This evening marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. For many of us in the Kenwood and Evergreen community, it is a familiar moment on the calendar—a time to look back on the year that has passed, think about what we have learned, and consider the kind of people we hope to be in the year ahead.
You certainly don't have to be Jewish to recognize the value in that exercise.
And this year, as I look back on an extraordinary summer at Kenwood and Evergreen, I find myself thinking about one idea in particular: the most important things in our lives may be ours to care for, but they aren't really ours to keep.
For thirty years, I owned Camps Kenwood and Evergreen.
At least that's what the legal documents said.
I never really thought about it that way.
Kenwood and Evergreen were here long before I was their director. I arrived as an eight-year-old boy in 1973 because my mother, Sheila, who didn't have much money, stretched our household finances to the limit because she believed K&E was the right camp for me.
She could not possibly have known how right she was.
Camp gave me mentors and friends, confidence and purpose, and eventually a life's work. Years later, Arthur and Judy Sharenow entrusted Kenwood and Evergreen to me.
Entrusted has always seemed like the right word.
I wasn't simply acquiring land and buildings on Eagle Pond. I was accepting responsibility for a community built by generations of people before me—its traditions and friendships, its values and expectations, its songs and stories, and that almost indescribable sense our campers develop that this place belongs to them.
My responsibility was to care for it, strengthen it, and someday place it in the hands of someone who would do the same.
There is a Jewish phrase that captures this beautifully: l'dor v'dor—from generation to generation. It speaks to the responsibility each generation has to receive something of value, add to it, and pass it forward.
That is exactly how I have come to think about stewardship at Kenwood and Evergreen.
And it is why choosing the person who would lead K&E into its next generation mattered so much to me.
I wasn't simply looking for someone who knew how to run a camp. I was looking for someone who understood that leadership isn't about being the most important person in a community. It's about understanding that the community is more important than you are.
Everything I knew about Jack Schott told me that he understood that.
This summer, I got to watch him prove it.
Just before our campers arrived, Jack had to make an extraordinarily difficult personnel decision involving someone in Evergreen's leadership whom he cares about deeply. I know how personally painful that decision was for him.
There were easier choices available to Jack—certainly easier choices for Jack.
But he concluded that they weren't the right choices for Evergreen.
So he made the harder decision.
To me, that moment revealed something fundamental about the kind of leader Jack is. Leadership sometimes requires putting the needs of people you serve ahead of your own comfort, loyalties and emotions. Jack did that quietly and thoughtfully, without making the decision about himself.
And Ali showed up in ways that I always knew she would and helped to lead K&E through an amazing summer season.
And then camp began.
Those of us who have directed camps for a long time know that every summer eventually delivers some whitewater. Plans collide with reality. Something unexpected happens. Then something else happens. Information is incomplete, time is short, and hundreds of children and staff members are counting on you to remain calm enough to make good decisions.
I have navigated plenty of that whitewater over the years.
Jack got more than his share in his first summer.
One example was the stomach illness that moved through our community. Anyone who has managed a residential camp knows how quickly something like that can become an enormous challenge. Jack and our team responded rapidly and thoughtfully, putting the health of the community first and managing the situation remarkably well. It was contained, camp moved forward, and what could have become a defining event of the summer (as it was at some camps) became instead one of the many challenges our team successfully navigated.
I watched Jack handle that situation, and others, with grace, thoughtfulness and an impressive steadiness.
He didn't need to handle them exactly as I would have.
In fact, that may be one of the most important things I learned this summer.
Passing the torch isn't really passing the torch if you refuse to let go of it.
Jack's job isn't to become me. His job is to become the best version of Jack while protecting the values that make Kenwood and Evergreen the place generations of children and families have loved.
And my job has changed too.
For years, I have taught our counselors that good mentorship requires both high expectations and high support: I believe in you. I care about you. And because I believe in you, I expect something of you.
I have discovered that succession requires much the same thing.
It requires trust.
There is another Jewish idea that feels relevant as Rosh Hashanah approaches: tikkun olam, commonly translated as repairing the world. Today, many Jews understand it as an obligation to take responsibility for making the world around us better.
I like that idea partly because “the world” doesn't have to mean the entire world.
It can mean the small piece of it entrusted to us.
A family.
A classroom.
A neighborhood.
A camp on the shores of Eagle Pond.
Our responsibility isn't to possess these things. It is to leave them a little stronger, kinder, healthier and more humane because we were there.
Our campers practice a version of this every summer.
Our oldest campers inherit traditions and responsibilities from those who came before them. They discover that being the oldest doesn't simply confer status; it creates an obligation to care for younger campers and set an example for the community.
And then something remarkable happens.
At the end of the summer, they give it all away.
Another group moves into those cabins. Another generation becomes the leaders. The traditions continue, but new people bring their own personalities and ideas to them.
L'dor v'dor.
From generation to generation.
Perhaps that is why this transition at Kenwood and Evergreen now feels so natural to me.
For thirty years, I had the extraordinary privilege of being the steward of the place that changed my life when I was eight years old.
Now Jack and his team have that privilege and that responsibility.
And after this first summer, I could not be happier about where K&E is headed.
I have watched him love this community, worry about it, sacrifice for it, make difficult decisions for it, laugh with it, lose sleep over it, and lead it. Most importantly, I have watched him understand that leadership of Kenwood and Evergreen isn't about Jack.
It's about Kenwood and Evergreen.
And passing the torch doesn't mean walking away.
My relationship with this place—and with all of you—is far too important to me for that. My role is simply different now. I look forward to continuing my own journey with K&E as a mentor and supporter: someone Jack can turn to when my experience might be useful, someone who will continue to champion this community, and someone who will take enormous pleasure in watching its next chapter unfold, and in spending time with your amazing children.
And, perhaps most importantly, I look forward to being back at camp next summer—to seeing our campers, our staff and our families, and to continuing to be part of the community that has been such an important part of my life for more than fifty years.
There is something fitting about that, too. L'dor v'dor doesn't mean that one generation disappears when the next one steps forward. It means that what we have learned, built and loved is passed along. The relationship between generations continues. We remain connected to one another, even as our roles change.
Rosh Hashanah invites us to look backward and forward at the same time—to take stock of where we have been while imagining what the coming year might hold.
As I do that this year, I feel enormous gratitude for the years in which I was entrusted with leading this remarkable community. But what I feel most strongly right now isn't nostalgia.
It's confidence.
Confidence in Jack. Confidence in the extraordinary people who work alongside him. And confidence in a community that has never belonged to any one person or any one generation.
The next generation doesn't need to preserve everything exactly as we left it. They need to understand what matters, care for it deeply, make it better in ways that are uniquely their own, and someday pass it forward again.
That is stewardship.
That is leadership.
And that is l'dor v'dor.
From generation to generation.
To all of our K&E families, as we begin a new season and our Jewish families welcome a new year, I wish you health, happiness, sweetness, and the opportunity to make your own small corner of the world a little better.
I can’t wait to be with you all again next summer.
Shanah Tovah.
Scott Brody