dodoy can ride the horse, if the horse wants him to

In the tradition which I myself started, my first address to the college community is always in the form of a story. The first four years I always started the year with the story of the rabbi who got lost in the woods. These last two years I addressed the community with the story of the mother eagle needing to push her young so that it could finally learn to fly. These stories are programmatic for the year. It will tell us of the methods to be used and the approaches that I intend to use in my relationship with you. Every time the story changes, the approaches and methods also change. The intent does not change, however, neither do the basics of our formation program. Only my approaches change. Only the way I relate with you changes.


On my seventh year my introductory story changes for the third time. Well, its not exactly a story. It is more of a saying. It goes this way: “You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make it drink.” The least one can do to make it drink is to make it thirsty.
It is providential that we start the year with two horses around. It is a reminder to all of us of the fact that though we may reign them with a leash and lead them where we want them to go, we cannot make them do what they do not want to do. The only way to make them drink if we really want them to drink and if we really believe that drinking is best for them, the best way to do it, and sometimes the only way to do it is to stimulate their thirst. Stimulate their thirst.
Dodoy last summer attempted many times to ride one of the horses. He did not get far enough. So this happened in the classroom one day. A teacher asked a young boy, "James," said the teacher, "write on the board, 'Dodoy can ride the horse if he wants to.'” James went to the board and wrote the sentence to the satisfaction of his teacher. “Now then,” the teacher continued, “can you find a better form for that sentence?” “Yes ma’am,” was the prompt reply of James. James went to the board again and wrote what was the more proper, and so to say, truthful and more factual sentence, “Dodoy can ride the horse, if the horse wants him to.”
Welcome home to all of you. May our thirst be stimulated so that on our own we can decide to go to the well.