When I grow up I'll be a social worker

Dear Wurzweiler Office of Admissions,

Please join me on a special ride. We are going to go back in time in search of life experiences. The journey of this kind is nothing new, and the older we get the more often we find time to go back in time. We go back to re-live the experiences and make sense of it all.

First Stop: Two weeks ago. Midtown Kollel.

            We finished learning the fifth chapter of Talmud tractate “Sanhedrin” that deals with Jewish approach to judging capital cases. I gave a short talk summarizing the most interesting parts of the chapter. What touched me the most was a note about Rabbi Yochanan, who lived 120 years and spent first 40 years “Be Pragmatia” - doing commerce, next 40 years - learning and the last 40 years – teaching…  Soon I’ll be 40 too, and it keeps me wondering: how did he pull it off? Can I do the same?

            When you are 20 you think you can do everything, at the same time. You can write the Great American Novel with your left hand while winning the arm-wrestling match with your right. And you can, for a while. Then, like most of us, you “follow the money”, and, like most of us, you “catch up” with the rest of the world who followed the money.  We all know you can’t make all the money out there. But can you make all the sense? Can you find the meaning of it all? Probably not. But at least Rabbi Yohanan tried. And he did it full-time.

            I have a good, interesting and intellectually stimulating “9 to 5” job that pays well. I have a meaningful, deliberate and exciting “5 to 9” life. I want to make my “9 to 5” as meaningful as my “5 to 9”.  I might not have 80 years to live, but all I want for myself from now on is learning and teaching with as little commerce mixed in as possible. I know it will be good, interesting, and intellectually stimulating and will pay well at the end.

Second Stop: Three years ago. A fancy Bar close to Wall Street.

            He had BTech from Indian Institute of Technology and an MBA from Indian Institute of Management. These collages are very tough to get into.

So he was a smart, ambitious guy. He also had a mortgage to pay, a wife to show off, a couple of kids to evade on a weekend, a nice suit and a VP title.  And maybe, just may be had a little too much to drink.

            - Integrity?! Who needs integrity! It’s good to make people BELIEVE you have integrity. But to have it??? It’s too expensive!

He was a colorful, almost cartoonish character: a migrane-inducing boss, an exaggerated brown-noser, a perfect villain.   I kept asking myself: “Is he for real? Could he be for real?”

I’m so glad that I met him, because he helped me to understand what I believe in, what I want to do, where I want to be. 

I believe in integrity, growth and inspiration.

I want to help where my help is needed most.

I want to be in a place where he would not want to work.

           

Third and last stop:       33 years ago. Children’s hospital, Kiev, Ukraine.

           

My mom came to pick me up after the adenoid removal surgery. A hospital is never a happy place, but a children’s hospital in the Soviet Union in late 70-s was not for the faint of heart.  Dark wards were overcrowded with weeping boys and girls dressed in bloody pajamas: parents were not allowed and nurses oftentimes did not bother to wash the little patients after the operation.

But as she reached my ward, it was different. No one in my ward was crying.

I was sitting on my bed. I was clean. (Somehow I was able to charm the nurses and they washed my face after the operation and gave me a new set of pajamas).  I was telling a story. A fairy tale. And everyone was listening. And the even ward looked a little bit less dark.

You see, I love to tell stories. And now I told you mine.