July 11, 2025
Summer camp has shaped my life; I do not think I would be the person I am today without summer camp. The truth is that one perk of being a rabbi is you still get to go to summer camp well into adulthood.
I realized this summer that I have spent 21 summers at a URJ Summer Camp either as a camper, Counselor, Unit Head, Education Director, or Rabbi. That does not include the two summers I was a camper at another sleepaway camp, or the many years I spent at day camp. I have spent well over 30 summers at camp. My daughters each spent several summers at URJ Camps. Shira just finished her third summer at the URJ 6 Points Sports Academy. One of the phrases I heard growing up was “ten for two”, meaning we live ten months of the year for the two during the summer. Summer camp is transformative as we gain independence, learn important skills, and push our horizons. As a camp leader, we view the kids as our own. Parents entrust their kids in our care, and we realize the immense responsibility we have to care for a child other than our own. I will be honest, when I have hugged my kids goodbye, my only hope is for them to have a wonderful summer and experience the community and friendships that camp is meant to nurture.
I know firsthand, however, that being at camp can come with risks or tragedy. When I was ten years old, it was a beautiful summer afternoon, and my cabin group was at the pool down the hill, only 100-200 yards from our cabin. Suddenly, I heard someone yell out, “John’s bed is on fire.” John was one of the staff members who lived in my cabin. Our cabin was a U-shaped structure that included three separate cabins, physically joined together. All three cabins burned down that day. A couple of boys were in one of the cabins and everyone escaped without any physical harm. The fire started because a counselor was smoking in the cabin and an ash got caught in one of the clip-on fans. Thankfully, no one was hurt and all that had to be replaced were clothes and items.
When I awoke to the news about the flooding last week and the incredible loss of life, I was heartbroken. Every death is a tragedy, but I cannot stop thinking about the young children of Camp Mystic and their counselors who arrived at Camp with dreams of friendship and fun. The Bubble Inn was the cabin that housed their youngest campers, just 7 years old, and it was closest to the Guadalupe River. Dick Eastman, the longtime owner and director of the camp, was killed trying to rescue his campers. Paige Sumner, a former Camp Mystic camper said in the San Antonio Express-News, “Eastland’s last act of kindness and sacrifice was working to save the lives of campers.” She also said he put campers first in every situation. Whenever a camper sustained a minor injury, he would bolt from the office in a golf cart and race to the scene. Program Director, Elizabeth Sweet shared in the Houston Chronicle that Camp Mystic is the most magical place filled with laughter and love. She awoke at 3:11 AM to help rescue campers and by 4:00 AM, she stood on the roof with water rising up to her level. “Yesterday, I left a camp that was demolished and destroyed, but that is not the place I will remember for years to come,” Sweet wrote. “I will remember the place where we laughed on our way to our activities, sang as loud as we could in the dining hall, and cheered our hearts out for our respective tribes.”
Silvana Garza Valdez and María Paula Zárate, 19-year-old camp counselors from Mexico did what they were trained to do. As they were kept awake by the rain, they decided to act quickly and wrote the names of every child on their arms so that in case they were lost, they could be identified. When the waters began to flood in, the girls all began to panic. They were able to keep them together and they saved their campers.
The truth is that it takes an entire community to make camp the magical place that it becomes for campers. Eastland, Valdez, Zárate and the rest of the staff are all heroes. May Eastland’s memory be for a blessing.
As I reflect on this moment, I am drawn to a text of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 73a) where it says if you see a person drowning in a river, you should jump in and save them. The Talmud asks, how we should know that this is the correct action, and cites Leviticus 19:16 where we learn, “You should not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” The Torah and Talmud are clear, when we see our neighbor suffering, we are obligated to act and help them in their time of need. While it is a safe guess that Dick Eastland was not familiar with the Talmud, he lived its words up to his last breath and risked his own life to save young girls that parents had entrusted in his care. We might ask ourselves; would we have the courage to act in the same way?
Summer camps are places filled with magic. Many of us send our kids to camp each summer and they come back experiencing growth, creating new friendships, finding new community, and learning from their counselor role models. Camp does amazing things for children. Shira and I are already counting down the days until we return to “The 6” (that’s what we call 6 Points), and I know many of our Beth Tikvah kids are counting down until they return to their summer homes.
May the memories of all those lost in the catastrophic flooding of the Guadalupe River be a blessing and may our leaders learn from this tragedy so that we can be sure the proper systems are in place to minimize further loss of life in the future.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Rick Kellner