Alef: The NEXT Conversation

Jews Gone Camping, Part 2

by Ruvym Gilman

Read Part 1 here.

And now I was going car-camping again, once more to a New York State maintained campsite in the Catskills. What was sure to make this trip different was the group’s commitment to having Shabbat while in the woods, do a hike the next day, and then go through a havdallah service on Saturday night. I wasn’t going to let any silly poem about how “Jews don’t camp” stop me from bringing my Jewishness straight into the dark, merciless heart of Mother Nature.

The weekend started off as only a Jewish weekend could, with an argument over food. I’m a big fan of ease and simplicity, which to me meant foregoing this whole idea of buying kosher meat in the City and schlepping it upstate in a cooler. Why not just buy some non-kosher meat up there? Why burden ourselves unnecessarily?

But more passionate hearts prevailed, and after a delayed Friday night departure, I found myself at the campsite with five of my friends, under the glimmer of piercing starlight, surrounded by the distant spatter of conversation from neighboring campers gathered around fires. We got there at 10pm, just as “quiet time” was imposed by the forest ranger who came by to politely tell us that we could cook our meal, but that we just needed to respect the sanctity of the space.

From that point, we got things going pretty quickly – one of my friends who may or may not be a pyromaniac had the fire raging within minutes. Upon discovering that we were missing the ever-important corkscrew, a necessity for Kiddush, a friend suggested that we walk around to neighboring sites to see if we could borrow one. I shrugged off this idea, uncomfortable by the thought of bothering people about this, of having strangers (us) emerge from the pitch black in search of tools.

“Come on,” she said, “don’t be so shy.”

“I’m not shy, I just don’t want to disturb anyone.”

I was convinced to go anyway, and after fumbling around in the dark for a little while, we came upon two men seated at their fire.

“Hello there!” she said as we approached.

One of the men, seemingly startled, most likely just drunk, stood up to meet us. We told him of our predicament and he went digging in his tent for a corkscrew.

“You don’t see those right there. I don’t have anything here,” he said as he riffled through a pack filled with prescription pill bottles and at least one machete-sized knife.

I gave my friend a “I am so annoyed that you made me do this” look.

Eventually he found what we were looking for and insisted on following us back to our camp because, so he claimed, the corkscrew was a prized possession of his.

Despite my discomfort with the situation, we led him to the campsite. When we got there we made some introductions, and as soon as we had a couple of bottles open, one of my friends moved straight to pouring out some wine.

“What’s your name?” he asked the man.

“Carl.”

“Well, nice to meet you. Here, have some wine.”

Carl took the cup offered to him.

“And now,” my friend continued, “we’re going to do a quick blessing over it.”

Carl looked confused.

“So you know, we’re Jews,” my friend offered as explanation. “It’s no big deal.”

“All of you?”

Everyone nodded enthusiastically. I was more hesitant in making the admission.

“I’m fine,” mumbled Carl.

My friend went through the blessing quickly and we all said “l’chaim.”

A “salut!” was what we got in response.

A moment later we heard another voice approaching the site.

“Carl, you there?”

“Hey Vince, get over here, all of these guys are Jews. I’m doing something Jewish.”

Carl and Vince only stayed for a few more minutes. They promised to come back the next day for havdallah but we didn’t see them for the rest of our time in the woods.

The remainder of the weekend went down without anything dramatic happening. We survived our hike and had another great meal on Saturday night. One girl who was having her first camping experience, kept shouting “Oh my God! I love camping!” at random points throughout the evening. I would have liked for her to chill out, but who was I to temper someone’s excitement?

The next day we stopped at a diner on our way out of town. This has, perhaps, become my favorite part of these sorts of weekend camping trips – the opportunity to unwind and converse while you’re on the cusp of having the experience end, just as you’re about to cross back over that line that separates life in the City from the time spent cooking and sweating and sleeping in the woods.

We usually sit for at least two hours, drinking endless cups of coffee and picking at the toast even after its cold and the butter has soaked straight through to the porcelain plate. On this particular occasion, while sitting there on the diner’s patio, we struck up a conversation with a woman walking her dog.

“He’s a show dog,” she told us, gushing with enthusiasm at the opportunity to tell us the dog’s story, about his pedigree, about his as-yet-unearned medals and awards, the ones he was bound to win sooner or later. “Chow-Chow and I were featured in the February 2010 issue of Kibbles,” she added.

We looked at her blankly.

“You know Kibbles don’t you? It’s the premier dog magazine in America.”

In that moment, I was overcome with a sense of clarity, of certainty about the world and the way it worked, about my place in it.

“Even if it’s just car camping…Jews camp,” I determined. “But they definitely don’t do dog shows.”

Photo provided by the Author.

Ruvym is on the Alef editorial board.  In addition to his fondness for camping, you can find him discussing traveling in Israel,  foreign languages, Russian accents, and fur coats.

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