8 April 25 • 2019
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T

hroughout life, change is inevitable. 
Sometimes change comes smoothly 
and naturally, and other times change 
comes with various challenges. Some changes 
are positive, some are negative, and others 
are neutral. Life is all about 
changes because that’
s how 
we grow.
Can you imagine if we 
never changed from the day 
we were born? We’
d all be 
infants! Change can be hard, 
but nothing is harder than 
staying in a place you have 
outgrown. Change can be 
extremely uncomfortable because often you 
must take chances and give up certain things.
Last summer, I experienced my final 
summer as a camper. I had a difficult time 
at camp because I was experiencing internal 
challenges — namely, I was changing. Since 
the age of 7, going back to camp every sum-
mer was a given. I went to school and then I 
went to camp. I spent my difficult moments 
at school looking forward to how happy I 
would be at camp. It was where most of my 
daydreams took place. It was my haven. I will 
be forever grateful that I was able to spend 
nine consecutive summers there.
Even though I struggled at camp last sum-
mer, I never questioned not going back the 
following summer for the coveted CIT year. 
Yet, I could not figure out why I was having 

such a hard time having fun. Camp was 
exactly the same — it had not changed.
However, I felt my camp friendships shift-
ing. I felt myself disconnecting from activities 
I once loved. I couldn’
t figure out what was 
happening to me.
It wasn’
t until I came home that I felt how 
profound this change was. I was sad; I was 
confused. I was grieving for the best senior 
camper summer that never was. The week 
between camp and school was the hardest 
week of my life. I experienced countless emo-
tions and, at the same time, I had a ton of 
summer homework to complete. I was almost 
grieving my camp summers. It felt like the 
end of an era.
I spent hours crying, feeling depressed and 
angry. Everything felt so different. I didn’
t 
recognize this “me” that felt differently about 
the place I spent nine years loving. My dream 
of having the best summer was defeated.
I did not yet understand that I was in the 
midst of changing and growing, and that 
sometimes change and growth involve pain. 
It was by some sort of miracle that I was able 
to complete my homework. I spent my last 
week of summer feeling miserable, taking 
notes on history while riding the jarring and 
confusing waves of change.
As I started school, I slowly began to feel 
better. I wrote in my journal; I spoke with a 
few trusted adults; I made music playlists that 
soothed my soul. I allowed my changes to 

integrate inside of me. To this day, I continue 
to improve, and this year has been one of the 
best years of my life.
One of my core values is staying true to 
myself, and this year I have been myself more 
than ever. As time goes on, I realize more 
definitively that my needs have changed.
Usually during the school year I craved an 
escape, which was camp for me. This year 
I find myself much happier in the present 
moment. I find myself wanting a different 
kind of summer, one that involves seeing new 
places, traveling, learning and spending time 
with family. Although I still love camp and I 
may go back as a counselor one day, my own 
personal needs have changed. I have changed.
I will spend this next summer living out-
side of my comfort zone. Although my nine 
years at camp have provided me with so 
much growth and with so many irreplaceable 
experiences, and I am forever grateful, I look 
forward to this summer of change.
The next time I feel sad and confused 
about why a constant in my life suddenly 
feels drastically different, it’
s probably me. It’
s 
my soul telling me it’
s time to step out of my 
comfort zone. Life is all about growth and 
change and learning how to ride those waves. 
And of all the life lessons that I learned at 
camp, this one may be the most important. ■

Jillian Lesson is a 10th-grader at Frankel Jewish 
Academy and a contributor to thejewishnews.com. 
She is the daughter of Lauren and Randy Lesson, 
and the younger sister to Josh and Corey. She also 
is one of the JN’
s inaugural Rising Stars. See the 

story on page 10. 

from JN online
Riding the Waves of Change 

Jillian Lesson

Online Comments

Readers responded online 
to last week’
s cover story 
on innovations at area 
religious schools.

Gail Nachman Greenberg: 
Proud to share the innova-
tions happening at Temple 
Kol Ami! Thank you for a 
beautiful article!
 
Marcie Bensman: My son 
is in the Temple Israel high 
school program and he’
s 
having a blast. He gets 
to pick electives and, this 
semester, he picked an art 
class and has made some 
incredible pieces. I even 
told him how much better 
it is then when I was in 
religious school. Kudos on a 
good job, TI!

Suzan Kass Tepman: 
Adat Shalom also has an 
incredible Hebrew school 
program!
 
Jennifer Sima Ostroff: 
Partners in Torah is creating 
an amazing learning space 
on Tuesdays. My kids ask 
to go — even my teenager.

Steven Podvoll: Thanks 
for recognizing several 
innovative programs in our 
community. But I’
m a bit 
surprised by no mention of 
Temple Israel’
s program, 
which now has to rent 
class space from local pub-
lic schools.

Editor’
s Note: Look for a 
follow-up story on inno-
vative programs at other 
congregational schools in 
the next few weeks. 

The JN welcomes 
comments online at 
thejewishnews.com 
or on its Facebook page. 
Letters can be sent to 
letters@renmedia.us.

Hypothesis — today’
s prevailing doctrine, 
originated by anti-Semitic 19th-century 
German academics, that the Bible is just a 
messy assemblage of different people’
s texts 
eventually clumsily “redacted” into one text 
that calls Azazel a demon.
Probably the Jewish people’
s biggest 
problem today is that we mostly no longer 
think of ourselves as being a holy people. 
A big reason for that, I think, are teachings 
like this, that make the Torah seem ridic-
ulous.
Choosing between two interpretations 
of Torah, one making sense and the other 
obviously pagan, barbaric and absurd, let’
s 
go with the one that makes sense.
We owe the Torah the benefit of the 
doubt, not the denigrating pseudo-science 
of the Documentary Hypothesis.

— Michael Dallen

Detroit

Trump Spouts Half-Truths
It was a great day for affluent America Jewry 
on April 6 when President Donald Trump 
addressed the annual Republican Jewish 
Coalition (RJC) in Las Vegas.
These individuals deserved the honor. 
They lived the American dream, made lots 
of money and gained enormous status while 
fighting and tolerating the overt and covert 
anti-Semitic barriers thrown in front of 
them.
Just think of how great the day would 
have been and how swollen the ranks of the 
RJC would have been if the U.S. government 
in 1939 had allowed the German passenger 
ship St. Louis to deposit its human cargo of 
937 Jews fleeing persecution at the hands of 
the Nazis on American shores?
Yet, for some reason, the United States, 
with its huge statute sitting in New York 
Harbor begging the world to give us the 
people they don’
t want, said, “Sorry, folks, 
we’
re closed for business; we don’
t want your 
people either.”

Trump hurled his bewildering volley 
of half-truths, anger and hate at the smug 
conventioneers, and they ate it up, shouting 
“four more years.”
But the last straw, for me at least, was 
when he told the cheering crowd that the 
U.S. borders are now closed to immigrants.
Have these people sunk so low? Now that 
they have gotten theirs, they believe they 
can walk away from everyone else? That is 
not the Jewish credo that I was raised in.
But, for Jews, this game is far from over. 
Sure, Trump pats himself on the back for 
doing the legally and morally questionable 
things of messing around with maps in the 
Middle East to satisfy them.
But when a gunman kills Jews in 
Pittsburgh and Nazis march in 
Charlottesville; and Trump stands quiet and 
cowardly before our centuries-old enemies, 
then this battle is far from over, or even 
won.
 
 
 
— Steve Raphael

Bloomfield Hills 

continued from page 5

