Meditation Time at Shluchim Camp

By COLlive reporter

Fun and inspiration are intertwined at the Arizona Shluchim Camp being held these days in the commuter town of Oracle, the gateway to the road up the “back side” of Mount Lemmon.

In addition to sports and trips in the Tucson area, close to 70 young shluchim from small Jewish communities around the world are beefing up their knowledge as well.

It is a high-point for these children who live in far-flung communities and seldom have frum friends their age. “This is their chance to mingle with like-minded children of Shluchim,” said the director Rabbi Moshe Pinson.

Staff at the winter camp –from this year to be alternated yearly between boys and girls– have their campers wired on chassidishe themes, niggunim and vibrant davening and an all-around unique atmosphere.

As for the learning, they had a full program prepared and even enlisted the help of a few noteworthy visitors and a scholar-in-residence.

First there was the hosting Shliach Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, Director of Chabad of Tucson, who addressed the children on the auspicious day of Hei Teves, emphasizing the special place the seforim take in Jewish and chassidic life.

During a bbq dinner, Tucson Shliach Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin spoke to the campers about how the role the children of Shluchim play in the Chabad House and Shlichus life is of equal importance as to what their parents strive to do.

Rabbi Mendy Deitsch, the Shliach in Chandler, AZ spent Shabbos in the camp. On Sunday they heard from the camp’s biggest fan, Rabbi Mendel Duchman of Los Angeles and later from another visiting Shliach, Rabbi Yisroel Greenberg of El Paso, Texas.

MEDITATING ON CHASSIDUS

But the highlight has been the continuous presence of Rabbi Shais Taub, an author and scholar who has composed The Map of Tanya for Kehot Publication Society as well as the curriculum for a course on Tanya for the Jewish Learning Institute (JLI).

The purpose of his stay in the Grand Canyon State was to complete a monumental commentary on Sha’ar haYichud vehaEmunah (“The Gateway of Unity and Belief”), the second section of the Tanya of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, founder of Chabad chassidism.

“I began this project over 3 years ago and found it more difficult than imagined,” Taub said about the book that follows in the footsteps of the groundbreaking Chassidic Heritage Series that clarified Maamarim to the wider public.

“So I came to isolation, to the desert, a kind of writer’s retreat to reflect and take the deep concepts the Alter Rebbe presented about Hashem’s unity and put them in normal English terms,” he said, adding that completing commentary on the all sections of Tanya will take 2 decades.

He got to experiment his work during a learning class with the young Shluchim, offering them to join in thought and discussion about the meaning of Hashem’s Unity and presence.

“We underestimate what children are capable of thinking and feeling,” he says. “They are capable of talking intelligently about faith and belief, especially children from homes that are dedicated to spirituality.”

Rabbi Taub asked them, “if your 5-year-old sibling asks you where is Hashem, what would you answer?”

“Everywhere,” was their universal answer.

“So you know it, now tell me how do you feel about it,” he asked.

He was greeted with silence. “There is sechel and machshava,” he proceeded to explain. “One is a power – who you are – and the second is an activity – what you do. So tell me, what feelings do you have of Hashem.”

Rabbi Taub said the answers impressed him. In fact, the head counselors told him that the following day during learning class the children offered emotionally deep answers to questions on Torah study, clearly having taken the concepts to heart.