https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHYZxUamx78
Madam Director General of ORT Uruguay, deans, distinguished guests, members of our university, and friends of ORT.
Dear graduates and your families, we are delighted to share this special day with you.
Before we begin, I would like to pay tribute to a dear friend, distinguished colleague, and the architect of this ceremony, Mr. Carlos Podestá. I would like to thank Carlos for the talent, dedication, and commitment with which he always tackled the challenges of our transition to a university. All of his colleagues here today are grateful to him for everything he taught us and for his tremendous contribution to our shared endeavor.
Dear graduates, a college education requires dedication and resilience. At times, the effort seems greater than we can handle; there isn’t enough time; there are moments when personal circumstances seem to overwhelm us; and the results aren’t always what we expect. These are inevitable experiences in life, but what matters is that you were able to face and overcome them, and that is a valuable part of your education. You have succeeded; you can be proud.
A college education is one of the most transformative experiences in life. A person enters college and another graduates. A teenager enters and an adult leaves. A student enters and becomes a professional. Our mission is to guide and support you through this transformative process. We hope we have succeeded. We hope we were able to support you when you needed it. We hope we have taught you the most enduring of lessons: that you can never stop learning.
ORT Uruguay will soon celebrate its 75th anniversary. We have changed a great deal over the course of our history, but our mission and spirit remain unchanged. Our mission is to support our country’s development through education. We firmly believe that education is essential for people to lead dignified and independent lives.
ORT is a story of constant renewal. When a group of Uruguayans founded ORT in our country 75 years ago, the last ORT schools in Europe were being shut down by the Nazis and their collaborators. Within a few months, schools that had existed for decades in Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, Vilnius, Kaunas, and many other cities were shut down. Most of the students and teachers were deported, becoming what we would today call “the disappeared.” Seventy-five years ago, our Director General and her family were in hiding in France, fleeing from those very same criminals.
But while ORT was shut down in some countries, it was reborn in others, such as Uruguay. We are proud of what we have accomplished over these 75 years, and we are proud of our country, which stood up to fascism in its time and welcomed our immigrant families.
But at the same time, we view with alarm criminal acts committed by Uruguayans—acts that do not, however, represent Uruguayans as a whole. The graffiti at the Holocaust Memorial, denying the Holocaust, makes us ask ourselves: Have we taught nothing in all these years? Have we learned nothing? Have we not learned that hatred spreads insidiously like a gas? Have we not learned that threatening one group leads to all of us living under threat? Have we not learned that when one person is discriminated against, we are all discriminated against?
Those responsible for this graffiti face legal consequences, but I am more concerned about the commentators who defended this vandalism, because they bear moral responsibility. Denying the Holocaust is not an opinion; it is an act of aggression. Denying the Holocaust is part of the lies, falsehoods, and distortions with which those who do not believe in democracy inundate us. The vandals who wrote those messages and those who support them do not hate Jews; they hate coexistence; they hate the idea that human life is sacred. Passively accepting these acts is morally indefensible. From a moral standpoint, indifference to aggression is more destructive than the aggression itself. In a society, there are some who are guilty, but in reality, we are all responsible. Let us not accept this vandalism, and let us not accept those who support it; let us not be indifferent accomplices of those who promote intolerance. Let us not accept it—that is the way to be better Uruguayans.
As you know, ORT is a Jewish institution open to everyone. Many cultures and religions have contributed to our civilization. In my opinion, one of Judaism’s most important contributions has been the centrality of education. In Judaism, education is mandatory and lifelong. In Judaism, the human being is always a “work in progress”; one must always strive to learn more, to know oneself and others better. One must always dedicate oneself to repairing the imperfections of the world.
According to the Talmud, educating children is just as important as feeding or clothing them. Education in Judaism is not based on reverence for authority; the teacher is not a prophet, and what he or she teaches is not revealed truth. Learning always requires accepting multiple interpretations, listening to different points of view, and acknowledging that no one—not even oneself, especially oneself—is the sole holder of the whole truth.
Dear graduates: Graduation symbolizes the culmination of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. It symbolizes the start of your life’s journey and your emergence as adults. Do not fear your ambitions. Do not condemn the successes of others if they are achieved in good faith. A society without outstanding individuals cannot progress. Understanding what will make us happy in life is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, and each of us must find our own answer. But not all desires are legitimate. Not all goals are legitimate. Balancing our aspirations is a challenge for our conscience.
Find your path with humility. There should be no vanity in knowledge, nor pride in ignorance. No matter how much we study, remember that we always know only a small fraction of reality. Find your own path, but never lose sight of the fact that you are members of a society. Remember that a society is stronger when it supports the weakest, richer when it supports the poorest, and invulnerable when it protects the most vulnerable.
Seek the power of ideas rather than the idea of power. Always engage in dialogue to understand and to propose, not to impose or belittle. We must not view every interlocutor as an adversary, nor every adversary as an enemy. Too many Uruguayans resort to insults instead of reasoning; they seek to intimidate rather than convince. Use social media to expose yourselves to other ideas and opinions, not to listen only to yourselves and those who think like you.
Always be open to change; your ability to adapt will be more important than your erudition or brilliance. Reflect on the issues that affect us as a society. Form your own opinions. Be wary of ideologies that offer quick answers for everything and everyone. Having our own views is what sets us apart as individuals. Without opinions, there is no dialogue; without dialogue, there is no community. Avoid the frenetic pace that the connected world seems to impose on us. Novel ideas, complex problems, and meaningful relationships require time, dedication, and focus. Delve deeper, observe carefully, listen attentively. Seek the music beneath the noise, seek the colors beyond the darkness, seek the less obvious meanings. Not everything we seek is on the first screen or on the surface.
Always choose big challenges that push you to grow and improve. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. There is no risk without mistakes, and there is no progress without risk. Always be willing to change if you want to inspire change in others. Try to act like the kind of leaders you would follow yourself.
Dear graduates: a whole new world awaits you. A world of opportunities built on knowledge and creativity. In this new world, there are no distant or nearby countries, no countries of the South or the North, no large or small countries. In a world where wealth is created through intelligence, anything is possible. Dependence now exists only in our minds.
A thousand years ago, the key question was: Who owns the land? Wealth and power lay in the land. A hundred years ago, the question was: Who controls the factories or the means of production? That led to nearly a century of political Marxism. In this new world, the key question is: Who produces knowledge?
The strategic challenges facing countries are no longer about expanding territory, building armies, or finding oil. The challenges of the new era are about cultivating and attracting talent, fostering an entrepreneurial culture, and encouraging innovation. In this new world, progress does not require speeches but education; it does not require class struggle but attending classes; it does not require armies but high schools and universities. You will be able to thrive in this new world from Montevideo just as you would if you lived in Manhattan, Seoul, or Tel Aviv.
But in this new world, you will have to constantly balance education and technology. Knowledge will become obsolete at an ever-faster rate. The First and Second Industrial Revolutions were energy-driven transformations that sought to replace animal and human power with steam or electricity. The Third Industrial Revolution was a digital transformation that made it possible to replace manual calculations and record-keeping with automated and digital systems. The Fourth Revolution, which is the one you are facing, aims to replace human intelligence with artificial intelligence, and that is why it is a revolution of knowledge, an epistemological transformation.
The average lifespan of knowledge will continue to shrink. In some fields, graduates will have to start all over again as soon as they finish their studies. Memorization will become increasingly less valuable given the constant availability of information. Learning and creating knowledge will evolve into ongoing processes; it will no longer be possible to study for a few years and then work for many more—these will have to be continuous and integrated processes.
In this learning society, people’s value will depend on what they know and their ability to learn. That is why providing a quality education to all citizens of our country is a moral imperative. Today, we are caught in a vicious cycle in our country, in which earning a good income depends on having a good education, but having a good education depends on earning a good income. This is the vicious cycle that our country must break.
Uruguay is ideally suited to thrive in the knowledge society. We have a social culture, intellectual capital, and a wealth of natural resources that are perfect for development based on talent and intelligence. But we must adapt to this new world shaped by globalization and technological advancement. We must abandon the illusion that the rest of the world will adapt to us. We cannot maintain the inertia of the past and aspire to the prosperity of the future; we will have to choose. Stagnation is not an effective strategy for modernizing our country.
This new world holds both threats and opportunities. Right now, in our country, we are paralyzed by the perception of these threats. We expend our energy fighting trade agreements, harassing new forms of work such as transportation or entertainment platforms, or futilely opposing labor reforms in other countries. Our concerns must be different if we aspire to thrive in the knowledge society. We should be concerned about the quality of high school graduates in Finland, the number of PhDs in Korea, the pace of entrepreneurship in Israel, or the reevaluation of the value of natural resources in New Zealand. By failing to address the real strategic challenges we face, we are committing an act of selfishness on a national scale; we are shifting the costs of our inevitable adaptation onto future generations. We are passing our problems on to our children, and this is not an ethically acceptable option for a mature and responsible society.
Dear graduates: Thank you for sharing this important day with us. Thank you for allowing us to learn alongside you over the years. Uruguay may not be a large country, but it is a great country, and you have the opportunity to make it even greater. Uruguay needs you. Succeed from Uruguay. Help your country succeed, and know that ORT will always be your home.
Thank you very much.