It’s been just a week since I returned from a Hillel Leadership Retreat with a sore back, campfire-smoke in my hair, and a beaded bracelet (well, a piece of string with four beads) on my wrist. But it feels like it’s been a lot longer than that–those of you in college realize the time warp that is the 15-week semester (or 10-week trimester, however you roll).
About twenty-five student leaders of Pittsburgh’s Hillel Jewish University Center gathered at a board member’s farm (thank you, Stpehen Tobe!) in the rural Tarentum, Pa. We just stayed one night, a little over 24 hours, but with the way people packed, you’d think we were going on a desert safari for a week. Granted, we were not a group that camped often, unless by “camp”, you mean “attend an overnight camp where there are sinks and showers and food prepared in a kitchen.”
Nevertheless, it was these elements that brought people together (if we love anything, it is to complain…and eat…which we did plenty of). Let me back up for a second–I’ve written a few blog posts, many moons ago, on this buzzword that we all love: community. Check them out, here and here. Read more…
The cliff notes version is this: Pittsburgh is home to 9 colleges and universities and they all share one building, the Hillel Jewish University Center. Mostly, Hillel serves students from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. Generally, there are Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox services every Friday night, with a no-fee dinner afterwards.
It’s hard to build anything with that many different opinions, types of worship, and schools. But we’re trying. Carnegie Mellon definitely has a lot farther to go than Pitt, with a smaller Jewish student body and a less-organized group of students (more of a committee than a board). Pitt, on the other hand, has a much larger student body, Jewish fraternities and a sorority, and a sizable student board.
At the leadership retreat, we played games (like the classic human knot) to loosen up, cooked dinner together (foil packets with veggies & meat on the campfire) and did a lot of talking. Hillel supports a number of umbrella groups (from a cappella to an urban farm–more on that later) and there was a lot to learn from the these. We sat around a campfire that night and talked about what keeps us up at night and what give sus hope. The answers were as wide-ranging as schoolwork and stress to the state of Israel to Iran’s nuclear program.
The openness with which people shared that night was beautiful and astounding–but it’s easy to lose that in the crush of the school and work week. This semester, I’m interested to see how the community that began to form at the Leadership Retreat will continue to grow and how the young Jews of Pittsburgh will grow as well.
