Chaim and Yaakov Metzger fuse camp learning and fun for mesivta boys who haven’t quite aged out

Photos: Avi Gass, Glu Eyed Media

Late at night on Motzaei Tishah B’Av, well past the fast that has ended, it’s eerily quiet in the inky darkness around the large campus in Glen Spey, New York. Like most of the Catskill region at this late hour, it’s still, sleepy, and save for the small crepuscular glow, silent. Except for one rather dimly lit freestanding building. Get close and you’re hit with a roar — inside, over 600 teenage yeshivah bochurim are poring over their Gemaras, generating a kol Torah that rises and falls like waves crashing down on the seaboard. There are younger teens barely out of elementary school, a few graying rebbeim in the mix, and legions of bochurim well into their high school years, all seemingly oblivious to the fast day that had just passed or the hour of the night. The clock strikes 11, then midnight, and there are no signs of slowing down.

With just a few hours left before the new day breaks, the crescendo begins to dim when one bochur jumps up, grabs some comrades by the arm who join him in a rikud around the beis medrash, and then, finally, they head back to their bunkhouses. Some still linger, arguing and clarifying the finer points of a sugya.  A beis medrash bochur who scarcely looked up for the past three hours is still squinting over his notes and a pile of seforim that has accumulated on his table, as he puts the finishing touches on a shtickel Torah he hopes will be published come the summer’s end. By 2:07 a.m., the lights go out and the building fades into the blackness of the evening.

At nine a.m. sharp the next morning, the beis medrash is once again filled to capacity. And the only remnant of the previous night's seder is the raw energy that’s still pulsating.  Lest one think that these bochurim are in a full-time summer learning program, wait around till Motzaei Shabbos Nachamu. Then, these bochurim will be locked hand in hand with one another, swaying and dancing to the amplified, joyful beats of Avrumi and Sheya Berko, two chassidic brothers performing on stage. The singers are having a great time as well.

“I’ve played in many places on Motzaei Shabbos Nachamu,” says Avrumi. “It’s a beautiful time, but can actually be a bit challenging, because everyone has gone through the Nine Days and the fast, then comes Shabbos Nachamu, full of good food and singing. At the end of such a beautiful Shabbos, it’s challenging to be the Motzaei Shabbos entertainer. But for the last three years we’ve been playing here, where there are tons of bochurim, which is a lot of fun. They sing so loud that many times their volume actually overpowers the music, but I’m happy as long as I can play and make others happy.”

And these are really happy campers. Welcome to Camp Teumim, a mesivta camp catering to teenage yeshivah bochurim that has become the standard-bearer for a relatively new phenomenon: a summer camp experience that combines intense learning sedorim with great summer programming, built around today’s yeshivah bochur.

While learning camps have been around for decades, bochurim generally had a choice: They could either spend their summer bein hazmanim in traditional camps — action-packed, fun-filled environments, with a nod to learning in the morning and possibly again at night. The more serious learners headed to the learning programs where the beis medrash was the focal point of the camp, and if enough chevreh showed up after second seder, maybe a game of pickup basketball. Caught in the middle were all those teenage yeshivah bochurim who had matured beyond the elementary-age camps of their youth and wanted real sedorim, but did not want to give up on programming entirely, either. As that population continued to grow, camps catering specifically to yeshivah bochurim have cropped up around the Catskills.

What started as synthetizing two opposite elements — serious learning sedorim alongside camp activities — has morphed into a genre of its own:  supercharged programs with sedorim and nonstop action that mechanchim attest leave bochurim energized for the long zemanim ahead.