Dartmouth Hillel » Students’ Column

D’var Torah Madeline Cooper ’16 – May 3, 2013

hillel — Tue, 07 May 2013 14:52:03 +0000

Shabbat Shalom. In this week’s Parsha the Israelites receive the laws of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. The Sabbatical year occurs every seventh year, and during the Sabbatical year, all work on the land must cease, and all produce becomes communal property. This law – that all agricultural production must stop for an entire year every 7 years – seems somewhat radical and perhaps even counterintuitive, especially as it was given in the context of an agricultural society. How could a society, entirely dependent upon agriculture for its survival, afford to take a year off from farming, and allow the land to rest? Through our modern lens, in which continual production valued, sometimes above all else, the idea of allotting one year out of every seven to rest seems almost unthinkable. Often, from a very young age, we are taught by society to continuously work and push forward, regardless of the costs. Yet, perhaps what we learn from the idea of a Sabbatical year is that, sometimes, rest is needed. Although taking off an entire year seems almost unthinkable, the fact that we are commanded to do so should serve as a reminder that continuous work in unsustainable, and, with preparation, we can and must take time to reset. Rather than think, “how can we afford to take time for rest,” perhaps this law suggests that we should adopt the mindset “how can we not afford to take time to rest?”
However, this rest would not be possible without careful preparation. The text is sure to explicitly mention that, for the six years prior to the Sabbatical year, all normal work should continue. Thus, the text emphasizes the importance of preparing for such a break from work. Perhaps, in preparation for such a prescribed break, one would even increase the amount of work preformed. Yet, every seven years, one must take a break from work, perhaps to ensure sustainability for all – all people, animals, and the land.
The text continues, setting the rules for the Jubilee year, which occurs every fiftieth year. Like the Sabbatical year, all agricultural work ceases during the Jubilee year. However, the required changes to day-to-day during the Jubilee year go even farther. During the Jubilee year, all slaves are freed from bondage and property is returned to its original owners. The Jubilee year serves as a sort of reset button for all of society – it gives the land a chance to settle before producing the next year’s crop of food, it allows people to avoid life long servitude, and it redistributes property, avoiding extreme economic disparities. In a sense, the Jubilee year serves as a mechanism for ensuring a more equal distribution of power within society. So long as every fifty years society resets, no one person can become too powerful.
These prescribed agricultural and societal regulations seem, in many ways, to work against human nature. They serve to ensure that both humans as a whole as well as individual people are unable to have total control over any other entity – be it another person, animal, or the earth. Although this parsha acknowledges the existence of inequity and by no means attempts to create a society in which all people are entirely equal at all times, it does put structures in place to ensure that no person is able to permanently relegate another person to a subservient position – either though forced labor or through economic means – and that no one person can have complete control over our natural resources.
It seems nearly impossible to institute Sabbatical and Jubilee years in our modern society, as we live in a religiously pluralistic and economically diverse society, rather than a primarily Jewish and agrarian one. However, rather than write off the practice of instituting a Sabbatical year or a Jubilee year as an ancient and irrelevant custom, perhaps this parsha gives us the opportunity to reflect on whether or not we are living our lives in a sustainable manor. Is the race to the top that our society so often promotes truly sustainable or us or for the world around us? Too often, in the rush of everyday life or the rush to complete something we push aside others and their needs or are willing to use others to further our own goals without considering the effect that might take on them. In a rush to accumulate power and success, we forget that doing so takes a toll on others and on the environment around us. As it seems unlikely that we will have a societal structure any time in the near future in which we are required to take the time to stop for rest or to reset the society around us, it is important that are cognizant of the need to do so on our own. We must take time to rest so that we can regroup and remember what is important and to ensure that do what we can to alleviate the inequities around us. We must ensure that this rest is productive, and that it leads to a deeper reflection on the way in which we interact with each other and with the world around us. Only then can we truly be living sustainable lives.

D’var Torah Nicholas Parillo ’15 – April 19, 2013

hillel — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:49:57 +0000

“You shall be holy, for I, the L‑rd your G‑d, am holy”. Thus begins our parshah this week, Acharei-Kedoshim. The theme that runs throughout this entire parshah—which is quite long and diverse—is that the Jewish people should strive to maintain a separation between the holy and the mundane. The mishkan must be kept sacred; we must famously love our fellow as ourselves; and we must think about our food so that eating—a mechanical, instrumental, and biological function—is transformed into a ritual filled with meaning. Reading through this parshah reminded me that in fact most Jewish observances can be viewed through this holy/mundane framework, perhaps none better than the reason we are gathered here: Shabbat.
The holy/mundane distinction at the heart of Shabbat rests upon the realization that without time, all other forms of wealth are meaningless. It is this insight— patently obvious but frequently forgotten—that makes keeping Shabbat both spiritually profound and politically radical. To reclaim time is to be rich. Shabbat practice is also one of the most unambiguously articulated of all the commandments in the Hebrew Bible (even making the top ten!), and yet very few of the “people of the book” actually keep a day reserved for rest—only traditionally observant Jews, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Mormons attempt such a thing. Thus, I have often thought whether perhaps keeping this particular commandment is just too hard.
The great Jewish thinker Abraham Joshua Heschel famously discussed how Shabbat functions in our modern age, lamenting how our time—our lifeblood—is stolen from us. In his 1951 book, The Sabbath, he writes about the twenty-five hours, from sundown Friday until three stars are visible in the sky on Saturday, devoted to prayer, family, community, pleasure, and awe. During this time, we do not work, discuss work, spend money, touch money, travel, strive to self-improve, tackle thorny problems, create things, or destroy things. We do nothing “useful” in the ordinary sense of the word. On this day the pores of time open and the world breathes. Heschel writes in the rabbinic tradition, describing Shabbat as a gift from God, a “palace in time,” a living presence that enters the world bringing a whiff of eternity. He writes in the language of bliss and surrender.
And while Heschel probably did not intend to write a political text, the contrast between his description of Shabbat and the world of power, control, and commerce could not be more pointed. The social/political battleground is clearly staked out. Heschel writes, “He who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal in embezzling his own life.” Embezzling his own life! What does it mean to embezzle one’s own life? The Wikipedia description of embezzlement, which seems as good as any, reads, “Embezzlement is the act of dishonestly withholding assets for the purpose of theft by an individual to whom such assets have been entrusted to be used for other purposes.” The asset in question here is time. Heschel warns that when we remain embroiled in commerce day in and day out, we are withholding, for the purposes of theft, time that has been entrusted to us by God to be used for other purposes. Those purposes may include awakening consciousness and deepening relationships, wisdom, and ecstasy. Shabbat is a reclaiming of time for God. It is a re-establishment of a primordial birthright. It’s a taste of an infinite present.
On the surface, this all sounds like innocuous, good, clean fun. A little harmless R&R. It may even sound quaint and archaic, like something from a bygone era that we post-moderns no longer need. But to equate Shabbat with an ordinary vacation is to mistake its essence and its revolutionary potential. The goal of Shabbat practice is not to patch us up and send us back out to the secular world, but to represent in the now what redemption looks like, what justice looks like, what a compassionate social order looks like. It is to reconstruct the rest of time from the viewpoint of Shabbat as unjust and untenable. The self that emerges from such a Shabbat and re-enters the week is a changed self—a newly radicalized self who can no longer tolerate injustice.
People get this intuitively. Mention the idea of a full Shabbat practice to the average American and the reaction is quite revealing. Typically, it’s terror. When we create breathing space in our week, all kinds of unwelcome feelings and thoughts can arise—feelings of despair or dissatisfaction with the world that we would rather leave buried under a mountain of tasks and vapid pleasures.
These people are undoubtedly imagining all the things they have to get done. It’s hard enough, the thinking goes, to get everything done in seven days. “Losing” a day a week would be catastrophic. The essay to write, the long-postponed laundry to do, the research required to buy winter boots, taxes to be filed, a haircut to procure, the show to watch, the game of pong to play—all these feel immutable to her (as such things do to most of us). The whispered voices of fear are loud in our ears, warning of the social costs we will pay, how our world may spin out of control, the threat of failures. Free time has to squeeze in around these immutable constraints, or so the thinking goes.
So when Shabbat comes along and insists that in fact it is immutable and all else is negotiable, the world is turned upside down. It is the non-negotiability of Shabbat that gives it its terrifying power. Exceptions are made only for emergencies threatening life or health. Everything else—everything else!—comes to a screeching halt at sundown. The secular understanding of what’s “reasonable” and “normal” is trumped by a commitment to an alternative vision. A check may be left half written, a shopping trip abandoned with an empty cart, the writing of a paper stopped mid-sentence. This is where the personal gets political: the engines of our social and political systems are fueled by the faith that our daily work and consumer practices are immutable, inevitable, and somehow natural. By injecting doubt into that faith, Shabbat practice disrupts the dominant logic of American culture. Each person who keeps Shabbat plays a part in exposing the underlying ideology of the status quo—the ideology of materialism, self advancement, and the pursuit of individual happiness. In Heschel’s words, “a thought has blown the marketplace away.”
The tension between a spiritual and quotidian materialistic world these questions reveal is the reason why Shabbat observance is a spiritual practice: it takes discipline, ironically, to enter into an undisciplined, formless time. It takes discipline to reimagine our world. It takes courage to assert and reassert our freedom. It takes a true leap of faith. It is no coincidence that Shabbat was invented by a people who understood themselves to have once been slaves. The genius of their insight was that sometimes the most politically radical use of time is not to use it efficiently, but rather to squander it. To spend it lavishly. To while it away—as if the present moment were an eternity, as if the present moment were all that existed, as if we had all the time in the world.

Asher Mayerson’s D’var Torah

hillel — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 21:41:45 +0000

Class of 2015 student– Asher Mayerson’s D’var Torah on Rwanda:

L’shana tovah. “For a good year” – a shortening of l’shana tovah tikatevu v’tihatemu, which means: “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.” This phrase is a reference to being inscribed in the Book of Life, which destines an individual for heaven. On Rosh Hashanah, God opens up the Book of Life and the Book of the Dead for a ten-day period, closing it at the end of Yom Kippur. During these ten days, called the Ten Days of Repentance (aseret y’mei t’shuvah), each one of us has our last chances to make good impressions on God.

Throughout our prayers during these ten days, we often repeat that t’shuvah, tefillah, and tzedakah (repentance, prayer, and charity) will rid ourselves of evil and replace it with good.

Now, there are two types of sins that need to be atoned for:

* Bein adam l’makom (between a person and God)

* Bein adam l’chaveroh (between a person and another person…literally, between a person and his friend)

It is in synagogue, through repentance and prayer to God, that we all seek forgiveness for our sins between adam l’makom, between person and God. However, the much more difficult task is to seek forgiveness from our friends and neighbors, as it is a much more active process…instead of just repentance, we must actually make amends. And for intentional crimes – both against man and against God – repentance during the rest of the year only buys us time until Yom Kippur, at which point we must atone fully for our sins and seek forgiveness from God and from our peers.

We, the Jewish people, know first-hand the difficulty of forgiveness as we have been the target of genocide. During the Holocaust, about two out of every three European Jews were killed. Look at the three people to the right of you or to the left of you. If we were living in Europe in the 1940s, chances are that only one out of these three people would have survived. How is it possible to forgive such an immense crime? Indeed, is it possible for those who have suffered at the hands of the perpetrators to actually forgive the perpetrators?

To help address these questions, I want to share with you all some of my experiences this past summer that have helped me to better understand the importance and the universality of the questions prompted by Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the Ten Days of Repentance.

I spent this past summer in Rwanda. I was in Rwanda to electrify rural villages with a group called Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering; and, while I was there, I also had the opportunity to see several genocide memorials and to talk to many Rwandans about their personal experiences in the genocide. Those experiences shed some light on the themes of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation that are so paramount to the Ten Days of Repentance.

Many in Rwanda talk as though their lives ended in 1994, the year of the genocide. Close to a million people were slaughtered by their neighbors in about 3 months…that’s about 10,000 individuals each day in a country smaller than the state of Maryland. Some Rwandans feel more connected to the dead than the living, as all of their family members were killed but they somehow survived. Many of the genocidaires – those who participated actively in the genocide –- are in their own way victims as well, consumed by the guilt of their killings that resulted from a combination of government orders, peer pressure, and ethnic tensions. And, of course, their households lose their primary provider when they are taken to jail, so the families of the genocidaires are also victims. Many Rwandans mark 1994 – the year of the genocide – as the end of their lives.

Some, however, have been freed of the burden that the genocide carried on their backs. It’s pretty incredible to go to Rwanda now and to see Hutus and Tutsis – the two primary ethnic groups – living side-by-side, working together towards the betterment of the country. Many Rwandans talk about how before 1994, there were three groups in Rwanda: Hutus, Tutsis, and Twa (a third ethnic group). Now, they say that they are all one group: banyarwandans (the Kinyarwanda word for the people of Rwanda).

And, although not all Rwandans are healed, some are – and many more are in the healing process. The society as a whole has come from ethnic-based genocide to a place of peace and unity. What puzzled me during my first few weeks in Rwanda was how a society could heal from such a brutal genocide that occurred just 18 years ago. How could individuals return to their homes to live next to the people who slaughtered their families? Friends killed friends, neighbors killed neighbors, and sometimes relatives even killed relatives. How could a society heal from something like that?

Now, however, I can say that I get it; I really understand how Rwandan society has made such great leaps in so little time.

Visiting the genocide museum in the Rwandan capital of Kigali shed some light on how the country has healed so tremendously in so few years. For me, what stood out was the universality of genocide that the museum emphasized; there were rooms and rooms filled with information about other genocides, and most prominent among them was the Holocaust. Quotes were displayed throughout the museum coming not only from Rwandans but also from important historical figures and sources, including our own Talmud; in an area of the museum dedicate to those who risked their lives to save others during the Rwandan genocide, I was surprised to see what is, in my mind, one of the Talmud’s most profound quotes: “To save one life is to save the world.”

This immense focus on universality makes Rwandans believe that genocide is not just a Rwandan problem – it’s a human problem. Showing that there are other genocides does not mean that all genocides are the same; indeed, each one is unique. However, there is something in human nature that permits the horrible crimes of genocide. Indeed, this exploration of what is human nature – how we can bring out the best in it and how we can fight the worst – is fundamental to the high holidays. And it is through self-criticism that we, as individuals and as a community, move forward from the previous year to the next year – looking back on our sins and learning from those sins to guide future actions.

In the post-genocide recovery in Rwanda, the focus on admittance of sins and on repentance is of great significance. The post-genocide judicial system, called the gacaca court system, was the primary way that individuals were put on trial for crimes of genocide. The highly localized courts were designed to implement community-based justice, based on the gacaca that traditionally served to resolve small disputes in villages across Rwanda. According to the Rwandan Government, the court system has three main objectives:

* The speeding up of the legal proceedings

* The reconstruction of what happened during the genocide

* The reconciliation of all Rwandans and building their unity

For Rwandans, the reconstruction of what happened during the genocide is vital to finally getting a sense of closure from the genocide. For example, during many of these gacaca court hearings, genocidaires admitted where they had hid bodies, which finally enabled victims to bury their family members and to put an end to their long search for the bodies of their loved ones.

In Rwanda, reconstruction led to reconciliation. Knowledge of the past enabled Rwandans to move forward. That’s the reason that there have always been significant reductions in sentences for genocidaires who confess their crimes and help convict others who participated in the genocide. Individuals admit their sins, ask forgiveness for their crimes, and help convict others who participated in the genocide – helping to heal society even further by bringing others to justice.

Prayers during the Ten Days of Repentance earn forgiveness from God for crimes against God; everyone here today is atoning for those sins. Yet, we all have a much more demanding job – not only asking forgiveness for the wrongs we have done to friends, neighbors, relatives, and roommates, but also making amends. The process of asking forgiveness and making amends is paramount during the Ten Days of Repentance, particularly for the crimes from person to person (bein adam l’chaveroh). And it is that process that leads to reconciliation between individuals within our community, just as it has led to reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda.

The concept of being written into the Book of Life is also similar to the way in which Rwandans described their process of reconciliation with their neighbors. Rwandans often say that they were dead until they reconciled with what happened to them through forgiving their killers, releasing the burden of hatred and bitterness from their shoulders. Forgiveness and reconciliation enabled them to live again. Likewise, being sealed into the Book of Life destines one for Heaven, enabling an individual to live again – when the Messiah returns.

Atoning for our sins to others over the past year through a process of asking forgiveness and of making amends will enable all of us to reach a state of reconciliation with those around us. And, for those of us who have been wronged, we have a role to play in the process as well. According to the Gemara (the commentary on the Mishnah), we are in a sense obligated to forgive those around us, particularly when they make amends; if God is able to forgive us for crimes against God on the basis of t’shuvah (repentance), who are we to withhold forgiveness from our friends?

Through the process of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, we as a community can grow stronger. During the high holidays, we often talk in terms of collective sins and collective guilt, particularly when we say the Vidui and list all of the sins that we, as a community, have committed. Ashamnu, we have trespassed. Bagadnu, we have dealt treacherously. Gazalnu, we have robbed.

The Book of Life may be more of a way of life than of an actual book used to gain entrance into the world to come. Maybe that’s the purpose of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the Ten Days of Repentance – to come together as a community and to learn from our past wrongs to build a better, more just future. Atoning for our wrongs over the past year – and reaching a state of reconciliation with those around us – will free ourselves of our past sins and will lift us, together, into the mindset represented by the Book of Life. The process of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation will free us symbolically from the burdens of our guilt and will inscribe us into the Book of Life, enabling us to progress as a community and to renew our commitment to a world of justice. L’shana tovah tikatevu v’tihatemu. May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year.

NECI Shabbat with Profs

hillel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:48:46 +0000

This past Friday was an absolutely spectacular Shabbat. Asher Mayerson led services that hosted one of the largest turnouts of the year, before facilitating a riveting discussion on the morality of God’s actions with respect towards the Egyptians during the exodus, an event described in the week’s parshat. The discussion focused on whether the plagues were justified or were an act of collective punishment, along with whether God preserves the freedom of will of human beings.

Following davening, the New England Culinary Institute chefs treated us to a delicious Shabbas dinner of beat salad, mouthwatering salmon and scrumptious bread pudding (it tasted just like a cinnamon roll!). It was also great to share our Shabbat dinner with a number of Dartmouth professors. I was very lucky to dine with government Prof. Darryl Press. Conversation flowed as we discussed American security strategy and policy, among other topics. It was a fantastic night, and I can’t wait for the next NECI Shabbat next term.

- Adam Schneider ’15

A Week of Service at Kfar Galim – Max Gelb

andrey — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:57:14 +0000

I climbed carefully up a sturdy wall made of old car tires, turning to pose for our group photo. Looking around at the completed walls of the new ecological center, it was incredible to recall that not a single wall stood just one week before. The four rising facades, systematically constructed of used tires, dirt, and stones, were indeed a testament to the effort and determination of all those who participated in the week-long service project at Kfar Galim.

On Thursday, March 17, 2011, a group of eight Dartmouth College students, led by Dartmouth College Hillel Rabbi Edward Boraz, set out for Kfar Galim, Israel. Kfar Galim is a youth village located on the Mediterranean Coast just south of Haifa. Established in 1952, just four years after the founding of the Israeli State, Kfar Galim has provided education for generations of Israeli children. Today, many of the children who board at the Kfar Galim School are immigrants, or children of immigrants, from Ethiopia or the former Soviet Union.

This year’s contingent of Dartmouth College volunteers was the second group the College has sent to Kfar Galim. Adam Pastrich (Dartmouth ’13), Rabbi Boraz and I (Dartmouth College ’11) founded the Dartmouth College-Kfar Galim service project in 2010, largely inspired by the connection between the New Hampshire Jewish Federation and the Hof HaCarmel region in Israel. The project is designed as an “alternative spring break” trip, during which Dartmouth students travel to Israel for one week to volunteer and learn about Israeli culture and history. Each year, there is a primary service project at Kfar Galim, which is the focus of the Dartmouth students’ work.

The service project this year involved the construction of an ecological center, which will be used to educate Israeli children about environmental sustainability and ecology. The center is being built exclusively from renewable resources, including old tires and dirt and stones from the Kfar Galim campus. In just one week, the Dartmouth volunteers were able to complete all four walls of the ecological center, significantly furthering the construction process.

In addition, the Dartmouth students had the unique opportunity to work side-by-side with six young Israelis doing Shnat Sheirut (a year of volunteer work before mandatory military service). These young Israelis, called “Shinshinim,” hosted the Dartmouth students and taught them about life and culture in Israel. Furthermore, they facilitated interactions between the Dartmouth volunteers and the Kfar Galim School students, and even encouraged the Kfar Galim youth to join in the construction work.

Besides the ecological center construction, the Dartmouth group also got a taste of local culture and history. The group visited and studied the nearby Atlit detention camp, where Jewish illegal immigrants (ma’apilim) were detained by the British during the 1940s. In addition, the group enjoyed a traditional Druze hafla dinner, replete with humus, pita, and other Israeli favorites.

As we look towards the future, Dartmouth and Kfar Galim aim to extend this annual partnership and organize further projects in years to come. Since I myself will be graduating from Dartmouth this June, I will be unable to participate in future trips. However, it has been extremely rewarding and meaningful to observe how Dartmouth’s service projects have enhanced communal bonds between New Hampshire and the Hof HaCarmel region, and especially between Dartmouth and Kfar Galim. I am certain that next year’s spring break venture will offer even greater opportunities for Dartmouth student volunteers and our friends at Kfar Galim.

Don’t Worry, Be Jewish

chris — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 18:09:55 +0000

Good evening. I’m Brian Freeman, co-Vice President of Dartmouth Hillel for Fall 2010, and I’d like to welcome the ’14s to Dartmouth and to Hillel’s Kol Nidre services. Three years ago, I was sitting right where you are now, taking a break after an overwhelming first few days at Dartmouth. In the years since then, I’ve learned that it’s good to pause every once in a while to take stock of where you’ve been and where you want to go. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my Israeli cousin’s favorite expression: “al teedag – teheeyeh yehudi.” Roughly translated, it means “Don’t worry, Be Jewish.” My other Israeli cousin hates this expression. “What does it mean, “Be Jewish?” It’s stupid,” she says. And on one level, she’s right. Being Jewish in Israel is taken for granted – it’s like “Being American” in the United States. It’s part of almost everyone’s identity, yet it rarely surfaces in daily life. Outside of Israel, however, “Being Jewish” is significantly more challenging. You have to make a real effort to live Jewishly when Judaism isn’t a part of the national culture.

So what does it mean, then, to “Be Jewish” in the United States? I’ll tell you… I don’t know. My friend Andrey, who was born in the officially atheist and anti-Semitic Soviet Union, says, “I am Jewish no matter what. I have always known that and will forever be Jewish. Why? Because being Jewish encompasses not just the religion, but the culture, the history, and the traditions as well. I am culturally Jewish. It is a very important part of who I am and who my family is.” My friend Eliana, who grew up Orthodox but went to a Conservative synagogue to learn to read Torah, says, “I love that I can come from an intermarried family and go from orthodox to conservative to orthodox, but at the end of the day still feel completely connected to any kind of Jew I run into on campus.” Clearly, being Jewish involves much more than reciting the Shema or avoiding ham and cheese sandwiches. Being Jewish is belonging to the “the world’s largest fraternity” – and you don’t even have to rush. It’s a community bound together by a shared history and ritual tradition. While specific observances vary from person to person, there exists among Jews a strong sense of common identity. Though their practices of Judaism differ markedly, both Andrey and Eliana feel at home at Dartmouth Hillel.

How can that be? Because Hillel is like a Purim basket; pick out the things that appeal to you and skip over the things that don’t. Hillel’s full of people with different backgrounds and preferences, so we sponsor a mix of social, religious, and academic activities. On the social side, we have Jews and Java coffee hours, Jew Crew (a club for freshmen), bagel brunches, movie nights, and Chanukah and Purim Balls. On the religious side, we have Shabbat services and dinners, a weekly morning minyan, and creative holiday programs, such as Pizza in the Hut for Sukkot and a 100-person community Seder for Passover. On the academic side, we teach Hebrew school and Bar/Bat Mitzvah lessons, bring in knowledgeable Jewish speakers, and organize panels on issues of faith and identity. We also have the good fortune of sharing a beautiful building with the Upper Valley Jewish Community, a vibrant and welcoming egalitarian congregation. The UVJC joins Hillel on Shabbat evenings, bringing a warm family atmosphere to our Shabbat dinners. In short, we offer a wide range of programs catering to any Jewish taste. And if you have an idea for an activity we don’t currently offer, we have the resources to make it happen. Now that you’re on your own, and your parents can no longer drag you to Hebrew school or Shabbat morning services, you have the freedom to choose the aspects of Judaism that are most meaningful to you.

My own Jewish journey was far from straightforward. I grew up in an interfaith family but was very involved in my home congregation, reading Torah on Yom Kippur, teaching Hebrew school, even performing in the Klezmer band. Once I got to Dartmouth, however, I drifted away from Judaism. After all, I only really participated in my synagogue at home because my parents and my Rabbi expected me to. I had never really thought about how I wanted to “Be Jewish,” so I just gave it up altogether. Several terms went by before I became aware of an emptiness. As strange as it sounds, I actually started to miss going to services. I gradually reconnected with Jewish life through Hillel, attending Shabbat evening services, cooking Shabbat dinners, singing with the Chai-Lows Jewish a cappella group, and finally joining the Hillel board. Along the way, I have befriended and learned from people like Andrey and Eliana, people with Jewish backgrounds vastly different from my own. I don’t always agree with their ideas, but they enrich my understanding of the rich pluralism of Jewish life.

Therefore, I will leave you with “al teedag – teheeyeh yehudi”: Don’t worry, Be Jewish. I urge you to take the time to think about what “Being Jewish” means to you. If you need some ideas, come to Hillel. The door’s always open, and there’s even free cookie dough in the freezer. If you have a good idea of what “Being Jewish” means to you, we’d love for you to stop by and share your experiences. Apart from the spiritual guidance of Rabbi Boraz and the invaluable assistance of Claudia Palmer, Hillel is completely student-run, so we will rely on all of you to help us build a vibrant Jewish community at Dartmouth.

Gmar Chatimah Tova – May you be inscribed for a good year, a year of health, happiness, and personal growth. We hope to see you again soon.