To this day, it’s the only time I’ve ever cried in public

My first full year back in the United States after learning in Eretz Yisrael was not a good year, and I couldn’t wait to return to camp that summer. I’d consistently ditched yeshivah in the mornings, failed to show up to most of my college classes in the afternoons, and only appeared at my boring part-time job in a Judaica store because it broke up the monotony of the week. Looking back now, I probably had undiagnosed depression.

But now it was summer. I’d spent the last ten years at Camp Mogen Av in Swan Lake, New York, and it was all I had to look forward to. Mogen Av was special, and summer to summer, it was where I grew into myself.

Despite the probability of overhyping the summer, camp did not disappoint. Until then, I had found it difficult to confide in someone about what I was going through in my head. This all changed when one afternoon I spilled everything to someone who at that point was just another counselor, but who would eventually be my shomer on my wedding day. And it wasn’t just my coworkers — the kids also made a difference. I had a bunk with representation from St. Louis, Dallas, Passaic, Brooklyn, Queens, and Westchester. They had such an impact on my life that I attended several bar mitzvahs that winter, even if it meant flying in, and in one case, the relationship was so strong, I attended his wedding over a decade later. These boys reminded me of all the things I had to be thankful for, about why the winter is not so bad, about why feeling sorry for myself was never the answer.

The highlight of the summer was being chosen as captain of Field Day (our version of Color War). As anyone who has ever attended a boys’ camp knows, Field Day is serious business. This year, something extra special happened: As the events and festivities wound to a close, the head counselor Rabbi Elimelech Chanales broke out a new song. Up there on stage, flanked by the generals and captains, he sang what was lyrically an extremely cheesy song about camp.

But the song itself was about a budding friendship between two camp friends that ends with lines that spoke directly to me:

Well, I miss my friend, I don’t see him much

But from time to time, we get together

And whenever we do, we would laugh and cry

’cuz he’s my best friend... he’s my counselor

That was when the dam broke. Maybe it was the connection to my campers, maybe it was the weight I was still carrying from all the negative experiences of the previous year, maybe it was the knowledge that in a week I would be returning to that life. Up there on stage, I began sobbing.

It was a chain reaction — the staff cried, the campers cried, even administration members. Each for their own reasons, I figured. To this day, it’s the only time I’ve ever cried in public.

That summer in camp gave me the will and the energy to face another year. I battled back the depression, reenrolled in the classes I had skipped, and attended yeshivah with new commitment. I left the meaningless part-time job and pursued some new hobbies I had picked up over the summer instead. That moment in the Mogen Av gym, as the entire camp cried along with me, I knew that we all had our own individual reasons to cry — and that along with everyone else, I could go on.

Izzo Zwiren is a healthcare professional, columnist, and the host of the Jewish Living Podcast, where he discusses the many facets of Orthodox Jewish life. He lives in West Hempstead, New York.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 868)