2025 Graduation Address, Student Speaker

Chancellor Schwartz, Members of the Board, Faculty, Family, Friends, and of course, the Class of 2025,

Parshat Bechukotai, the second of this week’s double portion, and one I feel especially connected to as it was my Bat Mitzvah Parshah 11 years ago, paints a picture of the world as it could be if we uphold our covenant with God: rain, fruit, peace, freedom. Leviticus 26:13 says that God will break the bars of our yoke and enable us to walk with our heads held high. On the flip side, it also describes the curses that could follow if we fail to uphold that covenant: famine, disease, enemies, servitude.

On our two campuses, we’ve seen what it means to uphold our covenant to one another: Friday night dinners, Simchat Torah dancing, concerts, and beautiful displays of Jewish pride and Jewish joy. And we have also seen what it looks like in the moments when we do not succeed in upholding our covenant to each other.

Over the past year and a half, our campuses have become spaces of protest, pain, and deep division. We’ve seen it firsthand as students, and increasingly, you’ve all seen it in the media. It would be easy to say we always rose above it. But the truth is, we didn’t always get it right. We’ve built meaningful communities, asked hard questions, and grown into people of conviction and care. And yes, at times, we’ve also stumbled. We’ve seen conflict, hurt, and disrespect. There were moments when we nearly failed each other.

The Torah offers a challenging vision of national life—blessings when we live with moral responsibility and curses when we turn our backs on that mission. It’s not deterministic, but it is demanding. It tells us that freedom isn’t about doing whatever we want. It’s about choosing to act with kindness, integrity, and courage even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Let’s be honest: this moment has been hard—for our class, for our institution, for the entire Jewish community. What’s happening in the world and on this campus isn’t abstract—it affects us and the people we care about. The List College Class of 2025, with strong opinions, deep emotions, and diverse beliefs, has been deeply engaged in these conversations. And we should be. We should have opinions, and we should use them for good. We can disagree—fiercely even—and still choose to be respectful, to be curious, to be open. One of our class’s greatest strengths is the range of experiences and perspectives we bring. Our pluralism is a feature, not a bug. It’s a gift. We can ignore that, or we can harness it. The choice is ours.

Let’s continue to remember—all of us, throughout the broader Jewish community—that civil conversation, real listening, and moral courage are not signs of communal weakness—they are the essence of our national freedom. In the middle of describing the curses in this Torah portion, chapter 26, verses 36-37 read: “Fleeing as though from the sword, they shall fall though none pursues. With no one pursuing, they shall stumble over one another as before the sword.” The rabbis ask in Sanhedrin 27b and Shevuot 39a what it means to “stumble over one another?” They answer that this phrase should instead be read as “they will stumble because of one another, which teaches us ‘kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh,’ that all Israelites are responsible for one another.”

The covenant described in the Torah isn’t about perfection. It’s about responsibility. It says: Yes, things may break. Yes, we may fall. But we can choose to return, to rebuild, and to walk forward—with our heads held high.

So, Class of 2025: as we walk across this stage and conclude our third and final graduation ceremony, let’s carry that responsibility with us. Let’s be the generation that chooses hope, chooses action, and chooses each other—even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. Thank you.