"R. Yehudah, son of R. Shmuel ben Shilat said in the name of Rav: Just as when Av begins, rejoicing is diminished, so when Adar begins, rejoicing is increased."
Our joy today, as we mark the new month of Adar, is immense. This evening is sort of a harvest festival for us, in that we are celebrating the first fruits of almost three years of quiet work at the Mandel Leadership Institute with educational and social leaders from the Haredi community.
But as was the case in Shushan on the original Purim, our joy today is mixed with sadness.
Before we move on, like the Jews of Shushan, "from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning to festivity" (Esther 9:22), I wish to dedicate this evening to the memory of two intellectual giants, educational leaders, and teachers of Torah:
Rabbi David Hartman z"l, founder of the Hartman Institute, who was laid to rest today in Jerusalem; and Prof. Shlomo Seymour Fox z"l, one of the founders of the Mandel Leadership Institute, who passed away six years ago. Both of them believed in the power of learning to create a bridge between individuals and communities, and they would have been especially pleased to take part in our discussion tonight.
I wish to thank all those who worked to make this special event a reality: The faculty and administrative staff of MLI; and the leadership of the Mandel Foundation-Israel, led by the director general of the foundation, Moshe Vigdor. I’d also like to thank all the esteemed speakers, who are too numerous to mention individually; the participants in the Mandel leadership development programs in the Haredi community; and last but not least, the director of these the programs, Naomi Perl.
In recent months, we've heard much discussion of “mobilizing Haredim” and “sharing the burden”. Naomi has given these expressions new meaning. Her ability to mobilize is legendary—whether you're Haredi or secular. If she wants something from you, she'll end up getting it. And it doesn't matter if you're a fellow or a graduate or a faculty member or an academic—she'll make sure that in the end we all share in the burden of developing Haredi leadership and building a more just society.
I’d like to congratulate Naomi on her vision and leadership, and thank all of you for heeding her call.
Our programs with Haredi leaders grew out of strategic thinking. We looked at social trends in Israel, and reached the conclusion that if we wished to continue have an impact, we could not ignore the changes taking place in the Haredi community.
For a variety of reasons, very few Haredim had been coming to our existing programs, and we understood that instead of waiting for them to come to us, we needed to reach out to them and begin to work with them in the context of their own communities.
In the words of Megillat Esther, Naomi asked herself and us:
"And who knows if it was for such a time as this that you came to Mandel" (inspired by Esther 4:14).
Today, after two and a half years of activity, there is already a network of some 90 men and women who have taken part in programs at Mandel and who are leading projects and educational and social organizations in the Haredi community—and we've only just begun.
When Naomi put together the first group, one of my concerns was that it would be too homogeneous. Until then, we had never had sectoral programs at Mandel, and our pedagogic method relies on the presence of a variety of voices and diverse, pluralistic groups.
But it took me only a moment to realize that this would not be a problem. I walked into the room and immediately saw 70 facets to the Torah or 50 shades of black, whichever image you prefer. I instantly saw how much diversity there is in the Haredi community, and how much courage it takes to even sit together at the same table.
But what did they do there? And in general, what do people learn at the Mandel Leadership Institute? The entire "Torah" of Mandel can be summed up—while standing on one foot, if you will—in one Yiddish expression:
"פון א קשיא שטארבט מען נישט"
Fon a kashyeh, shtarbt man nisht.
Or translated loosely: Nobody ever died from a question.
At Mandel, we will never tell you what to believe, or to what value to commit, or what for party to vote. But we will ask you a lot of hard questions. Above all, we will demand of you that you ask yourself hard questions—about your beliefs and your values. Questions such as: What is the worthy society to which I wish to lead? Why is it worthy in my eyes? Who is opposed to my ideas, and why? How can I lead the way there? Why in this direction and not another? And so on.
And our secret is this: Such questions don’t kill you. They only make you stronger. Much stronger.
And our secret is this: Such questions don’t kill you. They only make you stronger. Much stronger.
From Dr. Eli Gottlieb’s Opening Remarks at Bimat Mandel – Haredi Leadership, February 11, 2013