Mentors are key to our human development at every age and stage. For young people, mentors are obvious resources for future personal and professional growth. I remember mentors who played roles in my life. At important personal and professional junctures, their input and advice enabled me to make choices that worked best for my family and me. Surely your own mentors were critical to your decisions when you reached proverbial forks in the road, too.

In Torah, mentoring is highlighted as an essential role in conveying Judaism. Deuteronomy 6:4ff begins with the familiar words, Shema Yisrael, “Hear, O Israel,” and continues with the commandment, “Love your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your being.” Further, it commands, v’shinantam, often translated to mean, “teach” the commandments to your children. But a better translation of v’shinantam is to repeat orally and by demonstration what can’t be taught by any other means, including writing. For example, ethical deeds and moral choices are modeled long before they’re taught formally or explained directly. Likewise, weekly Shabbat observance at home or daily prayer practices are learned by children from their parents and grandparents. The meaning of it all unfolds through performing the rituals, reciting the prayers, and asking questions that deepen understanding.

Mentors and role models, too, including parents and grandparents, teachers and supervisors, lead by example as soon as they’re encountered. Their words and tone, choices and decisions, all reveal how to accomplish personal and professional responsibilities. At home, this is most evident when parents rear their children to prepare for independent living at college and in their own homes in the future. At work, it’s obvious where interoffice relationships and behaviors contribute to productivity and growth.

Torah prepares us from childhood to take cues from enduring lessons in Judaism, and from the best role models and mentors who can model them for us. Mishnah asks, “Who is wise?” and answers, “The one who learns from everyone.” The implication is that we learn from those who model well and also from those who don’t. Like you, I’ve learned from both models. As I recall, many role models and mentors have led me to decisions and judgements that were sound and reliable. They prepared me to work in my own way and style, and to guide others in theirs. Mostly, I’ve enjoyed watching those who learned from me thrive where they’re working and making a difference now.

But as the Mishnah also teaches, we learn from those who struggled or failed in their roles, too. Rather than scorn them, we acknowledge their ways and choose to do things differently. It’s all part of growing and learning. We will always be held to account for the choices we make, and not for the choices we might claim others forced us to make.

Though no one is without the need for a mentor, sometimes we reach ages and stages when we need them less because we come to rely on ourselves more. And yet, I recall long after Rabbi Karff^z”l retired and after he declined many invitations to give a Shabbat message on a Friday night, he accepted one invitation from me to teach us one more time. It came after he and Joan sold their cabin in Charlevoix, Michigan, following decades of annual summer retreats there with their family, and returning every August to Beth Israel to tell his stories of their summer friends, strolls by the lake, and bike rides into town. I approached Sam and asked him to give a Shabbat message about the power and meaning of transitions, such as leaving behind a cabin by the lake that was the source of so much personal time and meaning for the Karff family. He agreed.

In his eloquent words, he shared how much that cabin meant to him and his family. In its simplicity he found all that the world could possibly grant him, including respite from a full year of giving of himself, time to nurture his family, ways to replenish himself for the year to come, and friendships that relied not on his role as a rabbi, but on his being just a next door neighbor, a summer resident in town, or a friend to a newcomer. And though they spent decades returning to their simple but perfect haven on the lake, it was time to collect all their memories and come home for the last time. Leaving behind the cabin was hard but not without precedent. In life, all journeys have turns and straightaways, and also their natural ends. Sam accepted that, while the end was real, the memories were his to keep. Thankfully, he offered that lesson to us and some of those memories, too.

Mentors engage us to help us live well in our personal and professional lives. When they stand with us, their presence is vital to us. But the best mentors are those who are present to us even after they’re gone. Wherever they are or have gone to, they remain with us in ways that are difficult to express in words and more easily revealed in our own actions and decisions. It’s said though we are prone to be envious of others, we cannot be envious of our children or our mentees. Our children and mentees are always meant to go beyond us to make a larger impact and a significant difference in the world they now occupy and lead.

Who was your finest mentor or role model? Who are you leading now? How has your impact on them prepared them for their future? Do you have a role model or mentor now? At every age, let’s continue to look to others for ways to live with integrity and meaning; let’s lead by example for the sake of all that is sacred to us and the world around us, today and tomorrow.

L’Shalom,