If only this boy's father had seen his role as being a camp counselor rather than a piggy-bank.

Being largely illiterate in the cultural arts, I have not bequeathed to my children a legacy of music or dance. Less so have I imparted to my children an appreciation for classical opera or ballet. Rather, in the realm of activity I have sought to hand down to them is an appreciation for three virtues which, if absorbed, would ensure that they are never bored.
The first is a love for reading. The second a love for history. And the third, amply suited for a column about summer, is a love for nature and the great outdoors.

I have taught my children that anything man can make, God can make more beautifully. Neither Rome, with the marvels of the Pantheon, nor Athens, with the grandeur of the Parthenon, can equal the sheer awe-inspiring beauty of Niagara Falls or the Grand Tetons.

We are a camping family, who try to go on most summer weekends to campgrounds with an RV and tents. We take pride in being a Jewish redneck family, more comfortable in a trailer camp than in Manhattan with its ritzy apartments. Indeed, in order to have a synagogue service with the proper quorum of 10, I have even launched an experimental club; Wandering Jews consisting of families who like to spend their Shabbats closer to God in nature than obstructed by concrete walls. And on Sundays I try to take my kids, every week, either hiking, swimming or bike riding, and in the winters skiing at a local New Jersey hill.

Once upon a time, children were filled with energy. Today, they seem almost lifeless. Go to any home and look closely at the teenage kids when their parents introduce you. You'll see that what they most want to do is to be left alone to head back to their rooms so that they can watch TV, get online or listen to music.

Our children are divorced from nature, the source of life, and the artifice is snuffing the life out of them. Almost everything about growing up these days, from video games to iPods to hanging out at the malls, is artificial and unnatural. Kids today have lost an appreciation for the serenity of a clear blue lake and the power of a flowing, whitewater river. They would rather go to a film than a mountain range, and would rather be in a mosh pit at a concert than a boat in an august sea.

The American idea of the great outdoors has been reduced to a manicured lawn and a gas-fired barbecue. It was the great French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau who argued so convincingly that man is corrupted when he is separated from nature. Cement and concrete make us hard. But tall grass and flowing water dissolve pretense and manifest our authenticity.

Life may not be a summer camp. But that doesn't mean that we need live it far from God's good earth.

Copyright Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, 2005

*This article was originally posted Saturday, 15 January, 2005