Mendel Duchman’s Best 2 Days

By Mendel Duchman for COLlive

It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting at home in Los Angeles, California, and my phone rang. On the line was Rabbi Gedalya Shemtov, director of the Shluchim Office.

“I hear you’re a lifetime camper!” he said, “Refusing to grow up.”

“Absolutely,” I responded.

“We are sitting here with some shluchim now,” he said, “thinking about what we can do, something special for the children of the shluchim, out in their posts, to give them a way to cope.”

This was 17 years ago, just 3 months after Gimmel Tammuz, 5754/1994.

“We have the idea to fly them out for a retreat, a 10-day winter camp, where they can meet with mashpiim, bochurim and other young shluchim to give them chizuk etc.”

“We think you’d be interested in participating,” he went on.

He was right. I was very interested. And the rest is history. I have been participating every year for the past 17 years, and I’ve had the zechus to spend 2 days in that camp ever since, the best 2 days of my year.

A camp that started with 17 boys on an amateur campsite has quickly expanded to 2 full-service camps in picture-perfect southern Arizona, where hundreds of young shluchim are wined and dined in both gashmius and ruchnius. The boys camp on the C.O.D. Ranch is a beautiful historic private retreat, and the girls camp is in a state of the art Y.M.C.A. building with great amenities. Children partake of trips, horseback riding, campfires, great Torah learning, creative activities, drama and dance, while interacting with caring counselors from 770 and Beis Rivkah, respectively.

If you were to land in the airport and shuttle up the mountain on the day camp begins, in Oracle, Arizona, undoubtedly one of the top 20 locations for natural beauty in the country, you would be overwhelmed by the smiling faces of unzere kinder – shluchim’s children from Australia, England, Sweden, and from remote cities around the U.S.

During the year, most of the kids don’t have a cheder to attend, don’t have a chance to study, learn, and make friends with other Lubavitcher or frum kids, or to just be off-duty for a while. Shluchim children are almost always in the spotlight, they are looked up to even by adults in their communities, and they often feel a special responsibility as role models, despite their young age. This is a good thing, and a great zechus, but the Arizona Shluchim Camp gives them the chance to relax and kick back with other kids who are just like them.

Of course, they bring their abilities with them. “It’s incredible to see the leadership skills that these youngsters have, how they go about dealing with each other or issues at the camp,” states Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, Head Shliach of Tucson, under whose leadership this camp takes place.

The tireless camp devotee Zalman Traxler of Texas says, “If I didn’t like this camp I wouldn’t be there 16 years – 13 years as a staff member, 3 years as a camper. At this camp you feel like you’re at a farbrengen and you feel like you’re with the Rebbe. That electric energy is there the whole ten days of camp. In my childhood I was zocheh to be at a farbrengen of the Rebbe several times, and it’s the same energy.”

“Some of the counselors now have never seen the Rebbe, but through learning sichos, singing the camp songs, and the Rebbe’s nigunim, they are able to create the atmosphere. Where I grew up there were no kosher restaurants available, or religious friends where I could sleep over and hang out. In this camp, even the pizza parties are a novelty for kids like that.”

Many grown shluchim, alumni of this camp, say the camp experience has imbued them with chayus, planning abilities, achdus, and pride. After the Kinus Yaldei Hashluchim, and the Shluchim Online School, this is the largest mivtza of the Shluchim Office, both in quantity and in quality. It is a beautiful mosad which we shouldn’t take for granted.

Thank you: Rabbi Gedalya Shemtov of the Shluchim Office, the Shluchim of Tucson Rabbi Yossie and Chanie Shemtov, the Camp Director Rabbi Moshe Pinson and Yossi Unsdorfer for having this very unique vision and a job well done!

And a thank you to the generous donors who share this vision: Rabbi Don Yoel and Malka Levy, Zalman and Pesi Schochat, Zevi Drizin and the many others.

In a time where there is so much criticism of what we do wrong, I wanted to take a minute to speak about one thing we have done right: This camp. A camp that for ten days focuses entirely on the physical and spiritual well being of the Rebbe’s little soldiers, who year round live in far away remote cities and countries.

V’hamaseh Hu Hoeeker. Let’s all take stock. Speak and write less and do more!