A Commencement Address for Us All: Shavuot 5786

This is the season of commencement addresses. Across the country, graduates are putting on caps and gowns, there is one person in the family taking far too many photographs for the rest of the family’s liking, and distinguished speakers are trying to say something profound in under fifteen minutes.

And every commencement speech tends to follow the same formula. First comes: “You are the future.” Then: “Follow your dreams.” Then something inspirational from Taylor Swift, Abraham Lincoln, or occasionally both. And finally: “Congratulations, Class of 2026!”

Now truthfully, I’ve never been asked to give a university commencement address. Though after years of preaching, I do feel uniquely qualified to speak to large groups of people who are secretly checking their phones for sports scores or the latest Facebook post.

But I find myself thinking deeply about commencement speeches. Partly because this is graduation season. Partly because this week we celebrate Shavuot. And partly because of two painful public moments in the Jewish world this month. And no, I’m not talking about the New York Times: that’s another whole conversation.

A few weeks ago, at the University of Michigan —my wife’s and my alma mater and the school to which she and I are sending every year a very large check to pay for our son’s tuition — controversy erupted after a professor’s commencement address left many Jewish students and their families feeling not merely challenged, but demeaned and dismissed, perhaps even mocked. Separately but also during this commencement season, students in undergraduate dual-degree programs affiliated with the Jewish Theological Seminary, where the Conservative movement trains its clergy, objected to hearing from the president of the State of Israel at their graduation ceremony, and these undergrads were backed by some JTS rabbinical students too.

These two situations raise profound questions: how do we prepare morally and spiritually to walk through a complicated world? How do we teach young people to pursue justice without losing compassion? To show compassion without abandoning wisdom? To hold convictions without turning ideological opponents into enemies? To stand up for our people and also to take responsibility for our shortcomings? In other words: How do we walk through the wilderness without losing ourselves?

And that question, I think, is exactly at the heart of Shavuot. Some seven weeks into the Exodus, our ancestors are no longer slaves, and they are also not yet home. They are free and also uncertain. They are hopeful and also still vulnerable. They are receiving a document affirming their new status, but they don’t yet understand the gravity of the expectations. Sounds a lot like being a new graduate, doesn’t it? One day everyone is applauding you and showering you with gifts while the next day you are moving back into your childhood bedroom wondering why you now must sleep on a futon in your parents’ new home office. Like our ancestors receiving the Torah, graduates are then sent off into the wilderness on a journey to live their values.

However, the Torah, unlike many commencement speeches, does not pretend the wilderness is easy. The Torah does not say: “Believe in yourself and everything will work out.” Rather, the Torah says among so many other things: Stay close to your people; pack carefully; and beware of putting too much faith into shiny objects.

Stay Close to Your People

Judaism has never believed that wisdom arrives all at once in a speech, even a very good speech. The Torah begins on the mountain top but it doesn’t remain there. Pirkei Avot teaches: “Study is not the essence; action is.” Wisdom is not truly learned in the lecture hall alone. It is learned through mistakes and responsibility, through marriage and parenthood, through illness and recovery, through disappointment and resilience, through learning when to speak and when to remain silent. If commencement speeches truly transformed people, nobody would call their parents six months later asking how taxes work or whether leftovers can still be eaten after nine days in the refrigerator.

The Kotzker Rebbe once taught that God led the Israelites through the wilderness because, while it takes only a moment to take the Israelites out of Egypt, it takes much longer to take Egypt out of the Israelites. Freedom is not merely escape. Freedom is the opportunity for moral formation.

Stay close to your people. During our ancestors’ wilderness wandering, God organizes them carefully into tribes. Every tribe has a place. Every tribe has a role. Every tribe matters. No one carries the Mishkan alone. Stay close to your people.

And maybe that is one of the deepest truths our culture desperately needs to recover because increasingly, we are teaching people how to stand apart from one another but not how to remain connected to one another. We are embracing outrage faster than wisdom, certainty faster than humility, and it seems especially among young people today, they are confusing intimidation for courage.

Let me be very clear: There is nothing courageous about hiding behind a mask while frightening Jewish students or marching outside Jewish buildings. That is not prophetic protest. It is moral confusion dressed up as righteousness. And there is a difference between challenging people and dehumanizing people. A university should be a place where difficult ideas are debated vigorously, but no student should feel harassed or threatened because they are Jewish or Zionist.

Pack Carefully

In addition to instructing us to stay close to our people, the Torah teaches us to pack carefully. Wherever we go, whatever we do, the pursuit of justice, the value of justice, must always be with us. In that way, our tradition commands us repeatedly to protect the vulnerable, defend human dignity, and care for the stranger. Justice and compassion are intertwined, and Judaism does not teach that rage itself is holiness.

Ben Zoma asks in Pirkei Avot: “Who is strong? One who conquers one’s impulses.” Judaism has never defined freedom as simply doing whatever we wish or saying whatever we feel in the moment. Real freedom requires discipline. Moral courage. The ability to tolerate disagreement without hatred. The ability to speak truth without losing our humanity. The ability to separate fact from fiction and reality from propaganda.

Freedom of speech is sacred. Freedom of religion is sacred. But freedom without responsibility quickly becomes chaos. And responsibility means not only defending the right to speak but also taking responsibility for what we choose to say. It means rejecting the blame game that dominates so much of modern life and instead asking: What obligations do I bear? What truth must I defend? What kind of human being am I becoming? Pack carefully.

So it is that the JTS controversy raises questions different but equally important to the incident at Michigan. What does it mean to become a Jew today? Perhaps further, for the rabbis and rabbinical students who stand so vehemently in opposition to seemingly every act of any Israeli government, what does it mean to be a teacher of the faith, an interpreter of the tradition, and the leader of a people divinely mandated to pursue justice and to offer compassion? A rabbi is not called to ideological purity. A rabbi is called to covenantal responsibility.

A rabbi may criticize Israel and may argue passionately with actions of Israel’s government. A rabbi may struggle morally and spiritually with Israeli policies. Frankly, arguing with Jews may be the most authentic Jewish tradition of all. Nevertheless, every rabbi and dare I say every Jew must remain in conversation with the Jewish people of Israel, because you cannot care for the different arms and legs of the Jewish people while separating yourself from the heart of the Jewish people.

American Jews and Israelis Jews might camp separately, but we travel together. Different personalities. Different roles. Different perspectives. But shared destiny.

And whether in regard to our fellow Jews or to our fellow Americans, I worry that modern society is losing the language of shared destiny, which is why we must truly pack carefully as we wander through the wilderness. After all, they say that to be a Jew is to live with your passport always at the ready.

And Jews do not travel light. We bring snacks, history, anxiety, extra medication, and at least one opinion nobody asked for.

Pack carefully. We increasingly divide the world into saints and sinners, the enlightened and the irredeemable, the pure and the condemned. But Torah understands something essential: human beings are complicated, so Judaism insists on holding justice and compassion together. Yet in that we must carry both justice and compassion at the same time, we must remember that compassion detached from wisdom can become dangerous.

One of the great temptations of our age is confusing “feeling deeply” with “thinking deeply.” Sometimes compassion without boundaries becomes cruelty. Sometimes a sense of moral certainty becomes arrogance. Sometimes people become so convinced of their own righteousness that they stop listening altogether, and once we stop listening, we stop seeing complexity. And once we stop seeing complexity, we stop seeing human beings, all of whom are created in the divine image. Once we stop prioritizing our family, too, then who and what are we?

That is why Torah is given in the midbar, the wilderness. The wilderness humbles us. In the wilderness, nobody survives alone. In the wilderness, arrogance breaks down quickly. That humility creates space in which to find love, friendship, family, and faith. In the wilderness, people discover how deeply they need one another and how deeply they need God.

And in the wilderness, the Torah teaches something else that our world desperately needs to remember: life itself is sacred. Judaism does not glorify death. We do not worship martyrdom. We do not romanticize violence. We sanctify life. We build families. We bring children into the world. We protect the vulnerable because every human being is created in the image of God. In a world increasingly drawn toward cynicism, outrage, and nihilism, Judaism remains stubbornly on the side of life, hope, covenant, and tomorrow. Stay close to your people and pack carefully.

Beware of Shiny Objects

When we are deep in the wilderness, we must also be careful not to put our faith in shiny objects. We must not be distracted by the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the charlatan in a fancy suit and nice hair, or the journalist with an agenda. We must not be tempted by the mirage of unrealistic and unattainable idealism put forth by radicalized politicians. Our eyes must be open and we must remain clearsighted.

When our ancestors began walking away from Mt. Sinai, they look in three directions. They look forward toward the Promised Land: toward hope, toward the possibility of building something better. They look beside them toward their fellow travelers: toward community, toward covenant and responsibility. And they look upward toward God.

In many commencement speeches, graduates are encouraged to find themselves. Rather than encouraging us to find ourselves, however, Judaism asks us to find God and to find others, and to realize that the path to a Promised Land of meaning and purpose lies in the depth of our commitment to others and not the machinations of me, me, me.

We are not God and the goal of life is not merely self-expression. It is moral growth. Not merely independence, but responsibility. Not merely freedom from restraint, but freedom to achieve covenant, truth, love, and holiness. We must walk through the wilderness with conviction but also with humility, with justice but also with compassion, and with courage but also with humanity.

Shavuot reminds us that the giving of Torah happens in every age. So if I could offer a commencement address this season, it would be this:

• Embrace humility.
• Fight hatred.
• Defend human dignity.
• Protect the vulnerable.
• Tell the truth even when it is difficult.
• Become part of the community.
• Do Jewish and celebrate Shabbat.
• Build a Jewish family.

And most of all:

• Stay close to your people.
• Pack carefully. And,
• Beware of putting your faith in shiny objects.

Oh, and if all else fails in the wilderness, at least call your mother. Jewish mothers have been guiding people through the wilderness for generations.

Congratulations to all of us, the class of 5786, and chag sameach.