#BlogElul: Know

The older I get, the more I realize I don't know anything. I remember my first year as a Fellow at AHA. I thought I knew everything. I just graduated from college and successfully secured a job. What more did I need to know? Someone should have told me that I didn't know what I was taking about.  I remember thinking that my camp counselor experience would help me to shine residentially, and my Bachelor's Degree in Judaic studies would be all I need to be the teaching intern the Judaic Studies Department had every seen!

To make a long story short, I was wrong. Camp is only a month, or two months at the most. In the beginning of the school year, living at AHA felt like camp. I spent my nights helping my students wind down and spent a lot of time helping people through homesickness. Orientation was suddenly over and my kids started classes. At camp, there is a bubble. It's like the world outside of camp doesn't exists. To some extent, AHA has a bubble as well. However, you can't be out of touch with the rest of the world for 10 months out of the year. Whatever challenges my students needed help with became something we worked on the entire year. At camp, we often do what we can to help our campers with the understanding that it was short term. Sometimes, it was challenges like having a student on crutches for several months, or dealing with the loss of a family member. Those things don't just go away after a few months. The challenges my students threw at me always reminded me that I knew nothing, and had so much to learn about life. All I knew I could do was listen and give hugs. Lots of hugs.