We Have Learned to Value the Question, Dina Barrish

We Have Learned to Value the Question Dina Barrish, RZJHS 2020

Dina delivered these words during the graduation ceremony.

“True or false,” you pose, a most familiar quiz format. But wait. My Rochelle Zell Jewish High School trained mind spirals. Capital T or lowercase t truth? Does falsehood imply immorality? Is that immorality to be assumed as the nature of man? And Mr. Griffith, Rabbi Belgrad, and Dr. Schorsch, will this be on the test?

Throughout my four years at RZJHS, along with my peers, I have learned to analyze, collaborate, juxtapose, discuss, and articulate. I have applied Ms. Murphy’s psychology concepts to Hamlet’s psyche. I have studied the influence of Spanish poet Jorge Luis Borge on rabinnic scholar Martin Buber.

Class of 2020, each one of us understands the notion of infinity through Rabbi Jeremy Kalmanofsy’s lens of ein sof, an infinite God, through standing together atop vast, seemingly infinite sand dunes in Israel, and, quite literally, through calculus or pre-calculus classes. But beyond these specifics, we have grappled with the 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 question.

In her poem, “We All Stood Together,” Merle Feld describes cherishing the unanswerable amidst moments of clarity. She dramatizes revelation at Sinai as if she herself stands at the foot of the mountain, holding a baby as her brother takes notes. But eventually, writes Feld, “As time passes, The particulars,’ The hard data,/ The who what when where why,/ Slip away from me,/ And all I’m left with is/ The feeling.”

Feld contrasts the inevitability of forgetting detail with the permanence of emotion, of feeling. To feel is not to memorize or document or rationalize, but to let happen — logic aside. The very essence of our own emotion arrives, to us, raw, unsolved, and often unjustifiable: an unknown. “Who what when where why” slips away as the answer to an objective report on the experience.

The Torah of Rochelle Zell Barrish, continued from previous page We have reached the end of our years at RZJHS, and we have emerged stronger But when we repunctuate, restoring these five words to We All Stood Together, by Merle Feld from each accomplishment, challenge, and opportunity. their fundamental grammatical purpose, we create quesMy brother and I were at Sinai We have left our legacy and made this school our familtions. And questions, like He kept a journal iar. But beginning now, all is feelings, as Feld implies, far of what he saw unfamiliar. All is yet undisoutlast situational particulars. of what he heard covered. Class of 2020: we have cerof what it all meant to him As we venture into both the tainly explored our share of lasting questions, from the I wish I had such a record collective unknown of the state of the world amidst profound to the mundane of what happened to me there Coronavirus and the indito the grievous. What is the vidual unknowns of our fusignificance of the language It seems like every time I want to write tures, we must treasure our in Breishit? Why won’t tour guide Josh stop talking? And how can we sustain the power of the RZJHS graduation I can’t I’m always holding a baby one of my own ability to question. Though we may not know who, what, when, where, or ceremony over Zoom? or one for a friend why, we will access the comalways holding a baby fort with asking — the tenWe are in good company so my hands are never free dency to wonder—that we with all this questioning, as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik to write things down honed at RZJHS: the fearless curiosity that never slips asserts in The Lonely Man of Faith, “Knowledge in genAnd then away. eral and self-knowledge in As time passes In spite of, or perhaps beparticular are gained from The particulars cause of, global uncertainty, formulating logical, even The hard data I have no doubt that each though unanswerable, questions.” Soloveitchik identifies not concrete resolutions, but unexplainable queries as The who what when where why Slip away from me And all I’m left with is and every one of you, class of 2020, will rise to success and lead by example for everyone you encounter. the vehicle for knowledge, The feeling and Feld reminds us that deBeyond the pressure-filled, finitive, hard data dissipates But feelings are just sounds grade obsessed, almost huwith the passage of time. The vowel barking of a mute morous “will this be on the test?”, our mastery of quesIt is the feeling of wonder —the capacity to inquire — My brother is so sure of what he heard tioning, ignited by the light of the RZJHS community, that endures within us. We After all he’s got a record of it will send us blazing forward. are not afraid to brave the Consonant after consonant after consonant The sheer force of inquiry undiscovered, the unfamiliar, equips us to conquer all unthe unknown. And so, my fellow seniors, we stand today at the brink of ulIf we remembered it together We could recreate holy time Sparks flying knowns. To my classmates, travel buddies, role models, fellow graduates, and friends, good luck, and never timate unknowns. We did it. stop questioning.