Sophia Gluck

I came to Berkeley with a very strong Jewish background.

I grew up in a Modern Orthodox community in the Bay Area.

I went to Jewish elementary school.

I went to Jewish high school.

I took a gap year.

By the time I arrived at Cal, I had spent a tremendous amount of my life learning about Judaism and developing a Jewish identity.

I thought I had a pretty clear understanding of what my Jewish practice would look like.

Then I went to college.

And it changed.

Not because I stopped caring about Judaism.

Quite the opposite.

For the first time, I was figuring out what Judaism looked like completely outside my family home.

That distinction was important.

Even if you grow up in a pluralistic environment—and I did—you are still practicing Judaism inside the structure in which you were raised.

Your family's habits are there.

Your community's expectations are there.

Your school is there.

College is different.

Suddenly you have to ask yourself:

What do I actually care about?

What parts of this are most important to me?

What do I want to carry forward?

What do I want to do differently?

Berkeley Hillel gave me the space to answer those questions.

I met people whose relationships with Judaism looked completely different from mine.

There were different denominations, backgrounds, levels of observance, and ways of connecting.

Some people were drawn to religious practice.

Some connected more through spirituality.

Some through culture.

Some through community.

And all of those ways of being Jewish could exist together.

That pluralism was one of the things I loved most about Hillel.

There wasn't one version of Judaism that everyone was supposed to fit into.

Instead, we could come together, learn from one another, and bring our own perspectives into the room.

For me, one of the things I discovered mattered enormously was simply gathering.

Usually around food—because we're Jewish.

When I think about Berkeley Hillel, I think about Wednesday barbecue.

I think about Shabbat.

I think about the High Holidays.

I think about Sukkot.

I think about people gathering under the same roof—or outside in the sukkah—and feeling comfortable being together.

Those memories helped shape what Jewish life looks like for me now.

Today, my partner and I live in New York and are part of a non-denominational synagogue community on the Upper West Side.

We love hosting.

We have people over for Shabbat.

We host Seders.

We host Rosh Hashanah dinners.

A lot of my friends from both growing up and college are in New York now, so our home becomes a place where those different parts of my life can come together.

In many ways, that's an extension of what I learned at Hillel.

Jewish life doesn't have to look exactly like the one you inherited.

You can build it.

You can choose the pieces that feel meaningful.

You can continue learning.

You can make room for people whose experiences are different from yours.

One of my favorite experiences senior year was a Jewish learning course with Rabbi Adam—Booze and Schmooze.

By then, these weren't strangers sitting around a table.

They were friends I had spent years with.

We had gone to barbecues and on trips together.

We had built friendships inside Hillel and outside of it.

Then every week, we came together to learn.

We might study the weekly Torah portion, a holiday, or another text.

I had a lot of Jewish textual knowledge because of the way I grew up.

But that didn't mean I had nothing left to learn.

The fascinating part was hearing what everyone else saw.

Someone who grew up differently could read the same text and notice something completely different.

That made the conversation richer.

I've experienced that again recently.

My partner and I took an Introduction to Judaism class in New York, and the room was filled with people from dramatically different backgrounds.

Some were converting.

Some had been around synagogue life for years but wanted a stronger foundation.

Some, like me, had grown up with extensive Jewish education.

Sitting there, I found myself thinking about Berkeley Hillel.

The room worked because all of those voices were present.

You didn't have to know less in order to learn something.

You didn't have to know more in order to belong.

You simply had to be willing to come into the room, bring your perspective, and listen to someone else's.

That's one of the most important things Hillel gave me.

I came to Berkeley thinking I knew what my Judaism would look like.

Hillel didn't take that identity away.

It gave me permission to examine it.

To change it.

To choose it.

And ultimately, to make it more fully my own.