Reflections on coming home from a Hebrew High Retreat

The weekend before Thanksgiving we took 150 kids to Eisner Camp for our Hebrew High School retreat. What a great weekend! The kids ranged in ages from 8th Grade to 12th Grade and the programming was interesting.

The theme of the weekend: www.conclave.hhs. We examined the use of this new social media in the kid's lives. We used the same opening program that was used in the UJA LI Social Media Bootcamp. The kids were asked to create their own identities. They put on name tags and picked a tag line. The tag line was a quote that they liked. They then went around and interviewed other kids who "tagged" them by writing a one word catchphrase that expressed who they were. Everything was then put onto a sheet of paper and hung up for the kids to see. The kids just loved this program! It just spoke their language.

Shabbat services was unique as well. We "blogged" services. The kids were divided up into 10 groups. Each group was given a prayer to "blog." There was a trigger posting about the prayer and the kids had about 15 minutes to write their responses. Then, as we prayed the service together, each group was called up to "post" their blog. They attached it to the prayer that came before. We read the trigger paragraph and then sang the prayer together. It was great!

Of course, there were other programs as well: low ropes course for the 10th Grade kids; special programs for the 8th-9th graders; song session, Israeli Dancing; football; hanging out, playing games... Conclave is an amazing experience. I remember growing up, my rabbi told my mom that one conclave is the equivalent of an entire year's worth of religious school. Certainly the great feelings that the kids have and the connections they make to each other and to the clergy are almost impossible to replicate through religious school alone.

Next year's conclave is the weekend before Thanksgiving. If you have a high school student, sign them up for Hebrew High School and put it on your calendar.

Choosing a name

I know that choosing a name can be difficult. I help people do it all the time when people want to give a Hebrew name their children. Finding the right name, one that communicates identity and links past with future, is the challenge.

So here I am trying to figure out what my Blog is going to be called. I attended a Social Media Training where we were asked to spend a few minutes "tagging" each other. That meant introducing yourself to other people who then "tagged" you with a one word label that they stuck onto your shirt. The very first person I spoke to asked me what I liked to do and I told them I love to dance Israeli Folk Dances. And so, I got my first tag: "Dancing Rabbi."

Not only am I a rabbi, but I love to Dance. I started dancing in High School and taught dance at Eisner Camp, our Reform Movement Summer Camp in Great Barrington, MA. (I still work there during the summer, but now as a faculty member, not a dance specialist.) I performed in dance groups in High School and in college. I taught the Israeli Dance class in Undergraduate School. I gave it up for a while, but 6 years ago, went back to it. And it is a good thing I did, because, most importantly, I met my wife, Gladys, through Israeli Folk Dance. We met at the 92nd Street Y in NYC at their Wednesday Night Session. We still dance, every other week, with Danny Uziel, in Little Neck. Unfortunately, it's not enough to really keep up with the great dances that everyone is enjoying. But it is still fun. Gladys and I get to dance at lots of Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties, too. Right now, I am teaching a great beginner's dance class in our Hebrew High School Program. Maybe it will help train the next generation of folk dancers?!

So, I have decided to call my blog "Dancing Rabbi." That says something about me.