The Torah of Rochelle Zell
Art by Hannah Houston, RZJHS 2020
We Have Learned to Value the Question Dina Barrish, RZJHS 2020 Dina delivered these words during the graduation ceremony.
subjectivity of truth — examined Unknowns that transcend basic true or false. Most significantly, we have learned how to ask, and we have learned to value the “True or false,” you pose, a most familiar quiz format. question. But wait. My Rochelle Zell Jewish High School trained mind spirals. Capital T or lowercase t truth? Does false- In her poem, “We All Stood Together,” Merle Feld dehood imply immorality? Is that immorality to be as- scribes cherishing the unanswerable amidst moments of sumed as the nature of man? And Mr. Griffith, Rabbi clarity. She dramatizes revelation at Sinai as if she herBelgrad, and Dr. Schorsch, will this be on the test? self stands at the foot of the mountain, holding a baby as her brother takes notes. But eventually, writes Feld, “As Throughout my four years at RZJHS, along with my time passes, The particulars,’ The hard data,/ The who peers, I have learned to analyze, collaborate, juxtapose, what when where why,/ Slip away from me,/ And all I’m discuss, and articulate. I have applied Ms. Murphy’s psy- left with is/ The feeling.” chology concepts to Hamlet’s psyche. I have studied the influence of Spanish poet Jorge Luis Borge on rabinnic Feld contrasts the inevitability of forgetting detail with scholar Martin Buber. the permanence of emotion, of feeling. To feel is not to memorize or document or rationalize, but to let hapClass of 2020, each one of us understands the notion pen — logic aside. The very essence of our own emotion of infinity through Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsy’s lens arrives, to us, raw, unsolved, and often unjustifiable: an of ein sof, an infinite God, through standing together unknown. “Who what when where why” slips away as atop vast, seemingly infinite sand dunes in Israel, and, the answer to an objective report on the experience. quite literally, through calculus or pre-calculus classes. But beyond these specifics, we have grappled with the See Barrish, next page 4
