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| Jessica Meir tweets her Hanukah greetings from the International Space Station December 2020 |
This week in our parasha we read
about that dreamer par excellence, Joseph. The second youngest child among 12
sons, he dreams of his older brothers one day bowing down to him. His brothers
ridicule him for his dreaming, and his father, Jacob, rebukes him for sharing
his dreams and causing trouble in the family. But Jacob also takes his son’s
dream seriously.
Joseph’s dreams express his
ambition to someday be great. He will, in fact, one day use his extraordinary
talents to rise to become second in command to the Pharaoh in Egypt. In that
position he will save the country from famine and help Pharaoh to amass a
considerable fortune in the process. His achievements will have surpassed his
wildest dreams.
Have you noticed that in the Torah
the dreamers are all men? What about women and their dreams in the Bible? The
biblical scholar Phyliss Trible notes that women in the bible can be prophets,
they can be wise women and sages, they can be singers and composers of songs,
but there is no woman in the Bible who is a dreamer. If women in the Bible have
their own dreams, their own ambitions apart from those of their fathers,
husbands, sons and brothers, we are not told about them.
In this respect, the Bible might be
an accurate reflection of our present-day culture. Studies have shown that
females, and especially teen-age girls, believe that they will never be able to
fulfill their dreams. Many believe that they are no smart enough, good enough,
or deserving enough, to achieve their ambitions in life. Therefore, they inhibit
themselves from exploring possibilities for the future and imagining greatness
for themselves. When they do have
dreams, they may not have the confidence to pursue them. We all know, however, that this
is not because women intrinsically or naturally lack confidence in themselves. Rather, research shows that in our culture,
ambition is viewed as a positive trait when seen in men, but a negative trait
when expressed by women. Women who are seen by others as ambitious and aspiring
are also viewed as pushy, selfish and unlikeable. According to surveys, the top
three qualities Americans admire in a man are honesty, financial and professional
success and ambition. These same surveys show that the top three qualities
Americans admire in a woman are physical attractiveness, kindness and
intelligence. “Ambition”, a characteristic
so valued in a man, is noticeably absent from the description of what we admire in a woman.
It stands to reason, then, when women are bold enough to express personal
ambition, they often find that the adults in their lives discourage them.
Mark Twain called these people “dream busters” and cautioned us to stay clear
of them. “Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions,” he
advises, “Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that
you, too, can become great.”
Fortunate indeed is the young girl
who has parents who will nurture her dreams. Jessica Meir was one such young
girl. Jessica recently tweeted out a Chanukah greeting that included a photograph
of her holiday themed socks. What made
this communication so special was that Jessica tweeted from the International
Space Station where she is one of two female astronauts. Last October she and
her fellow female astronaut, Christina Koch, made history by becoming the first
two women to go on a space-walk together. Since 1965 there have been 227 space
walkers, 14 of them women. But never, until this year, has a woman spacewalked walked
with another female astronaut as her partner.
Jessica Meir was born and raised in
Caribou, Maine. Hers was the only Jewish family in town. There was no synagogue
in Caribou, so she had her bat mitzvah in the synagogue in Presque Isle, a
nearby town. Jessica’s first distinct
memory of the ambition to be an astronaut was in first grade. When the
teacher asked her class to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they
grew up Jessica drew a picture of an astronaut in a spacesuit standing on the
surface of the moon. When asked about
the parental support she had for nurturing her dream, she described the love of
nature she learned from her mother, and her father’s fondness for wandering and
adventure.“ It might also have had something to do with the fact that the stars
shone so brightly in rural Maine,” Meir added.
In studying Jessica’s trajectory to
fulfilling her dreams, we can learn several principals. The first principal is,
don’t be afraid of dreaming big dreams. In allowing ourselves the freedom to
dream we discover our passion, and following our passion is the pathway to a
rewarding life. The second principal is that we all need someone to help
interpret our dreams, to offer us guidance, to support us in taking the steps
necessary to achieving our ambitions. At the age of 13, Meir attended a Youth
Space Camp at Purdue University, an indication of the parental support she
received at a very young age. The third principal is that we need to do the hard
work necessary in order to make our dreams come true. Jessica Meir earned a
Bachelor of Science in biology from Brown University, a Masters in Space
Studies from the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, and a
doctorate in Marine biology. Her fieldwork in the Antarctica included scuba
diving with penguins under the ice which prepared her for adapting and
surviving in extreme environments. When she applied to the NASA space program,
she was one of eight out of 6300 applicants accepted for the astronaut class.
When the children in our lives,
girls and boys, express their dreams we need to listen and encourage them. We
need to take their dreams seriously whether we are parents, grandparents, aunts
and uncles, friends, coaches or teachers.
We should encourage young people to let their imaginations soar and discover
what they feel passionate about. We should not tell them “why they can’t”. Rather
we should tell them “how they might”.
Ken Robinson, (some say it was Michelangelo) a
noted and highly respected British Educator once said, "For most of us the
problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail. It’s just the opposite: we aim too
low and succeed.”
Jessica Meir is but one stellar
example of a girl who aimed high and used her extraordinary talents to pursue
her ambition by doing the long, arduous and necessary work to make her dreams
come true.
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