Preparing a Generation for the Road

When I told Moji Pourmoradi that I would be happy to come along with 44 teenagers on a 10 day trip to Israel, what I meant to say was, I’ll give it a shot and see what happens.  What happened is that it exceeded my expectations.  More exciting, more crazy, more wonderful than I expected.

Conversation at Givat Haviva, February 2019

With the expert leadership of Avi Siegel, Moji, Tziona Kamel and our Israeli staff, we had quite a trip.  We climbed a few mountains in the Negev, slept in a kibbutz down south that I will describe as rustic, stayed at a less rustic kibbutz north of Tel Aviv, created our own graffiti in Tel Aviv, spent several uplifting days in Jerusalem.  We had fun, made noise, ate all kinds of food, made some new friends and had many more experiences that would take days to talk about.  I’ll get back to the trip in a few minutes.

The ancient rabbis encouraged us to tell story of Passover as fully and deeply as we can.  וכל המרבה לספר ביציאת מצרים הרי זה משובח  The more one tells of the Exodus from Egypt, the better. Moreover, between the recognition of diversity implicit in the drama of the four children and the acknowledgement of the morally problematic aspects of the Ten Plagues, the rabbis provided a template for confronting the complexity inherent in our story and our tradition.

Given our tradition's propensity for acknowledging complexity here and elsewhere, why is it that in many respects we overprotect the next generation, treating them like they are fragile, like they might break or short-circuit if we make things too hard or expose them to too much controversy or risk?

Precious As We Are: a Pre-Passover Reflection

Chances are you heard about the recent college scandal involving 50 people, orchestrated by a college prep company that involved getting students into elite college through cheating on standardized tests and presenting false athletic credentials.

Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel, Gorfinkel and Zadok, 2019

What messages does all this send to the students?  First of all, that honesty is optional.  If it works, be honest; if not, don’t.  But another problematic message that is sent to these students is, you’re not ok as you are.  "As you are" isn’t good enough.  In order to satisfy other people’s expectations, you have to pretend to be what you’re not.

Two weeks before Passover, I want to challenge us to think about the following. To what degree are we sending the message to people we love that they are not really welcome as they are. That “as they are” isn’t enough or isn’t ok.  “As they are” can be, their actual abilities; their actual appearance; their actual sexuality; their actual personality; their actual degree of conformity or noncomfority.

What To Do With Advice

I’m wondering if what I’m about to describe ever happened to you.  You make a decision, let's say regarding a job to apply for or perhaps a person to go out with on a date.  You get the job and you work at it for awhile; or you go out on a date, maybe even more than one date.

And things don’t go so well.  I won’t get specific, each situation is different.

Has it ever happened to you that after you make the decision, after you get yourself into professional or personal situation, after it doesn’t go so well, that someone close to you says:

You know - I had a feeling that wouldn’t work out.   

Perhaps at this point you may be wondering why the person didn’t say anything before but you may ask, why did you have such a feeling that it wouldn’t work out?

And the person may say some version of, I think by now, I know you better than you know yourself.

Is it actually true that someone else can know us better than we know ourselves?  And whether or not this is true, how do we feel about advice altogether?

I’d like to reflect on how we deal with advice.  Do we want other people to give us advice?  Are we more upset when people offer their opinions or when they don’t, especially if our decisions end up not being good ones?