Pearls from the Apartment: Keep on Growing - Column for the November 1, 2019 Las Cruces Bulletin

    My mom had just died in the first week of May in 2004.  We were going through the apartment to decide what to keep and what to discard.   Among the items we found was a small note pad on which she had written a number of quotations about leadership.  We believed that my mom had used those statements when she led meetings as president of her Temple’s women’s group between 1997 and 2001.  

    I was really taken by these pearls of wisdom.  My wife Rhonda and I shared several of those quotations during a sermon we delivered on Yom Kippur/Day of Atonement morning at Temple Beth-El on October 9: 

•   Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them.  (Ann Landers)

•   No matter what happens, keep on beginning and failing.  Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you find that you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you will be glad to remember.    (Anne Sullivan)

•    I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.   (Jonas Salk)

•    You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you do not try.    (Beverly Sills)

•   The worst part of success is finding someone who is happy for you. (Bette Midler)

•   The only way to have a friend is to be one. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)  

•    What grows never grows old. (Jewish author Noah benShea)

     Even though my mom didn’t write these statements, we know that they had meaning for her as a volunteer, as a leader, and as a mother and grandmother.  

      There was one principle all her own that she stated more than once:  “Don’t give up!” She strongly believed in perseverance due to her dedication to the organizations in which she served. 

      In that sermon, Rhonda and I shared some of the central principles that have guided us in community work.  These statements constitute our combined legacy, with my mom’s commitment to service always on our minds: 

• Try to treat every person, from birth through the most veteran members of a community, as significant and as a precious human resource who has something to add and teach.

•   Rabbi Chanina said, “I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my colleagues, but from my students I have learned most of all.”  We are grateful for the lessons that our students of all ages have taught us with wit, with emotion, and with their own special insight.

• When I was a fifth grade student in my Temple Religious School, my teacher led us in exploring a statement by the rabbinic sage Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I?  And if not now, when?”  In a book that Rhonda received upon completing her formal Religious School education was this explanation of Hillel’s declaration: “These precious gems of Hillel remind us of the duties of self-preservation, self-cultivation and [they] warn us against being self-centered and selfish, [cautioning us] against procrastination.”  

•     Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.  It’s not about forgetting, but rather, it’s about reaching out with gusto to take hold of new experiences and possibilities. 

      We don’t have to have all the answers ourselves. Partnership, openness and cooperation can lead not only to success, but also to the wisdom that can enable any community to endure.