Heschel’s Class of 2026 Graduates!
And just like that, the Class of 2026 has turned their tassels and officially joined the Heschel alumni family! Congratulations to our graduates, their families, teachers, and all those who supported them along the way. We are so proud of everything they have accomplished and can't wait to see what comes next.
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Bogrim Yekarim - Beloved Graduates,
One small moment, emblematic of your joy and spirit as a grade, occurred just this past Friday afternoon. Your final Senior Hachana Le’Shabbat, an opportunity to sing, reflect and share words of gratitude. You were oh so close to being done… your boom box booming as I ushered some of you into the Beit Midrash, when all of a sudden, marching down the hall in perfect formation, chanting an ancient melody, like the Levites in the desert carrying the Holy Ark, were eight seniors, four on each side of Kaleb K-T, who was lying supine dressed in a pizza costume. When I asked you to please put him down, you looked at me with the most quizzical faces, as if I had stopped you from doing something totally normal…eventually you relented, gently placed Kaleb upright, and walked into the Beit Midrash together.
At that moment two thoughts crossed my mind:
I have the greatest job in the world
I am really going to miss each and every one of you.
Class of 2026:
You have many, many wonderful traits. But it is your ability to infuse everything with joy that has been truly remarkable.
We saw this joy in how you commandeered the dining hall on Fridays post-Pesach turning it into a kumzitz, in your legendary 3-peat color war victory, and in the increasingly creative, funny but still loving ways you made one of your classmates pay for coming last in his fantasy football league. The smell of Axe Apollo Body Spray will linger in my office until the end of days!
Your joy was present in how you approached learning: you worked hard, rooted for one another, and celebrated each other’s accomplishments. Just last week, you shared with me that some of your happiest educational moments during High School were the ones in which you were able to learn something and then teach it to others: sharing your Science or Social Studies research projects, teaching French to 1st year French students, delivering a devar Torah in an LQ class or at the Shabbaton, or introducing a guest at Hachana Le’Shabbat, our weekly Friday pre-Shabbat assembly. You never just focused on your own learning: you shared it with others with joy and a generosity of spirit.
And it wasn’t just how you learned and how you taught, it was also how you showed up. You welcomed, championed, and looked out for younger students in a variety of clubs, including the Harmonizers, Model UN, Mock Trial, and the High School Musical. You stayed late to help novice debaters get ready for competition, and to ensure that after cookies for a cause were baked and packaged, that the youngest students weren’t left alone in cleaning up.
When our Ice Hockey team played in the Yeshiva League finals, you took it upon yourselves to ensure that Heschel students would take over the rink. By the way - I was wrong to not rent a bus then... but I do try to learn from my mistakes, so we look forward to seeing you all show up this Sunday evening as our Varsity girls compete for the soccer championship.
Your elevated, joyful spirit has also helped you show up for more solemn moments. You played a pivotal role in filling our Beit Knesset on October 7th 2024, when Daniel Neutra came to speak to us after the school day about his beloved brother Omer who was being held captive by Hamas. Almost two months later, Omer's death was confirmed by the IDF. The next morning, you filled every seat on the bus as we traveled to Long Island to pay the family a communal shiva call.. You made shiva minyans at the homes of your classmates and you reached out to keep up the spirits of classmates who were recovering from surgeries, illnesses, and concussions. Your spirit brought comfort, strength, and a sense of belonging to so many within and beyond our community.
It is your unique elevated spirit, your sense of internal joy that emanates outwardly, that is so critical in the moment we are in, that can bring about change. The ability to believe in and work towards a better future, has always been the task of dreamers and prophets. In fact Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, states this emphatically in describing the ideal state for being able to achieve prophecy:
״אין נבואה שורה לא מתוך עצבות ולא מתוך עצלות אלא מתוך שמחה״ (הלכות יסודי התורה, ז:ד)
“Prophecy is not present in sadness or idleness, but rather in joy.” (Yesodei Ha’Torah 7:4)
Your ability to act from a place of joy that is contagious and inclusive, has the power to effect change, and this is a kind of prophecy: seeing, and then creating, a new, much-needed reality. While humor that seeks to cut down others, or joy that is self-regarding, keeps the status quo firmly entrenched, joy that is inclusive, out-ward emanating, and hopeful can change the world.
Beloved students:
All of you together, and each of you as individuals, have helped contribute to a culture of joy. Your middle school years coincided with a global pandemic and your beginning of 10th grade coincided with October 7th and now the aftermath of Israel’s longest war, felt, of course, primarily in Israel, but also impacting our lives in New York City and the lives of Jews across the world. Over the past years we, as Jews, as Zionists, and as Americans have felt instability in foundations that we have relied upon for generations. You would have had every reason to feel disengaged and disillusioned. But instead, you responded with something prophetic. You saw hope and possibility where others didn’t.
When you were in 10th grade, I had the privilege of accompanying you to Washington, DC. I remember the joyful chaos in watching you take over the lobby of our hotel to watch a Knicks playoff game, and how you all laughed at me as I was cringing at the sophomoric humor of the Shear Madness show. But I also remember how you approached our visit to the Holocaust Museum and the Museum of African American history with seriousness and purpose. And while the long and hot tour of the monuments was more challenging, there is a quote on the south side of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial that we visited that strikes me as descriptive of you:
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Dr. King shared these words in Oslo in 1964 upon accepting the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelong work on civil rights. Your joy, rooted in openness to others, has the ability to unarm even the most intransigent interlocutor. Your unconditional love will have the final word. The friendships that you have nurtured here, the powerful experience of community that you have helped foster, are experiences that have shaped you and that you will take with you into the rest of your lives. And our world sure needs your spirit.
Many times over the year you would gather in a circle to sing and sometimes to dance. The beauty of the circle, as you undoubtedly remember from your Geometry course, is twofold:
First: every point on the circumference is equidistant from the center. Standing at the edge of the circle makes everyone equal; no one can claim to be closer to the center.
And secondly, a circle can expand ad infinitum: it doesn’t end; it has no limits. There is always room for one more. As you go forth to your next chapters, may the joy and spirit that you have exhibited here at Heschel lead you to build communities and relationships, here in New York, across the US, and throughout Israel and the world, that have space for everyone, especially the guy who shows up in the pizza costume, to feel included and celebrated.
Be prophets always animated through joy and spirit. And may God’s spirit always rest upon you.
Mazal Tov!
