. The commonality between all their speeches was that this is a place where kids can come to challenge themselves, live amongst friends in a supportive environment and connect to a larger community. Most of us were in tears by the end of havdallah as we looked around at the faces of the people whom only weeks earlier we barely knew and now had shared such intense experiences.
Alas, all good things must come to an end. And our second session has now drawn to a close. We will miss each and every chalutz/a who walked through our gate. We are left now with only memories, pictures and transformed selves from our time together. As we transition to third session all of us staff members know that we will be even better counselors in session III and form an even tighter community because of the experiences we had with our first two sessions of chalutzim.
Luckily camp opens in 46 weeks. Stay tuned for Tuesday’s email about registering for our 2012 camping season.
-Eliav
P.S. An additional MUST see video is this one by our metayalim chalutzim on the importance of recycling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO4i4CzaQ2Y
It is hard to believe that we are half way through our second session! Our days have been jammed packed, and so I must apologize for not writing more frequent updates over the past two weeks. If you are not a fan of our Facebook page, please become one, as we post frequent updates on camp there.
After another wet evening, the sun is again shining brightly. We began our morning with rocking musical teffilah with the entire camp gathered in our new Pardes Teffilah. Although it was relatively warm this morning, we had 45 minutes of physical exercise before breakfast where we played tag, kick the can, and ran running drills. As I type this letter we have chalutzim (pioneers/campers) who are shooting targets at the archery range, riding horses on the trail, cooking around a campfire, climbing cliff, doing art projects and so much more. Read more
Our Session I chalutzim have been gone for only a few hours, and our incredible staff have begun their first well-deserved day off of the season. Sitting here in Starbucks down in Woodland Park, I have only the warmest memories from the past two weeks. Leading up to the beginning of Session I, many on our staff were anxious about our second season at Ramah Outdoor Adventure. Could we repeat the magic we created in 2010? Would the new chalutzim (pioneers/ campers) bond with the returning campers? Would the new programs we have added this year be as successful as the ones we began last year? Would our new staff work well with our returning staff? Would our attempt to differentiate between different edot (age groups) succeed? Would a two week session, at the beginning of the summer, provide an emotionally moving experience for our chalutzim? These were just some of the questions racing through our minds in the weeks leading up to the opening of the 2011 season.
Please read to the end for housekeeping matters.
This morning was our warmest morning thus far this summer. While most of us woke up after sunrise and put on our fleeces and long pants, we did so out of habit and not necessity, as the temperature hovered in the 60s until the sun rose above the hilltop. The warm morning was a perfect way to transition into our week of masaot (excursions). At 7:30, our first group of Bogrim chalutzim (9/10th grade) boarded their bus to go kayaking on the Arkansas River and hiking in Great Sand Dunes National Park. An hour later, another group headed out for a five day climbing trip on a magnificent rock face, about one hour from camp. This afternoon, our Metayalim chalutzim (5/6th grade) leave for an overnight where they will be mining for quartz in a local quartz seam and feeding buffalo at our neighbor’s ranch. Tomorrow morning, our Sollelim chalutzim (7/8th grade) head out for four days of hiking and rafting or biking.
Lest you think that camp will be quiet this week, last night 50 campers and staff from Ramah in the Poconos arrived at camp. They will be participating in four days of activities here on the Ramah in the Rockies ranch.
All in all, this is certain to be an amazing week at Ramah Outdoor Adventure.
The past few days at camp have been challenging, inspirational and memorable. Since the second day of camp, our horses have been working about eight hours a day taking chalutzim on trail rides around the ranch. Our bikers have explored many of the trails in camp, including some with considerable inclines. Our advanced climbers have spent hours scaling cliffs 100s of feet high, including one who did a multi-pitch climb yesterday; while our beginner climbers have learned the basics of belay technique and the basics of climbing on real rock faces. One of the most popular additions to our program this summer is the new 18 “hole” FROLF (frisbee golf) course designed by a former Ramah in New England Ultimate star, Nadav. Nadav spent all of staff week constructing a course that takes 2-3 days to complete and circles much of the back of our property. In addition to allowing for some terrific FROLF, our course enables our chalutzim to explore areas of the ranch that they might not otherwise see.
While our physical activities have been amazing, we had an incredibly inspirational Shabbat as well. On Friday evening, we gathered in our new amphitheatre, called the Pardes Tefillah (Prayer Grove), for dancing and davening. As usual, we sang Kabbalat Shabbat with a guitar and drums before lighting the Shabbat candles. Our dinner, consisting of fish, beans and rice, was followed by some of the most incredible singing and dancing that any of us have ever heard or seen at Ramah. Shabbat proceeded as planned, with time for collective prayer and learning, as well as lots of free time, when chalutzim napped, played kickball and also hung around to chat with each other. At 9:15 pm we all gathered in front of the Chadar Ohel (dining hall) for our first havdallah of the season. For the first 10 minutes, chalutzim took turns giving “shout outs” to each other as a way to publicly thank others in the group who had either helped them out in the initial days of camp, or with whom they had shared a meaningful moment. It was incredible to see how, after only five days together as a community, we had already come so close to each other and were able to share our inner feelings.
With over a week left in our camp program, I can only imagine how this second week will change our chalutzim and bring them even closer together. While I savor each day here at the Chava (ranch), I cannot wait for next Shabbat when we will again gather in our pardes tefillah, having had six additional days of intense outdoor experiences and meaningful interpersonal bonding.
Now for a few housekeeping matters:
#1 Please note that due to the higher than usual water level in the Arkansas River our rafting company will not take any clients under the age of 12. Therefore, we have had to cancel our metayalim (entering 5/6) rafting trip indefinitely for this session. We were informed of this yesterday, and are still searching for an alternate activity for this Thursday.
#2 For those who are still having issues seeing our pictures, please know that they are kept on a new website. Due to numerous complaints last year, we ARE NOT using the UltraCamp site for pictures. Please contact us directly for a link to the photos.
Shavuot is typically called the “Dairy Holiday” as there is a custom not to eat meat on the chag. And as we prepare for Shavuot we have also been preparing for a major dairy influx at camp.
Throughout the off season we have been reaching out to local food producers and asking them to support our program through discounted pricing or outright donations. Recently, we received a commitment for a large donation of dairy to our food program. Aurora Organic Dairy, a local Colorado milk producer, has offered us a pallet of fresh organic milk. This dairy provides private label milk for companies all over Colorado. They typically do not work with individual organizations like Ramah, as they mainly sell milk by the pallet. Yet Aurora Organic Dairy agreed to make this donation on one condition: we must pick up a full pallet of milk — 480 half gallon containers — at one time!
This was posted on our monthly Constant Contact before Passover: I wanted to share it with the readers of our blog, should people have missed it in the pre-pesach mailing.
On Pesach, as we drink 4 cups of wine, raise 3 matzot and sing about 13 attributes of God in “Who Knows One”, we share a few key numbers of our own…
500 Loaves of organic bread we plan to order from a local bakery
250 Pounds of organic granola we plan to order from a local supplier
240 Gallons of milk we anticipate using this summer
187 Campers currently registered for the 2011 summer season
106 Campers coming to Ramah Outdoor Adventure in 2011 for the first time
41 Campers from Camp Ramah in the Poconos spending a week at the Ramah in theRockies ranch this summer
30 Program staff members who are working in camp this year
24 Campers we are hoping to enroll before opening day
23 States from which campers are coming
14 Horses coming to “work” at camp this summer
13 Camper bunks we will have at camp this summer for session II
12 Hens who will be laying eggs at camp this summer
2 Goats coming to camp this summer (on loan from a local goat farm)
1 Registered camper coming from the state of Wyoming
Part I: Maintaining a positive community
How do we maintain a close‑knit camp community where we all know each other but where there are no cliques, even as we grow enrollment by 75% in one year? This is an issue we are dealing with in the off‑season as we gear up for our second summer with chalutzim (pioneers/campers) at Ramah Outdoor Adventure and our inaugural summer for the Jewish Outdoor Leadership Institute.
BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE SUMMER CAMP
TAMRA L. DOLLIN
PROJECT DIRECTOR, RAMAH IN THE ROCKIES
MARCH, 2011
TAMRA L. DOLLIN
PROJECT DIRECTOR, RAMAH IN THE ROCKIES
MARCH, 2011
Ever wonder what it takes to build a ‘green’ camp from the ground up? What does it mean to build in an environmentally sustainable way? How do you minimize your impact on the land while building a facility to comfortably house hundreds of campers and staff every year? In what way can the physical buildings reinforce the educational values being practiced at camp?
“So what do you do the rest of the year?” This is the question I am most often asked when I tell people that I am a Rabbi/educator who works as a camp director. In most people’s eyes, camp is an eight week job. For the other 10 months, I think that they imagine year round camp staffget to kick back by the pool for hours every day.
This was printed last week in the ejewishphilanthropy.com newsletter. In case you missed it, I am reprinting it here:
by Rabbi Eliav Bock
Last year, while recruiting our first cohort of campers to the county’s only Kosher outdoor adventure camp, Ramah Outdoor Adventure, someone forwarded me a funny video titled Jews Don’t Camp (see above). While clearly intended as some light humor, there is an element of truth in this video. American Jews, as a whole, are not known for their rustic “outdoors-y” nature. Although we are a people whose ancient texts and traditions emerged from an agrarian society, most American Jews live in urban settings with minimal daily contact with the broader natural world. And worse, perhaps, is the fact that our children are constantly connected to technology. What parent among us does not regret that?
The holiday of Tu B’Shvat is intended to make us stop and consider our relationship to the earth. At a Tu B’shvat seder, we sit with friends, sing songs about nature, eat special fruits that represent an element within nature, drink hues of wine that represents the changing seasons and discuss how we can protect our natural environment. In recent years, with the rising awareness of humanity’s deleterious impact on the natural world, Tu B’shvat sedarim seem to be ever more popular.
And while celebrating this holiday is a good start, as a camp director, I know that we can take the lessons of Tu B’shvat and apply them to our summer camp lives. At Ramah Outdoor Adventure, we have created a program with the specific goal of reconnecting our youth with the natural world around them. We have made environmental living an integral part of the summer program. From waking up with the sun, to living in a technology free zone with limited electricity, to eating sustainable food at meals, our goal at camp is to spend a few weeks living intentionally in the natural world.
Our program seeks to engage campers in environmental programming. This might be an exploration through the surrounding forest to search for mushrooms or a specific type of tree. It might be a discussion about our own carbon footprint each time we fly to camp or drive three hours to go on a four day hike. But other times our environmental education is embedded within the broader camp program. For example, by spending extended time camping in the backcountry, our campers are able to gain a deeper appreciation about how to use nature for their own good while also leaving it undisturbed for other humans and animals to enjoy. Similarly, by adjusting our internal clocks to wake up at sunrise and go to sleep when dark, campers not only gain an appreciation for living according to the natural rhythms of the day, but they also see that one can survive in a world without electricity.
Throughout, we never lose sight of the fact that Jewish camp works as an educational enterprise because it creates a model community disconnected from the “real world.” Educators have been using camp to impart the importance of living in a deeply connected Jewish community for over 100 years. Because of this, countless campers have spent ten months of the year yearning to return to their camp community. As research now shows, immersive Jewish experiences at camp are a good predictor for life-long engagement in Jewish life. Ramah has long recognized the fact that in every activity and circumstance – and now in the daily routine of Ramah’s first specialty camp – the emphasis on Jewish life and learning remains a critical ingredient. Our environmental learning and outdoor experiences would not be nearly as impactful without grounding in Jewish text learning and the context of Jewish tradition and ritual.
At Ramah Outdoor Adventure, we build upon the success of Jewish camping by creating an immersive Jewish community with an additional layer which makes us unique in the North American Jewish camping world. We have created a program that places equal emphasis on how our community relates to the natural world around us. This means we engage our campers in the choices of food we eat; we spend days at a time sleeping on the ground in tents and under tarps; we walk around at night guided only by moonlight; and we perform weekly service projects to beautify our ranch and to take care of the natural landscape around us. In addition to having our own working garden on the ranch, we contract with a local organic farm to source much of our food. Our older campers have a chance to spend five days living with the farmers and cultivating the land, and return to camp with boxes of fresh produce for us to eat the following week.
We do not want camp’s lessons to remain behind in the Rocky Mountains when campers go home. Rather, we want our campers to return to their regular lives not only with a deeper sense of their own Jewish identity but also with a deeper commitment to protecting and preserving the natural world around us. By marking Tu B’shvat within their home communities, they and we are reminded, as winter wanes, of the imperative to engage more deeply with the natural world and live Jewish lives imbued with wonder at the beauty, bounty, and fragility of the natural world.
Rabbi Eliav Bock is the Director of Ramah Outdoor Adventure
What do a Kosher, free- range chicken distributor, a pulpit rabbi from LA who composts and the program director of Ramah Outdoor Adventure have in common? Well for one thing, they all recently had the opportunity to attend the 2010 Hazon Food Conference in Petaluma, California. This conference brings together some of the most innovative and progressive thinkers in the world of Jewish environmentalism for four days of learning and discussion. Yes, the program director mentioned above is me, and I have been sitting in front of this computer for weeks since the conference trying to figure out what I want to say regarding my experience.
The first entry I wrote but never posted praised the energy and inspiration of all the participants, but I felt that it didn’t do justice to the amazing projects all around the country in which people are engaged.
So the second entry I wrote but never posted was about how impressed I was with people who are turning their fantastic ideas in realities. There are some really amazing projects out there that are being actualized this moment. Kosher, free range meat, a heksher that certifies the ethical standards of food products in addition to the halachic kashrut, the building of a Jewish land based community outside of Baltimore to name a few. But this entry didn’t express how impressed I also was with the many people who are not in a place to devote their lives and careers to environmental Judaism, but attended the conference just out of person interest and passion.
Feeling defeated, I tried to change my attitude and my third blog attempt was a critique of the scholarship behind environmental Judaism. I wrote that we rely so heavily on a small group of texts to support what we consider to be a revolutionary movement. I cynically pointed out that every class, lecture or conference on Jewish environmental topics explores the same texts as the previous one as if they had discovered something totally radical. But thinking about it, I realized I wasn’t being fair. While I do feel there is a need for an intermediate track of Jewish learning around environmentalism, the fact is, I have learned so much about this different face of Judaism I never experienced in my childhood education, and even though the texts express the same words each time I see them, the meaning I gain from them is always different, and isn’t that one of the truly amazing aspects of Jewish learning?
So where does that leave me? Three failed blog entries later, I was back where I started, so I turned to the wisdom of our Tradition to guide me. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, an 18th century mystic, describes three stages of spiritual growth: the mountain, the field and the city. The mountain is a place that is wild and unpredictable; there we might face adversity at any moment. The field is our attempt to make sense of this chaos, where we can feel the influence of our own order while still being at the mercy of the variances of nature. The city is the place we can dwell most comfortably, where we have the most control of ourselves and our surroundings. Rebbe Nachman teaches it is our spiritual mission to leave behind the mountain and move to the city. My understanding of this teaching is not that we are somehow supposed to leave the uncertainty of mountain; life is wild and unpredictable and there is little we can do to change that. But rather, we must equip ourselves with the tools and consciousness to live comfortably in this unpredictable and challenging reality. We must make the mountain feel like a city.
And that, my friends, is what I think people in the Jewish environmental movement are doing. We are learning and teaching the skills that make us feel more comfortable and excited in our own tradition, more at ease as ethically conscious beings, and more competent in providing for ourselves and living as a truly integrated piece of the amazing natural world that G-d created. That is the common thread, and whether we are doing through a kitchen compost bucket, an educational institution, or a green business, intellectually, physically, or spiritually, we are all doing our part to build our home on the mountain.
As my thoughts turn toward camp this summer, I think of some of the mountains we will face. Maybe it is coming to camp for the first time, or practicing skills outside of our comfort zone. It may be experiencing things that frighten us, or simply creating a recycling program at a location that is 10 miles down a mountainous, dirt road. Perhaps it’s creating a community at camp that exemplifies our ideals, or even figuring out what those ideals are. These mountains are daunting, but if there is one thing in which I am confident after seeing the drive and inspiration of our 2010 chalutzim and staff, as well as experiencing the competence and passion in those involved in the Jewish environmental world, the mountains that may daunt us now will quickly become a place where we feel at home. To me, this is a pretty strong metaphor for a camp that makes its physical home high in the mountains.
One of the goals of our program at Ramah Outdoor Adventure is to serve sustainable food. This means we take into account how our food affects: our health, our environment and our financial bottom line. One of the areas on which we are working during the off season and are committed to improving in the summer of 2011 is making our food decisions more transparent to our chalutzim (campers). We have already hired returning counselor Yael Greenberg as our food counselor for the summer. In addition to being a counselor, Yael’s specialty area this summer will be working to include food education throughout of program.
Yael has begun keeping a blog documenting her experiences. Currently she is trying to find a place to buy “fair trade” bananas. Below is copy of her first post. If you would like to follow her on this journey to buy fair trade bananas , please do so on her blog: http://letmyveggiesgrow.wordpress.com/
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First, a short disclaimer: These first few posts are going to be a little bit disingenuous because I’m going to go day-by-day, but in fact the story started Sunday and it’s now Tuesday. But trust me, a recap up until this point would be no fun at all and would miss most of the point.
So what’s going on here? What is this all about? How did it start?
It started with a phone call mid-morning on Sunday, December 26. Before hitting the after-Christmas sales downtown, I had a conversation with the director of Ramah Outdoor Adventure, where I will be returning to work this summer as the food educator. Since this is a relatively new camp and there has never been a food educator before, I am designing the position and the food education curriculum pretty much from scratch. I’m going to draw a lot on existing material, but I really need to figure out what it is that I want to impart to the campers and how to go about doing that. Before this point I had already decided that my position as food educator should entitle me to at least some say over what gets ordered for the kitchen, so I had tried to get in touch with a company that does fair trade stuff to see what it would look like to order chocolate. Their email address doesn’t work and their offices are closed for the holiday, so that project is tabled for the time being. But after I got off the phone with the director I got to thinking, and one thing led to another and I decided that there should be fair trade bananas at camp this summer. See here for an explanation of why fair trade and why specifically bananas.
My explorations thus far have been guided by a series of questions, the first being Where does one buy fair trade bananas? I know where to get them for breakfast, but I don’t know where to buy them in Colorado, and I certainly don’t know how to get them delivered to the doorstep of a ranch somewhere in the middle of nowhere. So I went on the TransFairUSA website and got a listing of where to buy fair trade-certified goods in the state of Colorado. I got a list of 119 results, 38 of which indicated that they sold fair trade produce. The phone calls began.
My first four calls were to Sam’s Clubs, none of which carried them. Most of the people I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about (they thought Fair Trade was a brand), but the conversation was interesting, if unhelpful. The guy at Sam’s Club in Arvada told me that they used to carry them, but they weren’t doing as well as conventional bananas. People just didn’t want to pay the extra fifty cents for the fair trade, so they went back to selling just Dole. My next call was to Vitamin Cottage in Lafayette who told me that they do sometimes carry fair trade bananas, but that no, they don’t deliver, and I would have to call back the following day to speak to a manager for more information. I had similar results at two Whole Foods branches (Whole Foods also does not deliver), but from those phone calls I learned to ask for the produce manager in future conversations. Not only does that streamline things, but when you ask to speak with a manager–especially one in a specific department–you sound really impressive and like you’re someone who knows exactly what she wants. Which I guess I am. Anyhow, the most interesting call of the day was to Holly at Love Your Mother, LLC. Holly runs a small produce business, and she told me that unfortunately she does not sell fair trade bananas because she has been unable to get them cleared for importation, mostly, it seems, because of the minuscule size of her business. Despite her inability to sell me bananas, Holly told me she would do a bit of research for me and get back to me.
By the end of Sunday the fire was really lit under my rear. I stopped making phone calls because somehow it got to be 8:30 PM ET, so I was getting Sam’s Club security instead of the actual store. Seemed like time to close up shop for the day. But by this time I had a new mission. Forget actually getting my hands on fair trade bananas for camp. I mean, that’s still the ideal, but I had just begun to unearth a rich, deep mine of teachable moments. My new goal was slightly different. In my own words (excerpt from an email I sent to the camp director at 11 PM Sunday):
I’m not asking you (yet) if we can have them; right now I’m a lot more interested in the process than the outcome. What’s exciting for me is trying to get fair trade bananas at camp. It’s fascinating. I might not even get to the point where I can ask if they are a financial possibility because there may be limiting factors way farther back in the system than camp director that prevent Ramah Outdoor Adventure from having ethically-produced bananas. Just think, if it’s this difficult for an organization that’s committed to sustainability to get them, and it’s requiring the legwork of an individually motivated person, how ENORMOUS must the conventional banana industry be, and how huge the hurdles must be to do this elsewhere? What I really want is for the campers to have an insight into this whole thing. If we end up having fair trade bananas I want campers to know how they get to camp, and if we don’t, I want them to know why not.
And there was night, and there was dawn; Day 1.
