Imagine you walk into a room full of strangers, people who live all over the world. Within two weeks, those strangers become the people you laugh with, pray with, dance with, and cry with, the people who are some of your closest friends, and who you call family. That’s what Chapter Leadership Training Conference (CLTC) feels like. It’s exactly like a camp. It’s not just leadership training. It’s an experience that's indescribable in words, something you must experience firsthand to fully grasp the uniqueness of. When I first signed up, I thought CLTC would just be “summer camp with a BBYO twist.” Fun, sure, but predictable. I was completely wrong. What I found was something deeper, more powerful, and way more meaningful than I ever expected. The best way to explain CLTC is by breaking down what the letters really stand for:

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C-Connection

Finding your identity in Judaism can be difficult, and all of us have different backgrounds, especially at CLTC. You will find people who describe themselves as orthodox and know every prayer and ritual by heart, and you will also find people who are more culturally Jewish, perhaps not even B’nai Mitzvahed yet. For both of those people and everyone in between, CLTC is a place where you have the incredibly special opportunity to connect to and explore your Jewish Identity. You have an opportunity to get B’nei Mitzvahed, lead many services, including Shabbat Morning Services, Friday Night services, a Sunday Shareit, Havdalla, or many other various opportunities to lead in front of your CLTC. It is such a unique experience to be able to do something like lead a service in front of over one hundred teens you know as your best friends. In addition to services, there are many other engaging activities to participate in to connect you to your Jewish Identity, like Israel day, where you get the opportunity to learn about the State in many different and interactive ways including cooking, IDF training from one of our madrichim who was from Israel and served in the IDF, and an incredibly moving and emotional exhibit beautifully created in the gym dedicated to remembering those who we have lost since October 7th and helped everyone have a deeper understanding of what we have lost. Connecting to your Judaism is one of the biggest and most unique things about CLTC.

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L-Learn

Throughout the two short weeks in Pennsylvania, you grow in ways that will help you thrive in whatever you do. That is because of all the social skills you learn to help be an active listener, be able to thoroughly present your thoughts, and be able to maintain a respectful conversation with someone that may happen to involve disagreements. You discover new ways to be a leader in ways that will help you connect with anyone you talk to, ways to be an agreeable person, and most importantly, how to be inclusive. That is one of the biggest and most crucial ideals that make BBYO what it is, and being able to actively use those skills in life will take you very far. You also learn other skills that are important to BBYO but could be applied to many other things, like the best process to recruit someone into a chapter (MRIHA: Meet, Record, Invite, Host, Ask), which is definitely more effective than just simply asking someone to join a chapter as it helps them see what they are being a part of. You also learn how to plan, organize, and host a successful event and ways to work around any obstacles that may be encountered. The life skills you are able to learn and apply at CLTC take you so far.

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T-Traditions

With the Aleph Zadik Aleph being founded over 100 years ago, admittedly, alephs today are quite different from alephs from 1924. That being said, there is something special that still connects us to those alephs from 100 years ago, that being traditions. AZA is backed by so many fun and special traditions that enhance brotherhood, and really help you connect to Alephs and BBGs all over the world. Something special about CLTC is that it was one of the only places where we could have a mosh pit at 8:30 PM on a Tuesday night about a Wizard who went to China (El hamaayan) and fully appreciated everyone you are with. There are so many things about the culture and traditions in CLTC that are so unique but so incredibly special.

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C-Community

Everything I learned at CLTC, while being incredibly valuable and beneficial to my growth as a life long leader, does not at all compare to the life long friends, sisters, and brothers I had the opportunity to meet and grow with during my time at the conference. These global connections I made are stronger than any friendship I have ever had before, and something I will cherish and always be grateful for. The community, over everything else, was what made this experience so special. Just two days in, it was our first shabbos and I was getting ready for services with people who I had just met, but considered as some of my closest friends. On our second Shabbat, while we were all outside taking photos, I realized that my community, my friend group of 107, I had not known of their existence just 10 days ago. As cliché as it may sound, everyone truly is friends with one another, and everyone can casually talk to anyone and make conversation. It is a community of people who are all connected by the common interests of BBYO, leadership, and Judaism. I promise you that if you are on the fence about going to CLTC, just do it. The social connections you make are so unique and unlike anything you’ve ever done. To compare CLTC to something else is like comparing the color blue to the letter J. You just can’t compare those two in a way that is impossible to explain in the same way you cannot compare this to any other experience you’ve ever had. I’d like to leave you with one more story of how I knew this community would be unlike anything else I had ever experienced. Immediately after arriving at Newark airport, I got off my flight from Chicago with my regional friends who were going to ILTC, and was incredibly overwhelmed by the large airport that I had just entered. I had no clue where anything was, where to go, and I thought about how maybe this was not for me. Walking down to baggage claim with the people from my region, and saying goodbye to them once they found ILTC and we got our luggage. I felt like I was on my own, separated. I walked over to where the CLTC check-in was and was instantly approached by a group of enthusiastic people before I could even check in. “Hey, man! What's your name?” “I’m Jacob.” Then, the fear left, and that's when I realized this is going to be an amazing experience. These are my people.