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