Class this week did not start off un-familiarly. Ilana came in to expose PLAers to something many of them had not heard before--the Kol Nidre prayer, which sung during Yom Kippur that asks G-d to "make our vows not vows, our obligations not obligations and our oaths not oaths." I am very familiar with this prayer--it is one of my favorites from the liturgy, and I had just heard it sung in synagogue on Friday night at Kol Nidre services. In Judaism, vows are taken seriously. If you promise to do something, whether to another person or to G-d, you are bound to keep that promise. However, the premise of this prayer is to absolve us of the vows we made and are no longer able to keep, if the other person passed away, if a situation changed making it impossible to fulfill the promise. But it does not excuse us from the promises we make and are able to keep, just fail to do so. It is our responsibility to keep our promises--otherwise we cannot be trusted by friends or by G-d.
What if the university said the Kol Nidre prayer and thought that it absolved it from all of the obligations, promises and vows it made to its students, those students parents, the faculty and staff that work here and the alumni that contribute to the future of this school? What if the university no longer kept up its end of the bargain in all of the agreements made in contracts? Employees would not be sure of their benefits. Parents could not trust that their children would be safe away from home. Faculty members could not be guaranteed salaries and that would lead to a decrease in the level of education offered here. Following through with obligations and promises is what allows corporations, universities, big businesses to be trusted by the people around these institutions. When the population finds out the the corporation lied, or broke a promise or stopped offering all that it was capable of offering, a lack of trust forms between the people and the institution.
If Penn State follows through with its vows and oaths, the students here will be guaranteed a good education, parents guaranteed safety, faculty guaranteed salaries and employees guaranteed benefits. But it is also the responsibility of the other party involved to uphold their end of the bargain too--students have to go to class, parents have to send their students, faculty have to teach and employees have to work. If both of these ends are met and both parties take their oaths seriously, great things can happen. It is when one party doesn't respect the other (like when a company doesn't pay its workers for the work that they are doing) that vows start to get bent and broken, leading to problems within corporations.
What if the university said the Kol Nidre prayer and thought that it absolved it from all of the obligations, promises and vows it made to its students, those students parents, the faculty and staff that work here and the alumni that contribute to the future of this school? What if the university no longer kept up its end of the bargain in all of the agreements made in contracts? Employees would not be sure of their benefits. Parents could not trust that their children would be safe away from home. Faculty members could not be guaranteed salaries and that would lead to a decrease in the level of education offered here. Following through with obligations and promises is what allows corporations, universities, big businesses to be trusted by the people around these institutions. When the population finds out the the corporation lied, or broke a promise or stopped offering all that it was capable of offering, a lack of trust forms between the people and the institution.
If Penn State follows through with its vows and oaths, the students here will be guaranteed a good education, parents guaranteed safety, faculty guaranteed salaries and employees guaranteed benefits. But it is also the responsibility of the other party involved to uphold their end of the bargain too--students have to go to class, parents have to send their students, faculty have to teach and employees have to work. If both of these ends are met and both parties take their oaths seriously, great things can happen. It is when one party doesn't respect the other (like when a company doesn't pay its workers for the work that they are doing) that vows start to get bent and broken, leading to problems within corporations.
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