The following Dvar Torah was written and delivered by Jacob Rubin, a representative of The Davis Academy Class of 2019. Jacob wrote these thoughtful and wise words to share with the entire school community as he and his classmates prepared to depart to Israel.
Shabbat Shalom. Today, I am going to talk about the passage of time. The dictionary definition of time is “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.” However, it means much more than that. It is something that we sometimes want to go faster, and sometimes something we want to slow down, but it will always keep moving at a constant rate. Even when you are having fun and time feels fast, it is moving at the same rate as when you are taking a test in language arts class. Crazy concept, I know. In the Bible, we are taught to count our days so that we may acquire a wise and loving heart, a phrase that middle-schoolers are very familiar with. Today, I have brought with me some water and a cup, to literally show how time passes.
Nine and a half years ago, I toured the Davis Academy Lower School and thought to myself that this place is actually pretty cool. A few months later, my parents told me that the cool place I had toured is where I would go to school the next year. I was thrilled. [pour some water into a cup]
I was dropped off by my parents for my first day of school. I entered Miss Israel’s kindergarten class for my first day at Davis and thought everything looked great! I couldn’t believe I got my own locker! I knew kindergarten would be a blast and was excited to meet my classmates, the wonderful class of 2019. [pour some water into a cup]
I am in Mrs. Kramer’s second-grade class! I get to be in a classroom upstairs and get a locker in the hallway! We also got to take our shoes off in class, and some days, we even got to chew gum! Also, I joined my classmates and their families in a ceremony where each of us received our own personalized siddur. [pour some water into a cup]
Welcome to fifth grade, where we become the leaders of the lower school. We learn important lessons of the civil rights movement like praying with our feet, and we visited the Civil Rights Center in Birmingham. The highlight of that year was spending two nights in Savannah! In Savannah, I learned that Mr. Frank is a master go-karter. Watch out. [pour some water into a cup]
Those big guys in the other building don’t seem so big anymore. We are in sixth-grade, where we have our own schedules and we are with different peers in every class. It is a big change. We also had to find classes in a new building. However, by the end of the year, we were all pros and understood how the middle school worked. Also, we had a blast in Charleston. [pour some water into a cup]
In Seventh Grade, as a community, we celebrated our Bar and Bat Mitzvah milestones by reading Torah in front of the middle school. Every weekend, we attended services and parties and supported each other on our special days. We all saw each other enter Jewish adulthood and the responsibilities that come with it. [pour some water into a cup]
We made it to eighth grade. Eighth grade is where the expectation levels rise, and the work gets much harder. However, in the end, there is no better reward than going across the ocean to the land of milk and honey. [pour some water into a cup]
Looking back, nine years may seem like a lot, but in reality, that is far from the truth. If you think about it, in nine years is only a fraction of our lifetimes. As an eighth grade kehillah, when we visited Camp Coleman, we had a very emotional bonfire. We started singing songs together, and then, eventually, we all started crying. I admit, I cried too. [turn to my classmates] That is when it was revealed to me how connected our grade is with each other. Deep down, we all do love each other, and I love all of you. Nine years is not enough time spent with y’all, and I am going to miss all of you guys next year.
Time goes by fast, and it is only a matter of a few weeks until we are all separated. We will all be in different high schools, have different teachers, be in different clubs, and have new friends; but when this inevitably happens, we will all still remember the experience we are about to go through, and I am not talking about the final exams. In the next couple of weeks, we are going to make new memories and go on the trip of a lifetime, with people we have grown up with.
Here is my final blessing I would like to give on behalf of my fellow members of the class of 2019 upon our departure to Israel: May God keep us safe on our journey to the promise land, and may we all stay together and be together. I pray that we will all enjoy our final days as Davis Academy students, and mature into the high schoolers we are about to become. May the menschlicheit values that have been instilled in us forever serve as a guide to us as we each pursue our own unique path.
[Turn to the congregation] Before I close, I would like to thank every teacher at the Davis Academy that has guided and taught me lessons, both in life and academics. You have motivated me and all of us to work hard, succeed, and strive for excellence. You have instilled important values in us that we will always use in our lives. [Turn back to classmates] I will miss every single face that I am looking at next year, and I will always keep my memories of the Davis Academy in my heart. Because [pour the remaining water into a cup] our time at Davis is coming to a close. [raise the cup] L’Chaim.
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