On June 2, the White House’s first-ever Cabinet-level science advisor Eric Lander was sworn in using a volume of Pirkei Avot. Pirkei Avot, sometimes translated as “Ethics of the Fathers,” is a unique section of the Mishna. Unlike the rest of the Mishnah’s legal precepts, Pirkei Avot is a collection of sayings having to do with good conduct, moral behavior and admirable values. These quotes from early 1st century rabbis can be read as general life advice.

In choosing to use Pirkei Avot as the holy book worthy of taking an oath upon, Eric Lander is signifying that Jewish wisdom can be a guide for a life well-lived.

If you are not familiar with Pirkei Avot, take a look at some of our favorite excerpts from this beloved little volume and an interpretation that brings it to the present day:

1. Be patient in administering justice. What we teach each other matters.

Moses received the Torah at Sinai and transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Assembly. They said three things: Be patient in [the administration of] justice, raise many disciples and make a fence round the Torah. —Pirkei Avot 1:1

Pirkei Avot’s opening idea, which claims that Oral Law was received at Mount Sinai. This simple piece paves the way for one of the most important Jewish ideas: that what we teach each other is just as holy as the written word we received at Mount Sinai.

2. Our world is built through relationships.

Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah said: Where there is no Torah, there is no right conduct; where there is no right conduct, there is no Torah. Where there is no wisdom there is no fear of God; where there is no fear of God, there is no wisdom. Where there is no understanding, there is no knowledge; where there is no knowledge, there is no understanding. Where there is no bread, there is no Torah; where there is no Torah, there is no bread. —Pirkei Avot 3:17

Our world is built through relationships, and even abstract concepts work together as pairs. This section of Pirkei Avot reminds us that nothing can function in a vacuum.

3. All love that depends on something will end. Love that depends on nothing is neverending.

All love that depends on a something, [when the] thing ceases, [the] love ceases; and [all love] that does not depend on anything, will never cease. —Pirkei Avot 5:16

No wisdom volume would be complete without some love advice. Here we learn the makings for unconditional love—a love that depends on nothing, and lasts forever.

4. In a place where there are no role models, become one.

He used to say: A brute is not sin-fearing, nor is an ignorant person pious; nor can a timid person learn, nor can an impatient person teach; nor will someone who engages too much in business become wise. In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man. —Pirkei Avot 2:5

A thoughtful meditation on the makings of success, and subtle encouragement to be the best version of yourself even when you are alone in doing so.

5. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?

He [also] used to say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I? And if not now, when? —Pirkei Avot 1:14

Probably the most quoted piece of Pirkei Avot, here we have Hillel’s famous quote. These three ideas ask us to consider ourselves as responsible members of the society, compelling us to take care of ourselves and each other, and not to delay!

I was born during an election year. It was 1988 – Bush v. Dukakis. My birth and the election are tied together as one story in my family’s lore because we were, at the time, living next door to Michael and Kitty Dukakis. When my parents took me home from the hospital, they had to verify their identity with a security team before pulling into our driveway. Sitting in our driveway at that moment was Barbara Walters, interviewing Michael Dukakis, the Democratic Presidential Nominee.

Michael Dukakis did not win the 1988 Presidential election. On that first Tuesday in November, 1988, Michael Dukakis lost the race. He came home to the street where we lived. He returned to regular civilian life. I knew him as a neighbor, not a President. For me, Michael Dukakis represents the day-after-Election-Day. He represents the next four years. He is a reminder why we vote at all.

When Michael Dukakis lost the election, he never held official political office again. But he never stopped serving his country. I remember seeing him walking our street on Saturday mornings with paint cans, repainting mailboxes or street signs that needed fixing. He showed that one person can contribute to making a better, safer, healthier America. Every city block matters. Every neighborhood accumulates. We are a nation made up of many, many, many parts. Every single one of us and every single piece counts.

It seems to me that this year’s election is operating at human-scale more than ever. Barack Obama’s election, by contrast, was seen as an election that would upend the system – to give hope, to make change, to break boundaries, set new standards. The rhetoric was abstract and it was lofty. But today’s election comes at a moment of such crisis in our country – the crisis of Coronavirus and all the other dormant crises that the virus awoke – that this election’s rhetoric can’t afford the luxury of abstract ideals. We are voting for real, pragmatic, visible fixes that need to happen and need to happen fast.

And tomorrow, the results will be in. Our most important wish is that we hear an answer announced and an announcement accepted. And then, after that, we can remind ourselves of every other important day of the year. The-Day-After-Election-Day and the many days that follow are about more than just the President’s duties. It will be on us to make sure that no one gets forgotten in the aftermath of this election cycle. We each must do our part to protect and sustain our families, our schools, our communities, and our health centers.

If Michael Dukakis, the almost-President, can walk the neighborhood painting mailboxes, then we must each do our part, too. We are lucky to live in a country where every vote matters – because we live in a country where every person can make a difference. Today is about the President; tomorrow is about us.

This article was originally published on the website of BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change and can be found here.

It is easy to understand why Purim might be someone’s favorite Jewish holiday. There are costumes, noisemakers, jam-filled triangle cookies, and even a theological justification for drinking without inhibition! In a Jewish holiday calendar so often filled with solemnity and grief, Purim stands out a holiday unlike any other.

And yet. 

Nothing in the Jewish calendar exists in a vacuum. Each part of our system of time exists in relation to all else in the cycle. Famously, there are two “new years” that gird two poles of this cycle. Rosh Hashanah and Passover are the two magnets that keep our cycle spinning in balance. No holiday exists without its opposite.

So which holiday in the Jewish yearly calendar mirrors Purim?

In fact, the answer is quite plain. We actually have a Jewish holiday called, “The Day that is like Purim.” Can you recognize it now? Yom Ha-Ki-Purim. Using a different intonation, it is easy to hear. Yom Kippur, sometimes called Yom HaKippurim, is the day that is like Purim.

How is this possible? How could Yom Kippur, the most solemn of holidays, a day when we fast from food and drink, be LIKE Purim? Purim is a day when we imbibe, not abstain! Purim is a day when we wear colorful costumes that affirm life, not white robes that signal our death. And perhaps the most profound difference between the two: Purim is a day when we celebrate our escape from annihilation, and Yom Kippur is a day that we acknowledge that our ends can come at any time. 

It couldn’t be that we refer to Yom Kippur as “the day that is like Purim” if we really mean “the day that is NOT like Purim.” There must be a connection between these two moments in a Jewish year. Lucky for us, it is a great Jewish tradition to extract meaning from that which seems in tension. Jewish thinkers have always found great interpretive possibility in comparing two things which seems incompatible. In fact, it is through the discovery of connections that new meaning is made.

One connection between Purim and Yom Kippur is in the word that both holidays contain in their monikers: Pur. Pur are lots, referring to the lots that Haman drew to determine the day on which he would massacre the Jews of Shushan. It was a lottery of life or death. So too, a lottery of life or death occurs on Yom Kippur. In ancient times, two goats were taken, and a lottery performed. One goat would live, while the other would be sent off into the wilderness carrying the people’s atonement into the unknown. Perhaps there are no two holidays where the message is more clear: sometimes a fate of living or dying is left up to chance. 

But perhaps the deeper connection between Purim and Yom Kippur lies in both holiday’s emphasis on hope. The experience of fasting and atoning on Yom Kippur teaches us that humans have the capacity to overcome their fate. “Tefila, Tzedaka, Teshuva, have the power to overturn the decree!” we chant over and over again throughout the day’s prayers. So too, on Purim, we learn of the efforts of one woman to overturn the decree. Despite the imminence of death, we each have one last chance to hope for life. 

There is great power in this hope for life that is renewed in each of us on Yom Kippur and on Purim. And notably, each of these holidays purposefully provide this hope for life at a moment when the Jewish people really need it. Yom Kippur gives us hope for life as we face the long winter months ahead. During the holiday that immediately follows Yom Kippur, we sit in the Sukkah and know to appreciate the last glimmers of Autumn weather. Sukkot is especially meaningful because of our renewed appreciation for the ability just to sit and exist.

And which holiday follows Purim? 

When we finish Purim, with all its celebration and laughter, we look forward to Pesach. And just like Sukkot after Yom Kippur, the holiday of Pesach is made especially meaningful because of Purim’s lingering effect, too. There is no time in the Jewish calendar when the Jewish people would be more zealous for freedom. No longer do we want only one day of indulgent release; we are ready for the Jewish people’s complete liberation.

“Women see texts differently than men do, ask different questions and bring different answers.”

This is a quote that has inspired the Kol Isha learning cohort throughout their study, community-building and social justice work.

This week, OFJCC Director of Jewish Content Tova Birnbaum and I along with 13 participants from Palo Alto are leaving on a ten-day trip to Poland and Israel as part of the Kol Isha program.

Kol Isha is a JCCA program that connects JCCs around the world. The Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto has been matched with the JCC in Krakow, Poland and the JCC in Ramat HaSharon, Israel. Each of these JCCs is operating their own local cohort of Kol Isha, and the three groups will meet next week to travel together in Poland and in Israel.

Kol Isha is a program based on three common bonds: women, Jewish peoplehood and social justice. The program is made up of communities of dedicated women who meet locally throughout the year to build relationships with each other through meaningful Jewish learning and social justice work. Each of the components of the program—text study, volunteering, community gatherings and international travel—intend to reflect the three core values of the Kol Isha program vision.

You can see the values of the program reflected in the name of the program. The name of the program, Kol Isha, is Hebrew for “a woman’s voice.” This is a traditional Jewish legal term with many different connotations across the Jewish world. We, the founders of Kol Isha in Palo Alto, use this term as a way of demonstrating our understanding that Jewish women’s voices are being, and always have been, heard. We intend only to amplify. And there is no better amplification than a chorus.

The Palo Alto cohort has been meeting monthly since September to learn a curriculum about women and Judaism that I developed. The other two groups, in Krakow and in Ramat HaSharon, have also been learning this curriculum. When we join together in Poland next week, each group will be able to trade stories about our experiences so far—and we are eager to discover both the similarities and the differences in each group’s learning.

It is a rare occurrence to get to meet like-minded women from around the world in the hopes of deep cultural exchange and long-lasting community connection. Kol Isha has provided the opportunity for just that. We will board our flights as a single cohort from Palo Alto. But after ten days of being together encountering Polish Jewry, visiting Auschwitz, flying together to Israel, exploring our nationhood and learning together, we expect to be part of an interlocking chain of connection that spans the globe. We hope to return to California in July with a more complex sense of Jewish text, a deeper connection to Jewish peoplehood and with greater motivation to act justly at home.