Stories from Hillel Professionals: The Blessing of Working at Hillel
This piece was originally part of a storytelling session at 糖心vlogl’s New Professionals Institute. There, four Hillel professionals from across the country told their stories about what brought them to Hillel and how it impacts their lives.
My name is Rabbi Rob Gleisser, and I am the senior Jewish educator at Penn State Hillel. I became a rabbi because someone at Hillel believed I could be one before I believed it myself.
When I was a student at Ohio State, our then Senior Jewish Educator Rabbi Ben Berger treated me like a Jewish leader from day one. He never told me I should become a rabbi. He simply treated me like someone who already had something to offer. That kind of belief changed me.
Around the same time, I was learning about engagement and community from then OSU Hillel Assistant Director Susannah Sagan. Seeing the power of those relationships and the ripple effects they could have 鈥 that鈥檚 what brought me to Hillel.
I’ve always believed the most powerful force for change in the world is an individual with a deep sense of who they are and the confidence to embrace it. That’s what Jewish education is about for me.
I want every student to be able to say, proudly, 鈥淚’m a Jewish person moving through the world.鈥 I want to empower them to ask 鈥淲hat does that mean for me?鈥, 鈥淲hat does it mean to encounter the world with my own unique Jewish perspective?鈥 That’s the beginning of a lifelong conversation, and it’s what I hope to explore with them.
A few years ago, I was teaching a class about metaphors for God. One metaphor was a cloud 鈥 a phenomenon that you can see, but can鈥檛 touch. Something you can walk through, but still have space around you. And as part of the class, we went outside to look for clouds.
There weren’t any.
But there was a full moon.
We stood there looking up, and something shifted. We weren’t just looking at the moon anymore. We were Jewish people standing together in time and in space all beneath the same sky, and somehow that ordinary moment became sacred. Because of the community we had built in that classroom, and because of the people in that community, moongazing became a way to remind ourselves of our Jewishness.
Weeks later, students started texting each other pictures of the moon. Not because anyone asked them to. Just because every time they saw it, they remembered that night and each other, and their connection to their Jewish identities
Even now, when I look at the moon, I don’t just see the moon. I think about the student who sent the first picture and the ones who were brave enough to respond with care and kindness and pictures of their own.
And that鈥檚 the blessing of this work.
Relationship-building and Jewish education aren’t separate things. They’re the same thing.
If I had to sum up my work in one thought , it’s this: we have the opportunity each day to tell students how much we care about them, and a student who feels cared for and loved is capable of bringing care and love into the world. Our work is to love our students, and their work is to change the world.
There are no shortcuts. It takes time. But it’s the most joyful and meaningful work I know.
My advice to all of you is simple: to achieve great impact, impact great people. Show love to the student in front of you, and the ripple will travel farther than you’ll ever see.