During the training seminar I spoke about some ideas from the book ‘Last Child in the Woods’. The author (whose name is slipping my mind right now) bases his book around the idea that children are disconnected from nature, causing various physical, emotional and psychological implications. The past two days has made me an even bigger advocate for the book than I was before camp. After only two days with the campers I have seen this disconnect from nature in action. Kids just don’t spend enough time outside, let alone playing with dirt. I was shocked to see that not all the kids were as enthusiastic and engaged as all of us farmers! I had to take a step back. These kids are coming from highly urban environments where their interactions with nature are limited to 15 minutes in a yard for recess or seeing trees whooshing by on the highway. Not everyone has an intrinsic desire to connect with the land and care for the world around us. That is where we step in. The challenge before us is daunting but I have a strong belief that all of us will reach these campers in many different ways. They will feel a sense of awe when those first flowers start to bloom. They will feel ownership over the garden when they walk by with their friends to show them which part of the garden they dug by themselves. They will feel a sense of accomplishment when they take that first bite of a vegetable. I hope we all can reflect back to those moments during the seminar when we believed we would change the world, even when simple tasks seem overwhelming.
On another note, I was speaking to David Fox briefly on the phone about the power of Amir in Jewish versus non-Jewish camps. I would like to share two stories from this past week that speak to the Jewish values of Amir. When preparing the site during staff week with Josh Goldberg, several staff members stopped by the garden to help out. The physical act of working the land immediately turned our conversation to the chalutzim who worked the land of Israel before and after the state was established. This immediate connection is hard to avoid. The foundation on which the state of Israel stands is the product of early kibbutzim and those who made it their duty to physically work the land. My second story involves a 10 year old camper I have not stopped bragging about to my fellow staff members. He is so passionate about the garden after only two days and comes to help work in all his spare time. The first day I asked each camper one thing they wanted to learn during their time in the garden. His answer was this: “I want to learn about the roots of the Jewish tradition”. I was utterly shocked after hearing this boy’s response. He was able to make an immediate connection between what we were physically doing in the garden and what we would be learning about in the weeks to come. We spent a lot of time during the seminar talking about the commonalities between the roots of where we come from and the roots of the plants we grow. The fact that the Amir garden is at four Jewish camps this summer is no accident. The values of our tradition and the lessons of the garden are one.
Shabbat Shalom,
Leah
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