On Wednesday, Tablet contributor Dara Horn delivered the following remarks at the United States Military Academy at West Point to a gathering of about 100 Jewish West Point cadets, faculty, officers, alumni, veterans, and families and friends, celebrating the 18 Jewish graduating cadets of the West Point class of 2023. …

But the problem is that Jews have spent the past 3,000 years not being like everyone else. Uncoolness is Judaism’s brand, going back to the ancient Near East, where everyone else was worshiping a Marvel Cinematic Universe of sexy deities, and the Jews were like the losers in the school cafeteria, praying to their bossy, unsexy invisible God. And over many centuries as a minority in places around the world, Jews have made the choice over and over again to remain uncomfortable: to distinguish themselves from their neighbors in any number of ways, to cling to those distinctions and, over the course of their lives, to learn and understand what those distinctions really mean. They made that choice even when they had easier options, and even when it meant risking their lives.

One of the things I’ve learned in my work as a writer is the profound value of being uncomfortable. The uncomfortable moments are always where the story is, because those are the moments where you are about to learn something that you might have gone through your entire life not knowing. The only way people learn and change is by being uncomfortable, by choosing to put themselves into situations that push them to the very edge of what they think they understand. That is a choice that all of you know well. You’ve chosen, at a young age, to dedicate yourselves completely to defending our nation, without any way to predict where that commitment might take you. And you’ve chosen not only to commit to that uncomfortably uncertain future, but to lead others through it.