By Rabbi Jeremy R. Weisblatt, Campus Director
Ok, I’ll admit it, this title is actually a bit misleading. The work we do at Hillel is not about developing student leaders. It is actually about developing Jewish students to be leaders for their lives, not just while they are in school. We see our work as not only about these four years at University of Delaware, but as the next step in the lives of our students on their path to becoming leaders of Hillel today, and the Jewish communities of tomorrow. You might say, “Nice words, but how do you get the results?” We turn these statements into actions by letting our students dream.
In her article, “Visionary Leadership for a Jewish Future,” Dr. Erica Brown concludes her essay by drawing on ancient wisdom that has always been right before us. Dr. Brown writes, “Our leaders must be dreamers. A long time ago, when Joseph’s brothers saw him alone, they cried out, “Here comes that dreamer!” They did not mean it as a compliment. The literal Hebrew translation is not a dreamer but an “owner of dreams.” Joseph owned his dreams. Even in his hardest, darkest days, he did not relinquish them. The dreamer became a leader.” Dr. Brown reminds us that leaders see the impossible becoming possible, that they are willing to risk and, most importantly, dream about who we can become and what we can do, and this is what we do with our students during the precious few years we have with them.
I center the student leadership programming around the concept of “dreams.” I tell our students that we will learn about budgets, we will learn about programming, and we will learn about engagement, which is really about relationships. And, then, I tell them that we are going to dream. I tell the students to forget the constraints of budgets, time, and what we have done in the past, and imagine what their ideal Jewish community will look like. And, so, we take time, not just minutes on a meeting agenda, but entire meetings to dream what we could become tomorrow. If this sounds “new-age” and “silly,” remember that Dr. Brown brings us back to Genesis, and that dreaming is older than even the Exodus. And, just as it worked then, it can work today.
It worked when I told our engagement interns to dream, and they created a Shabbat experience that drew in over two hundred and thirty students on a Friday evening. It worked when I told our student leaders to dream about our welcome week programming, and we had two hundred students at our welcome party in August. It worked when Shabbat engagement was increased by over 13% yearly.
We send dreamers into the wider Jewish world. Welcome them with open arms and dream with them. It works, and just imagine if we all started to dream again.
