Some of Samson Rabinowitz’s earliest memories are being surrounded by family, friends and fellow Jewish community members at Cacapon Resort State Park. The Rabinowitz family has stayed at this West Virginia lodge dotted with rustic cabins every Shavuot for the past two decades or so.
“It’s my favorite place on Earth,” said Rabinowitz, who has gone to Cacapon every summer — except in 2020 — since he was 2 years old.
His favorite aspect of the annual trip is the time spent with friends and community, not any one activity in particular, although there are many. The two-day stay includes a cheesecake or baking competition, beach trips, hiking, sports, swimming, canoeing and boating, singing around the campfire in addition to davening and studying the Torah and Talmud.
Many of the 100 some attendees from the Washington, D.C.-area Jewish community are members of Adas Israel Congregation’s Traditional Egalitarian Minyan, and others attend nearby synagogues.
Although Rabinowitz is now a college student on the opposite coast, he said he looks forward to this yearly gathering, this year from June 1 to 3.
“Especially now that the friends that I grew up with are spread [across the country with] college, and some of us have started to graduate college and go to various cities across the country and world, it’s extra special because we get to reconnect, even if only for two days a year,” Rabinowitz said.
Rabinowitz’s father joked that once a year, the group “triples or quadruples the population of Jews in West Virginia.”
Marissa Fuller, the organizer of the retreat since 2006, chose the West Virginia location for its accessibility to D.C.-area families.
“[Cacapon has] been incredibly welcoming to us,” Fuller said. “We’re a very big group with a lot of kids over the years, and they’ve made it manageable for us.”
She added that the location is also fitting because Shavuot is a holiday typically celebrated in nature. Fuller spoke to the “camp-like” atmosphere, where folks daven in the Old Lodge and enjoy potluck meals.
“We’ve seen our kids grow up there,” she said.
The community has celebrated graduations, engagements and various other milestones together at Cacapon, including some that aren’t as joyous — the loss of a loved one.
“It’s a beautiful opportunity to see time going by, watching our kids grow up,” Fuller said. “I think it’s a very, very important part of the calendar of our lives.”
The retreat is a chance to celebrate Jewish identity and take a break from attendees’ daily lives in D.C. or Maryland, according to Rabinowitz.
Services are egalitarian, meaning that community members who practice any denomination of Judaism are welcome to unite and celebrate Shavuot however they wish: “This is one very distinctive community,” Fuller said.
The last song of each morning’s service is always “Adon Olam” sung to the tune of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
“It’s been a tune for us since the beginning,” said Rabinowitz, who is studying popular music performance at the University of Southern California. “We open it up and we have our arms around each other, swaying left and right and singing ‘Adon Olam.’ It’s the staple.”
In an effort to preserve a decades-long tradition, Cantor Gedalia Penner-Robinson, a song leader based in Connecticut, approached Rabinowitz to propose a project. Several dozen regulars of the retreat gathered at Adas Israel in February to record the hymn under the guidance of Rabinowitz and Penner-Robinson.
“The recording was really a beautiful tribute,” Fuller said.
Rabinowitz hired Jewish instrumentalists and played the drums for the backing track.
Rabinowitz and Penner-Robinson have since mixed and remixed the recording and added video using B-roll of the Adas Israel recording session and images from Cacapon. The two are set to release the full music video shortly.
“It’s so appropriate to have this recording for us to cherish on the 363 days that we’re not in West Virginia,” Rabinowitz said, adding that he hopes the song will soon be approved to go public.
“[The retreat] gives us a tether to our community because the two-day trip is an opportunity to be with everyone and to celebrate being Jewish,” he said. “We go to a place that’s so removed from everything else and that’s the beauty of it — when we return, I feel so satisfied Jewishly.”
