Dear Friends,
As we move through the waning days of the month of Elul, I am reflecting on the wake I have left in the previous year and how I have been impacted by and responded to significant events in the world. By any measure, this has been a turbulent year: rising antisemitism and political violence in our country, and the unending nightmare faced by Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians in Gaza, among many other crises. In times of instability, there are two forces that steady me—the enduring wisdom of our Jewish texts and practices, and experiences that knit me into the wider fabric of peoples and cultures different from my own.
In the Sephardic tradition, the piyyut Ben Adam opens the collection of Selichot—prayers for forgiveness—with a powerful question: Man, Woman! Why do you sleep? Rise up and voice your pleas! The poem suggests that when we shut ourselves off from the pain we experience and cause —as if in a slumber— we limit our capacity to transform ourselves and our communities. Singing these piyyutim during the month of Elul drops me into my identity as a Moroccan Jew. The texts and music recall generations of creativity and connect me to a long chain of Jewish tradition. When rooted in this part of my identity, I feel more grounded in life, which in turn enables me to approach the traditions of others with greater curiosity and openness.
This somewhat counterintuitive connection was a recurring theme raised by many leaders I met in Israel last March alongside fellows from our Educational Leadership Program. We met with Andeera Beidasa, principal of the Sindiana school and Arab youth village, who spoke powerfully about the school’s efforts to cultivate strong Palestinian identities in their students to develop them as pluralistic social leaders. She said, “when you know who you are, you can be more open to and accepting of others.” We also met with Ayala Dekel, head of the secular yeshiva at BINA, who spoke about the importance of harnessing one’s cultural inheritance as a resource for personal development and cultivating a more democratic and just society.
In a time of so much division and dehumanization, this lesson is vital to carry into the New Year. And who better to teach it than poets whose words offer insights that speak to both mind and heart? In recent weeks, I have returned regularly to Adrienne Rich’s poem “In Those Years”:
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness toBut the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I
Rich reminds us that it is not enough, indeed dangerous, to be reduced to I. Though we must stay rooted in our identities and attend to the most intimate experiences and relationships in our lives, we can’t lose track of the meaning of we and you: the larger fabric of humanity to which we belong, and the communities whose flourishing is bound up with ours.
Over the past year, we have been engaged in a process of strategic clarification and visioning at the Institute. We believe the capacities and orientations most essential to Jewish flourishing are grounded in the concepts of rootedness and interconnection. We imagine a future in which leaders are driven by visions for Jewish life that are animated by enduring Jewish ideas, texts, cultures, and practices. We also see a future in which Jewish leaders and organizations are enriched through deeper exchange and collaboration with leading figures and initiatives beyond the Jewish community. I look forward to sharing more about our planning process and its results in the months ahead.
From all of us at the Institute, we wish you and your loved ones a Shana Tova U’Metuka — a year of health, sweetness, connection, and peace.
Eva Heinstein
Director, Mandel Institute