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Tufts Hillel Celebrates
25 Years with Rabbi Jeffrey Summit
September 10, 2005
Remarks by Rabbi Jeffrey Summit
As I look around this room, I see so many people who are
so important in my life: my wife and children, my parents
and family, my closest friends, our amazing staff at Hillel,
extraordinary board leaders who have worked together to transform
Jewish life at Tufts, faculty colleagues and administration,
the leadership of our university who have enthusiastically
supported our mission, my wonderful colleagues in Hillel and
campus ministry work, Tufts parents and alumni who have nurtured
our community, and especially, especially extraordinary students
with whom I've been privileged to work at Tufts. It means
so much to me to be here with you now. I would want to say
each one of your names and thank you personally but then I
would want to tell stories, true stories (all of my stories
are true stories) about the work we've done together, and
what you have taught me and how blessed I am to work, and
play, and to have build a life filled with my experiences
with you. That would take too long. So instead I will say
that my heart is very full and you continue to give me a tremendous
gift, the opportunity to do work that I love, with people
whom I value tremendously.
Why are we here this evening? I am deeply touched by your
generous words, and I really enjoyed listening to them. But
the reason we are here is so much larger. We are here with
a mission. And when we opened this building, we plastered
the mission statement all over the Center. Actually we didn't
plaster it; we nailed it to every doorpost in the building.
That mission statement is found in the mezuzah. At institutions
we often spend good money on consultants to help us develop
mission statements: the mezuzah is a mission statement, developed
and expanded over the past 3000 years. So what does it teach?
The text begins with the Shema: Shema Yisrael! Listen! underscoring
the value and importance of listening . Here at Tufts
we are very intelligent and we actually have a lot to say,
(and Lord knows we Jews are great talkers) but this passage
from the Torah in the mezuzah teaches that while intelligent
people know how to talk; wise people know how to listen. A
community we listen is a community that builds connection
between people and affirms the worth of every person,
people who are active and people who have yet to be engaged.
A community where people listen is a community that brings
generations together, students and teachers, children and
parents. A community where people listen is a community where
different kinds of people-"religious" and non-religious, traditional
and liberal, Jews, Christians, Muslims, people of all faiths
and cultures--will open their hearts to one another. Listening
is a prerequisite for love, which is why, I think, the Shema
is followed by the words, "and you shall love/Veahavta." First
listen, then you build the connections that enable you to
love.
While the text in the mezuzah goes on to talk about loving
God, the rabbis were much more interested in how you loved
other people . In fact, the namesake of our organization,
the Babylonian teacher Hillel believed that the entire Torah
was simply commentary on the law "V'ahavta l'reecha k'mocah.
Love your neighbor like yourself." Now, the rabbis weren't
naïve. They recognized that you can't command emotion
and you certainly can't love every person you meet. So they
translated love into action: Be exquisitely sensitive to the
other human beings around you, their physical needs, their
feelings, the quality of their lives. Be so connected to the
people around you that you try to see the world through their
eyes, where their happiness becomes your happiness, where
you can't sleep well, if you do nothing, while others go to
bed hungry. This value informs our work at Hillel, and in
response, Tufts Hillel becomes a community passionate about
social justice with our students engaged from the Medford
public schools to the Dominican Republic, From Israel to the
Former Soviet Union and now to the Gulf Coast, teaching that
loving other people is about seeing yourself connected broadly,
becoming global citizens dedicated to tikkun olam, creating
a world of peace through justice.
And the text in the mezuzah teaches more. When it says Adonshem
ehad , God is one, I personally think we do our tradition
a disservice to think that this means that Judaism is a monotheistic
rather than a polytheistic religion. I think that Adoshem
ehad essentially means that God, that Kedusha, holiness,
is by definition, about one-ness, about unity. That which
drives us into separate camps, or separate rooms, or makes
us turn away from one another, or worse, demonize one another,
is the antithesis of holiness. We call holy that which brings
us together, as friends, as families, as a university community.
That is why Hillel is so engaged in building a community where
we are deeply committed to religious and political and cultural
dialogue and joint projects throughout the campus. It is in
that experience of one-ness that we glimpse God's presence.
I am so excited where we are going from here, the future
before us at Tufts Hillel. These years of working together
have positioned us to make a major impact and our ambitious
programming endowment will allow us to make a transformative
contribution, to our students, to Tufts and to the future
of the Jewish community. Over the next ten years, thousands
and thousands of the most incredible Jewish undergraduate
and graduate students will pass through Tufts. When they learn
that our texts and traditions answer essential questions in
their lives and help them construct a life of meaning, then
they will leave here committed to a life of Jewish learning.
When they experience Shabbat in a warm, joyous community,
they'll go out and build homes and synagogues full of spirit,
ruach , where families sit around the Shabbat table
and sing and celebrate together. When our students experience
the deep satisfaction and happiness that comes from giving
generously of their time and resources, we'll see a new generation
committed to tzedukkah and service to their communities. When
they visit and experience Israel , the land and its people,
when they develop an understanding of how strongly we're connected,
then we'll see a new generation enthusiastic about our history
and common bond. We are working for nothing less than the
transformation of the Jewish community in North America .
Jewish life in America is a very large ship and it's hard
to alter its' direction but every ship has a rudder and if
you move the rudder, you can move the entire ship. College
students are a rudder that can move the American Jewish community
towards a passionate engagement with Jewish values, celebration
and tradition. We move them and we transform our future.
For me, personally, I can't think of
a better and more exciting thing to do with my life than to
be engaged in this work. I pray that we'll be privileged to
do this together for many years. I treasure being together
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