The Land Was Never Ours

Ever since my first job out of college as an AmeriCorps VISTA Fellow at the Taproot Foundation more than 15 years ago, I’ve been hooked on service. To me, service is a way to step in and take action to create a better world. As a volunteer and Board Member of Repair the World over the past 7 years, I’ve had a front row seat to their work to catalyze and lead the Jewish service movement, nationwide and around the world The many people taking action and learning have inspired me to continue to double down on my efforts to support their mission.

So it felt strange to prepare to step down from Repair the World’s board last month. Like a swinging door, the term limits I put in place a few years ago, while serving as Governance Chair, termed me out. I couldn’t help but feel like I was abandoning the mission.

As I prepared for my final meeting – which also happened to the CEO’s final meeting before a sabbatical – I found myself  reflecting on the idea of Shmitah, the sabbatical year.

Every seventh year, the Torah commands the farmers of ancient Israel to stop farming, let the fields lie fallow, release debts, and free those who were enslaved. Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, writing in 1909, explained: “What Shabbat does for the individual, Shmitah does for humanity. Rest isn’t the absence of work — it’s what makes continued work possible. In a way, Shmita is an enforced pause that reminds us that we do not own the land, the harvest, or the institutions we’re a part of.We are stewards. Our job is to care for something that existed before we arrived, and that will continue after we leave.

However, that vision for stepping back from ownership appears to be in tension with a different teaching from Pirkei Avot: “It is not your responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

On the surface, these two teachings seem to pull in opposite directions. Pirkei Avot says keep going. Shmitah says stop.

But I don’t think they’re actually in conflict. I think they’re doing the same thing from different angles — both of them are really talking about ego.

Pirkei Avot commands not to stop because you’re tired, or discouraged, or you’ve decided the work is too big for you. The work is bigger than you. That’s not a reason to quit. It’s a reason to stay humble and keep contributing.

Shmitah commands not to keep going because you think you’re indispensable. You’re here to build, tend, hand forward the mission. Like the land, it doesn’t belong to you.

Both teachings are telling you to get yourself out of the center of the story. The work is larger than any one person, any one tenure, any one leader.

I observed the CEO step away by trusting the systems that she built and making space for other capable leaders to step in, I was reminded that this is what good governance and leadership look like: understanding that you’re a steward of the mission tasked with putting your full force into it, and trusting that there are other leaders capable of stepping in to carry it forward.