Three Young Jews on Discovering Their Jewish Purposes

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2021

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a previous podcast, the professors Benjamin and Jenna Storey explored a habit of mind that frustrated their very best students, a sentiment they called restlessness. As the Storeys saw it, their exceptional students had countless life and career options open to them, and yet they had so little cultural and vocational formation that they couldn’t discern what path to take, or the purposes to which they should dedicate their talents.

This week’s podcast features three young people who are beginning to rise in their professions with confidence. Smart, personable, they could have launched themselves into any number of fields. Instead they chose to dedicate themselves to serving America, the Jews, and Israel. Just a couple of years ago, Tamara Berens, Talia Katz, and Dovid Schwartz were all fellows at the Beren Summer Fellowship, an experience that helped guide each of them. On this week’s podcast, in conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, they give us an inside look at the fellowship, and at how it helped them clarify―to themselves and to one another―the Jewish purposes they're meant to serve.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Regular listeners to the Tikva podcast may recall a conversation that I had with the
0:13.0	professor's Ben and Jenna story earlier this year.
0:16.9	We spoke about a recent book they had written that explored a habit of mind that frustrated
0:22.0	their very best students, a sentiment they called restlessness.
0:27.2	The restlessness they saw, just to remind you of what we discussed, the restlessness
0:31.6	they saw was a consequence of the fact that their best and brightest students had so
0:36.5	many options in front of them,
0:38.4	and had so little cultural formation to help them discern the highest purposes to which they
0:44.5	should dedicate their lives. A very good student, at a very good college or university,
0:49.7	could pursue a half-dozen different professional paths, and never know which they're supposed
0:54.9	to do, and always wonder, having started to train as a lawyer or corporate executive or military
1:01.8	officer, whether instead they were supposed to be serving some other purpose. Thus, despite,
1:08.5	or better, because of their talents and potential, they were restless.
1:13.6	Well, this week, I speak to two young women and a young man who are the very sort of person
1:19.6	that the stories were thinking about.
1:21.6	Exceptional in intelligence, put together in their personality, people who could have
1:26.6	launched themselves into many different
1:28.6	professions, but instead chose to dedicate themselves to serving America, the Jews, Israel,
1:35.1	and the West.
1:36.6	Welcome to the Tikva podcast.
1:38.2	I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
1:40.1	The Tikva podcast is, of course, an initiative of the Tikva Fund, which sponsors all kinds
	...

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