I am the one who wrote the letter and was not going to comment at all on all the misinterpretation of the letter. I appreciate all of the Rash & Tosefos that everyone has come up with. However, I was glad to see Zanvel Shlomo hit it on the head. Any reference to “better” or “2nd Rate” yeshivos was a pun on what stereotype people put on yeshivos and their policies. They were put in quotations for a reason. This was not to be interpreted as an attack on SEED at all. The work they do is phenominal. You still can’t deny the fact that there are a greater proportion of boys going on SEED than to camp for the reason alone that the yeshivos don’t let them go to camp. And after one summer of renting a car and checking out every surrounding city’s ball park and etc… they lose any Cheshek of returning to camp. It used to be that there were counselors who were in camp every summer until they got engaged. Counselors had their sheva brochos in camp. Today it is most probably unheard of.
Again, this is not a knock on SEED. There has been such a strong shift of Bochurim who no longer go to camp and go to SEED, that I think you have to look at what the underlying reason is. I only picked SEED because if they are not in a learning camp or in SEED, then we know they are probably really not doing anything productive this summer.
Camp is by far not the root of the problem. Obviously it is the society and stereotypes that were created by us. However, this is the result. And I don’t think people realize how far-reaching the effects of Summer Camps have on the children attending and the experience in life it brings to the staff members. If you never went to camp or didn’t enjoy camp, then you most certainly won’t understand.