By Micah Cowan
In the opening conference session entitled “Setting a Vision and Work Plan to See it Through” Rabbi Zeff began by having the cohort analyze in pairs what the foundational ideas of Ben & Jerry’s are and what their mission statement tries to portray about the company. We read how the company is founded on three main ideas: making delicious ice cream, being financially profitable, and making the world a better place. The third aspect of the creamery’s mission made us all double check what we just read. “Cherry Garcia? Half baked? Phish food? How are pints of ice cream going to make a difference in the world?”
We live in a world in which innovation and forward change is happening all around us. Technology is evolving to be smarter than the average genius, scientific breakthroughs that nobody but the esteemed of the science world understand are happening, religions are progressing to take on modern society, and highly-valued ice cream companies are expanding their boundaries.
Lactose intolerance- an epidemic sweeping the Asheknazic world has found a slight solace in ice cream manufacturing in Ben & Jerry’s vegan ice cream options. First released in 2016 in the US and now enjoyed internationally, the company’s expansion into the vegan world directly fits into the mold of their threefold mission statement.
After seeing how Ben & Jerry’s has become a successful ice cream empire while embodying the pillars of who they are as a company, we were split into small groups to discuss the mission of the generic Jewish summer camp.
While many of the fellows have attended (and some continue to attend) a Jewish summer camp, we each had to narrow down the core values of our individual camps in order to find the overarching mission of a general Jewish summer camp. I think the fellows who never went to camp really had the purest insight of what a Jewish camp values.
We had to find the common ground between the different camps. Shabbat at URJ isn’t the same as it is at Ramah. The way campers interact at Moshava isn’t going to be the same as an NCSY summer program. This session faced us with a very realistic and reasonable challenge- finding the parts of us that connect, in order to help us blend into a cohesive unit, one cohort, composed of different Jewish stories and values. What is it that brings us together? This session in a way epitomized the notion of our cohort.
I had previously heard of the term “mission statement” but this session really clarified what the point of mission statement is. Having been a part of many institutions and organization each with their own mission statements, I’m now challenged to think about how successful the different organizations are in executing their missions and visions. From Ramah to a pluralistic day school, to an Israeli dance troupe, I am now challenged to not look at how these different parts of my life have changed my life as I know they have, but to rather look at their success in executing their mission statements, and how I can translate their missions into my personal mission in the future.
