M. Brejt

Whether in the wild outdoors or the lively classroom, Rabbi Moshe Stamler sees the potential in each child.

 

The park rangers at Mount Washington in New Hampshire have seen a lot, but the scene that summer afternoon was a first. Close to 100 boys, with backpacks over their shoulders and determined expressions on their faces, made their way up the mountain. Never before had such a large group completed such an undertaking.

These were city boys, boys who spend the year sitting in front of a shtender, and yet, each of them did it. How? With the combined power of the wilderness and a rebbi who believes in them.

The outdoorsy kid who wants an exciting summer heads off to the Chazak Wilderness Camp. But little does he realize that behind the exciting itinerary, there’s values and ideals and quiet growth.

To Rabbi Moshe Stamler, head of the camp, it’s not just about having a good, healthy time. The lessons learned in the great outdoors are unlike those that can be found anywhere else.

To him, the entire summer is made up of chinuch moments.

But his greatest goal?

In his words: “It’s finding the value in each and every person.”

 

Rabbi Stamler’s profile is typical for a rebbi and mental health counselor—both of which he is—but somewhat surprising for a rugged woodman. Born in the concrete wilds of Boro Park and an alumna of South Fallsburg, he had little exposure to the great outdoors growing up.

 

“I always knew I would go into chinuch,” he remarks about his early dreams. The wilderness aspect of it, though, only came into the mix years later.

 

After learning in Eretz Yisrael, Rabbi Stamler attended Mountaindale Yeshiva, where he met Ariel Fishman, who today runs a wilderness program for camps throughout Israel. Back then, he was a budding outdoorsman, and he was the one who got Rabbi Stamler interested in the wilderness.

 

When the offer came in to be a counselor in Dora Golding’s wilderness division, Camp Yaalozu, Rabbi Stamler was intrigued. “I liked the idea of working with teens—already in South Fallsburg, I would learn with non-religious kids—and the wilderness part appealed to me.”

 

“It was an interesting mix,” Rabbi Stamler reminisces. “There were Modern Orthodox boys who were interested in sports—that’s why they chose the wilderness track—and boys from mainstream homes who were struggling with Yiddishkeit. It should have been toxic,” he says ruefully. “But it worked!”

 

The secret to the melding of an unlikely group? The wilderness.

 

“In the woods, all externals go out the window. All that matters is, how will I get food and shelter to last the night? Does their background help or hinder them in this endeavor? No. It becomes a non-factor. It’s man versus nature, united together to conquer.”

 

That was Rabbi Stamler’s first experience of the unique character of the wilderness, of the magic it wields on those who go out to do battle with it. The boys fight for survival, locked together in a common battle, and all externals fall away.

 

The woods are the great equalizer.

 

“In life, we all put on a sort of mask.” Rabbi Stamler muses. “We’re just trying to make it. It’s so difficult to be your true self when constantly looking over your shoulder to check on your popularity status. You end up not being you but a projection of what people want you to be.”

 

In the wilderness, last names don’t equate shelter, and the coolest personality will not create fire. These factors become inconsequential and allow those in it to flourish.

 

The lesson hit home, and Rabbi Stamler found his calling.

 

Today, Rabbi Stamler helps hundreds by harnessing the power of the wilderness.

 

Years later, Rabbi Stamler’s voice is excited and awed when he remembers that first summer. The memories are fresh and clear; the experience shaped his perspectives on what camp can do for kids.

There’s the way people discover new perspectives on themselves: “I remember one boy who was amazing with knots. At home, he probably wasn’t the coolest kid, wasn’t the best at sports or school, but in camp he was the star. Everyone needed his help!”

 

There’s the way survival training teaches you what’s really important in life: “On one of our backpacking hikes, a boy grew so exhausted and frustrated that he threw out his can of instant potato soup—every ounce makes a difference on such hikes. He claimed it was worth it. Hours later, when they camped for the night, the boy regretted his decision and hungrily eyed another boy’s quarter can of potato soup. Desperate, he offered to pay the other boy $50 for a quarter can of coup—a soup that costs 49 cents!—and it wasn’t a trade the other boy made easily!”

 

Reaching the peak of Mount Lafayette, New Hampshire

 

 

How working together creates the impossible: The boys built a hammock 30 feet high in the air that could accommodate 10 to 12 boys—from scratch!

 

That it’s all about the attitude: “On one of our first days, there was an activity with a sandbox for teens! Before they had a chance to roll their eyes, my co-counselor and I jumped into the sandbox and started rolling around, having the time of our lives. An hour later, we couldn’t get the campers away from the sandbox. The kids also made incredible structures from the sand. It was mind blowing!”

 

 

Camp Chazak kids collecting waterproofing materials for their homemade teppee shelter

 

 

After working in Camp Yaalozu, Rabbi Stamler ran a wilderness program in Camp Nagilah. It was there that hashgachah led him to the next step of his chinuch journey. Rabbi Eli Lapa, who was the principal in Shalom Torah Academy in Morganville, NJ, came with his students to Camp Nagilah that first summer. Impressed with Rabbi Stamler’s way with children, Rabbi Lapa offered him a job.

 

“It was a beautiful experience. Back then, the kids were much more American, much more unaffiliated, and we got to bring the beauty of Yiddishkeit to them.”

 

Rabbi Stamler lights up as he speaks, remembering the boys who cherished their connection with their fifth grade rebbi, calling years later to ask for guidance and advice.

 

“One boy had a brother who was an avowed atheist. The entire year he used to ask me all sorts of questions, and I always answered him patiently. Sadly, after he graduated, he went off to public school. Fifteen years later, out of the blue, he called me. “Rebbi, how do I do teshuvah?”

 

The boy confessed that for years he had been the definition of a self-hating Jew, involved in all sorts of anti-Jewish organizations. Finally, he admitted to himself that he was running away from himself, and Rabbi Stamler was the first person he called.

 

Another boy once called with the strangest question. He wanted his rebbi’s approval on his fiancé—a non-Jew. “I always promised myself that I would get Rebbi’s approval before I married,” he explained.

 

But Rabbi Stamler spoke to him and guided him, and with time, he broke off his engagement and today is married to a Jewish girl, raising a family and moving steadily forward in his religious observance.

 

 

Building a fire from scratch

 

 

For years, one of the highlights of the school year was Rabbi Stamler’s Shabbos in New Square. “There’s no other community like New Square, with its chessed and warmth. For weeks before we went, I would break down every chassidish minhag, tell them exactly what went on, and when they went, I would pair them up with specific families. The kids were blown away; it was a major kiddush Hashem.”

 

Rabbi Stamler laughs, remembering the year that his students begged to go back to New Square for the end of the year trip instead of Six Flags. Even parents would sometimes asked to go.

 

New Square worked its wonders beyond the classroom. When working with a kid at risk, Rabbi Stamler suggested that he join his class on their trip to New Square. The boy looked at him scornfully, “I’m not interested in being frum; I should come to New Square?” Undaunted, Rabbi Stamler whipped out his phone and proceeded to call five of his students, asking them what their dream weekend would look like. Each of them without hesitation replied that it was a Shabbos in New Square. Defeated and curious, the boy came along. Today, this once struggling bachur is learning in kollel, and his journey back home was triggered on that trip.

 

Following his tenure in the Academy, Rabbi Stamler moved on to the mental health industry, where he works with people of many different backgrounds in a multitude of venues, from addiction rehabs to yeshivos and private cases.

 

His entrance into the mental health field came from his background in survivalist training. He was called in to give a wilderness course in (?), but with Rabbi Stamler it’s never about simple facts. As he explained how to build fires and tie knots, he connected the outside world to the depth of personality. Shelters are a metaphor for building a safe space in your mind. The rain is not an impediment to building a fire because people need to be nourished even amid the chaos of life. With his knack for reaching others, he soon became an address for many.

 

He also gets called to classrooms to help create unity through his workshops. In one class, an unkempt-looking boy told him, completely seriously, that his name was Hippo. He’d been teased so many times for being large and slow that he bought into that perception of himself. Always looking to boost one’s self esteem in creative ways, he designed a game for the kids where being slow was an asset. Suddenly, every boy wanted to be on “Hippo’s” team.

 

“It took time,” Rabbi Stamler remembers, “but eventually this boy pulled himself together, took better care of himself, and stopped seeing himself as a hippo. It’s discovering what they’re good at that’s so crucial to a child.”

 

Camp Chazak Wilderness, run by Rabbi Stamler and Rabbi Eli Lapa, is geared to making boys feel at home in the wilderness. “Hikes—real hikes, not tourist-filled walks-in-the-park—build tremendous character in the children.” Camp Chazak Wilderness takes the boys on some of the hardest hikes in the Northeast, some which last 12 hours. From Devil’s Path in the “severely underrated” (as per Rabbi Stamler) Catskills to New Hampshire and Vermont, they have done it all.

 

Hiking up Tuckerman Ravine, Mount Washington, New Hampshire

 

 

 

A debris hut made from scratch by the boys

 

 

The program is designed to build up the boys’ endurance over the summer, starting with the easier hikes and getting progressively harder until the hardest hikes at the end.

 

But it’s not just their ability that changes. Their perception shifts with each mountain. In the beginning, they’re shaky and timid, unsure, but the summer finishes with each boy’s artificial limits removed. They discover what they’re really capable of.

 

Even the boys who say that they’re physically unable to do many of the arduous activities of camp are much more capable than they think. Bar a specific instruction given by a parent, no one is treated differently. Most of the time it’s not really a physical barrier, but a mental one.

 

While outwardly they’re hiking up a mountain in the Northeastern United States, internally they’re climbing the mountains in their own minds.

 

Every day, the kids are broken into groups, and one boy, no matter his age, skill set, or personality is the leader for the day. All decisions for that day’s activity go through him. This works wonders on their self-esteem.

 

Rabbi Stamler encourages camps to recreate this environment within their own camps, an environment where each boy has the ability to be the leader, to be an equal with his peers and to flourish.

 

 

As a teenager, Moshe was the boy who didn’t bat an eyelash at bullies. He’s blessed with the ability to see the other side, to understand that each mean gesture is coming from a place of hurt.

 

And the boys sense this. No one can sense sincerity better than a teenager, and they immediately pick up that Rabbi Stamler isn’t fooled by their tough guy act.

 

When a boy rolls his eyes at the partner he was given for a hike, a quick chat with the always observant Rabbi Stamler helps them understand what the effects of that will be.

 

“When it comes to bein adam lachaveiro,” says Rabbi Stamler, “there’s a zero-tolerance policy.”

 

His campers see that Rabbi Stamler sees them—really sees them—and that’s enough to make them stop.

 

 

Making a primitive bow-and-drill fire

 

 

This ability to look at the whole child comes into play in his other professions as well.

 

When working in ABA, he was assigned a child who was labeled “difficult.” The supervisor warned him that the boy was likely to display behaviors such as scratching and biting.

 

But Rabbi Stamler saw none of that. His calm attitude when faced with belligerence, his ability to understand that it’s just a coverup, disarms their defenses. “They see that I’m unfazed,” Rabbi Stamler chuckles, “and then we can get along.”

 

Camp owner, rebbi, mental health counselor. To Rabbi Stamler they’re all branches of the same tree. It’s all chinuch. It’s all about looking into someone else’s eyes and seeing their fiery neshamah, their limitless potential. It’s about finding the value in every child.

 

Rabbi Stamler gets emotional as he describes the ritual he adopted in his classroom, camp, and even his survival groups.

 

“Before I walk in, I ask Hashem for help, remembering that I’m not really worthy of being there. Then, before we start, we sit in a circle, and every boy says his name out loud. ‘I am Shmuel. I am Chaim.’ And the room is silent. We do this every day. This helps me see them as individuals so I don’t fall into the trap of seeing them as just another student, of a strong student, a weak student. Each boy has his own unique value.”