From Babel to Belonging

One of the earliest stories in the Torah about human ambition is the Tower of Babel.

The people gather in one place, speaking one language, united around one project. They say, “Come, let us build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, and let us make a name for ourselves.”

At first, it sounds impressive; They are organized and ambitious. They are building something larger than any one person could build alone.

But the story does not end with unity.

It ends with confusion. It ends with people scattered across the earth.

And that raises a question: what kind of togetherness were they actually building?

Because Babel was never really about community. It was about building upward, but not building toward one another.

That matters for us tonight.

Because it is possible for a movement to look connected from the outside while people still feel distant within it. It is possible to share a name, a logo, a calendar, and a convention, but still need to build deeper relationships across chapters and communities.

For USY to be strong internationally, we cannot only ask how much we can build. We have to ask what kind of community we are building. We have to ask whether every USYer feels they are part of something larger than themselves.

There is a word from southern African philosophy that offers a very different vision: Ubuntu.

It is often translated as, “I am because we are.” The idea is that none of us becomes fully ourselves alone. We become who we are through the people who shape us, support us, challenge us, and depend on us.

That is the opposite of Babel.

Babel is about making a name for ourselves. Ubuntu is about understanding that those names, those identities, and our purpose are formed through community.

And that, to me, is what USY is supposed to be.

USY cannot just be many chapters doing their own things under the same name. It has to be a movement where a teen in one community feels connected to someone in another. Where regions keep their own personality, but do not become islands. Where international USY is not something we only feel at convention, but something we carry into our communities throughout the year.

Ubuntu teaches that I am not less myself because I am part of something larger. I am more myself because of it.

That is the kind of international USY I believe in: a movement where our individual communities do not disappear, but become stronger through connection.

So tonight, as I begin this role, I do not want to ask only, “What will we build?”

I want to ask: who will feel more connected because we built it?

Who will feel more seen? Who will feel more needed? Who will feel like USY is not just something happening somewhere else, but something that belongs to them?

This year, our task is not only to lead programs, plan conventions, or preserve what already exists. Our task is to strengthen the bonds between us, so that international USY becomes more than a structure. It becomes a community people can feel.

Babel scattered people across the world.

Our work is to bring people closer.

I am because we are.

And for USY, that means: we are stronger because we belong to each other.

That is where we go from here.