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The Work of Becoming: Hillel as a Place to Grow
This is the 13th year I’m celebrating the high holidays here at ASU Hillel - which makes this, of course, my 13th year leading ASU Hillel! I’ve been joking all summer that my tenure at ASU is becoming a Bat Mitzvah! A Young lady! It’s been a fun way to talk about my time here, but recently I got to thinking - what does this actually mean? If my tenure is 13, then my life as an executive director is entering its teenage years! If I think back to my early years here, this analogy is kind of fun to play with. What has it looked like to grow up as an Executive Director for ASU Hillel? Just like a baby, in my early years, I was getting the lay of the land, learning to speak the ASU Hillel and ASU language (innovation, sustainability, appreciating the cranes and new buildings everywhere), and creating my own language to speak about this place. And, while a young child would be finding their voice to advocate for themselves, I was finding my voice to advocate for the needs of Jewish ASU students. It did not take long for me to realize that one of the most, if not the most, critical skills I would need was to be able to navigate all kinds of complex relationships. Between Jews and Jews, between Jews and non-Jews, between students and ASU, and the list goes on. While it is certainly easier to have relationships with people who think like us and validate us as leaders, for our personal and organizational growth, we must be able to relate across differences. And, in those early years of my time here, I received some feedback that was hard to hear, but was critical to listen to, and took some real inner strength and outside support to address. Unsurprisingly, I was holding a lot of stress, but unfortunately, it was becoming too evident to others. I was told that my team was being too impacted by my mood, and they wondered which Debbie they were going to get that day. I immediately asked myself – how could I lead and train others when I was struggling with consistency in how I showed up? How could people take me seriously when we were having hard conversations about complex issues from leadership to Israel, if they were worried about which Debbie was joining the meeting that day? It was critical that I figure it out, not just for my own personal growth but because of what Hillel is. At Hillel, we want you – the students in this room - to make time for Jewish experiences, not just because we have a beautiful age-old tradition that is waiting for you [ - dayenu (!!) wouldn’t this be enough!?]. We also want you to make time for Jewish experiences because we believe this is THE place to wrestle with complexity that will prepare you to be a more productive Jewish citizen. Which will, in turn, help you make the whole world a better place. <Our Mission→ To enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduate and graduate students so that they may enrich the Jewish people, Israel, and the world.> I realized that my stress was sometimes getting in the way of strengthening the relationships I wanted to build and the leadership I wanted to model. I needed to find a way through complex relationships and challenging situations, so that Hillel could live up to our values of being a model for others to do the same. To do this, I turned to Jewish tradition to teach me! I remembered tochecha – rebuke, giving constructive feedback, and really giving thought to whether the person you aim to deliver feedback to is in a position to hear it. And I thought through how my sometimes stressful demeanor could get in someone’s way of hearing feedback. I thought about how, when it goes well, a feedback conversation can actually deepen a relationship. As Rabbi Jill Maderer of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia says - Fundamentally, tochecha is a mitzvah of connection — a cornerstone of healthy relationships and strong community. If we can trust our neighbors to tell us the truth lovingly, and if we can hear a reprimand with calm consideration, then our path to one of Judaism’s most sought after spiritual destinations, shalom, peace and wholeness, is well paved. I remembered lashon hara - talk about others, even when it’s true, is prohibited! - and realized that when I’m stressed, I am more prone to complain about small things others have done that irk me. How was doing that bringing my colleagues closer to me? It likely was doing the opposite - making them wonder if I talked about them! Well, that had to stop, too. And I thought of the story I’d been taught at countless Hillel trainings - of how Abraham, after becoming circumcised at the ripe old age of 99, instead of taking time to heal, RAN out of his tent to welcome angels. Was I doing that when staff or students popped in? Or was I using my stress as a barrier between me and an impromptu connection, keeping my head down and saying I was not available when people tried to catch me? This reflection did not happen with just me, myself, and I. This reflection took place in a supportive environment - with my board chair, with co-workers whom I let in on the work I was trying to do, and with other trusted mentors, including a coach that this organization supported me connecting with. In doing this, I activated some of the key points of Yom Kippur, just outside of the YK framework. I was working on returning to a better version of myself. I was working on making amends and being transparent on how I wanted to grow, in the hopes of forging closer relationships. And – while the decision to change was personal, the process and the context were communal. I found out that I didn’t need to be perfect already to build trust with others - I needed to be open and vulnerable. When I did this, others saw me as the human that I am and came on the journey with me. And a lightbulb went off!! THIS IS WHAT HILLEL IS! Growing together, becoming, as Rabbi Aviva said last week, not the BEST versions of ourselves, but the truest versions of ourselves. Over the years, I have seen countless students learn these lessons at Hillel, too. I am proud that, in addition to Hillel being the place for Jewish literacy, leadership, and community, Hillel is the place to practice being the truest version of yourself, too. This is what our community and, frankly, our world needs right now. As things become more polarized, we need leaders who can own their errors, make values-based decisions, and model the way for others who have not gotten there yet. And we need communities that support this - that don’t judge us on unreasonable standards of perfection, but judge us by our intentions and our willingness to grow. While my growth was around how I put my stress out there, I want to suggest that we all have something that stands in the way of building stronger relationships. When we can figure this out, we will be more able to do our part in mending the fabric of our communities, of getting to know people who are different than us. This is the first step towards navigating complex relationships - the original goal I took on when I started to look at my stress head-on. Now, I don’t mean starting even with someone on the other side of the political aisle, although that could be a great goal. I mean, talking to a student who dresses differently from you, who prays differently than you, or who is studying something so different than you that you barely understand it! I have to say, this was on my mind even before October 7, when we were certainly already seeing our American society separate more distinctly along political lines. I had hoped that Hillel would be a place we could do this healing, and after coming out of our initial crisis mode, we have done just that, building a new partnership with the Watts College of Public Service. We are starting slow and steady with some book groups this past spring semester, and please keep your eyes out for some upcoming program announcements that will be aligned with these goals. In the intervening almost two years, the problem of divisiveness and polarization has gotten more complex, and I will admit that the lore of self-care has often motivated me to take a step back from these problems. They are too big, too complex, and driven by high-profile people on whom I have no influence. Better to just focus on my little world. But let’s flip this on its head - focusing on our “little worlds” – this is not defeatist but actually quite empowering. What if we really leaned into this? What if focusing on our little worlds is not an evasion of responsibility but an acceptance of responsibility? What would our ASU Hillel community look like in one year? How might the broader ASU community be impacted if we all take a step forward towards this type of growth? Towards looking at whatever is getting in the way for US in forging connections with those different from us? Here are three things you can do today –
My hope for us all as we enter 5786 together is that my openness about how my growth helped forge closer relationships will give you pause, and that you remain open to allowing us at Hillel to help you with this. I know I speak for everyone on our team – Rabbi Aviva, Taylor, Shira, Jake, Hannah, Vita, and Aaron- when I say that we truly care about you as a whole person and cannot wait to do this next year with you. EREV RH - FROM FEAR TO HOPE
What an epic moment in my life to have arrived here. To be standing with you as the new campus rabbi for the amazing Hillel at ASU. Landing here feels like returning to the land of my soul. This is where I went to school. This is where I first began to explore my Jewish identity—both at Hillel, with Rabbi Barton Lee of blessed memory, and in the very first year that Chabad at ASU opened, when I was invited to stretch and explore all the boundaries of what being Jewish could mean for me. And now, to be here tonight in this role, with my husband Yosef and our three boys—E.B., Amitov, and Leo—as official Tempe residents, fully committed to serving this community, all of you… it is a true homecoming. My heart is full. Especially because we have such an amazing staff at Hillel, such a committed board, and the most engaged student leaders I’ve ever known. Thank you for welcoming me with the warmest embrace. And I can only imagine what this year ahead will hold. I can only imagine the moments we’ll celebrate—like this. The cadences of Shabbat, our special programs, our learning cohorts, or the next Birthright trip—as our student president Emily put it, the best ten days of her life. But the bigger question is: what will this year be like for each of us individually? What will it be like for us as a community? And what will it mean for us as a Jewish people? And that’s the heart of Rosh Hashanah, isn’t it? Not just to ask what will this year bring, but to ask: who will I be in it? Because if we’re honest, most of us want the same things. We want to succeed. We want to be recognized for who we are. We want to have friends who feel like family. We want to be great at something that matters. That’s the hope. But hope isn’t just something you feel. Hope is what you do. If we want friends, we have to show up for each other. If we want to succeed, we have to step into the work. If we want to be great, we have to risk failing and try again. Fear is real—we all know that feeling of wondering if we’ll fit in, if we’re enough, if we’ll fall short. I asked my JLF cohort last week: how many of us have questions in our classes but are afraid to ask? Guess how many raised their hands? Pretty much everyone. So what parts of our lives are we holding ourselves back because of fear—or because of the story we tell ourselves, or the assumptions we make? And all along, maybe we could literally be telling ourselves a different story. Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav taught: Kol ha’olam kulo gesher tzar me’od—the whole world is a very narrow bridge. The camp version of the song bangs on the tables and shouts joyfully: “V’ha’ikar lo lefached klal!”—the most important thing is have no fear! But that’s not actually what he wrote. What Rabbi Nachman said was: שלא יתפחד כלל—don’t cause yourself fear. Being afraid is natural. Even our own security team—our incredible guards who protect us at every event (cheers for the guards!)—train their staff that fear is essential. It keeps your brain alert, your senses awake. Fear is like the shofar—it’s meant to wake us up into action. But Rabbi Nachman warns: don’t cause yourself fear. Don’t make things worse. Don’t tell yourself stories that won’t encourage you. Don’t assume things will conspire against you, or that your teacher won’t understand, or that you don’t belong in the room. Don’t say you can’t try out the new gym because you’re not already fit enough, don’t hide away because you don’t have someone to go with. The world is already challenging enough. Why add weight to it? Could you imagine just how many things we could do if we didn’t let fear get in the way? In the Jewish tradition, it's not about waiting until fear disappears but rather it’s about acting in the face of it - this is actually the definition of HOPE. Hope, for the Jewish people, has always meant being willing to move despite our insecurities. What does Moses do with the Israelites when they are stuck between the water and the encroaching Pharaoh’s army? After they moan and complain? They move forward - in fact, God tells Moses - stop praying to me and DO SOMETHING. Well, you can’t DO ANyTHING if you don’t BELIEVE it will make a difference. Many of you may be familiar with the rabbinic midrash that speaks of a young Israelite, Nachshon who pipes up and volunteers to start walking through the water - and it isn’t until it reaches his nostrils that the sea splits. He moved forward as a sign of HOPE, of FAITH - trust in what’s to come - and klal yisrael walked through to the other side. It’s what Miriam did by PACKING TIMBRELS to anticipate a celebration of redemption - I’m sorry but that’s pretty amazing to be in a panic state with the thought of being killed but packing tambourines feels essential? No wonder why she’s called a Prophetess. Hope is literally in every single story in the Torah…and even the stories after. Hope is Naomi and her devotion to Ruth and the future they build for themselves. Hope is Esther putting her life on the line, fasting and throwing parties in order to persuade the King to make the right choice. Hope is literally what got our sages out of the rubble from the destruction of the second Temple, having the koakh to say - okay, Temple is destroyed, guess it's time to reconfigure and reframe Jewish life. You don’t do that unless you have something to believe in. And I would wager we could all agree its hope that helped our loved ones survive the Shoah. There is a reason why Israel’s national anthem is called HaTikvah - the Hope. Hope is literally the essence of our survival - I would even suggest it's how we are still here. It’s no surprise why our rabbis selected Psalm 27 as the Psalm for the Season, a liturgical poem read twice daily from the beginning of Elul, (last new moon) through the end of sukkot. One might think that a psalm for the new year would be about the celebration of the world! The creation of mankind! The rejoicing of the earth and God’s majesty. It’s not. Can you guess what its about? Fear and Hope! Of all 150 Psalms, this is the one selected for our season. that demands we face our deepest fears head-on. It speaks of being surrounded by enemies—external threats or internal struggles—and calls on us to 'kavei el Adonai hazak v’ametz,' with strength and courage have hope in God. Hasidic commentary suggests that this Psalm is fitting because it takes courage and strength in order to make true teshuvah. We can’t break our habits without some sense of courage or will. Rav Kook, one of the great rabbis of the early 20th century, taught that this psalm reflects the human condition itself—the constant pull between fear and faith. Do we believe in ourselves like our maker does? One thing, this Psalm asks - in the face of my fears, doubts, insecurities and even this wild crazy world that is so broken at times and also so incredible too - is to be in Your presence. Perhaps the Psalmist is saying - if God were here right now in this moment, what would God guide us to do? As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, taught: 'Optimism is the belief that things will get better, but hope is the belief that if we work hard enough, together, we can make things better.' It’s not about sitting back, waiting for things to improve; hope is about active participation—a belief that, even in the face of despair, we can make a difference. To bring us to an end I share a short story from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel that I learned from my colleague, Rabbi Emily Segal who is the senior rabbi of Temple Chai in Phoenix, AZ: There was once a town where every household had a clock, and for years, there was no one to repair them. Over time, the clocks began to break—some slowed down, others stopped entirely. Most people let their clocks sit untouched, believing there was no point in winding them if they were broken. They waited, hoping one day someone might come to fix them. Eventually, a clock repairer arrived. But when he began examining the clocks, he found that many were beyond repair. The gears had rusted, and the springs had stiffened because they hadn't been kept wound. However, a few clocks had been faithfully wound every day, even though they no longer worked properly. Because they had been kept in motion, their internal parts were still functioning, and they could be repaired with just a few adjustments. The repairer explained: 'A clock that is kept wound can be repaired, even if it isn't keeping time correctly. But a clock left unwound becomes almost impossible to restore.” May the 5786 be a year we keep moving forward, where fears, doubts or insecurities become invitations for us to act, empowering us to rise to the occasion because hope is in our hands. YK SERMON: FORGIVENESS FOR SELF-LIBERATION Good Yuntiv, what a blessing to be together. The last ten days, the ones between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, have seemed to have flown by. The past week and a half was our opportunity to embark on the teshuvah-train. Have we taken account of what behaviors we needed to change — and actually done it? And why is it so hard to change our habits? Our tradition urges us to dig deep within ourselves and recall our shortcomings, our failures, and the ways we missed the mark. Who did we hurt this year? Have we made the room in our souls to consider who we‘ve let down, offended, or maybe even neglected? Did we — or will we — have the koakh, the strength, to humble ourselves, approach them, and ask for their forgiveness? What if we let ourselves down… will we forgive ourselves? None of these are easy tasks — on the contrary, these forms of self-examination and action may be some of the most difficult spiritual tasks we could be faced with. Showcasing our mess-ups, and shining a light on our insufficiencies while being at the mercy of another person — or to God — is deeply vulnerable and so real. We can only pray that they have compassion upon us (which is why we pray Adonai, Adonai, El rakhum v’hanun — ever-present God of mercy and compassion), or at the very least, we hope that the people we’ve hurt can hear us out — and find a way to forgiveness. And on our end, the hope is that we move forward with a deeper awareness of ourselves, and the capacity to be better, wiser beings. Our tradition calls this teshuvah — to turn our ways, or to return to the better parts of ourselves. On the flip side, this season is also about our ability to forgive. Who hurt you? Did they have the koakh to apologize? Do they even know they hurt you? And what are you going to do? Could you forgive them? But as we already determined, this process of bearing our souls and owning our wrongs may, unfortunately, be beyond the capacity for some. Undoubtedly, there will be plenty of people along our paths who will struggle to show up in accountability for their failures and be unable to express apology. But, what do we do with that grief — pain, unable to be acknowledged by the other? Often, we hold grudges — and live with the anger about them inside of ourselves. Sometimes they are people we regularly interact with — maybe a classmate, a relative, or even our roommate — who’s really hurt us, and we may start treating them horribly or even send snarky messages or angry thoughts their way and pray that they recognize our behavior is a sign for them that we are hurt. I see this when one of my kids is angry with me — he’ll yell at me or say hurtful things because he is the one who’s hurt. Perhaps you’ve been in a situation when someone is just being rude, short, or even disrespectful towards you — it may quite possibly be that they have been hurt by you, and they don’t want to be the one to address it — they want us to come up and apologize. But sometimes we don’t even know we’ve hurt someone and there are misconnections there. Sometimes the people who’ve hurt us don’t know we’ve been hurt. Whether they are close family or friends, people we hardly know, or even those who no longer walk this earth; that hurt we carry is legitimate, and holding a silence about it will only make the pain worse. How many times have we been zinged by another person’s comment and kept silent? Or were disrespected but were too embarrassed to stand up for ourselves? Maimonides, or Rambam, one of the most influential rabbis of the medieval period, brings us some powerful wisdom. He teaches: “When a person commits an offense against another, he [the victim] should not despise him silently… Rather, it is a mitzvah for him to inform him [of his feelings].” (Sam hurts Jen; Jen shouldn’t hate Sam, but should tell Sam how she feels.) Rambam is teaching us not to be passive in these moments! Rather, we need to be aware of the experience and let the person know we are hurting. Put the grievance back in their pocket, so that we don’t have to live our lives with bitterness weighing on our hearts. This isn’t about shaming the other person. Rambam says it’s a mitzvah to let them know they’ve wronged us. It’s righteous to be in our power and not let ourselves be taken advantage of or manipulated. Carrying the burden of hurt only gets heavier as time passes. The Torah too is concerned about “hate in the heart.” In the middle of Leviticus, Parshat Kedoshim (19:17–18), it teaches us not to hate akhikha — your fellow — bel’vavekha, in your heart, but to hokhiakh tokhiakh — stand up to them; let them know the problem — and do not bear sin because of them. That sin is stated in the very next verse: לֹא־תִקֹּם וְלֹא־תִטֹּר אֶת־בְּנֵי עַמֶּךָ; וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ — אֲנִי יי. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your people. Love your fellow as yourself — I am The Eternal. From the tiniest annoyance to the spaces where total forgiveness seems impossible — especially in a world like today — we are told that bearing a grudge is a transgression. Hating in our hearts is not permissible. And if love is the goal, being filled with vengeance will never lead us there. But Rambam is wary about forgiving someone who is unable to apologize or ever show remorse. Then who is forgiveness for? Shari Foos, the founder of The Narrative Method — a technique designed to help people shift their stories — teaches in her course on forgiveness a quote by ethicist Professor Lewis B. Smedes: “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” (Read it twice — and pause.) Can forgiveness set us free? Forgive… we for-give-it-up. We let them know we’re not okay with their actions and we let them see their wrong, so we don’t have to harbor the weight of resentment. I’m not saying we permit their actions, but rather, we give ourselves permission not to be burdened by their wrongdoing. This is so much easier said than done. Even with small things — a friend not checking in, a partner not carrying their weight, a clerk moving too slowly — how quickly do we get angry? I know when I do, I’m not fun to be around. Anger distorts me as a partner and as a mother. It blinds me to the good, and it teaches my kids exactly the opposite of what I hope they’ll learn. And yet, every time, I see how the system gets clogged — forgiveness is the only thing that unclogs it. This brings me to an extraordinary story. Eva Mozes Kor was a Holocaust survivor, one of the twins experimented on in Dr. Mengele’s lab at Auschwitz. She and her twin sister Miriam were born in 1934 in a small village in Romania. At age 10, they were packed into a cattle car with their family and sent to Auschwitz. On arrival, guards noticed the twins. Their father, siblings, and then their mother were torn from them — the family sent one way, the girls another. For the next six months, Eva and Miriam became human experiments in Mengele’s lab — prodded, injected, and subjected to inhuman “medical” procedures seven days a week. Eva nearly died from an injection; she survived by sheer will. Finally, in January 1945, the camp was liberated. The twins had endured what words cannot fully hold. Fifty years later, Eva encountered a former Nazi physician, Dr. Munch (Münch), who spoke to her of his remorse and the guilt that haunted him daily. For the first time in her life, Eva felt she had power — the power to forgive. She forgave Dr. Munch. And, in time, she even chose to forgive Mengele. She explained: “I felt free. Free from Auschwitz, free from Mengele…. But what is my forgiveness? I like it. It is an act of self-healing, self-liberation, self-empowerment. All victims are hurt, feel hopeless, feel helpless, feel powerless. I want everybody to remember that we cannot change what happened — that is the tragic part — but we can change how we relate to it.” Eva goes beyond what our Rabbis teach is expected from us. She forgave Dr. Munch, whose sincere remorse and guilt crushed him daily. But she also decided to forgive the one person who didn’t apologize nor show remorse. Because for Eva, this act of forgiveness was her liberation. Eva is a unique case. What happened to her is undeniably wicked. But she shows us that we can stay a victim to our grief for far too long, which will only continue to hurt us in the end. Eva gave room for Dr. Munch to change. Where forgiveness may be a helpful gesture to those who cause damage — releasing them of guilt — it appears that forgiveness is really a benefit for those who suffer. Forgiveness is for the ones who have been hurt. So if we consider forgiveness to those who have hurt us, it is not that we are saying that what they did was okay — because in many cases, it was not okay. Rather, what we are saying is that the burden of hurt is too heavy to carry, which causes us to be bitter and angry people. This is why Pirkei Avot teaches: Who is righteous? One who is hard to anger, and easy to forgive. So let us take Rambam’s wisdom: in the moment of hurt (be it big or small), may we have the koakh to speak up, stand our ground, and let them know. And we, despite their ability to repent, utilize the gift of forgiveness — for self-healing, self-empowerment, and self-liberation. But forgiveness is not only personal. As Jews, we also carry wounds inflicted on our people — from those who target us simply for being who we are, from voices that spew hatred against Israel, from the persistence of antisemitism in our world. What do we do with that pain? On this holiest of days, we remember: forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and forgiveness is never for the sake of the offender. Forgiveness is for our own liberation — so that bitterness does not corrode our hearts. Our task is twofold: to be brave enough to raise our voices when we are hurt, and to be radically forgiving — not to excuse what was done, but to free ourselves from carrying the weight forever. May we leave this day with the courage to speak truth when wronged, and the strength to release what we cannot control — so that we step into the new year unburdened, with hearts open to compassion, healing, and renewal. Shanah tovah. 8/5/2025 From Basic Needs to Belonging: How Hillel Has Walked with Us Through Maslow’s HierarchyRead Now how hillel is aligning with maslow's hierarchy of needs |
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