Dear Brandeis community,

 

Welcome back to a new year! In this space I will share weekly thoughts about our kids, our program, our community, and our world. This week, I’m sharing the speech with which I welcomed our students and families on Tuesday, for those of you who missed it or were asking for the transcript.

 

This summer I read a book that from the moment I picked it up I knew I would want to share with you all. It is called Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, by the poet Ross Gay. It is a bright, vibrant, inspired book, full of the breath of life and appreciation for the natural world. I want to read to you this morning the opening stanza of the title poem:

 

Friends, will you bear with me today,

for I have awakened

from a dream in which a robin

made with its shabby wings a kind of veil

behind which it shimmied and stomped something from the south

of Spain, its breast aflare,

looking me dead in the eye

from the branch that grew into my window,

coochie-cooing my chin,

the bird shuffling its little talons left, then right,

while the leaves bristled

against the plaster wall, two of them drifting

onto my blanket while the bird

opened and closed its wings like a matador

giving up on murder,

jutting its beak, turning a circle,

and flashing, again

the ruddy bombast of its breast

by which I knew upon waking

it was telling me

in no uncertain terms

to bellow forth the tubas and sousaphones,

the whole rusty brass band of gratitude

not quite dormant in my belly—

it said so in a human voice,

“Bellow forth”—

and who among us could ignore such odd

and precise counsel?

 

The first thing I thought when I read that was wow—yes—that is odd and precise counsel indeed. And what a beautiful dream, to be reminded by a robin to share your gratitude with the world. The second thing I thought was there is so much of Walt Whitman in this collection and this poem—and Walt Whitman is a poet for whom I will remain eternally grateful, the writer who first brought me the gift of poetry. And the third thing I thought was what a very Jewish sentiment this bird on a dream branch was expressing: that it is incumbent upon us not just to be grateful, but to share that gratitude. Modeh Ani, which we’ll sing together this morning, is a song of gratitude for returning to the world each morning. And the Shehecheyanu, which we’ll also sing this morning, is a prayer we say for having the good fortune to have arrived at a moment, to have been kept whole enough to experience such a day as this.

 

I was thinking about that connection between this poem and the Shehecheyanu and got a little curious—I am a curious person—about the etymology, the history of the word, shehecheyanu. Because sometimes we say to each other that this or that is a "Shehecheyanu moment," and I began to wonder what we meant when we say that. So as it turns out, shehecheyanu means “who has kept us alive.” One of the beautiful things about the Hebrew language is that its roots are all based on trios of consonants, and so even a long word can be traced back to three letters. The root of shehecheyanu is cheit-yod-hei—the verb “to live.” So we celebrate the same sentiment present in the Shehecheyanu when we toast each other by saying “L’chaim,” (which means “to life!”), and when we wear a chai necklace or charm (meaning “life”)—in all of this, we celebrate and appreciate how lucky we are and how strange it is to be anything at all, to quote Neutral Milk Hotel.

 

This seemed like an important place to start this morning not just because of these songs we will sing together, but also because of some of the new words that are part of our Brandeis vocabulary. I’m sure many of you saw the big words “Make it Matter” up in our lobby—that’s an idea we will be talking about a great deal in the year and years ahead. What we mean when we say “make it matter” is that we want to work every day to make what we do in the classroom even more relevant in your lives, so that you can in turn go out and have a meaningful, positive impact in your communities. We know that life is about more than striving for academic success (though we will support and celebrate your successes). We want to challenge all of you to become people who can help repair the world.

 

And while that may seem a daunting task, let me tell you this: a great way to start putting your life in service of a better world is by being grateful—by thanking your parents for your meticulously prepared lunch, thanking your teachers for an exciting day of learning, or thanking your friends—new friends and old—for warm hugs and welcoming smiles. Because let me tell you this: no matter how much repairing the world needs, it remains and always will be a place full of magic, full of sparkling fog and bright ocean waves, and laughter, and music, and poetry. So please be grateful for it, and bellow forth that gratitude. I’m going to keep the Sparks box outside my office, but this year I want to hear what you are thankful for—all of you—as you go about your day.

 

In researching the etymology of Shehecheyanu, I came across a traditional use of the prayer that was new to me. Apparently, one can recite the Shehecheyanu when eating fresh fruit for the first time in a given year. This makes a great deal of sense, in a way—Judaism maintains strong ties to its agrarian roots, which we see most clearly in the upcoming Sukkot holiday. And it resonates with me—because I would certainly put nectarines and plums on the short list of my summer joys (along with camping, and travel, and so many other things!). But on the particular day I was reading and thinking about this, that fact took my brain to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece of pre–World War I western anxiety.

 

In it, the titular Prufrock lingers over his declining agency in the world, saying:

 

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

 

Famously, he ends the poem so afraid, so unsure of himself that he asks “Do I dare to eat a peach?” He is frozen: unable to make even the simplest decisions.

 

I thought of Prufrock not just because of the peach but because of the summer we have had—not as a family, but as a world. There is a pulse of fear in the world, audible in anti-Muslim sentiment here in the United States, and in anti-Semitism ramping up throughout Europe, visible in waves of refugees crashing against the shores of nations, and terrorist acts and the xenophobia they inspire. In the face of such fear, our hearts can feel as paralyzed as Prufrock, wondering whether we dare disturb the universe, and how. And against such fear, I would offer another section from Ross Gay’s “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude”:

 

…thank you

the ancestor who loved you

before she knew you

by smuggling seeds into her braid for the long

journey, who loved you

before he knew you by putting

a walnut tree in the ground, who loved you

before she knew you by not slaughtering

the land; thank you

who did not bulldoze the ancient grove

of dates and olives,

who sailed his keys into the ocean

and walked softly home; who did not fire, who did  not

plunge the head into the toilet, who said stop,

don’t do that; who lifted some broken

someone up; who volunteered

the way a plant birthed of the reseeding plant

is called a volunteer.

 

The work we do here every day together, the work of raising children to make their mark—to make it matter—this is the work of planting trees whose shade we will not ourselves know. This is the work of paying it forward, of imagining new futures, of repairing the world. And our gratitude to each other for these efforts, how we can lift each other up in the hard work of parenting and building community, that itself is a powerful balm we can offer our world. So this year my wish for you all is this: may you wake many mornings with the robin’s voice in your ear, reminding you to be grateful for these moments, and to share that gratitude with each other, with your children, and with the world.

 
Wishing you all weekends full of gratitude, my friends. 

Warmly,

 

Dan