My wife and I write to publicly express our thanks to Rabbi Gary Beitler. His efforts in opening Camp Shoresh, which drew to a successful close last week, were nothing short of heroic. In only a few short months, with confusion and uncertainty everywhere, R. Beitler managed to first locate and then secure use of an excellent facility in a part of Pennsylvania still open for business.

As one of the first camps to confirm it would open, Camp Shoresh absorbed scores of “refugees” from other camps unable to confirm until later. R. Beitler also put into place a testing plan that would satisfy the (unnecessarily?) strict requirements of the state health department. Throughout all of this, R. Beitler was subject to countless naysayers predicting doom and gloom, and calling the opening of camp a misguided mistake. It would have been easy for R. Beitler to have thrown his hands in the air and walked away. But he persevered, and as a result, in one of the most grim periods in recent history, hundreds of boys, teens and young men were able to enjoy a critically important summer in a Torah environment. And from the many parents we have spoken to, everyone in camp, our son included, had a fantastic summer.

We mention R. Beitler only because of the particular challenges he was able to overcome, but in truth, every camp director everywhere deserves the united gratitude of our community. They did not simply fold or cave, as so many others did, using external pressures as an excuse. They fought, pushed, lobbied, and did everything in their power to do what we know is right, for what we know our children need. And in many cases their determination paid off. They showed us that nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of chinuch, despite all the darkest predictions of disaster. Each and every one of them did something amazing. Each and every one of them are heroes. To camp directors everywhere—who are all hopefully already on or about to embark upon well-deserved vacations—we say “Yasher koach, well done!”