Do You Need a Lake to Pray?

Rabbi Melanie Aron

August 9, 2003

200 teens sitting at services - a nightmare for decorum - or a joyous celebration? Sitting at Camp Newman earlier this week I read an interesting article called: Do You Need A Lake To Pray?

The author, director of the Reform Movement's Southern region camp, Camp Coleman, questioned why kids, and even sometimes adults, find services at summer camp so much more meaningful than the services they attend periodically at home.

He posits that three factors make the difference:

The first is that at camp tefillah is part of a total experience. Prayer services are held twice a day and with people with whom one has become close. For the average kid in a three week session, camp tefillah, which they experience 42 times, is much more familiar and comfortable, that services at home which they attend erratically. At camp it seems natural to gather at the beginning of the day and at the close of the day to recite the shma and other prayers, while at home it would seem strange. Everybody is participating at camp and the plausibility structure which anthropologists of religion tell us has been lost in modern society still exists in that closed community of camp.

The second factor the author deals with is being outside. One reads in the prayerbook - mah gadlu maasechah adonai - how magnificent are Your works O God, those words are experiences outdoors with an immediacy which is lacking in most buildings. Looking at the Redwoods at Camp Swig, the lake at Camp Tavor where I grew up, or out over the rolling hills at Camp Newman, the wonders of creation are with you. Even some of the most rationalist of scientists, who are disinterested in questions of God, have written poetically about the wonder of the natural world and for many people, being outdoors, opens them to feelings of awe and gratitude.

Finally, the author talks about the comfort that teens find in a service that doesn't require getting dressed up and which has other teens playing a leading role. The service is not something imposed by an adult authority, but something put together by other teens, perhaps counselors, who are a little older, but still those with whom the teens can identify. The teen this is more inclined to open their ears and their heart to the experience of prayer.

We do occasionally move services outside at Shir Hadash, but other than that, how can those who attend services most frequently in town and not at camp, experience some of that immediacy of prayer.

The experience of prayer can be enhanced by being with community. Making some group your regulars, your prayer community and sitting with them enhances the experience at services. The cantor and I will sometimes comment on a service being particularly moving, and it is often a service at which many of those in attendance know and care about one another. Community is not only created by praying together, it works the other way too, community makes prayer more meaningful.

Secondly, even if we cannot be outside, as we are at camp, we can try within our hearts to translate the more formal words of prayer into the experiences that we have each day. Some people do this kind of translating without even thinking about it, but for others it is something that we must initially teach ourselves to do. If we read in the service "You send help to the falling, healing to the sick, bring freedom to the captive and keep faith with those who sleep in the dust,"then we must translate that into words that have meaning for our lives. How can we imitate God in a way that serve the sick and the broken,? How can we keep alive hopes and dreams generations that came before us.?

Finally, by actively participating in the service, whether as our B'not Mitzvah have done today on the bimah or even by singing enthusiastically and actively listening in your seats, the service can be turned from passive to active. When studying to be an effective counselor, I learned that listening is not a low energy activity. To be really helpful to people, I need to put all my energy into really listening to what people are saying to me. The words of prayer can mean a lot more too if we use higher intensity listening.

Amy & Lauren, many experiences at NFTY weekends, at Camp and hopefully on your post Confirmation trip to Israel to experience prayer with a group of your peers. And it is also my hope that the memories of this day, will continue to make prayer in our Sanctuary more meaningful for years to come.