Presidential Messages

I am somewhat reluctant to confess that when I was an undergraduate student I majored in History. I think I redeemed myself with my minors in English and the Greek Classics, but I am not sure.   At the time, it seemed like a natural discipline for me to engage with since I had grown up enthralled with the stories of life in Prague, Cracow, and Vienna before WWII along with the stories of our Jewish people throughout the ages. While every story proved fascinating I grew to believe that all of these stories held the possibility of gaining greater insight into the nature of humankind.  Not all of the stories described good events or good people, but they provided an opportunity to create a belief system about the world and about who one wanted to be. History presented a mechanism for people to learn from the mistakes made by their ancestors and hopefully live lives in which those mistakes might never be made again.  It served as the impetus for me to go into public education and pursue a career that could influence others and maybe contribute to changing the direction of their stories-- a bit egotistical and definitely reflective of the idealism of my youth.

Most of my friends in college couldn’t understand why anyone would want to study History. It was boring they said and meaningless for one to learn about what went on in the past. Those beliefs echoed an ongoing national disrespect for anything that wasn’t American and wasn’t of the here and now.  Old is not an esteemed value in our nation…whether it relates to people or cars.  While technology has changed, human behavior has not. History has had a way of repeating itself because humankind has refused to either pay close attention to its past or because each generation wants to believe that it is superior to all who came before.  Learning from one’s mistakes and correcting one’s behaviors takes work and forces one to confront the truth about one’s flaws. Coming into adulthood after 20 years of being told one is perfect creates a challenge to identifying one’s shortcomings!

Today, in the age of the delete button, many believe that toppling a statue or tearing pages out of a history volume will makes this a better world.   We may eliminate the evidence of the story, but we cannot eliminate the reality of those stories having occurred. Denying the past deprives a society of the opportunity to confront its shortcomings or address the abhorrent behaviors that are still present today.  We are not necessarily better than those who came before us.  We need just look around at the actions taken by too many in our nation during this pandemic to believe citizens of this “modern” world are any more committed to caring about others, or valuing any life outside of their own, than in the past. We are fortunate to be part of a religious community where we are constantly reminded that there is much to learn from the past and that bad conduct has not yet been eradicated.  It may be time for us all to go back to school!

With hope,

Dorothy