As a writer for Chabad.org, I’ve interviewed rescue workers choppering around Nepal, student rabbis traversing the Amazon jungle and Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries battling rising floodwaters up on the Rockies.
Yet one of the hardest people to reach was Rabbi Michoel Harari.
An accomplished educator in Miami, the 35-year-old is founder and director of Camp Yeshiva Outdoor Adventure (YOA), which takes high school boys deep into the wilderness for weeks at a time. In an interview that spanned nearly a month (he typically sees his phone once a week and often loses service even in those rare instances), we discussed the inspiration and grit that goes into creating life-changing summer adventures for his young charges year after year.
Q: I know that you’re busy out there, so why don’t you begin by telling me where you are. And who’s with you?
A: We are between Alamosa and Blanca, Colo. I am with 31 students and five staff members, all of whom participated in YOA as students. We just climbed Blanca Peak. It took us two days to reach the top. When we got there, we learned Torah and had a farbrengen. We then hiked down to a lake for morning prayers and hiked another 14 more miles to where we are now.
Our students come from all over: New York, Florida, California. Over the years, we’ve been to British Columbia near Alaska, up in Maine, to Yellowstone and Yosemite, and every state and national park that comes to mind. Last year, we even went out to sea on the Pacific for four weeks.
Q: Sounds like the adventure of a lifetime. What inspired you to do this?
A: As an older yeshivah student, I served as a mentor at a high school in Melbourne, Australia. At one point, we took the boys out to a bush and I observed the most wonderful thing: Boys who were not academically well off and may have even gotten made fun of by their peers blossomed into leaders. Suddenly, boys who had been lagging behind became very productive, and everyone else was benefiting from their leadership.
Later on, I taught Jewish teens in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, and I saw the same thing when we took our students on a two-week camping trip in Romania.
Once I saw the beauty of young people being transformed by living out in nature, it was something I have done every year. This is the 11th year that we have been running Camp YOA, and we see the same dynamic play itself out with boys from many different backgrounds.
Q: Are you selective about who goes out with you? What do you do if there is a boy who cannot hack it?
A: We do a lot of research, but we are not selective in the traditional sense. We don’t really look at academic accomplishment, physical abilities or even leadership qualities. Instead, we look for people who are sincerely open to growing and stretching themselves beyond what they think possible. We look at the attitude, heart and mind. We’ve had strong kids who fail and weaker ones who did the program.
Being out in the back country together—often relying on each other for our very lives—we grow into an incredibly close unit, and the boys are open to changing in ways they would have never have considered.
Q: Have there been times that you have feared for the boys’ lives?
A: First of all, the staff and I are heavily trained for all kinds of emergency responses. I am an EMT, wilderness EMT; have trained in search and rescue; and volunteer for Hatzalah in Miami, among other things. Among our staff members this year we have EMTs and a former medic with the special forces in the Israeli Army. We generally make sure that our staff is trained in CPR and wilderness first aid as well.
We also have an intense period of training before camp. In fact, we spend 10 months researching and preparing so that we are ready for the challenges that come our way. All possible contingency plans are also laid out.
Yet nothing can be scripted, and weather is a factor. We once had a blizzard in Wyoming in July that covered our trail, and there was no way for us to see the path back.
Through dead reckoning (and Divine help), we came of it, but we were covered in snow for two days. One kid (who is an athlete and a leader) told me that until that moment, he had always felt like a big shot. But out in the wilderness covered in snow, for the first time in his life, he felt insignificant. It was a defining moment for him.
Q: What is Shabbat like in camp? How do you create a Jewish atmosphere when you are so far away from synagogues and family?
A: We try to get a roof over our heads for Shabbat. But even when we are out in the back country, it’s different. When you work so hard all week and lead such a rigorous routine, the very fact that you are not working gives you an intense feeling of rest. Once a week, we allow ourselves to stay up late and sleep in past 5 a.m.
Of course, we dress up in our Shabbat suits and eat catered food that we get shipped up from Miami. A big part of this program is learning how to be true to ourselves, no matter where we are and what circumstances we may be in.
Q: Do the kids grow in their Yiddishkeit?
A: They grow in all areas. In this program, you know the people with you as well as your own siblings. We had kids who were classmates but told us that they did not know each other as well as they did after four days of camp. The entire environment is one of growing and advancing; it uplifts everyone.
They’re outside of their comfort zone on many levels—growing, exploring and changing. They signed up for that.
That’s what inspires me as well—knowing that we are changing lives. This is also what motivates my wife to put up with my absences—knowing that I am off helping real people improve in real ways.
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