Part 4: Simchaton

By Dan Butler

Nowadays, the upgraded and winterized Camp HASC facilities serve as the perfect home for the one-of-a-kind Simchaton, a three-day retreat with Simchas Torah at its center. But years ago, a group of volunteer alumni counselors and staff conducted Simchaton each year in a local hotel or retreat center. To this day, hundreds of counselors pay for the privilege of bringing their own campers to celebrate with the Camp HASC family each year on Simchas Torah.

It is like one long Camp HASC Shabbos, with singing, dancing, classes, and TLC provided to every camper. It’s a celebration of the completion of the Torah, but it’s also a celebration and a confirmation of the milestones reached in the past summer.

On Simchas Torah morning, the sparks of Camp HASC’s fire flew everywhere.

– –

One teenage girl, whose acute psychological disability had kept her in a wheelchair since a car accident years earlier, demonstrated the progress she had made since taking her first steps at Camp HASC, after a summer of intensive therapy. That morning, she danced. Not tentatively, not delicately, but with abandon. By no means cured, but significantly improved, and well on the way to a level of independence undreamed of before the summer.

– –

They followed the custom of calling every male to the Torah, even autistic 14-year-olds.

His first aliyah. He was terrified by the prospect of saying the berachah or being called up on his own. A phalanx of counselors propelled him to the Torah, and lovingly attempted to restrain him from hurting himself or those around him.

His frenzied excitement at receiving an aliyah conflicted with his terror of being alone at the bima. In classic autistic fashion, he bit his own arm, and then punched the counselor who was reading the Torah square in the jaw. A Camp HASC veteran, the counselor rolled with the punch, actually smiling without missing a beat.

The autistic kid’s panic was such that it took six counselors to restrain him. They probably would not even have attempted to put him in that position at all if we, his parents, who were right there, had not wanted our son to finally get that aliyah. At some personal risk, those counselors indulged us.

So, more than a year late, Camp HASC provided our son with the bar mitzvah he had never had. And while he is tremendously proud of the accomplishment which was forced upon him, to this day, it is still possible to get him to run out of the room by calling his name in Hebrew after the fashion that is used to call him to the Torah.

– –

To avoid delay, there were four Torah scrolls being read from simultaneously, but the entire room stopped when one particular Camp HASC icon was called to the Torah. This extraordinary, bright young man is trapped in a body that does not respond to his instructions. But it is his willpower that nurtures the soul that shines forth from that wheelchair. The converted hotel meeting hall that had become a shul was utterly silent as he made the traditional berachah, exerting an incredible amount of energy in order to gasp out the traditional acknowledgment of G‑d’s generosity, testifying that He chose us among the nations as the trustees of His Torah and the way of life it prescribes.

None of us with full physical capacity spoke a word or made a move the rest of the day without deeply appreciating hand-eye coordination, verbal facility, balance, and the naturally flawless way that our brains coordinate them.

– –

The sheer number of participants and the variety of disabilities that they represent made for an unusual sight in the lobby of a large suburban hotel. As the afternoon wore on and the games and classes took place throughout the facility, the front door of the hotel opened and a regal-looking woman made her way to the front desk, obviously certain that it was early enough in the day for a vacancy to be available. But the facility was full.

Somewhat miffed, the woman turned away from the desk, took one step toward the door, and, catching sight of the campers and counselors in the lobby, stopped short. She slowly looked around the room, mouth agape.

At that moment, not five feet away, a counselor pushing what appeared to be a high-tech stroller stopped for a moment. The counselor went to the front of the stroller and stood facing the young camper sitting in it. Oblivious to everything around her, the counselor began to talk directly to the child in a conversational tone. Two days earlier, the relationship that had been formed over eight weeks in the summer–a relationship somewhat invigorated by separation–had resumed with greater intensity. The child, victim of a rare genetic nerve disease, had been confined to a wheelchair her entire life.

As the counselor stood talking to her, that painfully skinny youngster suddenly rocked forward and stood up, putting her arms around her counselor’s neck for support. The counselor was so shocked that she couldn’t speak. Tears began to flow. Knowing that what had just happened was considered impossible, she looked frantically around for someone to witness the moment. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she could finally stammer, “You’re standing! You’re standing!” The two stood embracing for a moment, and then, as if in slow motion, the child sat back down.

The counselor turned her tear-stained face to the woman who stood there, and asked in wonderment, “Did you see that?” Crying herself, the woman nodded as she slowly headed for the door.

The first three parts of this series of glimpses into life at Camp HASC appeared in the April 15, April 22, and May 6 issues of the 5TJT. They can be read online at http://www.5tjt.com/everyday-miracles-at-hasc-walking/, http://www.5tjt.com/everyday-miracles-at-hasc/, and http://www.5tjt.com/everyday-miracles-at-hasc-2/.

 

SHARE
Previous articleAppropriate Appellations
Next articleMindBiz

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here