Life is measure in milestones…a first date, a driver’s license, a wedding ring, grandchildren. We segment our memories into before and after. Those key moments define who we are and who we will be. We are never quite the same after as before.
In 2003 I was at one of those pivotal moments in my Jewish life, I was moving from philanthropy on the local level to involvement on the national level. I was starting my time on the Young Leadership Cabinet and as a result became involved with the UJC Network Communities. In looking back I realize that I thought that was the farthest I would ever go, that I had “arrived”. I described a lot of what I was feeling in an article I wrote for the Network newsletter (the following is an excerpt)
“It might have been that rickety old card table your dad dragged in from the garage or the tiny table from the toy room covered in three generations of finger-paint stains. But whatever the furniture, you knew that it meant you were going to be banished to the little kid’s corner yet again. As a child you weren’t sure what it meant to arrive, but you knew that you wanted to be over there with the adults at the big table. You knew that was where the fancy dishes were, where they ate the good food and where the people that mattered sat. You had no doubt you wanted to grow up to fill one of those seats. And there was very little in childhood that could compare with that moment, when you counted the dishes on the table and saw one more than last year, when you heard your mom or dad say “No, this year you are going to sit here with us” and when you sat in that big chair for the first time. Your felt so proud, so special. The whole meal tasted different and you knew YOU were different.
But if this was so important to us as youngsters, why is that there are now so many empty chairs at the big table? The empty seats do not surround a table set with appetizers and entrees, but with history and heredity, with responsibility and promise. They are the tables at our Jewish agencies and federation. They are the tables around which we saw our parents sitting when were tagged along to Super Sunday or where we colored while our parents discussed allocations and campaign goals. These tables were set as gingerly for us and with as much preparation as the Passover settings and the Thanksgiving dishes. Our parent looked at us with that same anticipation that someday we would fill their chairs. But for many of our communities, those seats linger unfilled. At every Jewish program and meeting I attend I hear the same question, “Where is the next generation?”. I hear stories of aging communities clamoring for young leadership.
The good news is that across our country there are many dedicated, talented, intelligent, engaged young Jewish leaders who are taking their seats and heeding the call. Last month I sat around the “big table” with 300 of the amazing young women of UJC’s National Young Leadership Cabinet. I can tell you our future is in very capable hands, with people ready and willing to assume responsibility. And I believe that this group represents just the tip of the available pool of young Jewish leaders.”
This week I stand on the precipice of another one of those life changing events, and again I find myself again awestruck, both at where I came from and where I am going. I still remember my first Federation event, my first local committee participation (Israel at 50), my first UJC event (it was UJA back then and the event was a Young Leadership Regional Conference in Boston), my first days on Cabinet and my first meeting with the Executive Committee for the Network. Every time I had that same feeling I am having right now. How did I get here? Do I have the right to be here? And more than anything, WOW, how’d that happen! Each time I find myself surrounded by those people I have looked up to and admired for many years and it makes me speechless to be seated at the table shoulder to shoulder with my Jewish heroes.
This upcoming week I will take that next step, participation at an international level. I will be attending two outstanding conferences with some of the greatest hearts and minds of our time.
The Israeli Presidential Conference will bring together heads of state, corporate giants, great thinkers and extraordinary givers. And somewhere in the middle of that will be me, the person with their jaw on the ground wondering…How did I get here? I am sure the people I have thanked over and over again for allowing me to be part of this think I have lost it, but I am so honored and awestruck at the chance to interact with these people, to hear what they have to say and to have a front row seat for watching the future of the world unfold.
The second meeting, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) Emerging World Leaders Forum, was the reason I originally booked this trip. This will be my chance to truly give back to Jews around the world. This program is designed to help those of us in the “next generation” begin to develop a plan for our participation as leaders in our Jewish communities and around the world. Obviously this is not my first young leadership event, but I still find myself wondering...they want me? The caliber of the international list of participants is unbelievable. Already as young adults the people I will be working with are at the top of their industries, organizations and governments. My accomplishments seem small in comparison. Yet somehow I am about to become a peer of this group. What were they thinking? And am I ready to carry this mantle? Will I make those who came before me proud?
This last question is always the biggest one for me, will I make those who came before me proud? Those who know me well know I was not born Jewish, I do not have a single ancestor from whom I can trace my Jewish heritage. In the literal sense, there are none who came before me. Yet despite the lack of blood or DNA, I do have a long lineage of people who came before me, those who I owe so much to and those whom I carry with me as I take this next step. I spoke earlier of my Jewish heroes. My greatest Jewish heroes are not the great minds you will find in text books or on the evening news. They are the everyday heroes who prepared me for this journey. Their names to many to list here. But they are the people who taught me, who welcomed me to the table at events I wasn’t really ready for, who gave me my Hebrew name, who shared their holidays and traditions with me so I could learn what it meant to be Jewish. These are the people I hope to make proud as I take my seat at the table! They are the people who helped me define who I am as a Jew, as a Jewish leader and who I will become.
I thought when I started writing this post I didn’t have the words to express how I feel about what I am about to take on, I just realized I do have the word…it is GRATEFUL. Thank you to everyone who has believed in me, encouraged me and saw more in me than I did in myself. Thank you for giving me the chances and opportunities that have brought me to this moment. I promise to do you proud and continue the heritage you helped me build! And I’ll try to do it without spilling the water pitcher or dropping my fork *smile*.
In 2003 I was at one of those pivotal moments in my Jewish life, I was moving from philanthropy on the local level to involvement on the national level. I was starting my time on the Young Leadership Cabinet and as a result became involved with the UJC Network Communities. In looking back I realize that I thought that was the farthest I would ever go, that I had “arrived”. I described a lot of what I was feeling in an article I wrote for the Network newsletter (the following is an excerpt)
“It might have been that rickety old card table your dad dragged in from the garage or the tiny table from the toy room covered in three generations of finger-paint stains. But whatever the furniture, you knew that it meant you were going to be banished to the little kid’s corner yet again. As a child you weren’t sure what it meant to arrive, but you knew that you wanted to be over there with the adults at the big table. You knew that was where the fancy dishes were, where they ate the good food and where the people that mattered sat. You had no doubt you wanted to grow up to fill one of those seats. And there was very little in childhood that could compare with that moment, when you counted the dishes on the table and saw one more than last year, when you heard your mom or dad say “No, this year you are going to sit here with us” and when you sat in that big chair for the first time. Your felt so proud, so special. The whole meal tasted different and you knew YOU were different.
But if this was so important to us as youngsters, why is that there are now so many empty chairs at the big table? The empty seats do not surround a table set with appetizers and entrees, but with history and heredity, with responsibility and promise. They are the tables at our Jewish agencies and federation. They are the tables around which we saw our parents sitting when were tagged along to Super Sunday or where we colored while our parents discussed allocations and campaign goals. These tables were set as gingerly for us and with as much preparation as the Passover settings and the Thanksgiving dishes. Our parent looked at us with that same anticipation that someday we would fill their chairs. But for many of our communities, those seats linger unfilled. At every Jewish program and meeting I attend I hear the same question, “Where is the next generation?”. I hear stories of aging communities clamoring for young leadership.
The good news is that across our country there are many dedicated, talented, intelligent, engaged young Jewish leaders who are taking their seats and heeding the call. Last month I sat around the “big table” with 300 of the amazing young women of UJC’s National Young Leadership Cabinet. I can tell you our future is in very capable hands, with people ready and willing to assume responsibility. And I believe that this group represents just the tip of the available pool of young Jewish leaders.”
This week I stand on the precipice of another one of those life changing events, and again I find myself again awestruck, both at where I came from and where I am going. I still remember my first Federation event, my first local committee participation (Israel at 50), my first UJC event (it was UJA back then and the event was a Young Leadership Regional Conference in Boston), my first days on Cabinet and my first meeting with the Executive Committee for the Network. Every time I had that same feeling I am having right now. How did I get here? Do I have the right to be here? And more than anything, WOW, how’d that happen! Each time I find myself surrounded by those people I have looked up to and admired for many years and it makes me speechless to be seated at the table shoulder to shoulder with my Jewish heroes.
This upcoming week I will take that next step, participation at an international level. I will be attending two outstanding conferences with some of the greatest hearts and minds of our time.
The Israeli Presidential Conference will bring together heads of state, corporate giants, great thinkers and extraordinary givers. And somewhere in the middle of that will be me, the person with their jaw on the ground wondering…How did I get here? I am sure the people I have thanked over and over again for allowing me to be part of this think I have lost it, but I am so honored and awestruck at the chance to interact with these people, to hear what they have to say and to have a front row seat for watching the future of the world unfold.
The second meeting, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) Emerging World Leaders Forum, was the reason I originally booked this trip. This will be my chance to truly give back to Jews around the world. This program is designed to help those of us in the “next generation” begin to develop a plan for our participation as leaders in our Jewish communities and around the world. Obviously this is not my first young leadership event, but I still find myself wondering...they want me? The caliber of the international list of participants is unbelievable. Already as young adults the people I will be working with are at the top of their industries, organizations and governments. My accomplishments seem small in comparison. Yet somehow I am about to become a peer of this group. What were they thinking? And am I ready to carry this mantle? Will I make those who came before me proud?
This last question is always the biggest one for me, will I make those who came before me proud? Those who know me well know I was not born Jewish, I do not have a single ancestor from whom I can trace my Jewish heritage. In the literal sense, there are none who came before me. Yet despite the lack of blood or DNA, I do have a long lineage of people who came before me, those who I owe so much to and those whom I carry with me as I take this next step. I spoke earlier of my Jewish heroes. My greatest Jewish heroes are not the great minds you will find in text books or on the evening news. They are the everyday heroes who prepared me for this journey. Their names to many to list here. But they are the people who taught me, who welcomed me to the table at events I wasn’t really ready for, who gave me my Hebrew name, who shared their holidays and traditions with me so I could learn what it meant to be Jewish. These are the people I hope to make proud as I take my seat at the table! They are the people who helped me define who I am as a Jew, as a Jewish leader and who I will become.
I thought when I started writing this post I didn’t have the words to express how I feel about what I am about to take on, I just realized I do have the word…it is GRATEFUL. Thank you to everyone who has believed in me, encouraged me and saw more in me than I did in myself. Thank you for giving me the chances and opportunities that have brought me to this moment. I promise to do you proud and continue the heritage you helped me build! And I’ll try to do it without spilling the water pitcher or dropping my fork *smile*.
Shalom,
ReplyDeleteI have to say that our friendship sprung up in the most unusual of places and i know you know what I am talking about. The challenge you faced there and the bigger challenge for you as a Jew, are not so different. Both involved a fundamental change in the way you approach life, the way you look at the world and most importantly, i think, is you develop what I have always called, "Jewish Eyes.'
You look at what goes around in this world and you have a far different perspective than other people do. No, this is not racist or xenophobic, it is evidentiary and historical. Jews have always had to keep a "Jewish eye" open on the way things operate wherever we live and in whatever we do. It is a subconscious feeling that others are either staring at the backs of our heads and, at the same time, we are ever watchful behind our backs, makes it kind of difficult to look forward when you don't know what is sneaking up behind you to bite you on the ass.
It's sort of a handicap that is invisible except in our own Jewish consciousness and that makes living anywhere but Israel(where the dangers are all too obvious and present) a great tightrope act where as comfortable and secure you might be in your skill to manage the high wire, there is often someone who is far too willing to remove the safety net, or ignore its absence.
What makes your choice far more dangerous, or rather far more evident, is that you weren't raised with this awareness-you chose to be a part of it. I know that Jewish law forbids anyone to be reminded of their choice, but I have to quote Ben Gurion here. He was once asked the perennial question' Who Is A Jew?" His answer was, "Anyone crazy enough to admit it."
So, as a friend and fellow member of the tribe, you are most welcome to this crazy people and to partake in all its problems and pathways, wherever they may lead, but you are also a member of a very exclusive club which welcomes you with open arms, Me, I had to have my boy toy slashed!!!!!!
See ya soon in the old country,
You know who
You know who...I love you - despite how we met, yes I know what you meant - and can't wait to see you (and someday think I will make the same move you did). I LOVE the BG quote...I have never heard that. I will have to blog about that soon!!!!
ReplyDeleteI genuinely believe I was a Jew born to quasi-Christian parents. My conversion was just admitting that to the outside world, after many years of solitary study and only admitting it to myself. I think I have always had "Jewish Eyes" in many ways. So you are right, I became a Jew officially when I became crazy enough to admit it! And with "relatives" like you how could a crazy girl go wrong *smile*
See you soon....I'll be the one with the box of Entemann's!