My lasting legacy

This past weekend, I attended NFTY Northern's Fall Kallah. At the even, six of the best teen leaders Judaism has to offer led a program asking what we wanted our legacy to be. We discussed what the word meant and even some ways to attain one.

As much as I hate to say it, I won't be in NFTY forever. The end of the road is near for me. I will, at some point not too far away, have to leave the organization and move forward with my life. I will move on, as will NFTY. While this is happening, though, I am thinking of what I will leave to it? Will I be remembered for the hours I put into the organization? Will I even want to be?

My biggest legacy came, I believe, at Summmer kallah in August. At the event, after one of my services that I had written and led, I had two participants come up to me and say that they wanted to become RCVPs because I had inspired them. They wanted to follow in my footsteps and do what I had been doing for over a year.

Inspiration is the place where I want to leave my legacy. It is my job to help those leaders come up behind me and take my place when I can no longer lead myself. It is my duty to give my heart and soul to the members of my region to hopefully show them how much I care about them, about the movement, and about Judaism as a whole, in the hopes of creating an environment that will foster their growth to be the next leaders.

I also believe that it is my job to fix the problems that I see. We are, as it is commonly explained, a movement, and therefore are constantly looking to move our organization forward in a positive direction. We must continue to grow and develop ourselves so that we do not become stale. I want to make the changes that I see necessary to the motion of our movement so that it can be a stronger, healthier, more vibrant youth group for those to come. This is not making change just for the sake of making change. It is, rather, the ability to look at the way in which we conduct ourselves and improve the areas that we see need a little work. I want to be able to look back and say I did what was best for NFTY and helped it reach its best.

To those NFTY freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, I hope you see how much passion I have for our organization. I hope you see how much I want to do well for it, and for all of you. And I hope you see that I will need someone to be there for NFTY when I can't anymore. Let it be you.

To those NFTY seniors, it is our time to be the transitional leaders. We need to lead, and let others do so. We need to stand up and be in front, yet also have the ability to train our successor. And we need to continue to put everything we have into the youth group we have always loved.