Transitions

The sun came out. I can not believe it's taken until July for me to feel like switching off my electric blanket at night. But anyway, I was lucky enough to spend the two sunniest days so far this year celebrating things.

Sunday, my dear friend RabbiHugenholtz was ordained as a rabbi, and yesterday, my first cohort of doctors whom I've taught personally graduated, and are now qualified to practise medicine on real human beings. There's something almost mystical about a ceremony that takes an ordinary person and transforms them into Somebody whose role commands respect. Well, in the end, not really an ordinary person, both the new rabbis and the new doctors have undergone five years of rigorous and taxing training, and even before that had to be pretty special already to be accepted onto their vocational courses. But there's still a moment when they cross the threshold from being someone who happens to have completed lots of education, to being a Professional with real power over people's lives. The fact that one of the transitions was explicitly religious and the other wasn't is almost irrelevant here; in many ways, a Doctor is a more hallowed role than a Rabbi. It's not symbolic power that was conferred on them, it's literally life and death, it's the right to do things to members of the public that would be serious crimes if anyone who hadn't passed through that transition did them.

( I'm so proud of my people )