To Till and to Tend

This weekend many excited Jewish summer campers will head off to wonderful experiences of Jewish community, friendship, and fun. Jewish camping has been around a longtime, and is one of the great success stories of American Jewish life. I myself am a proud grad, along with Bob Dylan (nee Zimmerman) of Herzl Camp in Webster, Wisconsin. While many Jewish camps have added explicity green eco-programming to their curricula, too many to highlight here, even - though we invite you to describe any great Jewish environmental experiences you are familiar with - I want to focus on some so-obvious-it's-not-obvious aspects of Jewish camps.
Camping takes kids away from normal suburban/urban life, for a car-free, shopping-free, less materialistic summer. Some Jewish camps are pretty posh compared to the latrine/rustic sort, but still, they're not resorts. Emphasis is on experience and community, not on consuming.
Camps are in the country, duh. Kids get a bigger sense of nature and the natural world than in their backyard or neighborhood park. This immersion is very scary for some, but for others, it's a major turn on.
Camps provide a communal experience - some are explicitly socialist, but all emphasize the group. For kids growing up in privatistic American culture, this is a great corrective. One of my favorite aspects of my daughter's experience at Camp Galil was Clothes Trading. Girls would bring clothes they didn't wear with them to camp, and all summer they swapped outfits. If a friend got attached to a garment, or looked especially great in it, they often kept it.  No score-keeping - it was truly from each according to her style/size to each according to her mood.  One big floating  Clothing Swap. What you sent your kid off with was not what they came home with, and everyone was happy. Of course sometimes, swaps are often the unintended outcomes of camp laundry, so everyone learns not to get too attached to their stuff.
Camps assure kids they can cope without much technology. (Though some camps are being pressured to drop this.) This allows kids to establish natural rhythms, not mediated by 24/7 cell phones, texting, Ipod music, et al. It's a good break, anyway.
For the spiritually inclined, being in nature surrounded by community is unparalleled in its power. Forty years later, I still think of Kabbalat Shabbat overlooking Devils Lake....

Last night I stayed up much past my goal bedtime because I was gardening. You may be asking yourself: "who gardens at midnight?" The simple answer which, admittedly, leads to more questions is: someone who lives in a 3rd floor NYC apartment! How does one garden in a NYC studio apartment? Instead of a shovel I use a large spoon, instead of lush gardens that flow into each other I have potted plants (beautifully and lovingly made by my father), instead of a compost pile I have a mini bag of soil.... I think you get the point.

So there I was, past midnight, my fingers deep in soil and dirt all over the floor; throughout, an incredibly satisfied smile was planted on my face (sorry that I don't have a picture for you).

There are some technical bonuses to my craziness: plants increase oxygen levels in a room and they are aesthetically beautiful.  But my excitement did not come from these secondary benefits. Real earth may have been three floors down, yet, in the simplest of ways I was connecting with the source of life. 

In Leviticus (19:23) we are told, "When you enter the land of Israel you shall plant all kinds of trees for food." My apartment is not in Israel, nor are most of my plants edible. My own interpretation of this passage suggests that when you find your dwelling place, connect physically with your land and plant that which will sustain you. For those who may not have a green thumb - it's hard to kill a cactus.