Nathan Denicoff's Valedictorian Speech

“Aseh Licha rav uknei licha chaver” – make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend. This saying from pirkei avot, the ethics of our fathers, is what comes to mind when reflecting over our collective experience at this school, at this community. Our high school of 172 and graduating class of 32 certainly isn’t among the largest in the state, but it is one of the more close-nit. All of us have made friends over the years and developed relationships with teachers. We have learned so much from each other, the friends becoming teachers. The teachers, becoming friends, well, less so when they give us a lot of homework, but people we can talk to outside of class, who invite us over for Shabbat, who care for much more than our academic success, role models.

As we depart from this school, we will not only walk away with knowledge, skills, and values, but with friends and the shared experience of living in this school community.

               The Hebrew Academy is where many of us grew up, from as young as three-year old nursery. In high school, each of us found his or her own passion, some on the basketball courts, others in courts of law on the mock trial team, some in theater, others in girls’ choir, and others even in boys’ choir. We chose from electives, some excelling in art, ceramics, photography, or pursuing courses such as Arabic, Psychology, and Economics.

               Each classmate an individual, with his or her own interests and strengths, but coalescing as a class and making connections in other grades on school events such as Kickoff, Shabbaton, Battle of the Grades, which we definitely should have won this year, and of course on the Mission, the highlight of our journey through the Berman Hebrew Academy.

It’s been a childhood of both general and Jewish education. Many of us have a strong sense of patriotism, not just for America, but for Israel as well. This is a school that tries to balance two cultures, two countries. We took trips to Constitution Hall, Gettysburg, and the Smithsonian. We saw plays, some involving English literature, some Jewish literature. And we were also fortunate to experience Israel first-hand on the Mission this year.

 The following words, spoken by Binyamin Netanyahu at the last AIPAC conference, capture an aspect of the integration of the Judaic and secular, the Israeli and American, which the school strives to accomplish:

I read Jefferson's timeless words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." I read Lincoln's immortal address, "government of the people, for the people, by the people." Now, let me tell you why these words resonate so powerfully with me and with all Israelis – and I would add with students in this school - because they're rooted in ideas first championed by our people, the Jewish people, the idea that all men are created in God's image, that no ruler is above the law, that everyone is entitled to justice. These are revolutionary Jewish ideas, and they were spoken thousands of years ago.

As we leave this school, we depart with the ability to solve equations, write essays, learn a page of Talmud or Bible, but we also leave with a set of values instilled in us in both Judaic and secular classes. We read Jefferson, Rousseau, Harry Potter, but we also studied the Bible, where many of these values are rooted.

In Hebrew:

Israelis– I hope I got your attention by mentioning the Israeli Prime Minister.

 The Torah Mitzion Kollel, our own Israeli embassy, was crucial at the beginning and at the end of my time at this school. In kindergarten, Rav Guy’s parshat hashavua opened me up to a world of Torah learning, and the past two years in the Kollel shiur have helped me gain the skills to continue learning Torah. Many of us have become close with the kollel bachurim and the bnot sheirut over the years and have benefitted from their service to Israel and to the school. Also, thank you to all the Hebrew teachers – it was not easy, but the hard work paid off. 

In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Tarfon states: It is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it. Students – do not take this to mean you don’t have to complete the task of homework. The teachers and administrators here would not be too pleased if I left you with that message. It is the task of learning, however, both Judaic and secular, that never ends.  Graduation is only the beginning. Wherever life takes us, we will continue to build on the foundation laid at this school.