![HDS graduates wave ribbons during Commencement 2026](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2026-06/05282026-Commencement-248%20banner%20resize.jpg?itok=LOWbZ2LU) # Celebrating the Harvard Divinity School Class of 2026 Harvard Divinity School celebrated the Class of 2026 during the Multireligious Commencement Service on May 27 and the Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 28. June 03, 2026 [ Tyler Sprouse ](/people/tyler-sprouse) As the Harvard Divinity School (HDS) Class of 2026 celebrated their achievements and looked ahead to all that lay before them, they were called to remember and lean on the values they learned at the School: to embrace difference, turn to wonder, and lead with curiosity and grace. Commencement ceremonies began on Wednesday, May 27, when the HDS community gathered for the Multireligious Commencement Service, a special ceremony developed by members of the graduating class with the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life featuring readings, prayers, music, poetry, and other reflections representing the spiritual and religious traditions of the Class of 2026. During the Diploma Awarding Ceremony on May 28, the School awarded degrees to 146 graduating students: 88 with [master of theological studies](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/academics/degree-programs/mts-program) degrees, 49 with [master of divinity](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/academics/degree-programs/mdiv-program) degrees, and nine with [master of religion and public life](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/academics/degree-programs/mrpl-program) degrees. Throughout the two-day Commencement exercises, the Class of 2026 and the wider HDS community shared reflections, songs, prayers, and more. ### 'Turn to Wonder' In her opening remarks to the Class of 2026 during the Multireligious Commencement Service, HDS [Dean Marla F. Frederick](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/about/dean) encouraged graduating students to lead with courage and curiosity and give space for questions. “Questions encourage us to explore and push the limits of our own perceptions—opening our hearts and minds in ways that invoke intellectual humility and divine awe in equal measure,” said Dean Frederick. She reflected on the significance of an HDS education, emphasizing that while the Class of 2026 departs the School with expanded knowledge and skills, they also go forth into this next chapter with a deepened capacity for navigating complexity and the unknown. “You are the leaders that will show the world how to turn to wonder when in doubt, how to honor our shared humanity while appreciating our differences, and how to embrace the years that bring answers, as well as the years that ask questions,” said Dean Frederick. ![Dean Frederick speaks behind podium at Commencement](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2026-06/05272026-MultireligiousService-149%20square%20resize.jpg?itok=e_IAeVJN) HDS Dean Marla F. Frederick delivers opening remarks at the Multireligious Commencement Service. Photo by Liesl Clark. ### 'No Ordinary Class, No Ordinary Charge' [Tracey E. Hucks](https://www.hds.harvard.edu/people/tracey-hucks), Victor S. Thomas Professor of Africana Religious Studies at HDS, served as the faculty speaker at this year’s Multireligious Commencement Service. In her address, Hucks reminded the Class of 2026 that, as they graduate during the 250th anniversary of the United States, their gifts, skills, and knowledge are needed now more than ever. “You are no ordinary class, with no ordinary charge, and what is needed of you requires no ordinary moral courage and fortitude,” said Hucks. After reflecting on her own multireligious identity and encouraging the Class of 2026 to embrace difference—both within themselves and in others—as a “fluid pathway, rather than a fixed destination,” Hucks invited her listeners to focus on the work ahead. Referencing James Baldwin’s contention that “the world is held together by the love and passion of a very few people,” Hucks implored the graduating class to live according to the “uncompromising principle of love.” Hucks closed with a call for the Class of 2026 to let the values of HDS guide them in an uncertain time. “We are sending you out into a profoundly different world, one with a vastly different language from when you began,” said Hucks. “We have modeled for you intellectual openness and how to listen deeply. We have taught you how to be a bridge across difference and that the ultimate goal is not to win or be right, but to be relational.” ![Tracey Hucks delivers an address behind a podium at Commencement](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2026-06/05272026-MultireligiousCommencement-082%20square%20resize.jpg?itok=ZSf1jmP_) HDS Professor Tracey E. Hucks delivers the faculty address at the Multireligious Commencement Service. Photo by Caroline Cataldo. ### 'We Are What We Need' Rachel Florman, MDiv ’26, was chosen to represent the Class of 2026 as the class speaker during the Diploma Awarding Ceremony. After retracing her own journey of growth and transformation at HDS, Florman invited her peers to embrace their “border-blurring, boundary-crossing, relational selves” in whatever may come next. “Each of us is so much more than our basic descriptors,” said Florman. “By virtue of our time together, we have become implicated in each other’s lives. We’re not just classmates; we are allies, thought partners, and friends.” Florman reflected on what she values most from her HDS experience and what she is taking with her as she leaves. “It has become clear to me that we’re not just here to study one defined topic; to become narrower, neater versions of ourselves. The point is to cry at the sound bath and be inspired by the practitioners we are lucky enough to learn from. The point is to take what we did here and bring it into the world with us as we attempt to do those things for which there is no guide,” said Florman. She closed with an affirmation to the Class of 2026, encouraging her classmates to lean into the community they developed during their time at the School. “We have what we need. We are what we need,” she said. ![Rachel Florman delivering remarks during the Diploma Awarding Ceremony](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2026-06/05282026-Commencement-193%20square%20resize.jpg?itok=PClB9cHu) Rachel Florman, MDiv '26, was chosen to be the student speaker at the Diploma Awarding Ceremony. Photo by Liesl Clark. ### Expressions of Multireligious Community at HDS During the Multireligious Commencement Service, members of the Class of 2026 sang songs, recited poems and prayers, and read from sacred scriptures. These diverse expressions were selected by the graduating class from the more than 35 religious and spiritual communities represented at HDS. ![The HDS class of 2026 processes toward the Campus Green behind a multireligious banner and waving ribbons](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2026-06/05272026-MultireligiousService-096%20square%20resize.jpg?itok=wbsoRlYn) The HDS Class of 2026 processes toward the Campus Green ahead of the Multireligious Commencement Service. Photo by Liesl Clark. *Banner photo by Liesl Clark.* ### Video Transcript expand\_more SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School. SPEAKER 2: Multireligious Commencement Service for the class of 2026. May 27, 2026. \[MUSIC PLAYING\] \[CHEERING\] MARLA F. FREDERICK: Please, be seated. Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to this year's Multireligious Commencement Service. \[CHEERING\] This is a service of prayer and worship, meditation, and music created collectively with the Harvard Divinity School class of 2026. \[CHEERING\] This annual event honors the diverse ministries, vocations, and aspirations of our graduates with offerings that draw upon the wide array of religions, traditions, and perspectives that animate the vibrant, intellectual, and spiritual life found here at HDS. In thinking about today's service and what words of wisdom I might offer, I felt called to return to one of my favorite authors, an anthropologist like myself and truly an ethnographer of the human spirit, Zora Neale Hurston. In her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, she writes, quote, "there are years that ask questions and years that answer." For many of us, these last few years may have garnered more questions than answers. And while that may seem contradictory, after spending much of your time, energy, and resources seeking answers in order to write exceptional papers, to engage thoughtfully in classroom discussions, and to complete your many exams, I want to take a moment to acknowledge the profound ways that questions, in and of themselves, can guide the pursuit of knowledge and the search for meaning and insight that I have learned to embrace from mentors throughout my own academic journey as an anthropologist, as a professor, and now as dean. Questions invite us to seek others' perspectives from different vantage points. When asked honestly and earnestly, we are given the chance to transmute discomfort and divisiveness into empathy and shared understanding. Questions encourage us to explore and push the limits of our own perceptions, opening our hearts and minds in ways that invoke intellectual humility and divine awe in equal measure. And questions offer the promise of possibility, bringing us to the precipice of what is known and what is unknown, where our understanding of the world can become more expansive than we ever might have imagined. Now, I'm not here to besmirch the pursuit of answers. Who among us has not reveled in being right at just the right moment or found comfort in remembering a steadfast fact when called upon? After all, we are here at Harvard. \[LAUGHTER\] But as you begin your next chapter, I do hope that you leave HDS with more than facts and figures at your fingertips. I hope you now know how to navigate the unknown with more ease and more grace, grace with yourself and grace with others. I hope you remember our oft repeated refrain, when in doubt, turn to wonder. And know that you can surrender to the unknown without becoming woefully lost. I hope you have a deeper appreciation for curiosity and capaciousness that will serve you and those around you well in the years to come. And I hope you return to our beautiful campus here in Cambridge and that you stay connected as alumni over the globe as you each wield your education as a force for good. You are the leaders that will show the world how to turn to wonder when in doubt, how to honor our shared humanity while appreciating our differences, and how to embrace the years that bring answers, as well as the years that ask questions. To our graduates, thank you all that you have offered this school, for all that you've offered this school and our world during your time here and for the work that you will bring to fruition in the years to come. And to all of our guests, family, friends, and loved ones, thank you for supporting our students during their journey and for joining us here at Harvard Divinity School today as part of our multi-faith and multifaceted community. I would now like to invite Noel Grisanti to the stage to offer our land acknowledgment. Noel \[CHEERING\] NOEL GRISANTI: Harvard University is located on the traditional and ancestral land of the Massachusett, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. We pay respect to the people of the Massachusett tribe, past and present, and honor the land itself, which remains sacred to the Massachusett people. At HDS, we have been working with guidance from the Harvard University Native American Program to deepen our engagement with the colonial history of Harvard and of Harvard Divinity School. We invite you to continue learning with us about that history by exploring the resources via the QR codes on page 10 of your order of service, including information about the 1650 charter, one of Harvard's earliest governing burning documents, the commitments to Native education made and broken by the university, and the history that followed. We offer these resources as an invitation to deeper reflection for our collective conversion of heart. \[CHEERING\] AMARATMA SINGH KHALSA: A Sikh blessing \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] "The Song of Bliss," written by Guru Amar Das Ji, the third guru of the Sikh religion. Translation by Ek Ong Kaar Kaur Khalsa. "One spirit beyond moves within creation, coordinating, consolidating, continually creating. This understanding shall come to you as a blessing, as a gift through the sound of wisdom that takes you to truth. There is a state of consciousness where every action reflects the reality of the soul. Oh, mother, this consciousness is with me now, for I have found the teacher of truth, whose wisdom awakens me to my own Infinite reality. I have found the teacher of truth, whose wisdom takes me from the darkness of my own ignorance and ego to the light of my inner divinity. With absolute ease, my surrender mind flows in tune with the frequency of the divine. It is such an awesome experience. The divine musical scales of love and the spirits that keep them have come to sing the Shabad, the sacred sound which breaks the eagle shackles of the mind and releases the infinite spirit to pervade and prevail as my lived identity. All of you sing of the sacred songs of bliss that will break through the limited ego and bring you to the experience of deathless divinity. The song has come through the power of the creator and manifests in form. Through this song, the thought waves of the mind becomes elevated to the frequency of the divine, says Nanak. There is a state of consciousness where every action reflects the reality of the soul. This consciousness is with me now, for I have found the teacher of truth, whose wisdom awakens me to my own infinite reality." \[APPLAUSE\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] CHRISTOPHER SUNDARAM: (SINGING) When you're down and troubled And you need a helping hand And nothing Oh, nothing is going right Just close your eyes And think of me And soon, I will be there To brighten up even your darkest night ALL: (SINGING) You just call out my name And you know wherever I am I'll come running To see you again Winter, spring, summer or fall All you have to do is call And I'll be there Oh, yes, I will RACHEL FLORMAN: (SINGING) You've got a friend If the sky above you Should grow dark and full of clouds And that old North wind should begin to blow Keep your head together And call my name out loud Soon you'll hear me knocking upon your door ALL: (SINGING) You just call out my name And you know wherever I am I'll come running To see you again Winter, spring, summer or fall All you have to do is call And I'll be there Oh, oh CHRISTOPHER SUNDARAM: (SINGING) Now, ain't it good to know That you've got a friend When people can be so cold? RACHEL FLORMAN: (SINGING) They'll hurt you Yes, and desert you Well, they'll take your soul if you let them Oh, now, don't you let them ALL: (SINGING) You just call out my name And you know wherever I am I'll come running as fast as I can To see you again See you again Oh, don't you know, now Winter, spring, summer or fall All you have to do is call And I'll be there Yes, I will You've got a friend You've got a friend CHRISTOPHER SUNDARAM: (SINGING) Ain't it good to know That you've got a friend? RACHEL FLORMAN: (SINGING) Ain't it good to know That you've got a friend? ALL: (SINGING) You've got a friend \[CHEERING\] MATTHEW CEURVORST: Always, we hope someone else has the answer. Some other time will be better. Some other place, it will turn out. This is it. No one else has the answer. No other place will be better. It has already turned out. CASS MORALES: At the center of your being, you have the answer. You know who you are, and you know what you want. There is no need to run outside for better seeing, nor to peer from a window. EMILY CORBIERE BATES: Rather abide at the center of your being for the more you leave it, the less you learn. Search your heart and see. The way to do is to be. \[APPLAUSE\] JULIA CHOPELAS: If a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through their diligence and obedience than another, they will have so much the advantage in the world to come. Doctrine and Covenants, section 130, verse 19. It is not enough just to live, just to survive. It is incumbent on each of us to equip ourselves to do something worthwhile in society, to acquire more and more light so that our personal light can help illuminate a darkened world. And this is made possible through learning, through educating ourselves, through progressing, and growing in both mind and spirit. President Gordon B. Hinckley. \[APPLAUSE\] MARIAM QURESHI: \[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH\] DANA SULTAN: \[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] FAREHA SIDDIQUI: God is the light of the heavens and the Earth. The parable of his light is a niche. Wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as a shining star kindled from a blessed olive tree neither of the East nor of the West. Its oil would well-nigh shine forth, even if no fire had touched it. Light upon light. God guides unto his light whomsoever he will. And God sets forth parables for mankind. And God is knower of all things. \[MUSIC PLAYING\] \[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH\] MARIAM QURESHI: Oh, Allah, place light in my heart, and light on my tongue, and light in my ears, and in my sight light, and above me light, and below me light, and to my right light, and to my left light, and before me light, and behind me light. FAREHA SIDDIQUI: Place in my soul light. Magnify for me light. And amplify for me light. Make for me light. And make me light. DANA SULTAN: Oh, Allah, grant me light. And place light in my nerves and in my body light, and in my blood light, and in my hair light, and in my skin light. Oh, Allah, make for me a light in my grave and a light in my bones. ALL: Increase me in light. Increase me in light. Increase me in light. Grant me light upon light. \[MUSIC PLAYING\] \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] \[CHEERING\] S.B. KESHAVA SWAMI: \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] The children of Prajapati, the creator, gods, human beings, and Asuras, the godless lived with their father as students. When they had completed their allotted period of study, the god said, venerable one, please give us instruction. Prajapati answered with the syllable, da. Have you understood, he asked. Yes, they said. You have told us \[NON-ENGLISH\], to be self-controlled. Very good. You have understood, he said. Then the human beings approached. Venerable one, please teach us. Prajapati answered with one syllable, da. Have you understood, he asked. Yes, they said have told us \[NON-ENGLISH\], be charitable. Very good. You have understood, he said. Then the Asuras, the godless ones, approached. Venerable one, please teach us. Prajapati answered with the same syllable, da. Have you understood, he asked. Yes, they said. You have told us \[NON-ENGLISH\]. Be compassionate. Very good. You have understood, he said. Then the heavenly voice of thunder too repeats this teaching, da, da, da. Be self-controlled. Be charitable. Be compassionate. A reflection on this teaching from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Books can sharpen thought and skill, but may still leave the deeper spirit still, for knowledge blooms then fades away if the roots of character begin to stray. Let study, walk with head and heart, allowing insidious pride to fall apart for minds may grow both vast and wide, yet character is what will ultimately guide. \[APPLAUSE\] JIAMIN LI: This is what should be done by one who is skilled in goodness and who knows the path of peace. Let them be up able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways, peaceful, and calm, and wise and skillful, not proud or demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing that the wise would later reprove. Wishing in gladness and in safety, may all beings be at ease. Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are weak or strong, omitting none, the great or the mighty, medium, short, or small, the seen and the unseen, those living near and far away, those born and to be born, may all beings be at ease. CAM MCCARTIN: Let none deceive another or despise any being in any state. Let none, through anger or ill will wish harm upon another. Even as a mother protects with her life her child, her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, radiating kindness over the entire world spreading upwards to the skies and downwards to the depths outwards and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill will. Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down, free from drowsiness, one should sustain this recollection. This is said to be the sublime abiding. By not holding to fixed views, the pure-hearted one having clarity of vision being freed from all sense desires is not born again into this world. \[CHEERING\] MICHELLE MILLBEN: To the class of 2026 and the words of Mary Oliver, congratulations if you changed. One, two, three, four. \[MUSIC PLAYING\] ALL: (SINGING) I am resilient I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I show up at the table Again, and again, and again I close my mouth and learn to live Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa, Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa These times are poignant The winds have shifted It's all we can do To stay uplifted Pipelines through backyards Wolves howl at our front Yeah, I got my crew But truth is what I want Realizing on point Power to the peaceful Prayers to the waters Women at the center All vessels open to give and receive Let's see the system brought down to its knees Oh, whoa Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa Ooh Whoa, whoa Whoa, whoa Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh I'm made of thunder I'm made of lightning I'm made of dirt, yeah Made of the fine things My father taught me That I'm a speck of dust And this world was made for me So let's go ahead and try our luck I've got my roots Down, down, down, Down down, down Down, down, down deep I got my roots Down, down, down Down, down, down Down, down, down Down, down deep I've got my roots Down, down, down deep. I've got my roots Down, down, down deep So what are we doing here? What has been done? What are you going to do about it When the world comes undone? My voice feels tiny I'm sure so does yours Put us all together Make a mighty roar Come on Roar I am resilient I trust the movement I negate the chaos Uplift the negative I show up at the table Again, and again, and again I close my mouth and learn to live \[CHEERING\] GUS KELLERMAN: The final word is love. At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing. And our very faith and love has been tried through fire. We cannot love God, unless we love each other. And to love each other, we must know each other. We know God in the breaking of the bread. And we know each other in the breaking of the bread. And we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet. And life is a banquet too, even with a crust where there is companionship. We have all known the long loneliness. And we have learned that the only solution is to love. And that love comes with community. \[APPLAUSE\] DINA ZAGARO: Heavenly king, comforter, the spirit of truth, who are present everywhere, filling all things, treasury of good things and giver of life. Come and dwell in us. Cleanse us of every stain. And save our souls, gracious Lord. Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us. Holy god, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us. Holy God, holy mighty, holy immortal, have mercy on us. Come true light. Come life eternal. Come hidden mystery. Come treasure without name. Come reality beyond all words. Come person beyond all understanding. Come rejoicing without end. Come light that knows no evening. Come raising of the fallen. Come resurrection of the dead. Come for your name fills our hearts with longing and is ever on our lips. Who you are and what your nature is, we cannot say or know. Come alone to be alone. Come for you or yourself the desire that is within me. Come my breath and my life. Come the consolation of my humble soul. Come my joy, my glory, my endless delight. Oh, loving god, enlighten my mind. s open my heart and lips that I may sing to you, Holy Trinity. Holy, holy, holy are you, oh, God, through the prayers of the Theotokos. Have mercy on us. (SINGING) \[NON-ENGLISH\] Lord have mercy Lord have mercy Lord have mercy \[NON-ENGLISH\] \[CHEERING\] IVY WANG: In a world dry and thirsty-- ELIJAH GIPSON-DAVIS: --living water flows. IVY WANG: In a world fainting and breathless-- ELIJAH GIPSON-DAVIS: --divine wind flows. IVY WANG: In a world cold and dark-- ELIJAH GIPSON-DAVIS: --spirit's flame grows. IVY WANG: Spirit has always been here. And we open our awareness to perceive her and receive her. ELIJAH GIPSON-DAVIS: Spirit is here. We give thanks, and we celebrate. RACHEL MALLETT: Holy spirit of love, of goodness, of peace, as you have dwelled in us in this place, may you continue to dwell and burn beyond it, offering visions of renewed justice, of loving and living community, and of care for neighbors near and far. Let your humble and generous breath energize and clarify our movement in this abundant, beautiful world, where suffering and domination do, in fact, act persist. Light our path. Kindle our fire. And fall afresh on us, creator spirit. Amen. \[CHEERING\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] ALL: (SINGING) The love of God Has been poured into our hearts By the spirit of God Dwelling within us The love of God Has been poured into our hearts By the spirit of God Dwelling within us The love of God Has been poured into our hearts By the spirit of God Dwelling within us The love of God Has been poured into our hearts By the spirit of God Dwelling within us The love of God Has been poured into our hearts By the spirit of God Dwelling within us God Amen \[CHEERING\] AMY BRENNEMAN: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. God, I offer myself to thee to do with me and to build with me as thou wilt, relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties. That victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. May I do thy will always. \[CHEERING\] MAIA PEELE: When mama was God, she made miracles happen in the middle of a Houston ghetto, the center of my universe, indeed. She walked on water in 3-inch heels, matching bag with us five kids in her footsteps. She taught us to fear not, not lightning, thunderstorms, hard work, new things, good success. When mama was God, she created not one, but two fancy Easter dresses and sewed lace on my socks to match. She hollered for me from the porch, compelling me to come out, come out from all of my favorite hiding places. She held me close with strong hands so close, that I would inhale warm, fleshy bosom heat for air. When mama was God, she laid hands on us so the cops wouldn't and trifling men couldn't, healing bad attitudes and broken hearts. She stood her ground with white folks, those blue-eyed devils of pure evil of the '60, '80s, and this new millennium. She made $1 holler on the occasions of more month than money without robbing anyone of anything. When mama was God, she blessed two fish and five loaves. Or was that government cheese and canned mystery meat? She kept an open-door policy. Always meant that somebody else would be sleeping on the living room floor. She prayed for us and others. We eavesdropped, listening for our name to be called, knowing that no weapon formed against us will prosper. When mama was God, girl, you're just like your mama, somebody said one day when I was feeling a whole lot like God. \[CHEERING\] KERRY MALONEY: This dance is an offering of gratitude, transition, and becoming. Christie will begin with the Grand Chemin, the great road of life, honoring the paths that brought us here, the crossroads that have been encountered, and the guidance that helps us continue. She then calls upon Damballa, the primordial spirit of wisdom, knowledge, and memory to invite clarity, self-discovery, and grace to know who we are and our becoming. The dance closes with the \[INAUDIBLE\] a sacred invitation to all divinities and ancestors, asking them to walk with us, to bless our next steps, and to support the life of head for all members of the class of 2026. Oh CHRISTIE LINDOR: \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] \[CHEERING\] MADDY FISH: We'll be reading a poem accompanied by a sound bath. The poem's by Lucille Clifton. It's called "Roots." PAULA ORTIZ: And we dearly invite you all, beloveds, to join us in sound, in humming, in song, whatever feels good to you. Thank you. MADDY FISH: Call it our craziness, even. Call it anything. It is the life thing in us that will not let us die. Even in death's hand, we roll the fingers up. PAULA ORTIZ: And call them greens and grow on them. We hum them and make music. Call it our wildness. Then we are lost from the field of flowers. JORDAN BORGMAN: We become a field of flowers. Call it our craziness, our wildness. Call it our roots. It is the light in us. It is the light of us. It is the light. ALL: It is the light in us. It is the light of us. It is the light. JORDAN BORGMAN: Call it whatever you have to. Call it anything. \[CHEERING\] TERRY DIXON: I call that church free which enters into a covenant with the ground of freedom. It protests against the idolatry of any human claim to absolute truth or authority. I call that church free which in covenant brings the individual into a caring, trusting fellowship that protects and nourishes their integrity and spiritual freedom. Its goal is a prophethood calling for liberation for all, a priesthood offering a ministry of healing. I call that church free which liberates from bondage and promotes the continuing reformation of its own and other institutions. It protests against routine conformity or thoughtless nonconformity that leads to deformity of mind, and heart, and community. I call that church free which in clarity promotes freedom in fellowship, seeking unity in diversity through devotion to the transforming power of creative interchange in generous dialogue. But it will remain unity in diversity. I call that church free which responds in responsibility to the wind that goes where it goes. It invites and engenders liberation from repression and exploitation, whether of nation or economic system, of race, or sex, or class. The church of the spirit is a Pilgrim church on adventure. I call that church free which earns and creates a tradition binding together past, present, and future in a living tether. In a continuing covenant and identity bringing forth treasures both new and old, it is open to insight and conscience from every source. I call that church free which does not cringe in despair, but casting off fear is lured by divine persuasion to respond in hope to the light that has shone and still shines in the darkness. But the church is never wholly free. It tolerates injustice, special privilege, and indifference to suffering. It passes by on the other side, thus breaking the covenant. In the midst of this infreedom, the congregation comes together to adore that which is holy, to confess its own brokenness, and to renew the covenant. \[APPLAUSE\] ELI HARDWIG: A rock for ages stern and high stood frowning against the Earth and sky and never bowed his haughty crest when angry storms about him pressed. One day, a tiny, humble seed the keenest eye would hardly heed fell trembling at that stern rock's base and found a lowly hiding place. A ray of light and drop of dew came with a message kind and true. They told her of the world so bright, its love, its joy and rosy light and lured her from her hiding place to gaze upon Earth's glorious face. So peeping timid from the ground, she clasped the ancient rock around. Her clinging was a thing of dread, wherever she touched, a fissure spread. A truth dropped in the silent Earth may seem a thing of little worth till spreading round some mighty wrong, it saps its pillars proud and strong. And over that fallen ruin weaves the brightest blooms and fairest leaves. \[CHEERING\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] SARAH ZEMELMAN: \[NON-ENGLISH SINGING\] \[CHEERING\] SARAH ADEGBITE: Small kindnesses. I've been thinking about the way when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by or how strangers still say bless you when someone sneezes, a leftover from the bubonic plague. Don't die, we are saying. LESLIE LAWRENCE: And sometimes when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don't want harm to each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot and to say thank you to the person handing it, to smile at them, and for them to smile back. JULIO DALY: --and for the waitress to say-- \[LAUGHTER\] I'll start again. --for the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder or arepas and for the driver in the red pickup truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other now, so far from tribe and fire, only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy? These fleeting temples we make together when we say-- SARAH ADEGBITE: Here. Have my seat. LESLIE LAWRENCE: Go ahead. You first. JULIO DALY: I like your accent. \[LAUGHTER\] \[CHEERING\] HIATT O'CONNOR: There are so many reasons. There are so many reasons not to be glad, yet here we are. This morning, wind slipped through my cracked window, swirling up dust to play in the sun. Clouds are trying on the shapes of all our favorite animals. And there are so many reasons not to be glad. Yet this morning, we woke up, and got up, and bowed to our faucets. So why not also blow big kisses to the clouds with both hands? Why not wrap those open arms of yours around each other? For now, we've made it through our darkenings, our downpours, our clearings. Lord knows what's to come. In the end, what else is there to do? What else is there to say other than thank you? \[CHEERING\] JANEEN GREEN: Hi, everyone. Congratulations, graduates. Yeah, my name is Janeen Green. And I wrote this song called "We Are Here" for commencement service because when Chris asked me to perform, I was like, I don't know anything. I don't know a song. And I was like, do I do Miley Cyrus? What do I do? And then I was like, I can write. I decided to write the song. \[CHEERING\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] (SINGING) It's hard to say goodbye to who we know When we've only just met A few years And now we're back out on the road But you, I won't forget From the moments of care And the doubts that we shared After class Go to Shay's for a drink Writing pages of papers and praying Our labors will lead us to more than we think But now it's time to go And change the world we know We were made to grow So let your talents flow So today, your dreams become reality No more hoping and wishing for you and me We'll walk across this stage with pride Knowing all of our hard work was just the climb We'll say we are here Our friends and family will cheer And say we are here So wipe away those tears Because we are here We are here We are here We are here And all that I know Is that everything I've done here Means so much to me And I'll walk with everybody here You know now I put my heart and my soul into this journey And I will forever hold All of these memories close to me So today becomes a reality No more hoping and wishing for you and me We'll walk across this stage with pride Knowing all of our hard work was just the climb We'll say we are here Our friends and family will cheer And say we are here So wipe away those tears Because we are here We'll say we are here Our friends and family will cheer And say we are here So wipe away those tears Because we are We are here We are here We are here We are here We are here \[CHEERING\] TRACEY HUCKS: We'll say, we are here. Our friends and family will cheer and say, we are here. So wipe away those tears because we are here. You are, indeed, here. \[CHEERING\] It is most fitting in the program that the faculty address comes after you have experienced the ingenuity, the creativity, and the vast spiritual magnificence of our students. They are the core and center of this multireligious celebration. And I am honored first to be a part of this faculty at Harvard Divinity School. And I am honored, second, to have an opportunity to stand and address these gifted students. If any of you graduates have taken a course with me over the course of your time here, you have heard me say that I am not just teaching you in the present moment. I am teaching the you I know you to be now and the compassionate and ethical leader I know you will embody in the years to come. Tomorrow, you will become alumni of the Harvard Divinity School as members of the class of 2026. Yet I am compelled to also share with you an awareness that you are the graduating class of the 250th, the 250th anniversary of our nation. And I hope to have the words today to impress upon you the gravity of these times and the necessity of the work ahead you are called to do, for you, the class of the 250th, are no ordinary class with no ordinary charge. And what is needed of you requires no ordinary moral courage and fortitude. To ready students for a time such as this, I have taken seriously in my own teaching vocation the charge of the late Professor Melvin Tolson portrayed in the film, The Great Debaters when he tells his students, I am here to help you find, take back, and keep your righteous mind. And I have taken seriously the charge of the elder Nana Peazant in the film, Daughters of the Dust when Nana Peazant says, I'm trying to teach you how to touch your own spirit. I'm fighting for my life, and I'm fighting for yours. I'm trying to give you something to take with you along with all your great big dreams. On this occasion of a ceremony honoring HDS's multireligious community, I, as a part of this HDS community would like to share how my own life has been one embedded in the wisdom teachings of multireligiosity. In my Bloodline is that of the Indigenous and the African, the spiritual and the Christian. I am a practitioner of West African religion. I am inspired by unity and New Thought theology. And I participate in a weekly meditation group with a community of women of different faiths led by \[? Abby, ?\] a Jewish woman rooted in Buddhist philosophy. Weaving this garment of multireligiosity, I also garner the values of my mother's Cherokee heritage and its teachings that when you embrace the Cherokee principle of law and justice, nvwoti, you learn that the concept of law in Cherokee language actually means medicine. It is to stop the suffering. It is to cure something, according to Cherokee linguist, Tom Belt. Lastly, I honor the West African Yoruba concept of Orí, the divinity of the inner head that each of us picks prior to birth, the symbol of free choice and connected to the charting of one's destiny, according to Dr. Wande Abimbola. Thus, I engage my own sense of multireligiosity, not as a fixed doctrine or as a destination, but a fluid pathway and a journey. And on this journey, I am forever unfolding, and growing, and transforming with an openness and goal of learning a new and weaving connections. One recent set of connections I made was following one of my group meditation sessions with \[? Abby, ?\] who from her Jewish tradition, began to share with us the concept in Jewish mysticism of lamed vovnik, or the understanding that even unbeknownst to them at any given time, there are a certain number of fundamentally pure and human humble individuals on Earth. Through their anonymous righteous acts, they sustain the world and hold back humanity's destruction. They are those privileged to see the divine presence. And the world exists on their merit. Quote. "These who wander the Earth unknown are absolutely critical to the existence of the human race because as long as they continue to exist, it is said the anger of almighty God is held back from the Earth for their sake. And even if the world were to become completely depraved, it is believed for the sake of these few righteous, doom will not yet befall on this present world." With this understanding of the lamed vovnik, I could hear connections and resonances with the transformative teachings of the great American literary figure, James Baldwin. When he declares in 1963 in The Fire Next Time that, quote, If we do not falter in our duty, now we may be able--" he says-- "handful as we are to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world." Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, James Baldwin was convinced that the only way this could be done is through the uncompromising principle of love. Yet he was not naive and understood the difficult price that love required. Thus, he states, "love has never been a popular movement. And no one's ever wanted really to be free. The world is held together." He said, "really, it is held together by the love and the passion of a very few people." So what would it mean if you graduates are metaphorically among the lamed vovnik or among James Baldwin's relatively conscious and the few whose love and passion are holding the world together? How would that change how you walk in your life and in the world when you depart this place? And as you depart, remember to take your HDS values with you, quote, "to pursue excellence with both graciousness and humility, to endeavor to build a community and ultimately a world in which people can peacefully live and work together across religious and cultural divides," and as our Office of Community and Belonging states, "to envision a future in which all people embrace their common humanity, affirm their interdependence within a pluralistic world, and work to support the flourishing of all beings." And lest you forget your way in the future, and lest you forget your way in the future, let the amazing faculty and staff of the Harvard Divinity School always be your moral archive, one that you return to in order to remember who you are, remember your vision and purpose, and that we sent you out to make a meaningful impact on this planet. Tomorrow, you will be conferred the degrees of the Master's of Divinity, the Master's of Theological Studies, and the Master's of Religion and Public Life. And although only a short time of one, two, or three years has passed while you have been a student, we are sending you out in a fundamentally, profoundly different world with a new and vastly different language from the one in which you began. But be assured that HDS has equipped you to navigate this new landscape, so that you will be able to engage masterfully in discussions of what is now viewpoint diversity because we have modeled for you intellectual openness and how to listen deeply. You will be skilled in the art of what is called civil dialogue because we have taught you to be a bridge across difference and that the ultimate goal is not to win or to be right, but to be relational. \[CHEERING\] And though it has been declared and decreed that DEI has ended, you will be ambassadors of a new DEI for this country, a DEI that represents dignity and determination, to live with moral character, a DEI that represents elevation and endurance of the freedom values of this world, and a DEI that represents intellect and integrity exhibited in its most highest and excellent forms. \[CHEERING\] Finally, we are sending you out at a time when this world is akin to a matrix. But what I love is that in every matrix, there's always an oracle, whether it be an oracle in your own faith tradition or your own humanist oracle summoning you to be an agent of light, and agent of truth, and agent of peace. For my Matrix movie fans out there, let me summon you to the closing scene of The Matrix Revolutions. It ends with a dialogue between the Oracle, who is the agent of peace and the one who calls himself the Architect, the man who sat behind his desk and believed he was the true architect of the world. When he encounters the Oracle, who has just subverted his plan with love and peace by preserving humanity and a world for children to thrive, the Architect says to her, you played a very dangerous game to which the Oracle replied, change always is. He then questions, just how long do you think this piece is going to last? She says, as long as it can. And speaking the final words of the film, she is asked by one of her protectors concerning her victory, did you always know? And the Oracle said, oh, no. No, I didn't. But I believed. I believed. So when you leave Harvard Divinity School, and inevitably, you will come up against those who believe they are the architects of our nation, the architects of the world, you call on your oracle. And you play a dangerous game of love, a dangerous game of compassion, a dangerous game of peace. And when those architects ask you, how long do you think this peace is going to last, you let them know that you were in the fight for it to last as long as it can. My parting wishes to you, to each of you in the Harvard Divinity class of 2026 and the 250th year of our nation are that I cannot see the future and the greatness you will achieve, the courageous change agent you will become, or the loving kindness you will offer to this world. But in you, I believe, I believe. And I leave you with this final charge from the prophet of love, James Baldwin. He says to you, "one must say yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found. And sometimes it is found in terrible places. But nothing is fixed forever and forever. It is not fixed. The Earth is always shifting. The light is always changing. The sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born. And we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out," he says. So I say, hold on to your sacred Orí and destiny. Hold on to your inner light. And do not ever concede it or let it go out. And may the light and spirits of the 35-plus faith traditions represented by the student body of the Harvard Divinity School guide you on your path and nurture and protect you on your journey. Amen and ashe. \[CHEERING\] JENNYBESS CHAIM: Dear friends, we offer today a traditional prayer from the Jewish tradition for protection and peace of travelers. As we leave HDS to undertake the many journeys ahead of us, we pray that every one of us will be cloaked in peace, joy, and kindness in all we do and become. YONI ALTMAN-SHAFER: \[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH\] FRANCINE HERMELIN LEVITE: I have to say, Dr. Hucks, you are a lamed vovnik. And so thank you for bringing that to us today. We feel very privileged, and honored, and humbled to follow you. Who's to say when a journey begins? But today, we mark this new threshold. May we find the strength to sustain a connection to God's spirit, the source of personal and collective divinity. May that energy lead us toward the sleeping paths waiting to be awakened. We pray for strength, compassion, and humility, to be rescued from the foes along the way, the ones we conjure and the ones that may arise. Bless the works of our hearts, our minds, spirits, and bodies. And let us move toward peace, justice, and joy. Amen. \[CHEERING\] \[CHANTING "TEDDY"\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] TEDDY HICKMAN-MAYNARD: (SINGING) That's right You ain't got to be lonely You ain't got to be lonely Don't let it beat you So many people just see All the parts that are ugly And it's bringing you to your knees Don't you surrender I still remember the nights so long Stayed awake until the morning comes Wishing I could just call someone I know Far too long Till the Till the morning comes Wishing I could just call someone I know I hear you crying Broken like I've been I feel your pain Just call my name, darling Next time you're falling Don't hide away Just call my name Call my name Just call my name Call my name Don't be afraid call my name Oh, call my name Can't sleep Only you and your heart beat Lay awake in your bed sheets Don't let it beat you So many people don't know All the power that they hold Won't you let all your chains go? Don't you surrender I still remember the night so long Waiting until the morning comes Wishing I could just call someone I know, I know I hear you crying Broken like I've been I feel your pain Just call my name Darling, next time you're falling Don't hide away Just call my name Call my name Call my name Just call my name Call my name Call my name Don't be afraid Call my name Just call my name Call my name Call my name Name No, no, no Never have to feel alone No, you never have to feel alone Never have to feel alone Never have to feel alone No, you never have to feel alone Oh, never have to feel alone No, you never have to feel alone You never have to feel alone No, you never have to feel alone Never have to feel alone Never have to feel alone Never have to feel alone Oh, I hear you crying Broken like I've been I feel your pain Just call my name Call my name Next time you're falling Don't hide away Just call my name Call my name Call my name Call my name Just call my name Call my name Don't be afraid Oh, just call my name Call my name Oh, call my name Call my name Don't be afraid Call my name Oh, just call my name I hear you crying Broken like I've been I feel your pain Just call my name Darling, next time you're falling Don't hide away Just call my name I feel you crying Feel your pain Just call my name Oh, darling Next time you're falling Don't hide away Just call my name \[CHEERING\] \[MUSIC PLAYING\] SPEAKER 2: HDS Commencement Choir and Band conducted by Chris Hosseld, director of music and ritual. SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2026. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. ### Video Transcript expand\_more SPEAKER 1: Harvard Divinity School. SPEAKER 2: Harvard Divinity School diploma-awarding ceremony, May 28, 2026. \[BAGPIPES PLAYING\] \[APPLAUSE\] \[CHEERS, APPLAUSE\] MARLA F. FREDERICK: You may be seated. Dear graduates, guests, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends, welcome to the HDS Campus Green. How wonderful to have you all here with us for the Harvard Divinity School diploma-awarding ceremony. \[CHEERS, APPLAUSE\] Congratulations, graduates. I would like to take a moment to say that today marks a major milestone for our graduates and for the families, friends, and loved ones who have offered their support to make this moment possible. We celebrate you today, and we honor all that you have accomplished here at HDS and through your work around the world. It is now my honor to introduce this year's graduate speaker, Rachel Florman. \[CHEERS, APPLAUSE\] Rachel, thank you for sharing your remarks with us today. RACHEL FLORMAN: Good afternoon. Thank you to my classmates for allowing me to stand up here today and address you all. It is an honor and a total delight to see my family, my friends, those of you with whom I matriculated nearly three years ago, some of you whom I only met in the past few months. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to start with a reading from one of my personal sacred texts, from Judith Butler's book, Precarious Life. \[CHEERS\] Yeah, thank you. So Butler writes, "Perhaps we make a mistake if we take the definitions of who we are legally to be adequate descriptions of what we are about. Although this language may well establish our legitimacy within a legal framework ensconced in liberal versions of human ontology, it does not do justice to passion and grief and rage, all of which tear us from ourselves, bind us to others, transport us, undo us, and implicate us in lives that are not our own." So, academic jargon aside, what I think Butler means is that each of us is so much more than our basic descriptors, the answers to the types of questions we might have asked one another at orientation three years ago. We are shapeshifters. We are affected by our experiences of the world and by the people around us. And by virtue of our time here together, to use Butler's language, we have become implicated in each other's lives. I think this is what it means to be in community, not just that we're all classmates, although I guess that is the technical definition of who we are, but that we are allies, partners in crime, thought partners, friends. We make each other stronger through our comments in class and our feedback on each other's writing. We facilitate ritual for one another and pray in each other's native tongues. We come to know ourselves better through the eyes of one another, deepening personal relationships while strengthening communal ties. And standing here, looking at all of you, I am in awe of the community we've become. A classmate recently offered me a new understanding of who I am in this community. He said, you're sort of the ideal HDS commencement speaker, a Jewish girl who can give a sermon about the Gospel of John. \[LAUGHTER\] But seriously, more than just that one sermon, I think I've done it all here. I started as an MTS. I followed the well-worn path to graduating as an MDiv. And I even got my RPL certificate along the way. \[CHEERS\] I got my hands dirty in the HDS garden once or twice, I sang with the choir at noon service, and I sent slightly unhinged messages in the all-students group chat. I cried to Katie in OSL. I cried to Carrie in RSL. I cried on the phone in the labyrinth back there. I cried from frustration in the library. I cried during a sound bath in the chapel. And I cried in the hallway outside the cater room after angrily storming out of my intro to ministry studies class one morning last fall. And I share all of this not to brag about the fact that I'm a water sign, or complain about the fact that HDS has made me more in touch with my emotions than perhaps I would like, but to name how incredible, how devastating, and how hard these past three years have been, because, to state what might be obvious, Harvard was not made for us, for me, or for most of you who sit in front of me today. How many people in our graduating class are cis white men going on to become Protestant ministers? And all respect to you guys. I mean, there are parts of my identity that this institution abides. And I'm a Jewish person at a historically Christian institution. And I'm a Jewish person whose opinions, beliefs, and actions don't always fit the narrow expectations laid out for me by establishment organizations, national media, any number of lawsuits, or the current presidential administration. And this-- \[APPLAUSE\] \--this positionality recalls a intellectual ancestor, Professor Judah Monis. Rabbi Monis, as is written on his tombstone, was the first Hebrew language instructor at Harvard College, hired back in 1722. Hebrew was a required course for all students back then, since all educated Christian men were expected to be able to read the Bible in its original language. And so it follows that all faculty were required to be professing Christians. So Judah Monis converted, publicly, in Harvard Yard, one month before assuming his post as Professor. Historians don't know whether Monis continued to practice some form of Judaism or whether he reverted to Jewish practice at any point in his life. He married a Christian woman, and he joined her church. But he remained a tokenized object of both fascination and suspicion throughout his tenure at Harvard. He represented a Christian ideal, both as someone with deep, privileged knowledge of Jewish scripture and someone who seemed to have accepted Christianity into his life. But again, the flip side to that fascination is suspicion or scrutiny. I get it. \[LAUGHTER\] There are many of us here today who what it feels like to be tokenized by the very people and institutions that claim to support us or desire our participation, to play a character of ourselves in an attempt to match social and cultural expectations. The form of tolerance for the other that emerges through tokenization isn't true acceptance, and it doesn't make for meaningful relationships. It's conditional, and it lacks trust. It also erases the possibility of self-definition, of the chance to determine, let alone claim, what we're about. So 200 years after Rabbi Monis converted, Harvard Divinity School professor and Presbyterian minister George Foot Moore, published an essay titled Christian Writers on Judaism, 19 Centuries of Polemics and Apologetics. In it, he harshly criticizes Old Testament scholars who try to prove the doctrines of Christianity through Jewish theology, and he ultimately condemns the whole field for what he sees as its anti-Jewish bias. Ironically, Professor Moore was also a Christian writer on Judaism. He worked very hard to understand Judaism in its own context. He was actually awarded honorary degrees from two different rabbinical schools in the 1920s. And yet he never situated himself with nuance in the lineage of thinkers he described. He never seemed to have reconciled his identity with his scholarly pursuits. Professor Janet Gyatso, in her 2003 convocation address to the Divinity School, asked what I think is a relevant question on this topic. And by the way, she opened that address by situating herself beautifully, not only, as she says, an American woman scholar of Buddhism who was raised Jewish in Philadelphia, but-- and, again, I quote-- "someone with years of friendships with and indebtedness to Tibetan Buddhist masters with a cocksure, sarcastic skepticism about most everything." This is the type of self-definition I'm talking about, the type that acknowledges a border-blurring, boundary-crossing, relational self. And in this address, Professor Gyatso asks outright. She says, "How can one study a religion's history objectively if one's sympathies lie with its fortunes and truths?" This is a question that Moore seems to answer in his essay about Christian writers on Judaism. He very compellingly makes the case that one can't, especially not those scholars he criticizes invested in what Judaism's history meant for Christianity's present. But Moore himself is a bit more interesting. Simultaneously removed from and entangled with the world he studied, his perspective might be a form of Christian supremacy masquerading as objectivity, but that judgment is complicated by his rigorous engagement with and attention to contemporary Jewish communities. He complicates our understanding of who studies whom and why. So 105 years after Moore published his essay, 304 years after Monis's public baptism, I stand before you today. And all of us are here today. Despite Harvard's history of coerced conversions, Harvard's legacy of slavery, the Harvard Indian College, and the many other stains on the university's history that might have prohibited our ancestors from ever thriving here, we are celebrating today. And trying to prepare for this speech. I went back through my Notes app, hoping for scraps of inspiration from my time here. And apparently, in my first-ever meeting with my academic advisor, Professor Anne Braude, I wrote down this nugget of wisdom. She said, "Our students do things for which there is no guide. That's what we're trying to prepare you for, to create solutions to problems that people haven't explored yet." So three years later, I can confirm that she was right. It's become clear to me that we are not just here to study one defined topic or another, to become narrower, neater versions of ourselves. The point of graduating from Harvard Divinity School isn't to say that we graduated from Harvard Divinity School. As we've learned over the past few years, even the most elite institutions cannot and will not protect us from any number of threats, from doxxing progressive activists to financial precarity via budget cuts or low wages, to rising autocracy nationwide. The point is to get our hands dirty in the garden. The point is to cry at the sound bath, to feel alive listening to the Baptist preacher, and be inspired by the practitioners that we are lucky enough to learn from. The point is to take what we did here and bring it into the world with us, as we attempt to do those things for which there is no guide. I used the word "awe" earlier, and I meant it. I am in awe of all of you, awe like admiration, like respect, like reverence. We, as individuals in a community with our professors and the HDS staff, have shown up for each other when the university did not or could not. I see people here today who fundraised for victims of Hurricane Helene last fall. I see people who showed up on the picket lines with grad workers striking for better labor conditions. I see people who joined the custodians rallying for fair pay this fall. I see people here who demonstrated true interfaith friendship in the solidarity encampment two years ago. And I see people who worked to understand each other across difference in the Black Jewish Pluralism Project this year. I see the international students who fight for your beloved home countries despite constant threat of persecution. And I see those of you who sent prayers over WhatsApp when a classmate's mother was dying. I see people who were brave, who were tired, and who showed up anyway. So we can graduate and choose to never look back. But we won't be able to undo the effects we've had on each other's lives. Whether or not we want to be, we're implicated. No legal definition or institutional norm can change that. So we'll continue to shapeshift, to define and redefine ourselves and one another as we go on to live as the chaplains, teachers, ministers, activists, writers, artists, musicians, lawyers, scholars, and changemakers we'll be or have already become. We will continue to be good friends. We will continue to refuse categorization. And we will continue to make our ancestors proud. I don't have any particular words of wisdom to close with, only an affirmation. We have what we need. We are what we need. Congratulations to the graduating class. We did it. \[CHEERS, APPLAUSE\] SPEAKER 2: Sponsored by Office of Student Life at Harvard Divinity School. SPEAKER 1: Copyright 2026, the President and Fellows of Harvard College. ## Commencement 2026 See more Commencement coverage on our HDS social channels! [ HDS on Instagram arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.instagram.com/harvarddivinity?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==) [ HDS on TikTok arrow\_circle\_right ](https://www.tiktok.com/@harvarddivinity) See also:- [ Faculty and Research ](/discover-stories-about/faculty-and-research) - [ Student Activities and Interviews ](/discover-stories-about/student-activities-and-interviews) - [ Commencement ](/topic-tags/commencement)