Last Shabbat I spent at Camp Kalsman, the Jewish overnight camp run by the Reform movement up in Arlington, north of Seattle. Yohanna spends a week there each summer as a camp rabbi, and the boys and I joined her for three days. Ozi had just come home a few days before from spending 2 weeks there as a camper.

Jewish camping is such a wonderful experience. Right now our own TBH day camp is in the middle of its first week, and camp allows our kids and counselors to immerse themselves in a holistic Jewish environment in which everything is done in the context of Jewish community, tradition and learning. This is all the more so for overnight camp, in which everything--morning, noon and night is imbued with a Jewish spirit and connection.

Shabbat at camp is particularly special. Unlike our day to day lives when we may eat at home and join up at the synagogue, or spend Shabbat away from the community, at camp the entire camp community shares Shabbat together. At Kalsman everyone dresses in white. The senior staff and camp guests gather in the garden with the Torah, and a song leader with guitar begins to sing. We then all walk throughout the camp, stopping at each of the bunks, collecting all of the campers and counselors. By the time we arrived at the beit tfilah (our outdoor prayer space), the entire camp was joining together in song.

This was such a powerful experience. What was moving about it is that it highlighted for me the simple value of living in community. Here was one of the few times that the camp community, which is usually scattered all over the grounds doing different activities, or eating and sleeping by bunk, joins together as one--to sing in the sacred day of rest. It served as a reminder that living in community is a sacred value.

Living in community does not mean we all think the same way. As we sang in one voice it does not mean that we agree on everything. As we walked in the same direction it does not mean we share the same opinions. What it does mean is that those differences of thought, agreement and opinions are not enough to cause individuals to separate from the community nor cause division among groups. For there is a fundamental recognition and respect for the fact that we are one people, that we share a commonality of song and celebration, sacred time and sacred space. We share the same history and we share the same future.

We need to remember this as we address conflict in our own community. We as a Jewish community are not of one mind on every issue. ("Two Jews, three opinions" as the old joke goes...) But whatever disagreements we have should not be enough to divide us as a community. We need to remember the value of living in community so when we address difficult topics we do so with the commitment to maintain those bonds which bring us together.

It should not be the divisions that define us. For whatever happens, we need to sometimes put on white shirts and see how alike we are. That way we are reminded why community is so important. Living in community is messy. Living with diversity is messy. But they are both extremely rewarding, for it is through diverse community that we are able to grow as individuals and community members. Issues will come and go. Conflicts will arise and be dealt with. What is most important is that we are able to look around, see our friends and neighbors, and walk forward singing together.

  [And join us next week for our own Camp Shabbat--Friday August 20 at 7:30--as the TBH day camp Ruach Shoveva wraps up another great summer!]  

Rabbi Seth Goldstein

The other day, as I was at the protest at the Olympia Food Co-op, I was having a conversation with a board member. After explaining my grievances and what the grievances were of others who did not support the boycott, she asked me simply what I wanted to come out of this. In other words, she was asking what the next steps should be. I gave my answer, pointing out some concrete actions I felt the board could take to remedy the situation. But as I moved away from that conversation into the rest of the week, I thought more about how that question was originally framed-what do I want to come out of this? And as we draw closer and closer to the High Holiday season, I realized what I want to come out of this is teshuvah.

Teshuvah is the theme of the High Holiday season, that time when we begin a new year, a new cycle of life, and we are given a new opportunity to look backward and ahead. The spiritual work that we engage in is, in Hebrew, called teshuvah. Teshuvah is commonly translated as "repentance," but that translation is inadequate. Repentance is commonly defined as sorrow or regret over past action. In this sense, repentance is a feeling, an emotion, something that addresses past missteps, but goes no further than the ones internal sense of wrongdoing.

Teshuvah on the other hand, is more than feeling. It is action. Indeed, the Hebrew meaning at the root of the word teshuvah relates to "turning" or "returning." In this sense, teshuvah is not just feeling remorseful, but acting remorseful, and acting remorseful means taking on a commitment to not just acknowledge the brokenness, but to fix what is broken. Teshuvah is to make amends.

How do we do teshuvah? Jewish tradition has taught us steps that we can take in order to affect this positive change in our lives. We first need to acknowledge for ourselves where we have done wrong, and how our actions have affected others and feel a true sense of regret for the hurt we have caused. Then, beyond acknowledgement, we need to admit that these actions were wrong, openly and honestly, with those we have wronged. We need to apologize and express our regret for our actions. We then need to act to make amends, investing our time and energy doing what we can and taking whatever action needed with those we have wronged to bring them to healing and wholeness. We then look towards the future, for as the medieval scholar Maimonides teaches, true repentance will come when we are faced with the same situation and we make different choices. As we engage in teshuvah we work to change the conditions that led to our original transgression so we will not make the same mistakes again.

This is (as maybe you guessed by now) bigger than just the Co-op. This is the work which we all engage in at this time. The difficult, humbling, and yet so very necessary work. It is the work that must be undertaken by individuals, by organizations, by communities, and by nations in order to move forward to a place of wholeness.

This week we usher in Rosh Chodesh Elul, the new month of Elul, which is the month immediately preceding Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. As Elul comes in, we begin to focus more and more on teshuvah. As we draw closer and closer to the New Year that spiritual energy becomes more and more potent. Just as, say, for my kids their excitement builds as the plane gets closer and closer to New York, knowing that my parents are waiting there for them, so too does our teshuvah intensity build as we know the New Year is on the horizon.

And while it is difficult and personally challenging, teshuvah is a gift. The ability to make amends, to heal what is broken, is powerful. For we know we can change, we are not shackled to our past ways and that something good can come out of conflict. As Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz writes, "Whenever you turn your attention to an individual's life, to the history of a people or a religion, do not content yourself with asking forgiveness for the evil you may have done. This is not repentance; this is not what is required of you. Instead, you should regard the faults as something constructive, like the beginning of a new and beautiful story."

As we move into Elul, I wish you strength in writing the next chapter in your story, and I pray for the healing and renewed bonds that will come in the next chapter of our communal story.

First, thank you to all of your responses to my post last week about the boycott. I appreciated you sharing with me your thoughts, feelings, reflections, critiques and suggestions. Every response is an opportunity for me to listen, learn and grow and I value the time people have taken reading my words each week and reflecting and responding. [To think I only started "Weekly Words" two months ago!-and that is one source of critique...people don't like the name. So if you have suggestions for names for my weekly email, please let me know. But I digress....] 

This past weekend, Yohanna, Erez, Alice (Yohanna's mom) and I took a short jaunt down to Eugene for a visit. Yohanna is from there, so we visited some friends, saw some familiar sights and took some time out to relax. (Ozi is enjoying his two weeks at Jewish overnight camp). It was a good trip, nice to get away and we spent a lot of time walking, visiting parks, etc. But what overshadowed the trip for me somewhat was an overwhelming sense of sadness.

There have been many emotions swirling around these past two weeks as we have learned about the Co-op decision. I have heard many expressions of a range of emotions in the TBH community. But for me it comes down to sadness.

Sadness because of the hurt brought into our community over this issue. Hurt because I see people losing faith in an institution which for them at one time embodied the pinnacle of community engagement and process. Hurt because I see people feel betrayed, watching their elected representatives act in a way that was contrary to their mission and duty. Hurt because a local grassroots institution is becoming a battleground for national and international forces from outside our community. Hurt because of the extreme political stance the Co-op has taken. And hurt because the actions of the board are resulting in the end of friendships and associations that go back decades. Sadness and hurt.

Political differences exist, they always do. That is how we move forward as a society. But how those differences are handled is what is most important. It is about context and tone. Some are asking, Is the Co-op the appropriate context to bring the Israel/Palestine conflict? And did the board neglect its duty by not addressing this question fully and considering the impact on the local community in their decision making process? Thinking about this clash of context and how it was handled (or not handled) saddens me.

But what saddens me more than anything else is the divisiveness which has entered our community and which may linger for some time. And that has to do less with context than with tone. How this Co-op conflict is being talked about is troubling, for already inflammatory statements are being made: If you don't support the boycott you don't love the Co-op. If you don't support the boycott you are a racist. If you don't support the boycott you are at best indifferent to the sufferings of Palestinians or at worst in favor of human rights abuses. This is hurtful posturing, creating accusations meant to divide sides and bring people down and put them on the defensive. [It also assumes opposition to a tactic implies opposition to the goals of that tactic, which is a false leap to make. Some of my colleagues refuse to sign civil wedding licenses for straight couples to demonstrate support for gay marriage. While I choose not to follow suit, my support for marriage equality is just as strong as theirs.]

This charged rhetoric leads to another source of sadness for me personally...I feel the ground has been pulled out from under me. I am not in the "Israel right or wrong" camp and I am not in the BDS camp. I oppose boycott while at the same time I oppose occupation. But as we know, in a polarized environment, there is no middle ground. And the most extreme arguments are taken by each side to be the normative for the other, and the voices of reason, compromise and mutual understanding are lost.

I turn, as I often do, to poetry. So I offer this poem by the Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai:

The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

--Yehuda Amichai

First, I would like to apologize for getting my "Weekly Words" out to you a bit later than I like. I aim for 2 p.m. on Thursday, enough time to get it and digest it before Shabbat, as well as to let you know the Shabbat times. This week has been a bit out of the ordinary because the news which has come out these past few days.

If you haven't heard by now, the board of the Olympia Food Co-op has decided to boycott Israeli products in its stores. While the exact nature of how the decision was made is still a bit unclear, what is clear is that the board made this decision without soliciting input from the membership, without having an open dialogue that would seem to be in keeping with the principles of a cooperative organization, without giving the opportunity for those who oppose a boycott to express their views.

This decision by the board has led to a range of emotions among members of the congregation and community with whom I have had contact: anger at the board of an organization that appears to have acted rashly and without deliberation; vulnerable, isolated and exposed as a Jewish person in the community; upset at the decision and its characterization of Israel and the situation in the Middle East; concern that an important communal institution has taken action which is polarizing and divisive among Olympia residents (and even within the greater Jewish community).

All of these feelings are real and we need to acknowledge them. For those of us in the Jewish community, discussions about Israel are not objective. We have deep connections to Israel, either directly or indirectly. Israel is a large part of the worldwide Jewish people of which we are a part. When Israel is discussed in our home community, we have strong feelings.

[And this is not limited to issues regarding the Palestinians. There are many issues in Israel today which we as American Jews should be concerned about. Recently, the leader of Women at the Wall, a women's prayer group at the Western Wall, was arrested for carrying a Torah scroll. Also, a bill moving through the Knesset would have placed authority over conversion in the hands of the ultra-Orthodox, delegitimizing other streams of Judaism. As liberal Diaspora Jews, this should be of concern.]

Israel is a complex place, and our connection to it leads to complex emotions. What I am sure we all share, though, is a commitment to peace and justice, and the desire for Israelis and Palestinians to peacefully coexist. We hope that despite the obstacles and those who would seek to destroy, Israel and Palestine could be built up. We hope that rather than move backwards toward the past, the two peoples can move forward to a bright future.

The issue, then, is tactics. I personally do not support boycotts. I feel they are counterproductive to the attainment of peace. Rather than divest, we need to invest in peace. Boycotts dehumanize by devaluing and punishing people. In order to move forward towards peace we need to reach out with compassion and recognize the humanity of all. In my opinion we need to facilitate working together, rather than pitting one side against the other, bringing one side down while trying to raise up the other. [There is an additional problem in my opinion with the Co-op boycott--I feel that the language of the boycott goals are too extreme, and point to the denial of Israel's right to exist.]

I also was unhappy with the process. At TBH we are committed to making our communal decisions in a democratic fashion, mindful of when the board can make a decision on its own and when it needs to consult the entire membership. In this case, I felt the board of the Co-op did not recognize that this issue rose to the level of needing membership input. In that, the decision was undemocratic. For the Co-op, as with TBH, what should be valued is a free exchange of ideas where multiple voices can be heard, issues debated, opposing viewpoints heard and considered. This is what adds depth and legitimacy to decisions, and vibrancy to community.

This issue is ongoing. We may have many questions surrounding this decision: how was the decision made? Why was Israel singled out for boycott? What are the criteria used to decide on a boycott? And so on. And you may have your own opinions. My opinions I expressed to you above. I also shared them with the Co-op Board. This is one avenue for you to take action, and I encourage you to do so. If you are a Co-op member (or even if you are not, as you are a potential Co-op member), you can express your opinions at

The Co-op has also scheduled a forum to discuss the boycott on Wednesday, August 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the Olympia Center, another opportunity to voice your opinion. Others I know have chosen to express their opinion in other ways, by choosing not to shop at the Co-op or by resigning their membership altogether (note that if you resign your membership, you lose your vote--my family has decided to suspend shopping there, but retain our membership for now). Grassroots protests and petitions are showing up at the stores. And some folks are organizing a Jewish community dialogue on Sunday, August 1 for people to share their diverse feelings (details to follow). My hope is that moving forward we are able to engage in civil dialogue, free from extreme language, characterizations and accusations.

There are many things I value about our Jewish community here in Olympia. I value the fact that we come from diverse opinions and backgrounds. I value the fact that we have deep connections with the greater Olympia community and its institutions. I value the fact that even in our small corner of the world we have a connection to the worldwide Jewish community. And I value the fact that we can feel confident in our voice when we feel an injustice has been done. Use it.

And as more information becomes available to me, I will share it with you.   

Rabbi Seth Goldstein

Last week, as I was leaving the Yankees-Mariners game at Safeco Field, the guy next to me said, "So are you a real Yankees fan?" I assume he said this not only because I was wearing my Yankees hat and cheering for them, but because I was not the only one. There were quite a number of people decked out in Yankee regalia and rooting for the visiting team. This guy was curious-am I just a fair weather fan latching on to the best team in baseball, or does my loyalty run deeper than that?

I answered that yes, I am a real Yankees fan. I am from New York for one, but also I grew up with the team, fandom being passed down to me from my father and grandfather as so many other traditions were. Since moving to Olympia, I see the connection to the Yankees as being a liability at times, but the connection for me is beyond World Series rings.

During these past two weeks I was able to see the Yankees and Mariners play twice, first in the Bronx and then in Seattle. The Yanks won both, thanks to A-Rod both times. But these past two weeks the Yankees suffered a series of losses beyond the baseball diamond. The first loss which became palpable to me was that of the old Yankee Stadium. Walking from the train to the ballpark, I walked across an overpass which overlooks the sight of the old stadium, currently a hole in the ground. Work will begin soon to create a park there, but currently what is left is just a footprint of what was.

The other two losses were people. First Bob Sheppard, the longtime Yankee PA announcer died. Sheppard had retired a few years ago (in his 90s!) and so his voice already was a memory. Many people in remembrance have commented on his elegant diction, lending an air of dignity to the proceedings on the field. He was dubbed by some the "Voice of God," and if you heard it you could understand why. The other loss a few days later was George Steinbrenner, the notorious owner of the Yankees who took advantage of the free agent system to build a new powerhouse team, but who was also known for being controlling and dictatorial-hiring and firing managers, buying marquee players and forcing haircuts and such.

All three of these losses, to me, are linked. While the new stadium is Steinbrenner's legacy, after pushing the powers-that-be to get it, by the time it was build his heyday was over and he was rarely in the new ballpark. And Bob Sheppard's voice does not ring out from the new stadium, but echoed only from the old.

In remembering and mourning these losses, I recognize that for me, this is in part nostalgia. My youth was spent going to the old stadium, hearing Bob Sheppard's voice and reading about Steinbrenner's exploits. All these are now passed. With nostalgia there is a longing for the past and a sense of loss that it is not there anymore. At the same time, however, we need to recognize that the past is the past, we can not go back and that the best it serves is as a prelude and foundation for the future.

Next week, on Tuesday, is the Jewish observance of Tisha B'Av. (We will hold a reflective service on Monday at 7:00 p.m.) Tisha B'Av (literally, the "ninth of [the month of] Av") is a day set aside to recall the destruction of the ancient Temples in Jerusalem. In antiquity, the Jewish religion and community was focused around two Temples in Jerusalem, the first destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the second by the Romans in 72 CE. As the central Jewish institutions, their loss was devastating. Within Jewish tradition these remain major tragedies, and Tisha B'Av is a day of mourning and fasting.

What do we do when we observe Tisha B'Av? On the one hand, it's a longing for the past. In the Jewish religious imagination the Temple was the physical site where the community and God had their closest contact and channel of communication. The loss of the Temple signifies this loss of deep connection.

On the other, it's a lament of moral and ethical decline. The rabbis in the Talmud provide various teachings on what brought about the destruction of the Temple, and more often than not it is about ethical lapses in the community. The breakdown of civil society led to the breakdown in civil institutions.

Both of these are correct, and reasons to mark Tisha B'Av. But in marking Tisha B'Av we do not just remember what was, but we look forward to what could be. When we think about the destruction of the Temple we do not hope to go back, or rebuild the Temple (though some do), for it was out of the ashes of the Temple that the form of Judaism that we know now was born. (Which is why many synagogues, including our own, are called "temples.") Rather it is the idea of the Temple we hold on to It is the idea of deep spiritual connection and the idea of harmonious, civil and ethical society that we recall. We look to the past, not to hope to return, but to inform our future.

For this Yankee fan, the old stadium, Bob Sheppard and George Steinbrenner are all gone. There is no going back to the baseball enjoyed in my youth. But I can look forward and take those memories and connections and use them to build joy in baseball for my sons, with new opportunities and new experiences. The past then becomes not about what was lost but about what could be gained. As the great Yankee catcher and philosopher Yogi Berra said, "the future ain't what it used to be."

  Rabbi Seth Goldstein

During my time off I went back east, spending a lot of time with family. We had a family simcha first, Yohanna's sister got married, then I was able to spend the week doing nothing, visiting family and friends in New York. My boys were at "Grandma and Grandpa Camp," and I also got to spend time with my sister and her new baby. I could have done without the record 100 degree temperatures, though.

I was back east over the July 4th holiday. We caught the fireworks on TV, but I did get the opportunity to take in my favorite observance: reading the Declaration of Independence. On July 4 every year, The New York Times takes a full page and prints a replica of the Declaration of Independence. (I say replica because they don't just print the words, they print a copy of the original document.)

Over this past holiday weekend I read a commentary that noted the American date of Independence is powerful in that it doesn't mark a battle, or the beginning of a war. The date marks the anniversary of the promulgation of an idea, of a text. Central to our identity as Americans is this document, which spells out the values which form the core of our communal consciousness. The words are stirring: "When in the course of human events..." "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." And my favorite, the closing words: "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

I love these closing words because of the heart of this phrase: "mutually pledge." These words are key to understanding community, the social contracts into which we enter. We willfully and voluntarily join with others in order to transcend ourselves to attain something greater than ourselves. We know this on some level-we can not do it alone. But how often do we declare it?

The Declaration of Independence is part of our civil sacred literature. It is meant to be read and re-read. Within our Jewish tradition and practice, our sacred text the Torah is not merely found in books. It is read aloud each week (traditionally 4 times per week), and the entire Torah is read aloud over the course of the year. And not only is it read, it is studied, analyzed, debated. This is how it should be, just as our civil sacred text needs to be studied, analyzed, debated. What does "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" mean? How do we apply these centuries-old words to our contemporary society? These are our questions.

But we have to start at the reading. The Declaration presents us with an ideal towards which we strive, not a description of reality. If we were solely looking for the latter we would have given up long ago. The same is true for the Torah. Those who say it is irrelevant because it doesn't reflect reality is missing the point. Both of these texts are meant to challenge us to become our best selves, to build our best community. We need to continue to engage with those words in order to be spurred on by that challenge. And we start by simply reading them with an open heart. That truth is self evident.

"What? You said last week that there will be no Weekly Words since you will be out of the office." That is true, but thanks to the magic of the internet, where I can write an e-mail then delay its distribution, there is a version of Weekly Words, albeit shorter.

For this week, a poem. As you may know, I read poetry at every service. There is a fine line between poetry and prayer in my mind, and reading a weekly poetic kavannah (intention) serves as a prayer, or a teaching, or a meditation, or a reflection on the season or events of the day-depending on the week and the poem. No commentary necessary.

So as we have just begun summer, having passed the solstice last week, here is one of my favorite poems about summer-and life-from Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day
 
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down,
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Has this happened to you-you schedule something far in advance thinking the date would be fine, no problem, only to realize as the day draws near that it was one of the worst possible times you could schedule? That happens to me sometimes, something looks great on the calendar months before but as the day draws near I realize that it is a day off from school, or I'm going away and need to prepare, or something else.

It happened to me today, as I had blood donation on the calendar. (It's usually not synagogue things that I mix up in the calendar, but the other life things that seem to get in the way.) I've tried to get in the blood donation habit since we started to have an annual blood mobile here at TBH and I gave blood for the first time. (Thanks, Bernie Friedman). But I would schedule, then reschedule, and put it off. Most recently I put it off because I was being considered for a bone marrow transplant. Since we had the bone marrow registry drive a few years ago (Thanks, Mike Paros) I have been in the registry. I was told I was an initial match, but it didn't work out. During that time the blood bank told me to hold off. Today worked on the calendar, but as the day drew near I realized it was right before I was going to be out of the office. Again, not the best time, but I went.

Blood factors a lot in the sacred text of our Torah. Animal sacrifices have their blood sprinkled on the ancient altar. Blood makes a person impure. We are told not to eat blood when we prepare an animal for food. This is all because blood is the life force, in the Torah imagination, and it carries a tremendous amount of power.

It is true medically we know now. Blood carries oxygen to the cells, chemical messages to the glands, cells to fight infections and waste out of the body. Blood tells a lot about us, so many tests about what is happening in our bodies are done through blood. Ozi lost a tooth recently and there was blood, and it generated a discussion as to how much blood a person could lose before they are in trouble.

What power, then, in the ability to give blood. To share this life force with another person who would need it. I thought about this lying there on that bench with the tube coming out of my arm. The greatest gift that we have to give to others is ourselves. Maybe it is a physical part of ourselves-blood, or more, through organ donations-but it can also be another emotional, spiritual part of ourselves: our love, or a sympathetic ear, or a hug, or a high five. We can give our opinion, our advice, our empathy, our friendship, or a conversation. Ourselves, our lives, are the most precious things to us, thus they are the most dear to give. What part of yourself will you gift someone with today? To give of yourself is something we will always have time for.

This is the season of graduation, and often times the charge to the graduates echo the same theme: your time of study is now over, your time of doing has now begun. This, of course, is only partly true. We are always doing and we are always studying. Judaism teaches this.

In Pirke Avot, literally "chapters of our ancestors"-an ancient collection of ethical teachings, we are taught im ein kemach ein Torah, im ein Torah ein kemach "If there is no flour, there is no torah, and if there is no Torah, there is no flour." On a basic level, this is teaching a fundamental principle of the spiritual life. That we can not have the spiritual life (Torah) without our mundane life, our working life, our physical life (flour). Each support each other. Thus we should not be so focused on our daily life that we have no time for the spiritual, and we should not give up our day-to-day in search of spiritual fulfillment.

In this teaching, Torah and flour are equated. So we can find other wisdom in this, especially in light of the graduation season. If Torah and flour are equated, then how is Torah like flour? And Torah we can understand here in its literal sense-teaching, study, learning. We can not eat flour by itself, it won't taste very good. We need to use it to make something, simply just water to make matzo, or more elaborate ingredients to make cakes and breads. So too study requires other "ingredients" to make it something. Spiritual text and wisdom is not enough, we need to add to it things like experience, community, experimentation, dialogue in order to make Torah palatable. And with flour, the baking is a process of adding ingredients, letting dough rise, adding heat, etc. so that it takes some time before we see the results of our baking. So too with study. It may be some time before the results of your learning become clear to you.

If you are graduating this season, mazel tov! If not, take the opportunity to think about a bit of wisdom you acquired in the past that came to serve you later in life, especially if you did not understand the full impact of the teaching at the moment you learned it. Share that teaching with someone else. Our learning is like flour-waiting to be added to, kneaded, baked in order to be served to us at a later date.  

Rabbi Seth Goldstein