Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

I’m sure it’s the same in many homes. The last few days before the school year begins, our children are abuzz gathering school supplies. Our kitchen table and floor are littered with highlighters, crayons, markers, notebooks, binders, sticky notes, hole punchers, glue, tape, staplers and staples, paper reinforcements, looseleafs and looseleaf paper – standard and college (kollel) ruled, subject dividers, whiteout, rulers, compasses, and many other things that we will probably never see again after the first week. But it adds excitement to going back to school, and that’s a good thing.

Our family has the great fortune to spend our summers at Camp Dora Golding. We have a wonderful and comfortable bungalow, but obviously smaller than our home in Monsey. For two months, we have to figure out how to get by with only one bathroom.

It wasn’t the way we envisioned or hoped. We so wanted to see Hersh Goldberg-Polin reunited with his family. No family should have to suffer as they did. Perhaps we, in America, identified more with them because they and Hersh are American, and because we heard Hersh’s parents speak so many times. Perhaps we felt it more because Rachel, Hersh’s mother, tugged at our emotions by openly personifying the Jewish mother who will stop at nothing for her child. Hersh’s parents traveled, spoke, begged, encouraged, and basically didn’t leave a stone unturned in their tireless efforts to get Hersh out of the Gaza inferno. But to our chagrin and national pain, that’s not the way Hersh was reunited with his family.

It is axiomatic that every holiday of the year has a specific avodah – a spiritual focus – often with physical actions, but at least conceptually. Each holiday is unique and strengthens a certain component of our religious identity. Our goal is that when the holiday concludes, we feel elevated and with renewed conviction in our faith and religious practice.

I never thought of myself as being very tech savvy. In fact, I still don’t. If you would’ve told me two years ago that I would be a media director, I would have told you that you got the wrong guy. But for the last two summers, I’ve been the media director at Camp Dora Golding and have enjoyed it immensely.

A few weeks ago, here at Camp Dora Golding, we had a special event packing boots for Israeli soldiers. It was under the auspices of a program called Boots for Israel. We were graced with a visit from Yakir Wachstock, the founder of the program.