Stones in the Road (With Apologies to Mary Chapin Carpenter)

Last Shabbat morning, I had an opportunity to walk a familiar path at GUCI. It is a stroll I have taken hundreds if not thousands of times over the years. I shlepped my guitar along that well-worn gravel road that leads from the Chadar Ochel to the Beit T'fillah in order to prepare for services. But, what made this particular saunter unique is that it was the only time during the reunion weekend that I found myself completely alone.

It was a moment I used for some reflection. I wanted to take in the experience; to feel the stones in the road beneath my sandals, to smell the acrid August morning air. You see, when one reaches a certain point in life, the importance of such memories takes on a sense of deep and compelling urgency. I didn't want to forget anything about this place. This was the place of my youth. This was the place of my faith. This was the place of my deepest and oldest friendships. This was the place of decency. This was the place of true love.

As I trudged down that road, I could clearly recall the faces of hundreds, no...thousands, of campers and staff that had shared this sacred space with me in decades past. They were the pictures of tanned youth and sinewed strength. They had dreams and plans and hopes and ambitions. We were just coming into our own and the world would be stunned by our radiance. We rebounded from our disappointments far more gracefully and we hid our cynicism far more easily. We were idealistic and foolish in a way that only youth can forgive. Time was our ally and we had no thoughts of its fleeting.

I became acutely aware of the memories that each of the four-hundred of us has; those of us who made the pilgrimage back to this blessed, steamy cow-patch in weirdly but aptly Jewishly named, Zionsville. Each of us sharing those memories with others until the incomplete individual became the collective whole. A patchwork quilt of recollections woven together by laughter and prayer. It brought the holiness of this place into better focus for me.

As I came into the Beit T'fillah, I heard the din of conversations. People simply could not stop talking and sharing. I tuned my guitar and started to play the music of Shabbat morning with song leaders of my son's generation. We had only met the night before and had no idea if or how we might fit together but the sanctity of the space elevated our voices in perfect harmony. We all inherently understood how to do this because this is where we were tutored.

There is so much emotion wrapped up in a trip of forty-eight hours. It wasn't nearly long enough and yet it was perfection. I rediscovered a purity in my Judaism that had been sorely lacking lately. I heard The Divine Spirit whisper to me in the strings of a plucked banjo and I tasted Her kiss in the treacly Shabbos kugel. I sang until my lungs burned and I played until my fingers bled. I was more engaged in my faith during those two days than I have been in the past two years. This is the magic of Goldman Union Camp and it is a magic that every single one of the four hundred inherently understands. We are all just stones in the road of this place and for one weekend, we all came home.