It's August 1st - a long time ago, summer of '83 to be exact, while studying in "Judaica" with our counselor (now Rabbi) Charles Arian, exploring the idea of what it takes to "make" sacred time - my dearest friend Corey Cutler and I suggest that we create a holiday that would *only* be observed at camp: voila, "Rosh Chodesh August." With only a few days of prep time to introduce this new-fangled Jewish tradition, we tried to come up with a few rituals specific to the day. Well, I recall we might have sang something, and we (Charles, Corey, myself) definitely wore bathrobes to dinner - not such a surprise for us in those days, being half lazy teenagers and half devotees of M*A*S*H.
Though a silly experience - it has certainly stuck with me...yet another profound way in which my Jewish learning was enhanced and imprinted because of something at camp. To this day, whenever I teach students about what elements frame a holiday, I refer to an experiment by 16 year olds to sanctify the beginning of this month. And thankfully, it works every time.
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