The  end  of every HaZamir season is bittersweet for those of us working with high school teens.  After 4 years of teaching, nurturing and connecting, we say goodbye to those seniors who have finally mastered all that we've offered them. We know them well and have created strong relationships with them. Now, we send them off with a tool kit of information, a roster of national and international friends and skills that we've provided. As they enter an ever wider world, these teens will most likely have to learn to re-navigate their way. This scenario will be very familiar to every parent, high school teacher or youth movement leader who works with high school teens.

 

So do we mourn or do we rejoice? Surely we are sad to say goodbye to our HaZamir seniors, but we are so very proud and feel privileged to have interacted with and learned from these exceptional young people.  

 

 

So like a parent who sends his child off to college or a gap year, we also want out HaZamir graduates to find their own voices and soar. But, like all parents, we hope our graduates will come back to share their successes with us, offer their newfound skills to our tool box and most important, help shape our world with the values and principles that guided them during their years in HaZamir.

 

To all our graduates:  We are so proud of you. You pioneered a frontier that is unknown to most Jewish teens. You raised your own bar and you did this with devotion and joy.

 

May your voices remain raised!