A Glimpse into the Garden of Eden
by Dr Stuart Ditchek, MD.

My journey at Chai Lifeline’s Camp Simcha Special started five years ago in the summer of 2000. Camp Simcha Special is a unique specialty summer camp for children with chronic and serious medical conditions comprising over 50 diagnoses. Together with its sister program, Camp Simcha, a specialty camp for children with cancer, we host over 500 children each summer. The program is recognized as the most medically sophisticated and safe camp experience anywhere in the world and I am honored to work there as a physician and a director. But this is not our greatest achievement. Our greatest achievement has been measured in the lives that we have changed - mostly our own.

Yesterday I was asked to evaluate a child who is being considered for camp. A devastating car accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. He is totally wheelchair confined and dependent on a ventilator to breathe. As I met him, I was struck by his lack of anger or self-pity. In fact, he was jovial and had a great sense of humor. I must admit that I was apprehensive going into the house. My intention was to figure out why caring for him in camp would be impossible. He proved me wrong. G-d willing he will be in Camp Simcha Special for two weeks this summer. I anticipate that we will gain even more from the experience than he will.

As the years have passed by, I have come to the realization that illness and the challenges that it encompasses are not bad omens or punishments, as we have always perceived them. Clearly, every child that I have cared for at camp has provided me with more insight into myself and others than any textbook or lecture could provide. These children are not angry at their predicament. They are as comfortable with their diagnoses as any healthy individual. You see, most of these children have never known any other life. They view the challenges of illness as the norm. It is only our pre-conceived beliefs that see it as anything but that.

The challenge for me has been two-fold. The first was the realization that even I, who has had a career as a pediatrician with a wide variety of high risk and disabled patients, harbored a small but significant prejudice towards people with disabilities. Yes, a prejudice. Not one of hatred but one of exclusion. Why face these difficult care situations when I can be seeing routine pediatric issues without any of the risk or the headaches that go along with the responsibility? I had to face those prejudices and change the way I viewed the needs of these children and their families. This task was not easy.

Five years later, I can honestly say that I have overcome those perceptions and the kids know it. They can sense when a caretaker really cares or is being compassionately polite. When you speak to these children, you discover very quickly that each of them has so much to offer from their experiences - lessons in life and love that most of us will never know.

The second challenge has been how to educate others. Where will this education come from as it relates to the treatment of people with disabilities? It must eventually come from our children and the homes that they are raised in. My children have all spent summers at Camp Simcha Special in different capacities. My wife insisted on this from day one. As a pediatric occupational therapist for twenty years, she recognized how deeply the way a child is raised vis vis perception of illness can ultimately affect us as a society.

My four-year-old daughter has been raised in camp for four summers. Last year when we returned home, she took a straw out of the kitchen drawer and started feeding her doll through her baby’s belly button with a drink. She equated this to the many times she observed counselors feeding their campers through their gastrostomy feeding tubes (through the stomach wall). I looked at my wife and we both shared a great feeling of accomplishment. We recognized that our youngest child had no idea that the child with the feeding tube was any different than her or her baby doll. When our communities have raised thousands of my little girl then we will have achieved the will of G-d, true acceptance without pity or prejudice.

The staff of Camp Simcha Special is our army of messengers. These highly talented young men and woman are the models for future Jewish families. As they marry and begin raising their own families, we are seeing the fruits of their experiences. These dynamic young parents will instill the lessons that they have learned at camp into all of their children. These children will be the most sophisticated and compassionate generation yet as it relates to children with disabilities. This achievement should not be minimized or disregarded. I have seen the results and continue to see them.

The Torah is filled with principles of equality for people with disabilities, though these are often conveniently overlooked. I have always been shaped by the well-known story of a famous European rabbi who instinctively stood up as a sign of respect when a disabled person entered the study hall. He recognized that these individuals were to be credited for every effort that they make and for their remarkable faith in G-d despite their physical challenges.

Unfortunately, these lessons were not always retained over the generations. Today’s culture is much more likely to reward children with exemplary educational achievements rather than the small but dramatic efforts made by children with disabilities. This must be done sensitively but without pity for their situation. At Camp Simcha Special we live by the motto, oversensitivity equals insensitivity.

Shlomo, a remarkable young man from our camp, has a condition known as spinabifida. He is essentially paralyzed from the waist down and relies on a wheelchair for ambulation. Shlomo and I often had talks about the Land of Israel and his desire to visit the Western Wall, the only standing remnant of the Holy Temple. Shlomo often expressed his curiosity about what the world would be like when our Messiah arrives as it pertains to disabilities. His dream, like ours, is that there will be no illness.

Three years ago as I was preparing for a one year sabbatical in Israel, Shlomo was saying goodbye to me on the last day of camp. He was upset that we would not see each other during this hiatus. He expressed to me that the Messiah would probably arrive very soon and that he would join me in Jerusalem. As tears rolled from both of our eyes, he asked me if I would walk with him up the ramp to the Holy Temple when he arrived. I looked at him and promised that together we will walk, yes walk, onto the Temple Mount. This dream has comforted both of us ever since. As we shared the same vision, we now share the same goals in our lives.

A garden is a place of growth so the Garden of Eden must have been the perfect place for all things – including people – to grow. In my years at Camp Simcha I have seen, and I believe experienced, a scale of personal growth far greater than I ever would have thought possible. This small but perfect place just might be offering us a glimpse into the Garden of Eden.

Stuart H. Ditchek, MD, FAAP is the medical director of Chai Lifeline Camp Simcha Special. He is also Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine and the author of Healthy Child, Whole Child ( Harper Collins 2001).