News Highlights Commencement 2026:
President’s Remarks

On behalf of your teachers, the Hebrew College board of trustees, and the entire Hebrew College community, I am delighted to congratulate you and wish you a warm and heartfelt mazal tov.

To all those who have supported and sustained you, who have rooted you, and have rooted for you, spouses, partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, children, mentors, colleagues, extended family and chosen family. thank you all and congratulations to all of you as well.

I want to ask you to take a moment now to think about all the people who have been with you on your journey who have helped bring you to this moment.

Think about a teacher who has believed in you and helped you believe in yourself. Think about a classmate, a hevruta, who asked a question you’d never thought of before, or with whom you’ve shared the rush of new insight, of hiddush.

Think about the communities and individuals you have served. The people who have been touched by your own teaching or leadership, your presence or your prayer.

Think back — to a person who first kindled your love of Jewish learning or who saw something in you and encouraged you to bring your gifts to the world. In the years to come, you may become that person — knowingly or unknowingly — for someone else. It’s an extraordinary blessing.

You are stepping into the work of Jewish leadership at an enormously complex and challenging time. We are witnessing a rise in antisemitism on the left and the right reawakening a fear that feels different now than it has in some time. We are witnessing the deepening of divisions among us polarization mistaken for principle hearts hardening against each other. In this context, the decision to try to bridge, to humanize, to heal is a courageous decision in and of itself. You will have to decide that this is where you want to stand. On the side of compassion, on the side of complexity, on the side of human connection.

If you want to teach others the importance of empathy, treat them with empathy. If you want to teach others the importance of dignity, treat them with dignity. If you want to teach others the importance of listening, listen.

For those graduating from our new certificate and degree programs in Jewish education, I want to share a beloved quote from a book by Tracy Kidder entitled Among Schoolchildren.

He wrote: “Good teachers put snags in the river of children passing by, and over the years, they redirect hundreds of lives. Many people find it easy to imagine unseen webs of malevolent conspiracy around the world, and they are not always wrong. But there is also an innocence that conspires to hold humanity together, and it is made of people who can never fully know the good that they have done.”

Dear educators: May you always remember that this is the nature of your sacred work. You will never fully the good you have done.

To our rabbis: When I was ordained 36 years ago this month — I had to write a vision statement much like you did. I recently came across it and wanted to share with you the last sentence: “I pray that I will remain open to being touched and inconvenienced by the many voices of our tradition, by the diverse experiences of the people around me, and by the mystery of life itself.”

To each of you, dear rabbis, thank you: For the ways you’ve lifted up the many voices of our tradition. For the ways you’ve touched and inconvenienced us, for the ways you’ve helped us stay open to the mystery of life itself.

The work that you will all do — as educators, as rabbis, as communal leaders is work that, by definition, can only be done in relationship with others. The measure of your leadership will not be the brilliance of what you can accomplish alone but the beauty of what you can build with others by seeing and drawing forth the best in them.

I want to remind you (because it is so easy for all of us to forget) that just as you have not reached this moment alone, you do not leave here alone. Continue to seek out teachers and friends.

Aseh lecha rav. Make other people your teachers.

U’kneh lecha chaver. Let yourself be claimed by responsibility to friends. and, of course, the third and most difficult part of that teaching from Pirke Avot: Dan kol ha’adam l’kaf zechut. In these unforgiving times, try to offer a little grace, judge others favorably, and in the words of the timeless teaching: “Be kind, for everyone is waging a great battle.”

Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld is president of Hebrew College in Newton , MA.