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Sometimes when I meet people for the very first time, they just launch into everything they think is wrong with the Jewish Grad Organization (JGO) and how it could be better. Maybe they feel comfortable with a Rabbi? I’m pretty sure it’s a Jewish thing, although I’m not entirely sure.

Yesterday, something happened that got me thinking about that in a different way.

In JGO’s shared workspace in Manhattan, they were giving out free flowers and letting people put together their own bouquets. I only had a few minutes, but I went in and tried to make the best one I could with my very limited flower-arranging skills, picking carefully, rearranging things, and hoping it looked halfway decent.

Then I headed out for my fifteen-block walk in the cold, without gloves, while also carrying things home for Shabbat. At one point, the flowers slipped out of my hand and fell straight into gray, slushy snow. I picked them up, cleaned them off as best I could, and kept going. A few blocks later, a strong gust of wind blew part of the bouquet out of my hand, and I had to chase after it down the sidewalk before catching up to it. At another point, a random woman with no shoes in the middle of winter but carrying a dog the size of a horse, smiled at me and said, “Are those for me, sweetheart?” I smiled back and kept walking.

By the time I finally reached my destination, my hand was frozen and the flowers were bent, wet, and completely disheveled. They looked nothing like they had when I first put them together, but I had tried.

When I gave them to my wife, I smiled and said, “It’s the effort that counts.”

That stayed with me, because it felt like such an accurate description of our work at JGO.

There is no perfect Jewish nonprofit, and we certainly are not one. Things do not always go according to plan. Programs change, campuses shift, students’ needs evolve, and sometimes we have to adjust in real time. What we try to do, every single day, is show up for the Jewish community and give this work everything we have.

Our entire team works so hard to be there for Jewish grad students across the country, to build communities where students often feel isolated, to create spaces where they feel connected, supported, and proud of who they are, and to listen, respond, and care deeply about each individual student.

And it feels like that effort is being noticed.

Just two weeks ago, we had a Shabbat dinner here in New York City with over 200 grad students, and throughout the evening students kept coming over to me to say thank you for building Jewish community on their grad campus and for making this possible. They shared how much it meant to them to have a place where they felt welcome and connected.

It felt good! It’s not perfect, and nothing ever is. Including our relationship, friendships or anything. I’m an imperfect Valentine, and so is JGO :)

Happy Valentine’s Day and Shabbat Shalom,

Warmly,
Dave