It’s graduation season, which means at least the following 2 things: 1, most parents are thinking about our kids and how we send them out into the world and the world we are sending them into, and 2, we hear a great many speeches by famous folks addressing those very questions. Whether you are the parent of a graduate or not (I am), questions regarding what the future holds for the next generation of American adults affect us all, so when one of those speeches is especially interesting, it makes me think and it makes we want to share it.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen spoke to the graduates of New York University, and raised the notion of celebrating technology, while also challenging its capacity not simply to fill our lives with more information, but that it often allows us to fill up on only those ideas with which we already agree and which never invite us to listen or discover. She sagely reminded her audience that a well lived life depends upon curiosity, love of discovery and the capacity to listen carefully to others. Smart stuff. In fact, I would say, sacred stuff.
Yellen went on to speak about the importance of grit – a topic close to my own heart and about which I have written previously. She stood in Yankee Stadium, where the commencement occurred and invoked the great names of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio, all of whom she pointed out, “failed most of the time they stepped to the plate”.
She invoked their ability to absorb repeated failure as a model for the graduates, and while I appreciate the fact that failure is often a necessary part, and stand by both her and my own valuing of grit, this seems a bit too facile given the global realities into which we are launching our kids. I am not saying that they, as if there is a single they, have it so bad, but it’s not like it’s so easy either.
First, home run hitters are expected to strike out a lot, so it really can’t be considered a failure when they do so. Second, the three players she mentioned all became game-changing stars, and would not have been mentioned were it otherwise, so it’s kind of odd to simply speak about their failures. It’s easy to celebrate them now, but would we celebrate their grit if they had played three seasons and been forgotten soon thereafter, even if they were no less gritty than Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio?
So yeah, grit is great, and encouraging our kids to take risks, to fail, to get back up and do it again, is all quite important – as long as we, their parents, their peers, their nation, promise to stand by them through those processes, and not tell them that unless they become world-famous superstars, they will have done something wrong.
Listed for many years in Newsweek as one of America’s “50 Most Influential Rabbis” and recognized as one of our nation’s leading “Preachers and Teachers,” by Beliefnet.com, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield serves as the President of Clal–The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute, think tank, and resource center nurturing religious and intellectual pluralism within the Jewish community, and the wider world, preparing people to meet the biggest challenges we face in our increasingly polarized world.
An ordained Orthodox rabbi who studied for his PhD and taught at The Jewish Theological Seminary, he has also taught the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs an ongoing seminar, and American Jewish University. Rabbi Brad regularly teaches and consults for the US Army and United States Department of Defense, religious organizations — Jewish and Christian — including United Seminary (Methodist), Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (Modern Orthodox) Luther Seminary (Lutheran), and The Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative) — civic organizations including No Labels, Odyssey Impact, and The Aspen Institute, numerous Jewish Federations, and a variety of communal and family foundations.
Hirschfield is the author and editor of numerous books, including You Don’t Have To Be Wrong For Me To Be Right: Finding Faith Without Fanaticism, writes a column for Religion News Service, and appears regularly on TV and radio in outlets ranging from The Washington Post to Fox News Channel. He is also the founder of the Stand and See Fellowship, which brings hundreds of Christian religious leaders to Israel, preparing them to address the increasing polarization around Middle East issues — and really all currently polarizing issues at home and abroad — with six words, “It’s more complicated than we know.”