I also worked with the Graduate Student Government Association to host a
Religious Holiday Learning Series webinar about Passover. The event featured myself, the Director of the Center for Ethics Paul Wolpe, Emory Heathcare's Director of Neuro-Opthamology Nancy Newman, and Rebecca Noymer, President of the Emory Jewish Graduate Students as we each shared personal reflections on the different ways we observed the holiday. This was a followup to a similar lunch webinar we held on the
High Holidays.
Jewish life does not merely happen in our office or at Chabad, Hillel and Meor. Rather, we are lucky to have an amazing Jewish Studies program at the Tam Institute at Emory that reaches nearly five hundred students a year through its courses. This year, the
Tam Institute welcomed Paul Entis 92C as its new executive director. Paul is a former leader in Jewish life on campus with an interest in finding ways to reach students inside and outside the classroom and a great ally to our office. In the Office of Spiritual and Religious Life we are already thinking of ways that the work of our office can be enriched by the world class faculty at Tam.
As pleased as I am with the bigger events and the structural changes, I am most nourished in this work by my relationships with students. Masks and distance were no impediment in the task of making connections. I sat with students at coffee shops and led meditative walks through Lullwater. I taught a cohort of Oxford students in conjunction with Hillel’s Jewish Learning Fellowship. I met with university staff and administrators to discuss the continued danger that antisemitism poses. I helped medical students prepare for their time in the anatomy lab, and together with the OSRL team, led undergraduates in planning and producing a virtual Baccalaureate. And I spoke to our graduating students from Emory Law, offering words of blessing at their commencement. I am so pleased with what we accomplished in this first year, but I am even more hopeful about what is possible as we return to campus and recommit ourselves to the work of building community.
Bivracha/With blessing,