A light unto our nation

CHANUKAH wasn’t the only cause for celebration among Australian Jews this week. The release of the final scores for year 12 students revealed that once again, the younger members of our community are top of the class.

Of course, as the People of the Book, we Jews have always been a nation that values academic excellence, and those pupils who made the grade, as well as the teachers and parents who helped them achieve it, deserve our praise.

But though our schools are oft perceived as nothing more than lawyer and doctor factories, we must remember that there’s far more to education than final-year results. This week’s scores do not fully reflect the past 12 years of our students’ lives, nor is it a stamp of guaranteed future success. Life is about much more than that.

What is particularly pertinent then, is remembering and valuing the character of our graduates in addition to, and sometimes even at the expense of, their grades.

While it is apparent that our schools are producing the results with respect to the intellectual smarts, speaking to these students makes us realise that they have much more than just brains. These are well-rounded, eloquent and confident individuals, most of whom contribute to the community in addition to benefiting from it.

Many -– even during their final year at school –- are leaders of youth movements, captains of sporting teams, budding artists, performers, chefs and entrepreneurs. These students -– from the highest achievers to the least academic -– are our future leaders.

We must therefore commend our Jewish schools for providing our children with a well-rounded education.

And for all the praise heaped on the high-flyers, we must be sure to congratulate all our year 12 students for completing this momentous chapter in their lives. They are now no longer just schoolkids.

In graduating, they have also advanced to young members of our community, whose voices we should value and whose contributions are key to the continuation of positive and meaningful Jewish life in Australia.

Mazal tov to the schools, the educators, parents and, most importantly, to our students. You are our future community leaders. You are a light unto our nation.

From strength to strength

THERE is a saying in Israel: “hakol beseder b’eli haseder” -– “everything is in order within the chaos” -– and it’s perhaps not surprising that life in the Jewish State has spawned such an expression. It certainly can seem chaotic at times.

Ten years in Israel seem like so much more than a decade anywhere else. As 2010 rapidly approaches, there is a lot to reflect on.

As always, too much of the past 10 years has involved the Jewish State’s need to defend its borders against those who never rest from their mission to destroy it. So too, there have been too many lives lost over the past decade at the hands of fiendish terrorists, whose goal was to ruin the ability of Israelis to live normal lives within their homeland.

Make no mistake: they have failed. Quietly -– almost as if not to jinx it –- Israeli intelligence this week noted that Israel is in the midst of one of its longest lulls in terror in decades, a sign that years of tireless efforts are paying off.

And against this backdrop of normalcy, we can take a collective breath and consider all of Israel’s amazing achievements over this time.

It was a decade where the film Waltz With Bashir garnered a 2009 Academy Award nomination and narrowly missed taking the prize.

But there was no second-place finish for Gal Friedman, who took home Israel’s first Olympic gold medal, in 2004.

The year 2009 also saw the Jewish State move one step away from a minyan of Nobel Prize winners, when Professor Ada Yonath, of the Weizmann Institute of Science, was honoured for her research in chemistry.

And, in an era when climate change has emerged as the defining issue of our generation, Israeli high-tech firms lead the world in developing workable electric automobile solutions and other green technologies.

Such are just a handful of milestones reached in arts, sport, science and technology.

There is a lot to be proud of, which brings to mind another Hebrew expression that is appropriate at this time: may they go m’hayil l’hayil -– from strength to strength –- and may the unbreakable bond between Israel and the Diaspora continue to be a source of mutual nachas in the decade to come.