What Wildfires Are Messaging to Jewish Summer Camps

By Rabbi Yonatan Neril, August 30, 2018

I grew up going to Camp Tawonga in California, where I later worked as a counselor and then as a visiting Jewish ecology educator. As J Weekly recently reported, a fire spread to within miles of camp, causing the evacuation of all campers and staff and the cancelling of Session 4, for the first time in the camp’s 93 year history. The J Weekly editorial, ‘Camp Tawonga Evacuation is a Sign of Climate Change’ stated that “What matters most is that every segment of society wake up and stay woke, acknowledge the reality of climate change, and commit to slowing if not reversing its most severe impacts.”

Last October, Camp Newman burned down in the Santa Rosa fire. Their temporary location is at Cal Maritime near Vallejo, next to a eucalyptus forest. It’s unfortunate that Camp Newman lost its home and Camp Tawonga cancelled Session 4. But these campfires turned camp fires are signaling something much deeper. Through fire, nature is driving some people off the land. This is a consequence of our impacting nature and causing climate change. We exploit and conquer nature because we are not sufficiently connected to it. We have created a virtual reality and we spend more time in front of screens than we do in nature.

To what extent do Jewish summer camps educate about Judaism, ecology, and sustainable living? Most camps do so minimally, if at all. This summer I provided programming on Jewish ecology at three Jewish summer camps in the U.S. While all Jewish overnight camps are surrounded by nature, most do not foster camper experiences with and within nature, and even fewer connect Jewish teachings and values to nature and ecology. For those that offer nature programming, it often involves fishing (usually catch and release, which leave a gash in the fish’s mouth), cooking meat or smores over a camp fire or gas fire, or making artwork about nature. To what extent do camps foster powerful experiences in nature?

Camp Tawonga is way ahead of the curve among Jewish summer camps in regards to Jewish nature education. Together with Eden Village, Eden Village West, and a few others, they are enabling campers to experience spirituality in nature, and to connect to nature in a meaningful way.

Most American camps, including Jewish camps, offer an array of fun-filled programming, from jet-skiing to arts and crafts to basketball, but lack nature programming that inspires awe and connects nature experience to Jewish values.

The Torah teaches that ‘the human being is a tree of the field.’ (Deuteronomy 20:19) The Midrash explains that this means that the fate of the human being is bound up with that of the trees. Because we depend upon them for our life, we must protect and preserve them. It’s not just that we depend on trees and plants for oxygen. The Thai boys in the cave remind us of the perils of life without plants. Underground, they had less than 15% oxygen when a human needs at least 19.5%. Trees create the forest habitats that numerous other living things rely on for their existence. Trees play an important role in transforming the inanimate world, including sunlight, into an environment in which other forms of life, and ultimately people, can survive. Trees and other plants absorb and utilize the sun’s rays through photosynthesis. This process produces sugars which are the initial energy source of the food chain. Photosynthesis in trees and plants is therefore one of the most fundamental chemical reactions on the planet.¹ In other words, trees and plants make the planet into a life support system for other forms of life, and ultimately for people.

The Jewish oral tradition (in the Midrash) teaches about creation and trees: “When God created the first man He took him and showed him all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him ‘See My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are. And everything that I created, I created it for you. Be careful not to spoil or destroy My world – for if you do, there will be nobody after you to repair it.’

Jewish summer camps have the potential to be powerful vehicles for Jewish ecological awareness and appreciation. The wildfires that turn camps into camp fires remind us that the time for ecological transition is urgently upon us.