Back to School With the Wings You Can't See

By Rabbi Shalom Kantor
KOACH/Hillel Rabbi
Binghamton University

As the summer moves on and the warm days of relaxing slowly grow shorter and shorter, we all come to realize that the new school year is around the corner. For some of us, this is exhilarating and exciting as we get to reconnect with the freedom of college life and friends we might not have seen since last year. For others, it is filled with the trepidation of new beginnings, classes we are nervous about or an entirely new life away from the comforts of home.

The beautiful thing this year is that with the beginning of the new school year comes the beginning of a new Jewish year. As we move into the Hebrew month of Elul (the month before the High Holidays and the month before the school year) we have the opportunity to set ourselves on a new path, a path that may have changed direction since last year’s High Holidays. The question that stands before us all for this month is, "is the path that I AM on the path that I WANT to be on?"

There is no doubt that this process is challenging. Whether you are returning for your senior year or just beginning your first year at university, the start of something new is often difficult. In Exodus 19, the first real mitzvah (commandment, in this case celebrating the new month) is given to the Jewish people as a nation, after their freedom from slavery. It was not until they had shed the external bonds of slavery that they could possibly be ready to take on the commandments. Within the commandment of observing the new month, they are given the warning, "And now if you will heed My voice and you will keep My covenant - you will be to Me a treasure from amongst all the nations for the earth is Mine" (Numbers 19:5).

Rashi (b.1040-d.1105) comments on this verse: And now: If now you will accept upon yourselves, it will be sweet for you from here and further, because all beginnings are difficult. The sweetness of the journey is made possible by the difficulties that precede it. Only IF we are willing to do the hard work to get through the beginning will the journey become sweeter for each of us. The sweetness is a reward for our efforts.

The time before school starts, during these long summer days, gives each of us the opportunity to sit and think (even if just for one hour on a Shabbat afternoon) about what the new year holds in potential for us. By using this time now, we can figure out what fears we are going to have to face, what challenges we will need to overcome AND what tools we might have in our backpacks to achieve our dreams and goals.

It is no secret to those students who know me that I love the musician Jimmy Buffet. In his newest album, Buffet Hotel, he has a song entitled "Wings" in which the refrain states, " If you're gonna fly high without fear/
You're gonna have to learn to love the atmosphere/
And you gotta learn to use those wings/
That you can't see."

May we each be blessed with the opportunity to see what it is that we want to accomplish in the new year ahead of us, what obstacles might be standing in our way, and what wings we might have hidden that will help us get over those obstacles to achieve our dreams and goals.

[Posted 8/9/10]