By Sam Thal
We have had the privilege of learning with many passionate Jewish professionals during our time here in Israel. One person who specifically stands out for me is Rabbi Susan Silverman. Rabbi Susan spoke about her work with adoption, based on Jewish texts. Now I love a good text study as much as any Jewish educator, but I hadn’t taken the time to appreciate how applicable texts can be to seemingly unrelated issues. Throughout her session, Rabbi Susan talked about owning our texts and making them relevant to our lives. I was intrigued by the concept of owning our texts. I never realized it, but I think I’ve been intimidated by the amount of material and the language barrier of Jewish texts. I don’t know why but I saw texts as unattainable unless broken down in the form of a text study. Since Rabbi Susan’s session, I have started reading my Tanakh. I was surprised to find that I was familiar with most of what I was reading. Now I feel much more confident when participating in text studies and I am better able to connect the pieces to the greater whole. I feel the ownership which she talked about.
I learned so much about text studies from Rabbi Susan and that was only the vehicle for her discussion about adoption, and more broadly, social action in Judaism. Rabbi Susan’s passion for the issue of adoption showed clearly in her presentation. I couldn’t help but feel connected as she used Torah and Talmud to explain why it is important to adopt children and give them a chance of having a supportive family. One of her key points that stuck with me was that we don’t have to be everything. One person cannot solve the problem of all children without families, but if they adopt one child, they made the situation a little better, and completely better for that child. Rabbi Susan referred to Numbers 14 where the Israelites see Israel for the first time and feel like grasshoppers among giants. Sometimes, when we see large problems, we feel small, maybe like grasshoppers. We may feel like we can’t fix the problem, so it’s not worth trying. But as God asked the Israelites, “Do you know what I made you in their eyes? Who can say that you were not like angels in their eyes?” We may feel small, but in the eyes of the people we help, we could be like giants. This makes me think of all my heroes and teachers. I wonder if they feel small, because to me they are giants. I wonder if anyone sees me as a giant, because sometimes I feel like a grasshopper.
I took some valuable lessons from this session with Rabbi Susan. Don’t be afraid of owning texts; they belong to all the Jews. We all feel like grasshoppers sometimes. Even if a problem seems unsolvable, one person can always make some difference. Finally, we don’t have to be everything; we don’t have to do it alone. We can all achieve our goals, but the best way to do that is to work together.
