From the Board Installation June 5, 2024
During the exodus from Egypt, the Jewish people are guided by three leaders. While Moses tends to get all the credit, it is really what the rabbis name in the commentaries as “the three good sustainers” who lead the Jewish people across the sea and through the wilderness.
- Moses, reluctant with humility and patience.
- Aaron, impulsive but charismatic
- Miriam, loyal, strategic and joyful
The three good sustainers. Or in modern day terms, we might say it takes a village. That is true of a school as well.
Dr. Michael Berger, religion professor at Emory, suggests that the lessons of this trio are many, but in part we can learn from them how leaders are made. Berger argues that Moses, Aaron and Miriam aren’t practiced, natural leaders, but they do come into their positions with traits that prime them for leadership. And then they are challenged with opportunities to practice and hone their skills. This is true for all of us. Practice always makes us better.
I know this has been true for Shosh and our board, for Andrea and the admin team, as well as for our teachers, our students, and our community. Each challenge is an opportunity to practice and hone our skills. To live our values. And to be the good we want to see in the world. Every day, we bring our talents, gifts, energies, and superpowers to this place and leaders emerge. And somehow, we make it through the wilderness together.
As I assume this role as President of the JCDSRI board, I promise to bring my superpowers as well. I believe in this school. I believe in the 5 values of chesed, kavod, achriyut, kehillah and tzedek and I know from watching my own JCDSRI graduate (Micah class of 2023) that he is a good person, a better person, a total mensch because these values live deep inside him (Jewishly and secularly) even as he goes on to succeed in new spaces. I believe that no Jewish community can thrive without a thriving Jewish day school and I promise to do my best to lead with all the other “good sustainers” who make this school what it is. It takes a village and I am proud to be a part of this one.
Dr. Lesley Bogad, the President of the JCDSRI Board of Trustees, is a professor at Rhode Island College in the school of education. She teaches classes in all things related to social justice and schooling, and directs the Youth Development BA program. The oldest of three sisters, Lesley grew up in Los Angeles where her parents were both Jewish educators (and she attended Jewish day school herself.) She went to college in NYC, and attended graduate school in Syracuse, NY. She has lived in Providence since 2001. In her free time, she plays in the ceramics studio making functional pottery and Judaica.