CLC’s T’filah Goes Visual

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By Sarah Lauing, Director of Jewish Life
Sarah is a member of our year-round team, and our Nadiv Educator will spend summers with CLC and work throughout the year with both Eisner and Crane Lake Camps as well as with Temple Shaarey Tefila of New York City as the family educator. Sarah brings an incredible amount of knowledge and Ruach to the CLC community.

 

During our daily morning t’filah, campers normally hold laminated prayer cards so they can follow along with the service.  But not yesterday.   Instead, throughout the service, gorgeous photographs of camp were projected on a screen behind the songleaders, along with the words of the prayers in Hebrew and English.  It was Crane Lake Camp’s first ever Visual T’filah, created entirely by a group of Chaverim campers.

Over the course of a 3-day Kesher class, Chaverim learned about the themes of the prayers and explored camp taking photos related to those themes.  Camper Becky Molinoff commented, “It was cool to connect Judaism to our hobby of photography.”  They paired their photographs with the specific prayers in the morning service to create the final Visual T’filah product.

In addition to freeing our hands from cumbersome prayer cards, Visual T’filah is meant to give a visual kavannah, or inspiration, for each prayer.  “It gives the prayer more meaning when you can visualize it,” said camper Allison Krug, whose ear appears behind the shema as a visual cue to “Hear, O Israel!”  This innovative model of t’filah gives campers a more personal, creative connection to prayer, and we are excited to continue to experiment with it throughout the summer!

View all of the slides in the gallery below