Erez Golan, MTS '16, was selected by his student colleagues as the class speaker for HDS Commencement 2016. The following remarks were delivered by Golan at the Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 26.
When I completed my undergraduate degree in Israel, we did not have a graduation ceremony. I received my diploma in the mail, together with the last tuition bill. So, I am a bit inexperienced in this commencement-business. But don't worry, I googled it. I'm ready. I know that my task is to share with you what makes us, Div School students, unique, and what we have to offer to the world. Well, as an MTS graduate, there is only one way for me to speak about such important issues: by turning to an obscure text, written in a dead language.
The Babylonian Talmud is one of the most important ancient Jewish texts. It is a massive text, a library really, which contains discussions on Jewish law, history, ethics, and, of course, a saying that encapsulates the essence of HDS.
The saying appears as part of a discussion on what grants a person the Divine Reward—the heavenly A+, if you will—when she or he performs a specific good deed. The question at hand in our saying is: what is the source of merit in attending a public learning session? Apparently, they held academic conferences even in the fourth century CE. Now, while we may assume that attending the conference is sufficient for receiving the Divine Reward, a famous Talmudic sage teaches us differently. The paraphrased Aramaic reads as follows:
The sage Abaye said: The Divine Reward is granted for those who are squeezed uncomfortably in their seat at the public learning session. (Adapted from: Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berachot ('Blessings'), folio 6b.)
Not for taking detailed notes, scoring good grades, or impressing the teachers; "The Divine Reward is granted for those who are squeezed uncomfortably in their seat" (just like all of you are right now).
Abaye, to whom this saying is attributed, was the head of an important Talmudic academy in Babylon. Imagine someone like Dean Hempton, with my accent. The conferences to which he refers were gatherings of ordinary people and entry-level students who came together to hear the teachings of prestigious experts.
Surprisingly, Abaye says that learning from masters like him does not make you worthy of the Divine Reward. What matters is that you will be uncomfortable in your seat, squeezed next to people whom you do not know, who came from different places and backgrounds, have life-stories with which you are unfamiliar, and possess different levels of knowledge on a variety of topics. Don't mind the stage, Abaye the sage tells us, it's all about the crowd!
At HDS, too, it’s all about the crowd—our diverse community. With all the respect to our professors, renowned masters in their fields, the magic of HDS does not occur on the stages and podiums. It happens in classroom rows, or circles of chairs, where we are squeezed, uncomfortably at first, next to individuals who see and experience the world in ways we had never encounter.
At HDS, the diversity of our community is a fact, not an aspiration. I experienced that from the moment I arrived here. On the first day of orientation, I was invited for coffee by another entering student from Iran, together with his roommate, a Palestinian doctoral student. A few days later (after a long day of explanations about credits, language qualifying-exams, metastatements and other things that I still don’t understand), I shared a beer with my new peer, a son of an evangelical pastor and a theologian on his own right, who later became my close friend.
At the end of that first week, during the convocation ceremony that officially welcomed us to HDS, under this very tent, we heard Professor Laura Nasrallah's thoughts on why religion matters. Professor Nasrallah, who later became my New Testament teacher, shared with us how she recently found a relic from her past, a "small box of childhood treasures." In the box were, "three shells, from bullets" which she had collected "in a playground in Beirut, during the civil war of the 1970s." The war which Professor Nasrallah experienced, is linked, the way tragedies connect together, to Israel's first war with Lebanon in 1982, in which my father was shot and injured. And that war, of 1982, is linked, the way tragedies connect together, to Israel's second war with Lebanon in 2006, in which I had served as a soldier-paramedic.
That afternoon, two years ago under this very tent, squeezed uncomfortably in my seat next to Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and atheist students, I could not have been more convinced by Professor Nasrallah's conviction that religion matters.
Religion is all too often the catalyst of atrocities. However, it is also the source of glorious cultures, literature, art, ethical responsibility, sense of belonging and meaningful life, and even, humor and joy. You would agree that there is a true urgency to find new ways to bring people of different traditions and faiths together. Here at HDS, we give hope that it is possible. We show that being squeezed together can be rewarding.
Squeezing together makes us better people. Being members of a diverse community makes us wise, and compassionate. It inspires us, and teaches us new ways of thinking. Moreover, not only does our diversity challenge us to understand the Other, it also cultivates a better understanding of ourselves. And that's what people sometimes fail to understand: when you engage with those who are different than you, you don't need to give up your selfhood. On the contrary.
As the graduates of the class of 2016 can testify, the community of HDS enables each of us to get to know ourselves better. The traditions we brought from home, or that we study in depth, reveal new dimensions when we see them through the eyes of our friends. Texts, rituals, and ideas that we have been taking for granted become here a source of constant surprise and excitement. At HDS, we are squeezed together. The reward we gain is better consciousness of who we are.
All of you are compressed together in your seats now. You get it: when you are squeezed in a chair next to someone else, you simply have to be more aware of the way you sit and move, to the space you occupy in the world. You must be careful not step on anyone's toe, or block their view. You have to be thoughtful about your position in relation to your neighbors, because you expect them to act the same. By recognizing those who surround us we become conscious of our own being.
Our time at HDS is only the beginning. This graduation should not be our retreat back to our comfortable, roomy seats. We have an obligation to tell the world that being squeezed together can be productive and empowering. We have to share with anyone who is willing to listen, as well as with those who are reluctant, that discomfort can be the path to mutual understanding and respect.
And so, this is what I wish for us today. As we go out to the world to accomplish our goals, we must always seek those crowded spaces. Whether we are going to stay in academia, pursue the call of ministry, establish a startup company, or go into politics, I urge us to be suspicious of our comfort; to aspire to be squeezed next to people who are not like us; to embrace the discomfort, and then, to dissolve it. Let us keep in mind Abaye's words. Let us remember what makes us worthy of the Harvard Divinity Reward.