The Torah of Rochelle Zell
We All Stood Together Koby Rosen, RZJHS 2020
Koby delivered these words during the graduation ceremony. We All Stood Together. Past tense. That is what we are facing right now as we metamorphose beyond Rochelle Zell Jewish High School. If we were not a close grade this transition would be easy. We would just turn around and wave and smile and venture down our paths without ever looking back. But that is not us. I like to consider the class of 2020 a presence. A storm in the desert. Bold, awesome, impossible, miraculous. We led the school in Tefillah, academics, clubs, athletics, (mathletics), spirit, culture, camaraderie, community. We embody imitatio dei, the virtue of imitating G-d as we spoke in creation. In our four years we transformed the school. Sophie Himmelfarb, RZJHS 2020
We have reinstalled trust in the student body. We have fostered a tribe where we are proud of one another’s in his book The Lonely Man of Faith about two archeaccomplishments; we are hurt by one another’s pain. typal human beings: Adam 1 and Adam 2. Adam 1 is When we call out for one another, we are always there. the storm. On top of the mountain, making everyone Hinenu, here we are. tremble. Adam 2 is silence. The impossible love when nothing is said. Just heartbeats. Here we are today. A future we have seen time and again but never thought would arrive. Not for us, not for the Shakespeare wrote in heartbeats; intellectuals classify storm. But we are ready. it as iambic pentameter. Hebrew speaks in heartbeats (halmut halev). Everyone knows that feelings, emotions, When we, the Israelites, B’nai Yisrael, prepared to acthe soul, do not reside in the heart. So what is so special cept the Torah at Sinai, “there was thunder and lightabout a heartbeat? Everyone has one. ning up on the mountain”. We are thunder, our booming charisma reverberating throughout the school. We A heartbeat is special because it is common, it is shared. It are lightning bolts, illuminating inspirations destined to is not what makes us human, but it reminds us we are all touch down and inscribe our names in the Earth. human. We served as speakers to that heartbeat. We were relatable, we made underclassmen laugh, we gave peoThe Israelites accepted the Torah. Then the storm was ple rides, we coached them, we tutored them, we helped gone. The Torah was still there. them, we encouraged them, we sacrificed for them. We, the class of 2020, my friends, my mishpucha, we are We brought ourselves down, dissipated the lightning more than a storm. and the thunder, to be with them. A heartbeat means you are alive. This year we learned from Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik See Rosen, page 29 3
