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September 4, 2024

1 Elul 5784

GradHillel's August Shbarbecue on Kresge

Students hanging out at Hillel's annual Reg Day Ice Cream Chill

Shalom From MIT Hillel!

MIT Hillel Update

I always approach a new school year with anticipation – excitement for welcoming (back) students and designing new opportunities to engage Jewishly. I love the wonder and expectation that I see in the eyes of first-year students, as well as the maturity and growth evident on the faces of returning students. This year, as we do every year, MIT Hillel stands committed to creating Jewish community and connection, Jewish learning and growth, and Jewish practice.

We aim to bring together a diverse, pluralistic community that cultivates vibrant, resilient, and joyful Jewish life at MIT - for Jews of every denomination, every ethnicity, every nationality, every orientation.

We do our best for students when we lean into our strengths. MIT Hillel is about education: Jewish education, Israel education, drawing from our texts and our traditions. Whether in a Kol Yisrael class on Zionisms, a text study on ethics, or a Jewish Learning Fellowship cohort focused on Jewish approaches to social justice, we are committed to grounding ourselves in knowledge, stimulating critical thinking and creativity, embracing nuance and complexity, and fostering curiosity. We pursue a welcoming environment, where respectful dialogue and inclusion are the norm.

Hillel’s pluralistic approach to Judaism recognizes so much diversity within our rich tradition. An important pillar of the Hillel movement is to cultivate a meaningful, mature, and nuanced relationship and connection to Israel. For us, Zionism means an affirmation that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in our historic homeland where we have maintained a continued presence for thousands of years. We also affirm the democratic and humanistic values upon which the modern State of Israel was founded. We uphold the rights and humanity of other peoples and recognize the complexity and challenges that our homeland faces. As a key part of our work, we help students understand and develop their own relationship with Israel, as an important part of Judaism and their Jewish lives. We do not require any student who participates with Hillel to hold our same set of values; we welcome hard conversations and diverse opinions in good faith. 

We will not allow antisemitism – or responding to antisemitism – to be what defines Jewish life at MIT. Hillel’s work is to foster long-term Jewish identity and to inspire enduring commitments to Jewish life, learning, klal Yisrael/Jewish peoplehood, and Israel. A colleague of mine challenged this summer, can we – each of us, on and off campus – change how we respond to reports of antisemitism by asking, “What opportunities might this moment offer? How can I support Jewish students in their thirst to grow as Jews?”

We know that students can only learn, grow, and become their best selves when their basic needs are met. We will continue to work with campus and off-campus partners to ensure a safe and secure environment, where all students can thrive physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Especially in this time when increased antisemitism threatens to undermine Jewish and Israeli identity and heritage, we respond by instilling and promoting Jewish pride, and by promoting communal unity. We know and embrace the power of Jewish peoplehood. MIT Hillel will continue to forge partnerships with allies, including students, faculty, and the administration, in the fight against hate and for a positive campus climate. We are already seeing the fruits of this work. When, during Orientation, anti-Zionist groups promoted antisemitic websites, the Administration quickly and clearly responded.  

Just as we did all last year and during this Orientation Week, we remain steadfast in our commitment to support and advocate for students within the MIT community. We will be there for students when they need caring professionals and a caring community. We will educate the broader campus community about Jewish identity, the deep Jewish ties to Israel, and the roots of antisemitism. And we will ensure that students can attend classes and participate in campus life free from harassment, intimidation, and disruption of activities. 

My promise to our students and to our stakeholders is that -- despite the challenges we anticipate in the coming year -- Hillel will continue to lean into our mission to:

  • build authentic relationships and communities grounded in respect;
  • develop a passion for Jewish literacy, knowledge, and wisdom, in order that students may have nuanced and informed opinions on topics that affect Jews and the Jewish people; and
  • encourage students to explore and see the joy of different approaches to Jewish rituals and traditions, and inspire students to integrate Jewish practices into their lives.

Even before the school year unfolds, I say thank you to those who embrace and aspire to these same goals and values, and who assist us in this holy work. Together, we return to campus strong, grounded, and ready to rise to the coming year.

L’shana tova,

Rabbi Michelle H. Fisher SM '97 (V)

Executive Director

[email protected]

Mentshn of Mention

“Do Jews believe in Jesus?” Growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, it was quite common for me to receive questions about Judaism, Israel, Zionism, and even queries about my views on Jesus. I was on-and-off one of the only Jewish students at school and a part of one of the few Jewish families in my community. 

At the same time, my town was very welcoming to religious diversity. I would often be asked to present on Jewish culture customs, such as in middle and high school, when I would present for my Girl Scout troop on the practice of bar/bat mitzvahs. Similarly, many of my friends were very open to learning (and eating) different Jewish foods and customs that I would share with them at school. Matzah did not catch on as a trend, but everyone always loved the chocolate macaroons and latkes. After visiting the Yiddish Book Museum nearby my house for the first time in middle school, I remember quizzing my friends on Yiddish vocabulary, and we had a running tally on who had gotten the most correct. Do you know where a bagel came from? Have you heard of a mashugana? What’s a schmuck?

When I came to campus, I was thrilled to find such a vibrant Jewish community. There were so many activities and opportunities on a weekly basis that made regular participation very accessible. I began attending Shabbat dinners every Friday, participating in Kesher26 (Hillel’s cohort program for first-year undergrad students), and popping into various Jewish holiday events. Coming from a less religious background, I was also introduced to many aspects of Jewish tradition. Instead of being the one sought out to answer questions about Judaism, I was now the seeker.

MIT Hillel has also given me the opportunity to continue sharing Judaism with others. Most memorably, last year I hosted a Saturday morning “Bagel Breakfast” sponsored by Hillel, which brought together a group of students from all different religious backgrounds. Beyond the theme of bagels and lox, the event integrated the topics of “unplugging” for a couple of hours and meeting new people.

Being a part of MIT Hillel has allowed me to continue exploring my Jewish identity, ask questions, and connect with others. Hillel has become an important facet of my MIT experience, and I look forward to more events, questions, and connecting with the Jewish community.


Sophie Thompson '26

[email protected]

Torah From Tech

Philip Yecko was Course 8, SB '88 and Astronomy PhD '95 (Columbia) and is now Physics Department Chair at The Cooper Union in New York City.  Phil directs the complex fluids lab, teaches physics to engineers and sometimes artists, is married and has two children, both currently in college.




SO BIG IT MUST BE ZERO

My course Physics & Talmud explores talmudic sugyot (narratives), involving topics related to physics, studied by the rabbis in ways mirroring physics approaches. For example, the sages in the Talmud tractate Avoda Zara (72b) analyze a liquid stream (nitzok) for its ability to transport impurity, leading them to consider variations (perturbations) including more viscous liquids (e.g. honey) and liquids with immersed solids. I first learned perturbation approaches in Prof. Bertozzi’s 8.04-8.05 sequence, with its mathematics! Physics & Talmud avoids esoterics in favor of how we actually do physics – approximating, perturbing, posing thought experiments; in class we seek disputes involving acoustics, non-Newtonian fluids or surface tension, avoiding "spooky" quantum mechanical allusions or lofty cosmological ideas. Nevertheless, technology has given us ever-larger scales to struggle with, even cosmological. What does Torah teach us about that?

Rabbi Norman Lamm reacted to the now-iconic view of earth from the moon with a drasha/sermon on the dangers of this "Lunar Perspective,” while Carl Sagan later waxed poetic on how insignificant our affairs seem from “cosmic perspective” of the edge of the solar system. My young atheist self embraced this perspective, shrugging off the extreme limit, where an individual becomes nothing in an infinite cosmos – an outlook very much at odds with Torah; let’s look.

The Torah portion Shoftim (Deuteronomy 16:18-21:9) instructs tzedek, tzedek, tirdof, to pursue justice and to hear witnesses. When, in Mishna Sanhedrin, the 2nd-century rabbis take up the risks of false witnesses in capital cases, they teach: "anyone who saves one person, it is as if they saved an entire universe.” The joys and miseries of life, we all know, make the universe inside us dwarf the entire cosmos. Which is truly infinite - our selves or the universe? Hasidic rabbi Simcha Bunim famously told students to always carry two notes to consult as needed. On one is written “the universe was created for me” and on the other “I am but dust and ashes.” Reb Bunim’s advice enabled the older non-atheist me to hold both cosmic and Torah perspectives, but in a troubling, disconnected way. A resolution finally came, strangely, through Henri Poincare.

Poincare’s solution to the three body problem won a celebrated contest by showing that our solar system is stable. More importantly, his methods led to the field of dynamical systems, today applied to difficult nonlinear problems like epidemics and turbulence. Poincare-Lindstedt, specifically, is a perturbation method that produces “secular terms” that grow without bound, overpowering other terms. The crux of Poincare-Lindstedt is that it is davka by setting these unbounded terms to zero that we reach a solution. Take that, cosmic perspective! I embellish this when teaching: "Poincare said this term is so big it must be zero!” (he didn't as far as I know). It gets better: in asymptotic methods, another development of Poincare’s work, we "patch" together solutions that contradict one another in places, a kind of Bunim++. The extremely thin "boundary layer" of airflow around a wing, which determines its lift, is one example.

Finding meaning in integrating opposites is a Torah strength, like the union of the Jewish written and oral traditions (shebichtav and sheba'al peh) or study and practice (mens et manus!) or black fire and white fire. Torah absorbs complexity, expanding it in midrashic and talmudic teachings that sustain us, instructing us how to lead our best lives in the face of challenges that would reduce us to nothing. Look who thinks they're not nothing!


Philip Yecko SB '88, PhD '95

[email protected]

MIT Hillel's 2025 Annual Fund

To Our Current and Future Supporters,

Yesterday I voted in my state’s primary election. As a registered independent (called ‘Unenrolled’ in Massachusetts), I get to choose whether to take a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian ballot in the primary. This being Massachusetts, and further, among the bluest

towns in the state, the Republicans and Libertarians do not even have candidates for many seats, it’s mostly (Republican) and entirely (Libertarian) write-in space. And even the Democrats have most seats uncontested, with only one candidate presented for the party nomination for November. 

And yet, there was one local race that compelled me to go to the polls. And I went even though I thought that the person I wanted, the incumbent, would win the party nomination by a landslide. In other words, I didn’t think my vote would make a difference. 

But local, on the ground, day-to-day stuff matters. Higher government builds on it. Society builds on it. And in that race, I was compelled to contribute to the outcome. 

I’ve written this before, and especially in an election year, it bears repeating: philanthropy is a lot like voting! Both are about: 

  • Backing ideas you believe in
  • Supporting leaders who can and will do good things
  • Being part of something larger than you can achieve alone
  • Hope
  • Building / Being constructive

We start this new academic year with a fall semester that already has anti-Zionist and antisemitic campus activity. My goal is to once again demonstrate the strength of our campus community with as wide a “voter turnout” as possible for Hillel’s annual campaign. Whether you are inspired to give at Rosh Hashanah, Chanukah, MIT 24-Hour Challenge in March, or any other time that is meaningful to you, please be counted this year. 

You can further “strengthen your party” by making a multi-year annual pledge, endowing a fund for Hillel use, or making a planned gift as part of your estate. Last year members of our community did all of these, helping to secure MIT Hillel for the future as well. I am a resource to you for any type of campus giving.

L’shana tova – wishing you a sweet year ahead. May your votes and your philanthropic gifts make a difference and contribute to positive outcomes.

Marla Choslovsky SM '88 (XV)

MIT Hillel Director of Development

[email protected]

P.s. Practical reminder: if you are making a gift by securities transfer, please Please PLEASE let me know! This type of gift is often difficult to match to the donor, and I can best work with MIT’s Recording Secretary if you let me know what to look for. For all gift types, you can never go wrong by letting us know what to expect.

Your generous support allows us to help keep Jewish life vibrant on the MIT campus!

Hillel’s FY23 donor report.

(FY24 report coming soon)

Tamid Initiative - Planned Giving @ MIT Hillel

We invite alumni and friends who care deeply about Jewish life at MIT to consider joining the Institute's Katharine Dexter McCormick (1904) Society (KDMS) and be part of the Tamid Initiative by making a bequest to MIT, for the benefit of MIT Hillel. Your generosity will help MIT Hillel engage tomorrow's students, securing our Jewish future with confidence.

MIT and MIT Hillel are eager to help you meet your objectives. For more information, or to inform us that you have already planned such a gift, please contact MIT Hillel Director of Development, Marla Choslovsky, [email protected].

From the Archives!

Happy first day of classes! Isn't it funny that 22 years later, the first day of classes also falls on Wednesday, September 4? At least this year, the students have more time to get ready for the high holidays than they did in 2002...

Please let us know if you have any pictures from MIT Hillel events that you think would make a great addition to our archives!

On the Calendar

We're currently planning the Leading Jewish Minds schedule for this year, so stay tuned!

Recordings of past events can be found here - on the new alum community website!

Mazal Tov!

Mazal tov to Sammy Cherna '20 and Gav Mazurek on their marriage!

Mazal tov to Kayla Zlotnick '25 and Marcus Bluestone '26 on their marriage!

If you have life-cycle events (a marriage, receiving an award, writing a book, etc.) to share with the MIT Hillel community, please let us know.

MIT Hillel

40 Massachusetts Ave

Building W11

Cambridge, MA 02139

[email protected]