Shabbat Shalom, BAI!
Last Sunday was visiting day at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. I travelled there with my daughter (who was a camper there for many summers and was coming to see camp but mostly to see her friends), and my parents, who back in the mid-60’s met, fell in love, and returned as staff members with me and my two younger siblings, one of whom, my sister was also coming up to visit her two daughters who are now campers. Three generations of Ramah Poconos all spending the day together, each of us with our own personal and collective memories spanning so many years.
So much of Ramah has changed in the past few years, let alone the 60’s, yet Ramah has also remained very much the place that my parents loved, that my siblings and I loved and that my daughter and nieces clearly love. Which is not to say it is a perfect place, far from it. But for one day, it was quite something to see my parents strolling around the camp with their grandkids, seeing old friends, reminiscing, and soaking in the memories while sharing all of this in the present.
Around 2 pm as we sat on our blanket and ate too many snacks, a whispering wave made its way around the camp. “Biden is out, Biden is out.” It was both extraordinary and a funny thing to witness in real time. I remember as campers, long before the internet, we used to see how far we could get a rumor to spread. We would start some fake news item, usually something harmless like, “Mike Schmidt was traded to the Yankees,” and we would see if we could get the whole camp talking about it. Yet here were about a thousand people all frantically checking their (somewhat spotty) internet connections, looking to verify this astonishing event, sharing it, analyzing it and just once again saying, “Could this month get any more historical and unprecedented?”
To be honest, I’m tired of living through history. I’m tired of living every day with the feeling that I’m one refresh away from yet another piece of “Breaking News”, or some “Bombshell Report!” story or yet another solicitation from a junior senator from North Dakota asking for money.
I’m tired because there is too much information out there all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.
And frankly, I could just use a break every once in a while.
If only there were a way, you know what, 24 hours. One day a week, to just, I don’t know, shut it off. To not check my inbox, to not go down another rabbit hole. I could read a book, I could take a walk, listen to music. Study a bit, sing a bit, be in a beautiful setting and pray, close my eyes, take in some nature. Sit in contemplative silence, see some friends, shmooze. If only such a place, such a span of time existed.
Oh yes, that reminds me: Shabbat Shalom.
Hazzan Harold
