Rachel Marcus

One of the most important things I learned at Berkeley Hillel happened over coffee.

A lot of coffee.

Hillel was very relational.

Staff members took students out for coffee.

Students took other students out for coffee.

If you wanted to get to know someone, you sat down with them.

You talked.

You listened.

You learned who they were.

At the time, it probably didn't feel like I was learning a skill.

It just felt like part of Hillel.

But looking back, I realize those conversations taught me something fundamental about how relationships and communities are built.

College is one of the first times in your life when you're creating adult relationships without much structure around them.

When you're a child, a lot of your relationships happen because you're put somewhere together.

You're in the same classroom.

You're on the same team.

Your families know each other.

College is different.

You meet someone, and then it's up to you whether that relationship continues.

You have to learn how to stay connected.

You have to learn how to actually get to know somebody.

Those Hillel coffees taught me to do that.

Ask questions.

Listen.

Pay attention.

Learn what someone cares about.

And then, very often, think about where they might connect.

I've always had a tendency to do that.

If someone tells me about an interest, my brain immediately starts working:

Oh, you should meet this person.

You should know about this organization.

There's a program you would love.

I know someone who could help you.

Over time, I realized that this is one of the things I do best.

I call myself a community weaver.

I connect people.

I help them find one another.

I help people find places where they belong.

And I learned how to do that at Berkeley Hillel.

Not from one formal training.

From hundreds of small interactions.

From being taken out for coffee.

From taking other students out for coffee.

From being a freshman engagement fellow.

From working as a DOFI at the front desk.

From helping create the student board.

From being in the building constantly.

From getting to know staff members who are still my friends today.

From simply paying attention to people.

That's what was so beautiful about Hillel's approach.

Everything came back to relationships.

Programs mattered.

Events mattered.

Learning mattered.

But underneath all of it were people knowing one another.

A student didn't simply need information about an event.

They needed someone who could say:

I know you.

I think you'd like this.

Come with me.

Or:

You should meet this person.

You two would get along.

That's how community becomes personal.

And it's also why some of my strongest memories of Hillel aren't really events at all.

They're people.

I remember being there constantly with friends.

Taking naps.

Doing handstands in the hallway.

Eating snacks.

Hanging out.

The building became a place where we didn't need a reason to be there.

We were there because it was ours.

Because our people were there.

Because it felt safe.

College can be scary.

Outside of your dorm room, there aren't always many places on a huge campus where you can completely relax.

Hillel was one of those places for me.

I knew I could walk in.

I could find someone to talk to.

I could grab a snack.

I could sit down.

I could just be there.

It was a home away from home.

But the greatest thing Hillel gave me wasn't only a community to belong to.

It taught me how to create that feeling for other people.

Today, so much of my life and work still revolves around Jewish community.

And in all of it, I keep coming back to the same instinct I learned at Hillel:

Know the person.

Listen to them.

Figure out what matters to them.

Connect them to someone else.

Help them find the place where they fit.

Then do it again.

One person at a time.

One conversation at a time.

One coffee at a time.

That's how you weave a community.