Joyful Transmitters

Dear Brandeis community,

 

I have gotten a few requests to share here in the Word of the Week the remarks I offered at our Grandparents and Special Friends Day last Friday, so I have included them below. This week turned out to be a good one during which to reflect on that event, as there was an article in eJewish Philanthropy about the first national study of Jewish grandparents. While the full report on the findings is yet to come, the article shares a five-group segmentation of the field they have created, from joyful transmitters of Jewish tradition to wistful outsiders who wish they were more connected to their grandchildren. It’s an interesting way of thinking about the connections between grandparents, their families, and Jewish practice. I am curious as to where our families see themselves, in those groupings! So, a bit of homework for all of you out there: next time you’re together with Bubbe or Grandpa, share this graphic, and ask them where they would place themselves on this chart. Inquiring minds want to know!

 

 

 

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Welcome, grandparents and special friends! It is wonderful to have all of you here on campus, swelling this happy community in numbers and across generations. I appreciate all of you for being here today on behalf of a special someone, the many miles you may have traveled. I know that many of you had plans to be here with us way back in November, when the Northern California fires created such poor air quality that San Francisco schools were closed; thank you for planning another visit to Brandeis and with those special people in your life who anchor you here.

 

I am particularly excited for this rescheduled Grandparents and Special Friends Day, because it is also a reimagined Grandparents and Special Friends Day. Back in December, at a parent gathering, Jessica England (mom to Josie, Layla, and Tyler) suggested that we think about how to ground this event more in our mission, and in particular how to make our community value of service (or tikkun olam) central to the day. Lots of hard work and elbow grease and these three months later, we will be doing just that, working on a service project in partnership with Jewish Family and Children’s Services. Thank you to Jessica for the idea, to Stacy and Joann in our development office for bringing the idea to life, to JFCS for the partnership, and to all of you, for modeling the importance of service to the community for your grandkids and special friends.

 

There is a teaching in the Jewish tradition, from a 15th-century scholar named Isaac Abarbanel, about three ways to think about service, or three levels of offering support. In the first level, you feel pity for the individual or people you are helping. In the second level, you recognize the individual as a human being, as a relative, in the full dignity of their humanity. In the third level, you understand that giving to this other person includes in it the act of building the community; that your world is enriched through the act of supporting another person. This teaching, to me, rests on one of the most famous phrases from the Torah: b’tselem elohim, which means “in the image of God,” and reminds all of us of not just the inherent dignity, divinity, and humanity of every soul, but also that we are each of us a spark of the divine; that our divinity, our humanity, is a shared one.

 

I bring this up because, while the project we are doing today may seem simple, in preparing emergency supplies for families and individuals in need, I believe it speaks to these levels of support. I believe the work we will do together today is not about mercy or pity for individuals, but solidarity with our fellow beings, who together with us build our communities, our countries, our world, and our future. When we talk about service here, we use the Hebrew tikkun olam, which means to repair the world. As I look around the world, whether in Christchurch, New Zealand, or in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it is clear to me that one of the most important repairs we can teach our children to make is this: to see other people in their full human dignity, and to see first what unites us, rather than what makes us different.

 

So, again, thank you. Thank you for being here to do this important work with your friends and family. Thank you for your support of our human connections. And thank you for your support of Brandeis—there are many ways for you as members of our extended community to get involved here, from events and celebrations to committees and service. If you want to help us build the future of this school and this community, please let me know—we’d love to have you.

 

Wishing you all weekends full of joy and connection, my friends.

 

Warmly,

 

Dan