Our Voices

Only a month remains before I depart from PTS, and it still does not feel real. Unlike many other Jewish professionals I have met through my time as the Director of Youth and Family Engagement, who have worked for many Jewish organizations, this is my first time leaving one Jewish community (professionally) to relocate to another. I have full confidence that the brightness and strength of the Jewish community at PTS will endure in my absence, but as I was on a phone call with someone who held the position I am about to take on (Director of Lifelong Jewish Learning), she said something that struck me. When she left the role in 2021 to transition into a Jewish day school, much of the foundation she built for a vibrant, engaging, and strong religious education program left, too. She told me she was asked by a congregant, “doesn’t it hurt to see all that you built disappear?”

These words struck me because they forced me to, for the first time, analyze such a statement and apply it to my own life. Will I feel disdain if youth programs change drastically after I leave? Though my faith is strong that my successor will add to what has been built before them, change can be difficult for us, and even more so for children. 

Holding this feeling while reflecting on my three years at PTS brought me back to this past summer, in which I and a small group of fourth graders read a variety of novels relating to Jewish concepts. One of the books I picked as an option for our reading club was Veera Hiranandani’s “How to Find What You’re Not Looking For.” Drawn in by a synopsis online, I read the book for myself before ordering multiple additional copies for our group. As it currently stands, this book is what I would consider a “hidden gem.” It is a deeper, more appropriate, and more relatable “Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret” for the children of today, yet few have actually heard about it. The story follows an elementary school aged girl in 1967. She is Jewish, has undiagnosed dysgraphia, and her family has just cut off all contact with her older sister (her best friend) for her romantic relationship and elopement with a Hindu immigrant after the outcome of Loving v. Virginia. Children’s books usually don’t make me cry, but this one did. I adored Ari, who captured the childhood struggles of family conflict, learning differences, coming of age, and doing the right thing throughout her narrative and poetry her character writes. 

As your families navigate building new connections with a new Director of Youth and Family Engagement in the future, I want to recommend this novel as a symbol of hope and strength amidst changing times. Even as adults, there are times where we can feel detached from Judaism, our family, or our values. Exploring this novel gave me hope and invigoration for living out Jewish social justice values and making sure all of the youth I worked with had somewhere they could go and say “this is part of my place in the world.”

As Jewish people, we rebuild. Our main character Ari rebuilds relationships amongst her family as well as her confidence in herself. Our communities have rebuilt after the trauma of the Shoah, after October 7th. We hope to rebuild the holy temple when the Messiah comes. God forbid, if everything I’ve built in my life were to disappear, I know it would be a matter of time before another Jewish person took the initiative to rebuild the most important parts. As I plan to rebuild the beloved facets of the religious education programs in my new role, I strive to be the person I just described for my predecessors. In our lives, we’ll constantly be finding things we’re not looking for, but it’ll be our job as Jews to figure out where they fit into tikkun olam, rebuilding the world; our ultimate goal as a holy community. May you never be weary in rebuilding what matters most.

“How to Find What You’re Not Looking For” can be found in PTS’s Hirschberg Children’s Library