Omer 2025 Day 48

Day 47

Day 48: The Giver by Lois Lowry
Yesod in Malchut, Connection in Leadership

I can't think of this book without recalling how much I disliked my 7th grade Language Arts class. I remember three things from that class:

1. I watched The Princess Bride for the first time. It remains one of my favorite movies of all time.

2. This was my first experience with someone trying to explain raising children in an interfaith household to somehow be proud Jews who also celebrate Christmas. I wasn't even Jewish at the time and still I was not convinced. 

3. I read The Giver, which I enjoyed so much that I read beyond the assigned reading each week. That shouldn't have been a problem, except that our teacher wanted us to stop at pre-assigned chapters so that she could test our ability to predict what would happen next. This method disrupted the narrative flow of the novel, forcing me to re-read chapters again to recall details of the story each time I was allowed to read the next chapter. It put me in a position to feel bad about my love of reading and to lie about having read more than I was supposed to read. And it turned the class discussion of the novel into a resentment-building experience that was slowing down my enjoyment of the novel, instead of a generative discussion that could add to my understanding of the story.

Moving on...

The titular "Giver" in Lois Lowry's novel is not a traditional leader, publicly in command of society. The Giver is largely invisible in the community, with a job that is purposefully unknown and unseen. His role demonstrates the importance of leaders as responsible for maintaining our connection to the past. Even a society that has removed difference, color, and emotion from the world recognizes the importance of maintaining a connection to those things, having at least on person who understands the foundation on which their society was built. The Giver's role is not just to remember, but to carry the painful memories so that others don’t have to feel them. Without these memories, it's clear that the rest of the people lose not just their history, but their humanity. Ultimately, a good leader needs to not only maintain a connection to the past, but the people's connections to each other.