Lesley Matsa

My first Berkeley Hillel memory is from freshman year.

I knew before I arrived at Cal that I wanted Jewish life to be part of my college experience.

So one Friday night, I recruited a few friends from my floor and a guy I knew from high school, and we all walked up to Hillel for services and Shabbat dinner.

It was fun.

But more than that, it felt familiar in a place that was anything but.

I had gone to Jewish day school for elementary and middle school before switching to public high school, so Jewish community had always been a kind of home base for me.

It was a place where I understood the rhythms.

I knew the culture.

I felt comfortable.

Then I arrived at Berkeley.

Berkeley is enormous.

There are thousands of people, hundreds of things happening, and every kind of perspective and background you can imagine.

That's part of what makes Cal incredible.

It's also part of what makes it overwhelming.

College is supposed to stretch you.

At Berkeley, you're constantly encountering people who are different from you.

You're being challenged.

You're learning how to navigate things on your own.

You're pushed into situations that are unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable.

I loved that.

But when you're spending so much of your time embracing discomfort, it feels really good to have somewhere that feels easy.

Somewhere warm.

Somewhere you can walk through the door and feel like people are happy you're there.

For me, that was Hillel.

I was new.

I was looking for friends.

I was trying to figure out where I fit.

And Hillel became the place I could plug into community.

I met amazing people there—people I'm still in touch with years later.

I eventually lived at the Bayit, which gave me another way to experience Jewish life at Berkeley.

But Hillel was the center.

It was comfortable.

Warm.

Inclusive.

It was the place where I felt welcomed and loved while everything around me was pushing me to grow.

Years later, when I think about what Hillel means to students, I still come back to that contrast.

Berkeley is a place where nobody is necessarily going to hold your hand.

You have to find your way.

You can get lost.

You can flounder.

You can spend years trying to figure yourself out.

And that's part of the experience.

But Hillel provides something different.

It's a place that says:

Come in.

We have room for you.

Whoever you are, we'll make space.

Need a vegetarian option? There's one.

Need something gluten-free? We'll figure it out.

Want to come for Shabbat?

Want to try something new?

Want to learn?

Want to lead?

Come in.

That sense of warmth feels timeless to me.

The students are different now.

Campus is different.

The pressures young people face are different.

But the experience of being a freshman on an enormous campus and desperately wanting to find your people hasn't changed very much.

That's why Hillel still matters.

You can go out into Berkeley and be challenged by the world.

You can encounter people who think nothing like you.

You can grow and stretch and become someone different than the person who arrived.

And then you can come back to a place that says:

We know you.

We welcome you.

You're okay here.

Berkeley was huge.

Hillel was the warm center in the middle of it.

Or, as I think of it now:

Hillel was the warmest hug.