The Actual and the Potential

What do we consider more important: the potential or the actual? Many of us are familiar with the famous dispute between Beit Shamai and Beit Hillel about the number of candles we light each night of Chanukah. Beit Shamai claims that we should light eight candles on the first night and then one less each successive night, whereas Beit Hillel claims that we light one on the first night and add one each successive night. Rav Shlomo Yosef Zevin notes that this is one of many disputes between them in which Beit Hillel focuses on the actual and Beit Shamai on the potential. Beit Hillel says that we should light one candle on day one since there has actually been only one day of light from the oil that was found. Beit Shamai, on the other hand, says that we should light eight candles on day one since the oil possessed the potential of being lit for eight days.

We follow Beit Hillel, which means that we emphasize actual results over talk about potential. Often the phrase, “has a lot of potential” is in reality a thinly-veiled critique of one’s actual performance. However, although Beit Shamai’s approach is not the accepted opinion, there is still a lesson to be learned about the importance of potential. The ability to imagine a better world and to be a visionary demands that we see not only the actual but the potential as well. In life at school, it is critical to focus on both the actual and the potential. We care about our students’ actual performance and we believe in their potential for growth and development.

I’d like to wish everyone a Chanukah Sameach. Thank you to the Highlites team for putting together this terrific edition and for seeing their creative potential and making it “actual.”

Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach,
Rabbi Jonathan Kroll
Head of School

Good and Welfare

Births Amanda (Markovitch ‘07) and Isaac Benishai on the birth of a girl Dror and Avivit Ben-Aharon on the birth of their son Matan Ezra Facutly Mazel Tovs Lysee and Gil Stein on the birth of their daughter, Ariella Joy