Everything I Really Needed To Know About Life, I Learned in Synagogue

by Steven M. Rosman

I write this as school buses shuttle to and fro through the streets of our town, bringing our children to school to begin a new year.  In the world out there, school starts and stops, begins and ends.  In my world, here in the synagogue, school is never out.  Learning never ends.  Some speak about the relative value of one degree versus another.  In the synagogue we teach about the absolute value of education.  After fifteen consecutive years of graduate school and four advanced degrees, I have come to the conclusion that everything I really needed to know, I learned in synagogue.

It was in the synagogue that I learned not to kill, not to lie, not to steal, not to envy that which belongs to others.  It was here, I learned to honor my parents, to honor my teachers, to honor those who devote their lives to simple, unheralded mitzvot.  I learned that the reason our world turns is not because of oil or nuclear energy, but because of “children in the schoolhouse,” whose every breath sustains our world.  I learned to sanctify time and not space, to revere wisdom and not wealth, and to esteem humility and not hubris.  I learned that the world is sustained “not by might and not by power,” but by “Torah, worship, and acts of loving kindness.”  I also learned not to think in global terms, but rather to think in individual human terms; that I do not have to try to save the world, but if I save one life it is as if I had.  I learned not to separate myself from the community, not to stand by indifferently while a neighbor bleeds, not to place obstacles before the blind, and not to curse the deaf.

I was taught that we all - whether young or old, black or white, from here or from there, whether literate or illiterate, rich or poor, this shape or that, whether thinking like me or not, whether praying like me or not - share a common spark of divinity, a common Parent, and a common destiny.  I was taught to remember that I too, was once a stranger, an alien, an outsider, so were my parents, and so were my grandparents.  I was taught that to love others, I first had to love myself.  But to be “only for myself” was not enough.

It was in the synagogue that I learned that days begin in darkness and move to light, and that life flows from darkness to light.  I learned that Adonai called the darkness “good,” too.  I learned that “choice” is mine, and so is the responsibility for my choices.  I learned that change is possible and that the “gates of repentance are always open.”

It cost me a great deal to obtain my degree, but that the synagogue is a relative bargain.  To enter universities, one has to qualify, while synagogues accept everyone.  Universities measured me by my grades, while my synagogue measured me by my deeds.  In the universities, I studied a particular subject in a particular classroom, while in synagogue, the world is my classroom and life is my curriculum

I once thought that my university degrees would be all that I needed.  I have come to understand that, everything I really needed I learned in the synagogue.