19
Atideinu
–
Our Future
Our institution’s extraordinary future will hinge
on the following nontrivial goal: we must find
and support the absolute best and brightest of
students, and educate them with the absolute best
faculty, curriculum, alumni, library, archival, and
other resources they will need. In this endeavor,
we need everyone here this afternoon to par-
ticipate. Help us find the best students, help us
encourage a brave new generation of leaders, so
that our children and grandchildren will know the
joy we know of living a Jewish life of the highest
integrity and the deepest meaning.
In a world of expansive choice and competition,
consistent quality and relevance are our core neces-
sities. As North America’s first institution of higher
Jewish learning, we are the largest, best resourced
Jewish seminary in the Progressive world, yet we
must commit ourselves to constant review and
improvement of all that we do. We must build on
the strength and geographic diversity of our cam-
puses in Cincinnati, Jerusalem, Los Angeles, and
New York, every day. We must root ourselves more
firmly into the Jewish community in these cities
and around the globe, and build our presence, a
project that is already off to a great start. We must
also send the message, loud and clear, to all our
constituencies, that there is nothing more exciting,
more important, or more fulfilling than working
in today’s Jewish community. Beyond the inher-
ently fascinating learning derived from thousands
“
We must improve the understanding
and linkage of Reform Jews worldwide
with our Jewish State and with all our
global partners, and we must fervently
support and advocate for the long-term
security of the State of Israel.”
Students who marched
with faculty and alumni
in the Torah processional.
and valuable lies within, and the gift has token value
because of that assumption. The problem is, howev-
er, that no one has opened it and benefited from it in
anything more than the most passive way, leaving its
true value unassessed and unknown. Too few are the
members of our community who have opened the
packages of Jewish life their parents and grandparents
bequeathed them, and I fear the number is not yet
increasing.
On this day, let us commit ourselves to leaving
no part of the awesome gift of Jewish tradition
unopened anymore. Our faculty, our students, and
our graduates lead the way in helping others open up
the Jewish tradition that is the sparkling gift of their
ancestors – they have all the tools and skills neces-
sary to make it accessible and meaningful in fresh
and lasting ways. We must bring all our resources
to ensuring that upcoming generations have posi-
tive and inspiring Jewish learning experiences that
will engage them, teach them, and build them into
shapers of the Jewish future with knowledge, com-
mitment, and strength. This is, after all, what the
great academies of Jewish learning have always done
–
from Yavneh and Usha to Sura and Pumbedita, in
North Africa and Spain, across Europe, and, finally,
in North America and Israel – such institutions have
always exerted themselves
lehagdil Torah u’leha’adirah
,
to magnify Torah and to exalt it. They did this by
training and engaging the most exceptional faculty,
by seeking out and generously supporting the best
and brightest students, by ensuring a curriculum that
was both rooted in inherited tradition and imme-
diately relevant, and by holding themselves to high
standards that led to high achievement. And we will
do no less, faithfully extending the awesome trajecto-
ry of our predecessors. Our mission, then, is to build
on our splendid past, and create a brighter, better
educated, and more inspired future.