Below is a story written by counselor, Yissachar Dunoff. Above he can be seen showing his Torah Mate how to make tzitzis.
“I just want to share a quick story regarding our situation being stuck in camp an extra day. We all know how the devastating hurricane caused such havoc on the highways. However back in TheZone the hurricane played a totally different role. After the last Torah Mate session this past shabbos I still had a little over a page left of the chapter I was learning with my Torah Mate. I began to wonder if there would be just one more time during camp to finish up the idea we were learning about. I thought to myself how upsetting it would be to be so close to finishing the piece but not being able to. So I hoped that maybe there would be some small time before the banquet Sunday night to have a small Torah Mate session, but that didn’t happen. So I hoped that perhaps I would be able to at least finish it up within the next week after camp although it would definitely not be as easy as when in camp. But then along came Hurricane Irene to settle the situation. The hurricane shut down roads and bridges not allowing the busses to depart Monday morning. By means of this an entire day was added to camp creating just ONE MORE TORAH MATE SESSION. With the help of this one more session, we were able to complete the chapter we had been studying the past few weeks leaving us with a sense of accomplishment. It just wouldn’t have been the same leaving camp at the brink of completion. But with the help of hurricane Irene, orchestrated by G-D, the last piece of this wonderful puzzle was fit into place.
As amazing as this played out, I was still feeling terrible, but for a different reason. I had a wedding of a close friend tonight in Brooklyn. But due to the terrible road situation caused by the flooding it would have been a whole day trip in and was just impossible to work out. So as the feeling of guilt built up inside, I said to myself that there must be an even greater reason for me to stay an extra day. As the day went on I couldn’t seem to understand why this was happening, until about 9:30 pm when we got together to daven maariv. My torah mate got up to daven and lead maariv (a true accomplishment for such a boy). This is something I would have never dreamed of happening. For such a boy who it would take much convincing to say even one prayer on a normal day was so willing to lead us for maariv truly brought tears to my eyes as he lead the davening. As I felt this feeling of emotion it suddenly struck me why Hashem had made me miss such a wedding, because the feeling I received from that maariv was far greater than anything I would’ve felt at the wedding. Thanks to Irene we were able to finish the chapter as well as have this boy reach such a climax and put the finishing touch to a tremendous summer of growth by ending off with leading us in maariv.”
