By Lisa David

Last night, we surprised our Harlam community by “going live” with our Shabbat song session. If you have not seen it, I encourage all of you to view the video on Facebook. Watching the smiling faces, the swaying with arms wrapped around one another, the spirited table-banging and singing, you get some sense of the ruach (spirit) that envelopes our community when we join together in song on Erev Shabbat.

But what the video, or photos, or stories heard after the summer may never be able to fully and accurately convey is the sheer physicality, the intense energy, and the authentic, unbridled joy of Shabbat song session at Harlam. Each week, in the midst of this chaos, I nearly always find myself close to tears. As if a wave is washing over me, scanning the room to see so many young Jewish campers and staff engaged in this moment, I am so moved by the sight of our community singing loudly with their voices, but as importantly expressing the joy in their hearts.

When families choose Harlam, for many parents the commitment to a Jewish ideology and values drives their choice. Families may be looking for Jewish community, connection, and opportunities to learn and develop a child’s Jewish identity. Often, their children are more enamored by the lake toys or zipline or the friends they know who are Harlam campers. But, after the summer, when we ask campers what the highlight of their experience was, they say Shabbat. Joining together, all in white, for services, Shabbat dinner, and song session, helps the highs and lows of the week meld into a celebration marked both by peace and joy. And these experiences create lifelong memories and positive associations with this important holiday.

Throughout the year, our children are often asked to conduct and comport themselves in a controlled manner. They are frequently directed to sit down, be quiet, stay still, or stand in line. For some, this is easy. For others, they strain against these constraints, waiting for the school day to end so they can ride bikes, play sports, run and play, and let loose that internal energy that was simmering throughout the day.

But at camp, and especially on Shabbat, that energy is celebrated. Through words, song, dance, and prayer, their joy can be cultivated and expressed. Feeling a deep connection to the Jewish community around you, and feeling safe and supported, our campers and staff can let loose. On Friday nights it feels like our Chadar Ochel (dining hall) is literally shaking – the table banging and guitar playing and the just barely contained movement of the crowd can be felt deep in your body.

In our tradition, in Ecclesiastes, we read that there is “a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” At camp we experience all of these in some form. But the dancing – the pure, unadulterated expression of joy – unites us. In a world where our kids are surrounded by stress, prohibitions, the sometimes scary reality of life today, at Harlam they can celebrate Judaism joyfully. And those moments are seared into the memories of our children – the sticky, breathless, horse-voice and aching-hand feeling, when you have just let go of all that is inside of you, and feel refreshed, renewed, re-energized, and so proud to be Jewish.