Sleepless in North Georgia: This Is What Happens When Jews Convene

Southern & Jewish

Southern & Jewish celebrates the stories, people, and experiences – past and present – of Jewish life in the American South. Hosted by the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, posts come from educators, students, rabbis, parents, artists, and many other “visitors-to and daily-livers-of” the Southern Jewish experience. From road trips to recipes to reflections, we’ll explore a little bit of everything – well, at least all things Southern and/or Jewish. Shalom, y’all!

I took a look at my cell phone clock, which read 7:05 AM. I was incredibly sleepy, but not because I had just woken up. No, this was because I had not even gone to sleep in the first place.

I’m not in college anymore, so I didn’t need to pull an all-nighter to study for a test—this was absolutely, completely voluntary. I was at Limmud Atlanta + Southeast, taking place at Ramah Darom, a gorgeous summer camp. And if I were to go to sleep, that would mean sacrificing a few hours of an unbelievably wonderful Jewish experience.

Limmud Atlanta is hard to describe without seeing it up close and personal, but here’s my best attempt: take a fun Southern camping trip, mix it with a gloriously-overwhelming amount of Jewish learning, and sprinkle a 72-hour-long jam session on top. Stir it all together. Baddabing baddaboom—that’s my short and sweet approximation of Limmud Atlanta.

Here were some of the most memorable, totally-worth-sacrificing sleep experiences I had over the course of the conference.

1. Tying together the concept of Tzedakah and episodes of Orange is the New Black
2. Making percussion noises to best imitate what the 6^th day of creation would sound like, in a session whose title asked me to “Get my Soul Vibration On”
3. Learning how to play a board game entitled Settlers of Canaan – all about the Holy Temple in Jerusalem

Limmud Atlanta was educational. It was fun. It was, for close to 72 hours, thoroughly, awesomely ridiculous, in the best and most Jewish of ways.

Most importantly, it reminded of something I’ve long held to be true: Jewish conferences are, without a doubt, one of the best tools towards deepening Jewish identity, both personal and communal. Limmud Atlanta helped me remember that there is no substitute for deeply immersing in Jewish life for an extended period of time—even just a few days.

But some of you might be wondering…okay, so Limmud Atlanta sounds amazing, but what about all of the Jewish conferences out there that aren’t so dynamic? My response might sound a bit unorthodox: it is my heartfelt belief that attending even a sub-par Jewish conference is a substantially better allocation of Jewish time and resources than the vast majority of briefer Jewish engagement experiences.

This might seem strange at first, but hear me out. When at a conference—even one that does not achieve its goals particularly effectively—you enter into a mental framework. For two or three consecutive days, you immerse yourself in a particular subject matter. At a political science conference, attendees expand mental energy, for a couple days on the topic of political science. Same for a conference about feminism, or the Middle East, or anything else. At a Jewish conference, everyone there spends at least a couple days of their lives focused specifically on Judaism: On Jewish community, Jewish learning, Jewish history, Jewish culture, and of course, on Jewish food.

Now, I am very lucky to work for a Jewish organization. I spend at least 8.5 hours a day connecting to Judaism in some form. But many people struggle to allocate substantial time to Jewish engagement. There’s work, there are family commitments, perhaps some time for recreation here and there—important elements of our day-to-day existence that make any sort of intensive Jewish engagement difficult from one day to the next.

But by attending a Jewish conference, that paradigm breaks. It might normally take two full months to accrue 48 hours of “engagement” time in the Jewish community—and that’s for an actively involved Jew spending 5-6 hours a week in some sort of Jewish context. At a 72-hour Jewish conference, even after subtracting 8-hours a night for sleep (if, unlike me, you choose to indulge in some shut-eye!), you can reach that same 48-hour threshold in just three days. Even if the programming isn’t perfect, the experience is powerful. It’s transformative. Occasionally, it can be life-changing.

So, I would ask each of you reading this, please look for a Jewish conference happening near you. Don’t go just to make me happy (though I assure you, I will be, especially if I see you there)! Go because, odds are, it will help you evolve and grow as you undertake your own Jewish journey.

(And seriously, don’t you want to learn how to get your soul vibration on???)

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