At a leadership conference last week, much was made of the importance in Judaism of marking the passage of time, such as through the mitzvah of marking each new moon (rosh chodesh, or new month of the lunar calendar). It made me think of the excellent new tradition at OJCS of the regular Rosh Chodesh assemblies, where the whole school comes together to celebrate the new month and talk about one of the 7 Habits of Kindness. It also brought to the forefront of my mind that while here in Ottawa we’re dealing with deep freezes, the “polar vortex”, snow squalls, and icy roads, on the Jewish calendar we are well into the month of Shevat, which is a time of natural rebirth, sowing seeds, and blossoming trees. The seeds that are being sowed in the OJCS students through their monthly assembly discussions are sure to pay dividends in generations to come, as these students become leaders in our community; as our faculty and administration show foresight in sowing these seeds in our students, so too do we as a Board have an obligation to sow seeds of future sustainability and success of our school for generations to come.
Not only are we in the month of Shevat, but this week is the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat, “the new year of trees”. This is an oft-ignored-in-the-diaspora but beautiful holiday celebrating our natural world, and specifically trees. Trees provide beauty, shade from the sun, shelter for many, and, perhaps most importantly for our species, filter the air for us and provide oxygen. In short, they’re essential to our lives on earth. There are some who believe the ‘tree’ we see above ground — its trunk, branches, leaves and flowers or fruit — has an equal counterpart below ground that sustains its life (in other words, that the root system of the tree has a similar central ‘trunk’ with branches and smaller offshoots that gather and transport essential nutrients and water to the tree, and that the tree above ground is more or less a mirror-image of the one below). I love this analogy and love to extend it further to all living beings, and even to organizations. The life we live is like the tree we see, and our ancestry, upbringing, cultural history, and environment form the essential ‘mirror’ root system below the surface, sustaining us and allowing us to blossom, or bear fruit, or simply provide beauty/shade for the world around us. Similarly, within an organization, there is the tangible, visible work done day-to-day, but equally important are the sustaining ‘roots’, made up of the history of the organization, behind-the-scenes work, and, in our case, a dedicated cadre of volunteers steering/sustaining the whole. We cannot forget the vital role that parents and families of students play in the ‘root’ system, either — through their support of the school and its students, as well as each family’s backgrounds and home culture, the families of our students truly provide vital ‘nutrients’ that help sustain and support our school and its success.
Our Board of Directors obviously needs to be the ‘trunk’ of this nourishing root system, bringing together all the sustaining ‘nutrients’ and providing the true anchor for the sustainability of the whole. Looking at the tree as a mirror image of the root system, then, it naturally follows that our Board must also truly adopt some or all of the ‘Seven habits of Kindness’ and this is something I hope to discuss soon, although some, such as ‘Think Win-win’, or ‘Be Proactive’ have already been adopted into Board culture.