Open House

8:54 AM - I'm sitting in my office (from which furniture has been removed - since late Friday afternoon - to my surprise). Thirty-six minute countdown to the opening of Open House. Excitement is mounting. A board member is addressing volunteer parents of current students in the main entrance about how to comport themselves with visitors, which are estimated to be in the high hundreds.

I just assisted the associate principal in moving his podium and rearranging seats in the Beit Medrash till it felt just right. He tested out his Dvar Torah on me. It's about how saying "Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad" wards off mazikin. There is a wide array of opinions as to what mazikin - often interpreted as evil spirits - are.

Taking a rational rather than mystical approach he's collected opinions that relate mazikin to some element of our inner thoughts: nightmares, heretical musings, etc. By accepting the yoke of heaven we embrace the truth and elevate and protect ourselves from the garden variety of negative reflections that threaten to take us down. Everyone has their personal pitfall and their own way up and out of it.

When Moshe tells G-d what he would like to see in his successor he says he wants someone who "gets" all kinds of people. As Torah teachers and guides our goal is to reach everyone in the way they need, to bring them far from what brings them down, and to move them as close to G-d as possible - for that is all that is good. That's how I hear what he wishes to convey.

Time to go and do holy public work.