September 30, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 2023, award-winning author Dara Horn delivered one of West Point’s most powerful graduation speeches to a group of Jewish cadets. Her remarks explored what it means to live with conviction, to embrace being “uncomfortable and uncool,” and to hold fast to identity in the face of pressure. More than just a graduation address, it joined the long tradition of great West Point speeches while standing apart for its honesty and courage. Here's Dana with the story of that speech.
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
This is Lee Habee with our American Stories, the show
where America is the star and the American people. Up next,
you're going to hear from Darah Horn. She gave a
commencement speech to the West Point graduates who happen to
be Jewish in twenty twenty three, and I came across
(00:32):
this from a friend and the story came to life.
Here's Darron, who she is and how she came to
write this speech.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
My name is Darah Horn, and I'm a writer. I've
published six books. My first five books were novels that
all deal very deeply with Jewish history, culture, belief texts,
but incorporate those sort of ancient stories into modern contexts.
And my most recent book is a nonfiction book with
(01:03):
the rather provocative title People Love Dead Jews. It's a
collection of essays about the role that Jews play in
a non Jewish society. And I also have a spinoff
podcast from this book called Adventures with Dead Jews that
tells a bunch of stories that aren't in the book
because it's a bottomless topic, the role that Jews play
(01:25):
in a non Jewish society, and so, and you know,
I tend to approach these things with a little bit
of an off kilter kind of tone, as you can
sort of maybe tell by the title. So the invitation
to West Point, though, was quite unexpected. What happened was
there was a cadet there, which is you know, undergraduates
there are called cadets. There was a cadet there named
(01:45):
Jacob Foster, and he was listening to my podcast and
really enjoyed it and then went and read my book
People Love Dead Jews, and then approached the Jewish chaplain
at West Point and asked if I could be invited
to be there beckel or speaker at the Jewish baccal
riate service as part of their commencement at West Point.
And I got this invitation. I was very honored, but
(02:07):
also very intimidated because I thought, you know, people love
Dead Jews not really a great fit for commencement inspirational
speech at West Point. You know, it was like sort
of a mismatch there, and I was sort of, you know,
I was flattered that they invited me, but I was
a little bit confused what they wanted because I think
there's a lot of expectations when you speak at a
(02:27):
graduation that you're really speaking to the graduates, and you're
supposed to give them some kind of message, And I
just thought, you know, all of the platitudes that people
say to graduates at you know, typical colleges and universities
kind of don't apply here, because you know, the cadets
at West Point, they graduate, they're commissioned as second lieutenants,
(02:50):
and then they they're serving the country for you know,
and they all have a requirements of how many years
they're going to serve. These are people who made this
decision of what they were going to do essentially with
their lives and career at a very young age. They
don't need me to tell them here's my advice for life.
You know, what should you do? What should you do
with yourself? Like they've already decided. And so I thought,
(03:12):
what am I going to say to these people? You know,
in the United States and in most Western democracies, our
whole system is based on a concept of rights. What's
interesting about Jewish civilization is that it does have this
parallel to American civilization, and that it's a culture that's
based on a shared system of laws and a shared
text that we're all interpreting. Right for in the United States.
(03:35):
Of course, it's the Constitution. In Judaism, traditionally it's the Torah, right,
it's the Hebrew Bible. But what's different about the Jewish
premise of civilization is that it's not based on this
idea of rights. Instead, it's based on an idea of obligation,
or what we call in Judaism commandment. And that was
the point where I saw some parallel with what these
(03:57):
young people were doing at West Point. And I realized
very quickly that this date was the day before the
Jewish holiday of Shavuote, and the Jewish holiday of Chavuote
is the holiday where we celebrate the giving of the
Torah at Mount Sinai. So this is really a moment
in Jewish life of accepting obligations from God and accepting
(04:19):
the commandments from God. And I saw in these graduates
at West Point in a sense, we're meeting that moment
in the same way, they're also standing at their own
kind of siginni where they're accepting their obligations, like in
this case in a similar in a ceremony where they
were going to be commissioned as officers a few days later.
And when I realized that I thought that this is
(04:40):
perhaps a good way to speak to these American Jewish
graduates at West Point without any further ado. This is
the speech that I gave at the Jewish Baccalaureate service
for the graduating Jewish Cadets of the class of twenty
twenty three at the United States and Military Academy at
West Point on May twenty four, two twenty three. Normally,
(05:02):
a graduation speaker is supposed to offer the new.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Graduates a dose of wisdom and guidance.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I'm probably supposed to advise all of you to wear
sunscreen and make mistiques and live life to the fullest.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But the truth is that looking at all of you,
and all of you.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Everywhere in this room, graduates, alumni, veterans, officers, faculty, and
of course also the family and friends who have poured
their hearts into supporting all of you during these challenging
years and the even more challenging years ahead, during which
you've all dedicated your lives to defending our democracy, I
(05:46):
honestly feel outclassed by every single person in this room.
What can I possibly say to you that you don't
already know, You're already all deeply aware of what many
other college graduates only weren't after years of beamlessly stumbling
(06:07):
through life, which is that a life of meaning only
comes from service to others. Compared to your peers graduating
from other colleges around the country, you have all spent
the last four years being extremely driven and extremely devoted,
and to say something slightly less graduation worthy, you've also
(06:29):
spent these years being extremely uncomfortable and also extremely uncool.
I cannot pretend to understand your experience, but I do
know the profound value of being uncool and uncomfortable, and
so does every Jew who has ever lived for the
(06:51):
last three thousand years.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And you're listening to Dara Horn's commencement to the West
Point Cadets graduating class of twenty twenty three, the Jewish Cadets,
and talking about being uncool and uncomfortable, and how Jews
throughout history have known something about both. When we come
back more of this remarkable story and this remarkable speech,
(07:17):
Darrel Horn's speech to the West Point class of twenty
twenty three, the Jewish Cadets. Here on Our American Stories,
Lee Hibib, here the host of Our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
(07:38):
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you hear, go to
Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give
a little, give a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and give. And we continue with our American Stories
(08:13):
and with Dara Horn's speech to the Jewish Cadets, the
graduating Cadets and class of twenty twenty three at West Point,
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Growing up in our pluralistic American society, many of us
were taught a kind of clunky lesson by very well
meaning people who wanted to teach us how to respect
our neighbors. The way we were often taught this important
value is by someone essentially telling us, see this group
of people over here, who you might be inclined to
(08:49):
be prejudiced against. You shouldn't hate those people because they're
just like you and me. They're just like everyone else.
But the problem is that Jews have spent the past
three thousand years not being like everyone else. Un coolness
(09:10):
is Judaism's brand, going all the way back to the
ancient Near East, where everyone else was worshiping a marvel
cinematic universe of sexy deities, and the Jews were sort
of like the losers in the school cafeteria, praying to
their bossy and very unsexy, invisible god.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And in the many.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Centuries as a minority in places around the world, Jews
have made this choice over and over again to remain uncomfortable,
to distinguish themselves from their neighbors in any number of ways,
to cling to those distinctions, and over the course of
their lives, to learn and understand what those distinctions really mean.
(09:56):
They made that choice even when they had easier options,
and even when it meant risking their lives. One of
the things I've learned in my work as a writer,
and especially most recently is the writer of a book
with the somewhat provocative title People Love Dead Jews, is
(10:17):
the profound value of being uncomfortable. I think that the
uncomfortable moments are always where the story is, because those
are the moments when you're about to learn something that you.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Might have gone through your entire life not knowing.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
The only way that people ever learn and change is
by being uncomfortable, by choosing to put themselves in situations
that push them to the very edge of what they.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Think they understand. And that's a choice that all of
you know very well.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
You've all chosen at a really young age to dedicate
yourselves completely to defending our nation, and without any way
of predicting where that commitment might take you. And you've
chosen not only to commit to that uncomfortable and uncertain future,
but to lead others. Thriller Major Frommer pointed out to
(11:10):
me that Judaism actually has many unexpected similarities with cadet
life at West Point. Both are governed by these extremely
complex rituals and rules of daily living. The determine details
of things like what you wear, how you cut your hair,
what you eat, how you walk, how you talk.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And basically how you spend every hour of every day.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But military life and Jewish life are also similar in
a much more fundamental way. They're both based on the
ideal of obligation, or what we call.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
In Judaism commandment.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Tomorrow night is shovel Out, the holiday where we celebrate
the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai thousands of
years ago, and Jewish legend teaches us that it wasn't
only the Jews of that generation who stood at Sinai,
but that all future Jews were also physically present at
that moment, standing at Sinai.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
To receive the Torah from God.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
As an American Jew, I used to be very uncomfortable
and troubled by that legend because it seemed to directly
contradict the American view of our place in history.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
In the United States, one.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Of our foundational ideas is that it shouldn't ever matter
who your parents or grandparents or great grandparents were. It
doesn't matter where you come from or what your background is.
What matters is what you do with the opportunities this
country gives us. Of course, that's what we call the
American Dream in Jewish culture. This foundational legend we have
(12:45):
of all of us standing at Sinai seemed to me
like the exact opposite of the American dream, because that
legend suggests that actually it does matter who your parents are,
who your grandparents and great great grandparents are, and that
the most important event in your life happened thousands of
years before you were born and there's nothing you can.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Do about it. But Chavotte is also when we.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Celebrate the biblical story of Ruth, the first convert to Judaism,
who rejected all the easier options open to her and
instead chose to join the Jewish people. The reality is
that today all Jews are Jews by choice, free to
decide whether and how we will engage.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
With this tradition.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The facidic master Nachman of Bratslov taught that the Torah
is actually given not just at one point in history,
but at every moment, in every hour of every day.
Whether or not we believe that we all once stood
at Sinai, we are all constantly choosing what this tradition
means to us and whether we want to.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Stand at Sinai again.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Judaism isn't really a religion the way that some of
our neighbors might understand that word, as a set of
abstract beliefs.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Instead, it's a.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Radical idea about freedom and responsibility. The core idea of
Judaism is monotheism and the rejection of idolatry. Today, we
think that idolatry in the ancient world meant something like
praying to a statue, but that is not what idolatry
was then or now. In the ancient Near East, many
(14:28):
Nacians had many, many gods, and one of those gods
was the dictator. In ancient Egypt, where the Jews ancestors
were enslaved, the pharaoh was considered one of the gods.
So when the Jewish people said that they don't bow
to idols, what they actually meant was that they don't
(14:48):
bow to tyrants.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
People have often.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Wondered how the Jews have endured for so many thousands
of years as one of the only ancient peoples who
still exist today. I think the answer is more to
America's endurance as now one of the longest lasting.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Democracies in the modern world.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I think in both cases it lies in the refusal
to bow to tyrants.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
The Jewish people.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Almost three thousand years ago, like the American people almost
three hundred years ago, had to create a model of
human leadership that was the antidote to tyranny. The generation
of freed slaves who accepted the Torah discovered that freedom
actually requires hard work, because it turns out that societies
(15:36):
that are not run by tyrants require constant cooperation, compromises,
decision making, problem solving, dedication, and vigilance to sustain them.
We all know the famous words from the Torah that
God tells to the Egyptian Pharaoh through Moses, let my
people go. But in the Torah, every time that phrase
(15:58):
let my people goes, let my people go appears, it's
followed by another phrase, let my people go, so they
may serve me in the wilderness. The purpose of freedom
is to allow the people to willingly accept the commandments
laws about how to create a just society. Human dignity
(16:21):
only comes from choosing to take on those responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And accepting those obligations to others.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Today, at West Point, you are all now standing once
more at a kind of Sini.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Recognizing your obligations. And a few days from now.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You are going to be commissioned as officers, and not
long after that you are all going out to serve
in the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And you've been listening to Darrel Horn's speech to the
class of twenty twenty three. At West Point, the Jewish
cadets were assembled, and she told them one heck of
a story, because this is beautiful storytelling via a speech.
And we've spent a lot of time on great speeches,
quite a few, from Churchill, Roosevelt's beautiful Prayer on the
(17:10):
Night of d Day to one hundred million Americans, and
even to Anne Frank all the way in Holland Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address of Beauty, and we have a Lincoln impersonator
do that. And Dari's speech, I think stands up with
all of them. It's just so beautiful. All Jews, she said,
are Jews by choice and so true.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
As all Christians are.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And she talked about on coolness being Judaism's brand, and
talked about the profound value of being uncomfortable. Last that Jews,
like Americans and like Christians too, don't bow to tyrants.
When we come back, more of Dara Horne's remarkable speech
(17:55):
here on our American Stories, and we continue with Zarah
Horn here on our American Stories and her remarkable speech
to the Jewish Cadets graduating class at West Point twenty
(18:18):
twenty three.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Let's return to the final part.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Our American forebears of all backgrounds saw this country as
a wilderness, an open places both fear and possibility. And
I think that the future itself for all of us
is also a kind of wilderness full of uncertainty, but.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Also full of promise.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
All of you have committed to a future that you
can't possibly imagine, and so did your parents when they
raised you. Not so long ago. When the Jewish people
accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, they said, not seven
shmaw will do it, and then we will listen to it.
(19:03):
They accepted the Torust laws before even hearing what those
laws were, and without regard to where those obligations might
lead them. And only later did they listen to those laws,
learn them, and discover what they might mean. All of
you have responded to that call in your lives as
Americans to defend this country with everything that you have
(19:26):
and to use your talents to lead others in its defense.
And by being here today and in all of your
many roles in this Jewish community here at West Point,
all of you are also responding to that call in
your lives as American Jews.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
For some of you, the power and beauty of Judaism
is something that has always been part of your life.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
For some of you, it's something that you either discovered
or deepened here in this place that you entered while
instinctively knowing what it means to live a life of commitment.
But all of you are about to go out into
the wilderness. Your lives as American military leaders in the
coming years will be well structured, with many challenging but
(20:14):
apparent paths in front of you.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
But how you continue to lead and deepen.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Your Jewish lives and what paths you'll take as Jewish leaders,
is still entirely up to you. That freedom and responsibility
will be very uncomfortable. You will be making those choices
in many places where you might not have a Jewish
community to support you, and at a moment in history
(20:41):
where a a resurgence of hatred might tempt you to
make the more comfortable choice of not being openly Jewish
at all. But you also have the courage of many
generations of Jews behind you who have made the uncomfortable choice,
the ancient generations going back to Sinai, the more recent
(21:03):
generations who escaped the persecutions of other places to come
to this country, and also the thousand plus Jewish graduates
of West Point who to whose names we've.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Just added yours.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This country is one of the few places in the
world where Jews has had the opportunity to.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Serve as military leaders. But in every place that Jews
have had that opportunity, they have seized it. Even in
the nine.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Hundreds, the Hebrew poets Mulhana Gid was the chief general
of Spain's empire, leading armies into battle. In the ancient world,
Jews were so renowned for being elite warriors that they
were actively recruited by Persian and other imperial forces, who
manned their most dangerous outposts entirely with Jewish commanders.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And as all of you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Know, we have had Jewish graduates from West Point from
the very beginning. These were all people who deeply understood
the call to a life of service. You've spent the
past four years learning from the many military leaders around you,
and maybe sometimes learning from them how you don't want
to lead, and I think you have that in common
(22:18):
with all West Point graduates from the past two hundred years.
But allow me to take a moment to prepare you
for your future with some advice given to the very
first Jewish military leader, long before West Point existed. When
Moses died in the wilderness, the leadership of the Jewish
(22:38):
people passed to Joshua, a man with whom to these.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Graduates share much in common.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Joshua was born into a people who had endured great
oppression in the past in a foreign land, but whose
new generation was born free from the sufferings of their elders.
Their challenge was different to build and tacked to society
that allows for many different tribes and perspectives to live
together and flourish. Like many of our graduates today, Joshua
(23:10):
was different from his own parents and even from his
predecessor Moses, because, unlike his civilian predecessors, Joshua was a warrior,
a military leader tasked with entering enemy territory and defending
a nation. Joshua had already engaged in covert operations, sneaking
(23:30):
into the Promised Land to collect intelligence on how to
conquer it. Nearly all of the other spies who had
entered the Promised Land with him told Moses that the
land was unconquerable. Only Joshua and his deputy were unafraid
of the daunting military task that lay ahead of them,
(23:50):
and so when Moses died.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
God gave Joshua a commencement.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Speech at what is essentially Joshua's commissioning, Sir Money God
said to Joshua the famous Hebrew words Kazakh, the emots.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Be strong and courageous.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But the way God continued this commencement speech is very revealing.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
God did not give Joshua.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Military advice or tell him to respect his elders or
to wear sunstream. Instead, God told Joshua to keep warning.
God said to Joshua, you should keep the book of
the Torah always on your lips. You should recite from
it night and day. For God, Kazakh the emots to
(24:39):
be strong and courageous meant being brave enough to always
continue learning, to keep going back to that uncomfortable place,
to be curious and humble enough to learn what you
don't yet know, not just about the battlefield and not
just about life, but about this time Jewish civilization, this
(25:02):
powerful antidote to tyranny that has brought us to this moment,
and that now relies upon you to sustain it. So
on this momentous day, I am not going to tell
you to wear sunscreen, because I think that you have
all of the rules and regulations you need that are
(25:23):
going to tell you exactly what you're supposed to wear.
You're also already you also already know that you will
make mistakes, and you already can teach the rest of
us about how to live life to the fullest. Instead,
I want to offer you the words of the God
of our ancestors, Kazakh the Amats. Be strong and courageous.
(25:48):
Be strong and courageous enough to lead people into battle.
Be strong and courageous enough to learn again and again
what is worth defending. Be strong and courageous enough to
stand at Sinai at every hour of every day. Be
strong and courageous as you carry forth with you the
(26:09):
antidote to tarrany.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Borrow atta atter nilo heinu malahalam chefiyanu.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Kiyamanu vihiyiyanu was manhaz blesster you order, God, Ruler of
the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us
and brought us to this moment. And I'm saying this
blessing just for myself, for the honor of being in
your presence today. May God bless all of you graduates.
May God bless America and all of its defenders.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Muzzeltov, and you've been listening to Darrel Horne, an award
winning author recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, and
you can see your work in the New York Times,
Wall Street Journal, The Smithsonian, The Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
This one appeared in the tablet. This speech. I cried
reading it on an airplane. Again. I'm not Jewish, but.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
These ideas, these words, they're just so beautiful. Be strong
and courageous, he said, to lead people into battle and
to learn what's worth defending. Be strong and courageous and
carry forth with you. The Antidote to Tyranny. The story
of Darren.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Horne's commencement speech at West Point to the Jewish Cadets
graduating class of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
How it came to be here on Our American Stories
This is Lee Habee with our American Stories, the show
where America is the star and the American people. Up next,
you're going to hear from Darah Horn. She gave a
commencement speech to the West Point graduates who happen to
be Jewish in twenty twenty three, and I came across
(00:32):
this from a friend and the story came to life.
Here's Darron, who she is and how she came to
write this speech.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
My name is Darah Horn, and I'm a writer. I've
published six books. My first five books were novels that
all deal very deeply with Jewish history, culture, belief texts,
but incorporate those sort of ancient stories into modern contexts.
And my most recent book is a nonfiction book with
(01:03):
the rather provocative title People Love Dead Jews. It's a
collection of essays about the role that Jews play in
a non Jewish society. And I also have a spinoff
podcast from this book called Adventures with Dead Jews that
tells a bunch of stories that aren't in the book
because it's a bottomless topic, the role that Jews play
(01:25):
in a non Jewish society, and so, and you know,
I tend to approach these things with a little bit
of an off kilter kind of tone, as you can
sort of maybe tell by the title. So the invitation
to West Point, though, was quite unexpected. What happened was
there was a cadet there, which is you know, undergraduates
there are called cadets. There was a cadet there named
(01:45):
Jacob Foster, and he was listening to my podcast and
really enjoyed it and then went and read my book
People Love Dead Jews, and then approached the Jewish chaplain
at West Point and asked if I could be invited
to be there beckel or speaker at the Jewish baccal
riate service as part of their commencement at West Point.
And I got this invitation. I was very honored, but
(02:07):
also very intimidated because I thought, you know, people love
Dead Jews not really a great fit for commencement inspirational
speech at West Point. You know, it was like sort
of a mismatch there, and I was sort of, you know,
I was flattered that they invited me, but I was
a little bit confused what they wanted because I think
there's a lot of expectations when you speak at a
(02:27):
graduation that you're really speaking to the graduates, and you're
supposed to give them some kind of message, And I
just thought, you know, all of the platitudes that people
say to graduates at you know, typical colleges and universities
kind of don't apply here, because you know, the cadets
at West Point, they graduate, they're commissioned as second lieutenants,
(02:50):
and then they they're serving the country for you know,
and they all have a requirements of how many years
they're going to serve. These are people who made this
decision of what they were going to do essentially with
their lives and career at a very young age. They
don't need me to tell them here's my advice for life.
You know, what should you do? What should you do
with yourself? Like they've already decided. And so I thought,
(03:12):
what am I going to say to these people? You know,
in the United States and in most Western democracies, our
whole system is based on a concept of rights. What's
interesting about Jewish civilization is that it does have this
parallel to American civilization, and that it's a culture that's
based on a shared system of laws and a shared
text that we're all interpreting. Right for in the United States.
(03:35):
Of course, it's the Constitution. In Judaism, traditionally it's the Torah, right,
it's the Hebrew Bible. But what's different about the Jewish
premise of civilization is that it's not based on this
idea of rights. Instead, it's based on an idea of obligation,
or what we call in Judaism commandment. And that was
the point where I saw some parallel with what these
(03:57):
young people were doing at West Point. And I realized
very quickly that this date was the day before the
Jewish holiday of Shavuote, and the Jewish holiday of Chavuote
is the holiday where we celebrate the giving of the
Torah at Mount Sinai. So this is really a moment
in Jewish life of accepting obligations from God and accepting
(04:19):
the commandments from God. And I saw in these graduates
at West Point in a sense, we're meeting that moment
in the same way, they're also standing at their own
kind of siginni where they're accepting their obligations, like in
this case in a similar in a ceremony where they
were going to be commissioned as officers a few days later.
And when I realized that I thought that this is
(04:40):
perhaps a good way to speak to these American Jewish
graduates at West Point without any further ado. This is
the speech that I gave at the Jewish Baccalaureate service
for the graduating Jewish Cadets of the class of twenty
twenty three at the United States and Military Academy at
West Point on May twenty four, two twenty three. Normally,
(05:02):
a graduation speaker is supposed to offer the new.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Graduates a dose of wisdom and guidance.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I'm probably supposed to advise all of you to wear
sunscreen and make mistiques and live life to the fullest.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But the truth is that looking at all of you,
and all of you.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Everywhere in this room, graduates, alumni, veterans, officers, faculty, and
of course also the family and friends who have poured
their hearts into supporting all of you during these challenging
years and the even more challenging years ahead, during which
you've all dedicated your lives to defending our democracy, I
(05:46):
honestly feel outclassed by every single person in this room.
What can I possibly say to you that you don't
already know, You're already all deeply aware of what many
other college graduates only weren't after years of beamlessly stumbling
(06:07):
through life, which is that a life of meaning only
comes from service to others. Compared to your peers graduating
from other colleges around the country, you have all spent
the last four years being extremely driven and extremely devoted,
and to say something slightly less graduation worthy, you've also
(06:29):
spent these years being extremely uncomfortable and also extremely uncool.
I cannot pretend to understand your experience, but I do
know the profound value of being uncool and uncomfortable, and
so does every Jew who has ever lived for the
(06:51):
last three thousand years.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And you're listening to Dara Horn's commencement to the West
Point Cadets graduating class of twenty twenty three, the Jewish Cadets,
and talking about being uncool and uncomfortable, and how Jews
throughout history have known something about both. When we come
back more of this remarkable story and this remarkable speech,
(07:17):
Darrel Horn's speech to the West Point class of twenty
twenty three, the Jewish Cadets. Here on Our American Stories,
Lee Hibib, here the host of Our American Stories. Every
day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across
(07:38):
this great country, stories from our big cities and small towns.
But we truly can't do the show without you. Our
stories are free to listen to, but they're not free
to make. If you love what you hear, go to
Ouramerican Stories dot com and click the donate button. Give
a little, give a lot. Go to Ouramerican Stories dot
com and give. And we continue with our American Stories
(08:13):
and with Dara Horn's speech to the Jewish Cadets, the
graduating Cadets and class of twenty twenty three at West Point,
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Growing up in our pluralistic American society, many of us
were taught a kind of clunky lesson by very well
meaning people who wanted to teach us how to respect
our neighbors. The way we were often taught this important
value is by someone essentially telling us, see this group
of people over here, who you might be inclined to
(08:49):
be prejudiced against. You shouldn't hate those people because they're
just like you and me. They're just like everyone else.
But the problem is that Jews have spent the past
three thousand years not being like everyone else. Un coolness
(09:10):
is Judaism's brand, going all the way back to the
ancient Near East, where everyone else was worshiping a marvel
cinematic universe of sexy deities, and the Jews were sort
of like the losers in the school cafeteria, praying to
their bossy and very unsexy, invisible god.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And in the many.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Centuries as a minority in places around the world, Jews
have made this choice over and over again to remain uncomfortable,
to distinguish themselves from their neighbors in any number of ways,
to cling to those distinctions, and over the course of
their lives, to learn and understand what those distinctions really mean.
(09:56):
They made that choice even when they had easier options,
and even when it meant risking their lives. One of
the things I've learned in my work as a writer,
and especially most recently is the writer of a book
with the somewhat provocative title People Love Dead Jews, is
(10:17):
the profound value of being uncomfortable. I think that the
uncomfortable moments are always where the story is, because those
are the moments when you're about to learn something that you.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Might have gone through your entire life not knowing.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
The only way that people ever learn and change is
by being uncomfortable, by choosing to put themselves in situations
that push them to the very edge of what they.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Think they understand. And that's a choice that all of
you know very well.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
You've all chosen at a really young age to dedicate
yourselves completely to defending our nation, and without any way
of predicting where that commitment might take you. And you've
chosen not only to commit to that uncomfortable and uncertain future,
but to lead others. Thriller Major Frommer pointed out to
(11:10):
me that Judaism actually has many unexpected similarities with cadet
life at West Point. Both are governed by these extremely
complex rituals and rules of daily living. The determine details
of things like what you wear, how you cut your hair,
what you eat, how you walk, how you talk.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And basically how you spend every hour of every day.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
But military life and Jewish life are also similar in
a much more fundamental way. They're both based on the
ideal of obligation, or what we call.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
In Judaism commandment.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Tomorrow night is shovel Out, the holiday where we celebrate
the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai thousands of
years ago, and Jewish legend teaches us that it wasn't
only the Jews of that generation who stood at Sinai,
but that all future Jews were also physically present at
that moment, standing at Sinai.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
To receive the Torah from God.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
As an American Jew, I used to be very uncomfortable
and troubled by that legend because it seemed to directly
contradict the American view of our place in history.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
In the United States, one.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Of our foundational ideas is that it shouldn't ever matter
who your parents or grandparents or great grandparents were. It
doesn't matter where you come from or what your background is.
What matters is what you do with the opportunities this
country gives us. Of course, that's what we call the
American Dream in Jewish culture. This foundational legend we have
(12:45):
of all of us standing at Sinai seemed to me
like the exact opposite of the American dream, because that
legend suggests that actually it does matter who your parents are,
who your grandparents and great great grandparents are, and that
the most important event in your life happened thousands of
years before you were born and there's nothing you can.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Do about it. But Chavotte is also when we.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Celebrate the biblical story of Ruth, the first convert to Judaism,
who rejected all the easier options open to her and
instead chose to join the Jewish people. The reality is
that today all Jews are Jews by choice, free to
decide whether and how we will engage.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
With this tradition.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
The facidic master Nachman of Bratslov taught that the Torah
is actually given not just at one point in history,
but at every moment, in every hour of every day.
Whether or not we believe that we all once stood
at Sinai, we are all constantly choosing what this tradition
means to us and whether we want to.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Stand at Sinai again.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Judaism isn't really a religion the way that some of
our neighbors might understand that word, as a set of
abstract beliefs.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Instead, it's a.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Radical idea about freedom and responsibility. The core idea of
Judaism is monotheism and the rejection of idolatry. Today, we
think that idolatry in the ancient world meant something like
praying to a statue, but that is not what idolatry
was then or now. In the ancient Near East, many
(14:28):
Nacians had many, many gods, and one of those gods
was the dictator. In ancient Egypt, where the Jews ancestors
were enslaved, the pharaoh was considered one of the gods.
So when the Jewish people said that they don't bow
to idols, what they actually meant was that they don't
(14:48):
bow to tyrants.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
People have often.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Wondered how the Jews have endured for so many thousands
of years as one of the only ancient peoples who
still exist today. I think the answer is more to
America's endurance as now one of the longest lasting.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Democracies in the modern world.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I think in both cases it lies in the refusal
to bow to tyrants.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
The Jewish people.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Almost three thousand years ago, like the American people almost
three hundred years ago, had to create a model of
human leadership that was the antidote to tyranny. The generation
of freed slaves who accepted the Torah discovered that freedom
actually requires hard work, because it turns out that societies
(15:36):
that are not run by tyrants require constant cooperation, compromises,
decision making, problem solving, dedication, and vigilance to sustain them.
We all know the famous words from the Torah that
God tells to the Egyptian Pharaoh through Moses, let my
people go. But in the Torah, every time that phrase
(15:58):
let my people goes, let my people go appears, it's
followed by another phrase, let my people go, so they
may serve me in the wilderness. The purpose of freedom
is to allow the people to willingly accept the commandments
laws about how to create a just society. Human dignity
(16:21):
only comes from choosing to take on those responsibilities.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
And accepting those obligations to others.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Today, at West Point, you are all now standing once
more at a kind of Sini.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Recognizing your obligations. And a few days from now.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
You are going to be commissioned as officers, and not
long after that you are all going out to serve
in the wilderness.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
And you've been listening to Darrel Horn's speech to the
class of twenty twenty three. At West Point, the Jewish
cadets were assembled, and she told them one heck of
a story, because this is beautiful storytelling via a speech.
And we've spent a lot of time on great speeches,
quite a few, from Churchill, Roosevelt's beautiful Prayer on the
(17:10):
Night of d Day to one hundred million Americans, and
even to Anne Frank all the way in Holland Lincoln's
Gettysburg Address of Beauty, and we have a Lincoln impersonator
do that. And Dari's speech, I think stands up with
all of them. It's just so beautiful. All Jews, she said,
are Jews by choice and so true.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
As all Christians are.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
And she talked about on coolness being Judaism's brand, and
talked about the profound value of being uncomfortable. Last that Jews,
like Americans and like Christians too, don't bow to tyrants.
When we come back, more of Dara Horne's remarkable speech
(17:55):
here on our American Stories, and we continue with Zarah
Horn here on our American Stories and her remarkable speech
to the Jewish Cadets graduating class at West Point twenty
(18:18):
twenty three.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Let's return to the final part.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Our American forebears of all backgrounds saw this country as
a wilderness, an open places both fear and possibility. And
I think that the future itself for all of us
is also a kind of wilderness full of uncertainty, but.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Also full of promise.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
All of you have committed to a future that you
can't possibly imagine, and so did your parents when they
raised you. Not so long ago. When the Jewish people
accepted the Torah at Mount Sinai, they said, not seven
shmaw will do it, and then we will listen to it.
(19:03):
They accepted the Torust laws before even hearing what those
laws were, and without regard to where those obligations might
lead them. And only later did they listen to those laws,
learn them, and discover what they might mean. All of
you have responded to that call in your lives as
Americans to defend this country with everything that you have
(19:26):
and to use your talents to lead others in its defense.
And by being here today and in all of your
many roles in this Jewish community here at West Point,
all of you are also responding to that call in
your lives as American Jews.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
For some of you, the power and beauty of Judaism
is something that has always been part of your life.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
For some of you, it's something that you either discovered
or deepened here in this place that you entered while
instinctively knowing what it means to live a life of commitment.
But all of you are about to go out into
the wilderness. Your lives as American military leaders in the
coming years will be well structured, with many challenging but
(20:14):
apparent paths in front of you.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
But how you continue to lead and deepen.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Your Jewish lives and what paths you'll take as Jewish leaders,
is still entirely up to you. That freedom and responsibility
will be very uncomfortable. You will be making those choices
in many places where you might not have a Jewish
community to support you, and at a moment in history
(20:41):
where a a resurgence of hatred might tempt you to
make the more comfortable choice of not being openly Jewish
at all. But you also have the courage of many
generations of Jews behind you who have made the uncomfortable choice,
the ancient generations going back to Sinai, the more recent
(21:03):
generations who escaped the persecutions of other places to come
to this country, and also the thousand plus Jewish graduates
of West Point who to whose names we've.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Just added yours.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This country is one of the few places in the
world where Jews has had the opportunity to.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Serve as military leaders. But in every place that Jews
have had that opportunity, they have seized it. Even in
the nine.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Hundreds, the Hebrew poets Mulhana Gid was the chief general
of Spain's empire, leading armies into battle. In the ancient world,
Jews were so renowned for being elite warriors that they
were actively recruited by Persian and other imperial forces, who
manned their most dangerous outposts entirely with Jewish commanders.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And as all of you.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Know, we have had Jewish graduates from West Point from
the very beginning. These were all people who deeply understood
the call to a life of service. You've spent the
past four years learning from the many military leaders around you,
and maybe sometimes learning from them how you don't want
to lead, and I think you have that in common
(22:18):
with all West Point graduates from the past two hundred years.
But allow me to take a moment to prepare you
for your future with some advice given to the very
first Jewish military leader, long before West Point existed. When
Moses died in the wilderness, the leadership of the Jewish
(22:38):
people passed to Joshua, a man with whom to these.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Graduates share much in common.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Joshua was born into a people who had endured great
oppression in the past in a foreign land, but whose
new generation was born free from the sufferings of their elders.
Their challenge was different to build and tacked to society
that allows for many different tribes and perspectives to live
together and flourish. Like many of our graduates today, Joshua
(23:10):
was different from his own parents and even from his
predecessor Moses, because, unlike his civilian predecessors, Joshua was a warrior,
a military leader tasked with entering enemy territory and defending
a nation. Joshua had already engaged in covert operations, sneaking
(23:30):
into the Promised Land to collect intelligence on how to
conquer it. Nearly all of the other spies who had
entered the Promised Land with him told Moses that the
land was unconquerable. Only Joshua and his deputy were unafraid
of the daunting military task that lay ahead of them,
(23:50):
and so when Moses died.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
God gave Joshua a commencement.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Speech at what is essentially Joshua's commissioning, Sir Money God
said to Joshua the famous Hebrew words Kazakh, the emots.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Be strong and courageous.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
But the way God continued this commencement speech is very revealing.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
God did not give Joshua.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Military advice or tell him to respect his elders or
to wear sunstream. Instead, God told Joshua to keep warning.
God said to Joshua, you should keep the book of
the Torah always on your lips. You should recite from
it night and day. For God, Kazakh the emots to
(24:39):
be strong and courageous meant being brave enough to always
continue learning, to keep going back to that uncomfortable place,
to be curious and humble enough to learn what you
don't yet know, not just about the battlefield and not
just about life, but about this time Jewish civilization, this
(25:02):
powerful antidote to tyranny that has brought us to this moment,
and that now relies upon you to sustain it. So
on this momentous day, I am not going to tell
you to wear sunscreen, because I think that you have
all of the rules and regulations you need that are
(25:23):
going to tell you exactly what you're supposed to wear.
You're also already you also already know that you will
make mistakes, and you already can teach the rest of
us about how to live life to the fullest. Instead,
I want to offer you the words of the God
of our ancestors, Kazakh the Amats. Be strong and courageous.
(25:48):
Be strong and courageous enough to lead people into battle.
Be strong and courageous enough to learn again and again
what is worth defending. Be strong and courageous enough to
stand at Sinai at every hour of every day. Be
strong and courageous as you carry forth with you the
(26:09):
antidote to tarrany.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Borrow atta atter nilo heinu malahalam chefiyanu.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Kiyamanu vihiyiyanu was manhaz blesster you order, God, Ruler of
the universe, who has kept us alive and sustained us
and brought us to this moment. And I'm saying this
blessing just for myself, for the honor of being in
your presence today. May God bless all of you graduates.
May God bless America and all of its defenders.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Muzzeltov, and you've been listening to Darrel Horne, an award
winning author recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, and
you can see your work in the New York Times,
Wall Street Journal, The Smithsonian, The Atlantic.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
This one appeared in the tablet. This speech. I cried
reading it on an airplane. Again. I'm not Jewish, but.
Speaker 5 (26:58):
These ideas, these words, they're just so beautiful. Be strong
and courageous, he said, to lead people into battle and
to learn what's worth defending. Be strong and courageous and
carry forth with you. The Antidote to Tyranny. The story
of Darren.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Horne's commencement speech at West Point to the Jewish Cadets
graduating class of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
How it came to be here on Our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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