Jason Leivenberg

One of the things Berkeley Hillel taught me was that Jewish life didn't have to happen inside the Hillel building.

It could happen anywhere.

That idea ended up changing my life in a way I certainly couldn't have predicted at the time.

I was part of a campus engagement internship through Berkeley Hillel.

The program was built around the idea that Jewish community wasn't only about getting students through the doors of Hillel.

The question was:

Where are Jewish students already living their lives?

How do you create meaningful Jewish connection there?

We learned about networks.

We learned about engagement.

And we were given resources to actually create things.

One year, around Rosh Hashanah, my friend Sam Aberback and I decided to put together a lunch.

Nothing elaborate.

We just wanted to get our friends and other students together after Rosh Hashanah services.

So we planned a picnic at Willard Park.

We got food.

We brought tables.

We brought blankets.

We sent out invitations through our networks.

The whole idea was basically:

Come one, come all.

On my way from where I was living to the park, I ran into a friend named Mallory.

She was walking with someone I didn't know.

Her name was Ryan Cohen.

Mallory introduced us.

Ryan came to the picnic.

We talked.

We became friendly.

And that was it.

There was no dramatic romantic moment.

We were both seeing other people at the time.

Berkeley had around 30,000 students, so even after meeting, we would occasionally see each other around campus or end up in a class together, but it was easy to drift in and out of one another's orbit.

We were cordial.

Friendly.

Then, a few years later, things changed.

We went on our first date in the summer of 2009.

There were fits and starts, as there often are.

But eventually, we stayed together.

And on the day I told this story for Berkeley Hillel's centennial interview, it happened to be our fourth wedding anniversary.

That's a pretty remarkable thing to trace back to a picnic in Willard Park.

When people talk about Hillel, there are certain kinds of impact you expect to hear about.

Jewish identity.

Community.

Leadership.

Learning.

Joy.

All of those things are true for me.

But then there are the consequences no one could possibly have planned.

I met my wife.

Not at a matchmaking event.

Not because someone sat us down and said, "You two should date."

I met her because Hillel gave me the resources to gather people.

It taught me that community happens through networks.

It encouraged me to create Jewish life outside its own walls.

Sam and I wanted to bring people together after Rosh Hashanah.

So we bought food, laid out blankets in a park, invited people, and created a gathering.

And one of the people who walked into that gathering became my wife.

I think that story captures something important about Hillel for me.

It was never only a building.

The building mattered.

I spent an enormous amount of time there.

I worked the front desk.

I had the key and the code.

I opened and closed it.

But Hillel's real power was that it gave students the confidence, skills, relationships, and resources to create community wherever they happened to be.

Sometimes that meant Hillel.

Sometimes it meant a Shabbat dinner in someone's apartment.

Sometimes it meant service work in New Orleans.

Sometimes it meant a Seder halfway across the world.

And sometimes it meant laying blankets out in Willard Park and seeing who showed up.

That day, Ryan showed up.

At the time, she was simply a friend of a friend.

I couldn't possibly have known what that introduction would mean.

Years later, when I think about everything Berkeley Hillel gave me, the list is enormous.

I found Jewish identity there.

I found mentors.

I found some of my closest friends.

I found leadership.

I found a professional calling that eventually shaped almost twenty years of my career.

And yes—

I met my wife there too.

All because Jewish life didn't have to stay inside the building.