My Jewish identity is not determined by what I believe. Truthfully I
don't know if I believe in God or not, or if the Tanakh is truly divine.
But what I do believe in is the Kahilah Kedosha, the holy community that I
have found here. For me the connections that I have made throughout my
life with Jewish kids has given me a net that I can always fall back on.
The amazing people I have met in my life have really given me the strength
to find who I am. Now this doesn't mean that I don't take services or
religious aspects of Judaism seriously because I do. When I pray I
don't exactly know what I'm praying too but I say thank you. I say thank
you for all the blessings in my life because I am truly a lucky person.
As I said the Jewish kids that I have met through my life have really helped me. But the most influential ones are from my camp, Camp Newman. Camp Newman is the place that gave me a home. I remember the first time I realized just how amazing camp is. It was last year when I was in a session called Hevrah. It was the first night and we did our annual closing circle. As we sang the shema I looked around at all these people that I truly loved. We all had this connection thanks to Judaism and right there it clicked. I realized that camp had given me these amazing people and right there my love for camp was created.
