Last night may have been my best night yet online! No, I did not watch a cool YouTube video or reconnect on Facebook with a friend from 2nd grade–i learned Torah with members of Camp Ramah in New England’s Vocational Training Program. This group of young adults with a range of special needs meets every Thursday night at 8 pm, as part of our “Shabbos Is Calling” video conference. Following a few minutes “shmoozing”–about Ortal’s upcoming Israel trip, Jason’s volunteer work on Fridays playing  chess with elderly adults, and David’s delight that work at a local private school wasn’t cancelled even once this week due to snow, we moved on to a discussion of the parsha, the weekly Torah portion.

I reminded the group that we had learned last week about the Mishkan, the portable tabernacle which the Israelites carried with them through the desert. “Why did they need a mishkan?” I asked. Jason had two answers.  The first was the more conventional answer. “They need a more physical way to connect with God.” Jason’s second answer blew me away. “The mishkan is God’s way of showing the people what is okay to build and what is not okay to build–the mishkan was okay to build; the Golden Calf was not!” No commentator I am familiar with has offered this interpretation. Thanks, Jason!

Then, we discussed this week’s parsha of Tetzaveh, about the special clothes of the Kohanim, the priests.  I offered an explanation about the me’il, a special blue garment–with a high neckline, and special gold and cloth bells at the bottom. I explained how it was worn as a kaparah, an atonement for l’shon harah, derogatory speech. The alternating bells–the ones that ring and those which are silent–reminded us that there are times when a person should speak up and times when he shouldn’t. Jeff said it best, “Sometimes, when you have a thought, you shouldn’t say it!” I was so pleased that Jeff was taking a Torah lesson, and connecting it to a lesson we learn in our job training program–sometimes, on a job site, and in life, it is best to censor a thought. Jeff is telling us that it is okay to think something, but we need to screen and think carefully before we speak.

We wished each other Shabbat Shalom and signed off–excited to meet again next week. I am still smiling–thinking about how online communication has amazing potential to teach torah and to connect all Jews–even those who sometimes feel disconnected from the Jewish world. I will truly have a Shabbat shel Shalom–a peaceful shabbat.

Tikvah Director, Howard Blas, was invited to be a guest blogger on the matankids blog:

http://blog.matankids.org

Why can’t camp be twelve months instead of just two months? asks Marcia Yellin, mother of Jacob Yellin, a long time camper and member of the vocational training program at Camp Ramah in New England’s Tikvah Program. Jacob and many other campers with a wide range of developmental disabilities have benefited from the Jewish, social, educational, recreational and vocational experiences which the Ramah camping movement has been offering since the first Tikvah Program started 41 years ago.Ramah currently offers a range of overnight, day and family camp programs for campers with a range of special needs.

But campers return home in August, and, they need to wait a long ten months before these rich experiences continue.

Thanks to Shabbos Is Calling, campers and staff members connect every Thursday night, all year round. Last year, a small group of campers and staff members from Ramah New England met by conference call every Thursday to sing Shabbat songs, learn about the parsha and “schmooze. This year, thanks to a grant from the Ruderman Family Foundation, campers and staff at four Ramah camps participate regularly in Shabbos Is Calling. And they can now see each other.

Every Thursday at 7, campers and staff from the Amitzim camping program in New England click on the link to a special Amitzim room on Megameeting.com. Roberta Lieber, mother of regular participant, Sam Glucksman, writes, I just want you to know how much he still loves it and looks forward to seeing his camp friends each week. From Sam’s perspective it is a real treat! Imagine the excitement of seeing friends pop up on the screen from Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and beyond. And the counselors are having a blast as well.