With music on again for the final leg of summer, we asked several prominent readers and music professionals for a song that conjures up memories of summers long past
“Everybody up up up up, everybody up up up up, everybody up up up up up, everybody up up up up up, everybody up up up up up, everybody up up up up up.” That’s what Reb Josh (Rabbi Yehoshua) Silbermintz a”h, head counselor at Camp Munk, would sing every single morning to wake the entire camp. Once you master and memorize the lyrics, the song literally speaks to you. Although his voice was off-key and his rhythm nonexistent, he was such a heilige neshamah that even at the young age of nine, we were able to tell there was something very special about him. He loved and sang the purest niggunim of old. The way he sang directly from his heart made his singing so beautiful, and taught us all how much we can be embraced by song.
Ironically, I must admit that it’s the classic “Ani Maamin” from the train to Treblinka, which was brought to the Modzhitzer Rebbe, that brings up the most summer feelings for me, with the Three Weeks and Tishah B’Av coming right in the middle. The feelings of aveilus and the longing for Mashiach were so much a part of camp during those days. In truth, I think that the Three Weeks and Nine Days can be felt powerfully in the sleepaway camp setting. The contained Jewish environment allowed us to internalize and tangibly feel the changes leading up to Tishah B’Av.
Whenever I hear the song “Ashreinu Mah Tov Chelkeinu,” it reminds me of the Camp Munk dining room on Shabbos night, when hundreds of campers and staff members would jump to their feet singing this song with all their energy as Rabbi Dovid Trenk a”h would come in to speak to us. Every time I hear this song, the image of Rabbi Trenk jumping and dancing with us is right in front of my eyes.
“Ki Besimcha Tzeisai’u “— the traditional slow tune — which was always sung as the buses pulled out on the way to camp.
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