by Brenda Mandel, Cornerstone Fellow
Camp this summer is focusing on a Culture of Kindness. Chesed, or kindness, was the first Jewish value of the week and it will take us through the entire summer. We’ve learned from our faculty how Judaism discusses kindness, and we have been inspired by our director’s favorite kindness quotes. In all this there is still the question: why? Surely Crane Lake has always had a Culture of Kindness – and surely it doesn’t take a superhero to tell us every week that being kind is important – why all the fuss? The truth is it takes all those things, and all of us, to support and reinforce the kind kehillah kedoshah we have in the Crane Lake bubble.
That’s why the five Cornerstone Fellows of 2017 decided it was our duty to introduce a figure the camp could look to as a reference point for all the kind things they already do and see the power those actions truly have. We decided to create a superhero called “The Keeper of Kindness.” The Keeper of Kindness is really just a physical manifestation of all the little acts of kindness found all over camp, but what Cornerstone recognized is that when you make those everyday acts the acts of a superhero, it can change the way everyone sees kindness.
In the outside world it can be hard to hear the kindness (or the praise for our acts of kindness) over all the negativity around us. In the outside world there is criticism of body image, of intelligence, of gender, of love, of life choices, and of anything imaginable. In our bubble, we are able to remove all that darkness to discover that there is a layer of kindness surviving and thriving underneath. However, it’s really more than that. It is also key that we take time to acknowledge the specific moments that form Crane Lake’s Culture of Kindness.
For this, the Cornerstone Fellows created a treasure chest where all members of our bubble can write down the acts of chesed they see around them. This serves several purposes. It encourages all of us to seek out the kindness of others, inspires us to do acts of kindness ourselves, and gives us the opportunity to publicly recognize the great things we’re all doing at camp. This is so important because we need to strengthen and train our kindness in this special place the way we strengthen and train our bodies in fitness, so when we all go back home, our kindness will drown out the negativity and invoke a change.
Brenda is originally from New York City. She currently attends the University at Albany where she is studying Linguistic Anthropology and Judaic Studies. She has been at Crane Lake since she was a camper in Upper Nitzanim way back in 2007 and now, in her 11th summer, is a third year General Counselor for Nitzanim. She considers Crane Lake her second home (she sometimes spend more time here than her actual home!), and looks forward to coming back to the Crane Lake Bubble all year long.
Tune in each week for new episodes of the Keeper of Kindness, based on our Jewish Values of the Week!
Keeper of Kindness Trailer: Chesed (Kindness)
Episode 1: Lo Ta’amod (Being an Upstander)
Episode 3: Binah (Understanding)
Episode 5: Rachamim (Compassion)
Episode 6: B’tzelem Elohim (We Are All Created in the Image of God)