Dear Friends,
The new school year has gotten off to an amazing start! I truly marvel at the middot and natural positivity with which our students, our amazing staff, and even the campus itself permeates. The aspirations of a new beginning are tangible. We all have hopes and dreams, looking forward to all of the many ways in which we will grow over the course of the next nine and a half months.
However, real growth, deep, internalized, lasting growth, does not happen through the acquisition of knowledge alone. In fact, in this week's parsha, Parshat Eikev, Hashem calls us a "stiff-necked nation". The Sforno says that to be "stiff-necked" means that someone could logically prove to the person that they are wrong and they still wouldn't change. Why does this cognitive dissonance happen? Why do people so often live in ways that are different than what they know to be true?!
Rav Yisrael Salanter summed up the answer to this question in one sentence: "The greatest distance in the world is between a person's mind and their heart." Someone can believe in one thing intellectually, but unless they find a way to internalize it, to know it with every fiber of their being, it won't affect their actions. We see from here that Hashem knew all along that it is not enough to know what's right and wrong.
It's not enough to believe in something. We then have to work to internalize those facts. And so that too is a large component of what we seek to accomplish here at school. We look for experiences, opportunities, and venues which will bring what we learn to life and inspire our students to want to not just know what they learn, but live it for the rest of their lives. It is then that the facts we learn will affect our actions and we can begin perfecting ourselves and living lives that are steeped in truly noble ideals. It is then we can achieve greatness. May we all truly internalize our learning and thereby achieve the greatness for which we strive.
Shabbat Shalom
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