The Jewish side of camp

Underpinning everything about ERN was Edna's and Irv's strong sense of the faith and the underpinning social values therein. As a non-Jew at camp much the flavor and meaning of the camp experiences was hidden in terms of experience and understanding that would have come from learning and speaking Hebrew, growing up the Jewish community in the Bay Area as well is in the families and synagogues.

I got a very nice note from a former camper, Rabbi Mark Bloom (camper from 75-79,) sharing some of his thoughts about camp and Irv that he had shared at Irv's funeral. For me they not only bring up great memories, the last moments of campfire before heading up the path to the cabins, they bring up strongly the sense of "structure" that made ERN work as culture habits and traditions. And also make me ponder, Where did this come from?"

Here are his thoughts--

IT’S IRVING NEWMAN TIME

Remember the times you’ve had here, remember when you’re away.
Remember the friends you’ve made here, and don’t forget to come back some day.
Remember beside the campfire, amidst the hills so blue.
That you belong to El Rancho Navarro, and El Rancho Navarro belongs to you (Irv).

I. No clear line between Irv and the camp in Mendocino County he ran with his beloved Edna. Hard to say where one began and the other ended.

II. Irv not a Rabbi (though he certainly could have been with both his knowledge and his righteousness as a human being), but he was a Rebbe for so many of us, someone we followed, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, who grew up in the Bay Area in the 60’s and 70’s. Fond memories of him…
A. Leading us in Hineh Ma Tov, how good to be together.
B. Telling stories by the campfire, where we would hang on his every word.
C. Could tell us same things our parents told us, but we would listen to him. Little things we learned like.
1. Wash your hands and face before dinner.
2. Bring long sleeves in the early morning and evening.
3. Loving the earth, putting us by the beauty of the Navarro River, walking in the creek, hiking in the hills and conserving toilet paper, as in his annual speech.
D. Dispensing wonderful advice
1. Through notes at Och Narley
2. When you got in trouble at Irv’s tree.
3. Calling us all mulliganheads and treating us all equally, from the most popular to the most insecure of campers.
E. Doing things many of us never imagined like milking cows or moving irrigation pipes.
F. Very strict. No radios, comic books or candy, the six inch rule for slow dancing at the camp dances.

III. Shammai said: “Greet everyone with a cheerful disposition.”
Irv was a people person. He knew how to relate to young and old, no matter what age he was. And he worked at it. Every year after camp he traveled up and down the state visiting the home of virtually every camper to ask what you liked about camp, and then the social worker in him would come out, as you had to go in another room while he discussed what you were really like with your parents.

IV. Irv had tzadik like qualities, like he was one of the most righteous. Not self-righteous either, because he was so humble. But as the kind, wise, moral Grandfather you wished you had yourself. When a person dies just before Rosh Hashana, which we will be celebrating in a matter of hours, it’s a sign of the tzaddik, a righteous person, because it’s a way of saying this person lived the maximum amount of days he could, since, theoretically, the idea that he wouldn’t be written in the Book of Life was decreed a full year ago. In Pirke Avot it says:
Kanah shem tov kana ‘atzmo, kana li divrei Torah kana lo chayei ha’olam haba.
One who has aquired a good name has acquired something for himself.
One who has acquired Torah has acquired eternal life.

V. Irv has certainly acquired eternal life. I’d like to conclude the same way I did at Edna’s funeral, where he sang with gusto, the way Irv liked to end all campfires, with Taps in English and Hebrew and Shalom Chaverim, goodbye, my dear friend.