In Pursuit Of A Personal Promise Land: Reflections on Passover and My Life In Student Affairs

Pesach, or Passover to you gentiles, is the Jewish holiday remembering the Israelites exodus from Egypt. It is celebrated from sundown to sundown over the course of a week in recognition of the ancient Israelites plight and in celebration of God who acted through Moses to bring the disparate tribes of Israel together to get to the promised land.

If you are Jewish, and your level of religious commitment was anything like mine, the holiday was best remembered by bitter gafilte fish, horseradish, endless stories, and a desperate pursuit of the afikoman, or a piece matzo that was hidden at the end of the meal with a bounty of a dollar placed on it for the young children to claim.

But now I am no longer six, Passover has taken on a more significant role in my life and the lessons of the holiday seem more relevant than ever.

After nearly a decade of being away from home, family, and close friends, I have finally begun to appreciate the stories of the exodus. Though I am by no means comparing my own travels to that of the Israelites (or any more modern story of oppression and slavery), my own travels have deeply influenced my personal and professional life within the context of student affairs.

The Passover story begins with an abandoned child, a reed-woven basket, and kicks into high gear through the crucible of a burning bush. My story begins with parents who love me, a Subaru station wagon, and a last minute phone call from the Director of Chapter Services of my national fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi.

Going to college and then into student affairs was certainly no forty year tale of woe, but it definitely had a huge impact on me. It began an adventure one that spanned almost ten years of self-exploration and a pursuit for a place to call a home of my own.

I came to college with little experience dealing with other people, crippling social anxiety, and little interest in involving myself with others. My fraternity experience bonded me to others in ways I had never expected. Friends, faculty, and staff worked to help me as student body president, risk management chair, alumni relations chair, social chair, and the funding board chair of student government. Moreover, it gave me a sense of purpose that I had never felt before.

It also allowed me opportunities to socialize in ways I never had before. For better or worse...

Though terrified, you could not keep me from volunteering to help out in some way shape or form.

And though I was not a slave building a pyramid, I had become hooked. Though I did not know it at the time, I had majored in student affairs and had bought into the college hook, line, and sinker.

But that did not stop me from nearly dropping out. I had many difficult times and did some not so wonderful things. In fact, sophomore year I nearly dropped out of school altogether. But it was those very same mentors and my fraternity brothers who brought me back from the abyss and helped me address some very difficult questions and behaviors in my own life. Where the Israelites faced oppression from others, I had become my own worst enemy.

Not only did I almost not graduate, but I nearly failed to land any job whatsoever. But two of my mentors came to me and compelled me to begin my own journey into the promise land of higher education and student affairs.

In mid-April, I received the call from my soon to be boss. Would I like to be a consultant for the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity? Absolutely. I packed my station wagon, dropped off my goods in storage, and never looked back.

And here begins the story of how Passover truly relates to my future career as a student affairs professional.

I wholeheartedly accepted the offer. Though I was never enslaved nor did I spend forty years in the desert, I did undergo a radical transformation from who I was even in my undergraduate career.

Though the traditional story of Passover emphasizes the impeding attack by Egyptian soldiers (and the famous scene of Charlton Heston parting the red sea), some Hebraic scholars have emphasized that the rapid Israelite flight from Egypt was also in part a reaction to God’s perspective that they were nearly too awash in sins themselves to be worth the holy land. Therefore, some interpretations of the Talmud argue, the Israelites were also running from themselves.

It is the internal chaos and redemption interpretation that so resonates with me. I spent two years traveling to fifty two chapters. I have travelled as far to the North East as Binghamton and Oneonta, New York, I have traveled down the east coast through New Jersey and Washington DC, I have gone north to Minnesota/St Paul, and south to Louisiana State, University of Alabama and Georgia. I have also had my own homecoming of sorts by going west to the University of Arizona, through to UCLA in Los Angeles, and North again by way of the Pacific Coast Highway to the University of Washington.

And the entire time, I was learning to unlearn who I was and meet chapters where they were at while emphasizing what I thought were the essentials of fraternity management taught to me by experience and formal curriculum.

In the subsequent four years of my life (including my two with my fraternity and two as a graduate student), I have fallen in love, fallen out of love, fallen in and out of love all over again again, fought, made up, cried, laughed, reveled and felt utterly dejected, lost, found, inspired and confused.

I have had to re-learn many of the essential lessons from my undergraduate life at the same time that I accepted the awkward realization that I felt more at home in my car than I did anywhere else.

And therein brings me back to the story of Passover an why it has become so important to me as a student affairs professional.

Unlike the Israelites of old, there is no burning bush to compel a person to take up student affairs. There is only a process of self-discovery, self-care, guidance, mentorship, teaching, and learning that occurs that brings us to a field that is so instrumental in the development of others.

But as a student affairs professional, I had to travel through my own desert to find out how to be the best person and best professional I could be. I had to acknowledge my past sins, learn to get back on my feet, and learn to care for myself and others so I could make it through my struggles as a consultant and in graduate school.

So this year for Passover, I want to suggest some alternative meanings to the normal Seder plate for my fellow Jewish practitioners as well as anyone who cares to join us in the next week of retellings.

These suggestions are non-denominational, do not require a faith in God, nor are they meant to replace the meanings for those who are actively practicing.

The Stories Of Seder – Seder is a retelling of the exodus of the Israelites. As student affairs practitioners, we all have our own stories and perspectives on practice and theory. Embrace it. Accept your own exodus for good and bad and everything in between. It remains a cornerstone of who we are as practitioners in terms of how we approach conversations and what our strengths and weaknesses are.

Maror & Chazaret – Two bitter herbs symbolizing the harshness of slavery can now be embraced as the harshness that accompanies any major life change. Graduate school and professional life is tough, but by acknowledging the difficulties honestly, we can appreciate the joys of the job all the more.

Charoset – A sweet, apple/walnut combination that represented the mortar the Israelites used to build storehouses in Egypt can also represent the people we rely upon to help support our own efforts and the students who we work with, as well as the programs, theories, and resources we rely upon to help bring a cohesive, intentional, and transformational experience in many different ways in higher education.

Karpas – A bland vegetable, usually parsley, dipped in salt water to symbolize the tears of the Israelites as they fled slavery in Egypt. However, as any graduate student in higher education knows, this symbolism remains very appropriate. No transformation is easy. Student affairs is a field of long hours, busy schedules, low pay, and cyclical that requires us to repeat our efforts time and time again. Like my own story, entering the field can also have a personal cost as well. For my seder, I must come to embrace the tears as a part of my experience and recognize the stresses that have occurred in my life. Stoicism gets me only so far but crying is not a sign of weakness.

Beitzah - A hard boiled egg representing the sacrifices made in the first and second temples once the Israelites made it to the promised land. The egg in the Student Affairs Seder also represents a different type of sacrifice. For the long hours of work and the often times impromptu meals that professionals eat, it is a reflection upon the sacrifices and cycles of student affairs work.

Zeroa – A lamb or goat bone represents the sacrifices the Israelites made and the lamb blood put on the doors of Israelite families in Egypt to avoid having their first born killed during the plagues in Egypt. Though the Torah is often pretty bloodthirsty, I have definitely struggled with this portion of the Passover story. However, in the Student Affairs Seder, the Zeroa can indicate a need to ask for help. No one knows what is going on insider your head. In my life, I have often internalized my stress and sense of being overwhelmed which has led to outbursts that are neither productive nor healthy for me or others. This Passover, I will reflect upon the need to indicate when and how I need help so that I can be a better colleague, teacher, student, and person overall.

Finally, there is the Afikomen. In my last semester of graduate school, I am particularly struck by my scramble to obtain my degree, however the Afikomen can mean many things to many people. The Afikomen is originally split in half at the beginning of the Seder ceremony and reflects the fact that the Israelites did not have time to wait for bread to leaven while they fled Egypt. The first half of the matzo is passed around to be consumed during the opening prayers. The second half is saved for dessert and is pursued by the children. It is either consumed alone or with small parcels of other symbolic food to represent the sacrifices made in the first and second temples of Jerusalem so that the last taste in your mouth is that of the matzo that sustained the Israelites in the desert. While I took joy in pursuing it as a child, I now reflect on the humility that accompanies the plainness of the meal. While I thrive on positive affirmation, the Afikomen has for me become a symbol of my recognition that I do not do this work for personal or professional glory. I am a student affairs scholar and practitioner because I genuinely believe in the work that I do and my ability to effectively promote the best that college has to offer. Regardless of whether we are rewarded or not, student affairs is about working with and for others.

Last year, I explored Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur as a means of personal atonement and re-commitment to being better. In the intervening time period, I still struggled and felt increasingly isolated from friends, family, and ultimately my partner who whom I split. So this year, rather than let another holiday pass without mention, I wanted to take the time to seriously reflect upon my heritage and its role in my life.

I may not be lost in a desert, but my own personal exodus has played a significant role in who I am and what kind of a practitioner I want to be. Life is hard, but it does not have to be lived alone. Moreover, no one is ever truly alone it just takes a fine appreciation for what we do have a good amount of self-care and vulnerability to ask for the help that we all need.

To me, Seder is an excellent opportunity for all student affairs professionals (regardless of race, class, or creed)  to reflect on their personal journey and the network of people and places that helped us get to where we are at.

Seder is also an excellent holiday to remind us to be authentic with ourselves and others. There is no shame or weakness in seeking help when times are tough. But to ask for help, we need to know who we are and what we need.

I just want to conclude with one last parting thought – for all of the stresses, frustrations, and roadblocks, and struggles that exist in the world and in higher education, we should always take the time to appreciate the little things in life.

Now more than ever, we each need our own personal afikomen to scramble for.