Sarah Lewis

The first Shabbat I ever attended at Berkeley Hillel, I sat down at a table because there was an open seat.

That's really all it was.

I didn't carefully choose the table. I didn't know that the people sitting there were going to become important to me. I happened to end up at a table with a group of other freshmen who, like me, were just beginning their lives at Berkeley.

By later that night, someone had created a group chat.

Later that week, people from the table started getting together.

And somehow, that random table of freshmen became my main friend group for the rest of college.

Years later, they are still some of the closest people in my life.

When I look back at Berkeley, that's one of the things that feels almost impossible to separate from Hillel. So much of my social life—and so many of the relationships I still have—started there.

That was particularly meaningful to me because I hadn't grown up with a Jewish friend group.

I grew up Jewish. My family was Reform, we belonged to a synagogue, and Judaism was part of our family life. We went to Shabbat services when we could. I had a wonderful Jewish community around me.

But there weren't many Jewish kids where I grew up.

Usually, I was one of only a few Jewish students in my classes. Judaism was something I experienced primarily with my parents and through synagogue. It wasn't a big part of my everyday social life.

Then I got to Berkeley.

I didn't know a single person when I arrived, so I leaned into the Jewish community partly because I was looking for somewhere to belong.

For the first time in my life, Judaism wasn't only something I did with my family.

It became something I did with my friends.

I remember sometime during my freshman year suddenly realizing: My entire friend group is Jewish.

That might have been completely normal for some of my friends who had grown up in places like the Bay Area or Los Angeles with large, vibrant Jewish communities.

For me, it was completely new.

And it felt incredibly special.

We had similar backgrounds and traditions. There were things we understood about one another without having to explain them. Judaism could be part of our friendships in a way I had never really experienced growing up.

That changed my relationship with my own Jewish identity.

Before Berkeley, Judaism had sometimes felt like something my family participated in—a tradition that existed alongside the rest of my life.

At Berkeley, it became woven into my life.

It was my community.

It was my friendships.

It was dinner.

It was holidays.

It was the people I spent ordinary days with.

And that didn't end when college ended.

A lot of those same friends now live near me in San Francisco. Some are within walking distance. We host Shabbat dinners together. We have holiday parties. On Yom Kippur, when we're all fasting and have the day off, we might spend part of the day together playing board games.

Those are small things, but to me they represent something much bigger.

I didn't have that growing up.

Berkeley Hillel gave me a way to understand Judaism not only as a religion or an obligation, but as part of the texture of everyday life.

And it began so simply.

I walked into my first Shabbat dinner.

There was an open seat.

I sat down.

And the people around that table became my people.

When I reflect on college, that's probably the greatest gift Berkeley Hillel gave me.

I met an incredible group of people I never would have known otherwise, and those relationships didn't disappear when we graduated. They came with me.

My Jewish identity came with me, too.

I think that's what Hillel changed for me.

It took Judaism from being something my family practiced and made it something I personally lived.

It became part of the way I build friendships, the way I celebrate, the way I gather people around a table, and the way I understand community.

All because, on my first Shabbat at Berkeley Hillel, there happened to be an empty chair.