Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel, Chabad Jewish Center, 1203 W. 19th St.:

Congratulations! Here is my message to you, our dear graduates, derived from the making of … a pot of stew!

The first step is to fill the crock pot to the brim with potatoes. Now that the pot seems full, pour in a bag of beans and watch how they manage to slip right between the spaces. Add a bag of barley, and observe how the small kernels meander effortlessly between the cracks and crevices. Schlep out your collection of spices and add salt, pepper and paprika. See how the spices easily settle into what had seemed to be a completely full pot. Finally, pour a jug of water into the pot. Surprise, it all fit without a drop spilling.

Now turn on the heat. You just filled the pot with the most important ingredient of all — warmth. Without it, the pot may as well be empty.

Dear graduates, you are about to move on to the big world where you will no longer have the luxury of studying all day. Soon you will be consumed by the pressures of making a living. Remember, your material pursuits are just the potatoes and beans of life. Your spirituality is the warmth. Until the fire is turned on, the pot is full of disparate ingredients. It is the warmth that unites them all into a stew.

If you don’t maintain a spiritual connection and keep focused on the true meaning of your lives, then you will end up as a cold stew — very busy, very full, but completely empty.

A spiritual connection imbues your entire life with meaning, keeps you anchored and directed, inspired and motivated. It permeates all you do with a sense of purpose, and makes you succeed.

And never think that adding spirituality to your schedule will overburden you. On the contrary, it will bring everything else in your life together, reminding you why you do all these other things in the first place. Spirituality is the warmth that does not take up space, it creates more.

Never think that you are so busy that you can’t afford to concentrate on your soul. The truth is, you can’t afford not to.

— Send e-mail to Zalman Tiechtel at rabbi@jewishku.com.

The Rev. Valerie Miller-Coleman, executive director, Family Promise of Lawrence:

Graduation is one of life’s most important turning points. This is a time when people start asking you, and you may ask yourself, some really big questions about who you want to become. What kind of work would you like to do? What kind of further education will you achieve? Where will you live? As you begin answering these questions and setting the course for the rest of your life, give some consideration to the standards you choose to measure yourself.

Television, online media, magazines and movies show us a world of bright young people wearing beautiful clothes, driving expensive cars and dating incredibly attractive people. Acne doesn’t seem to exist in this parallel universe. Ironic comments and crass jokes yield chortles from the canned laugh track. Everyone’s pants fit.

From an early age we learn to set the standard for our lifestyle, personal relationships and many of our values based on this oddly perfect version of reality. The fact that our own pants don’t fit as well as we’d like and that our relationships are complicated can make us really dissatisfied sometimes — especially when we compare ourselves with the people living in that perfect parallel universe on the screen in front us.

So forget about them for a minute. Take a moment to ask yourself what you value. What kind of relationships do you want in your life? What do you believe in? These aren’t questions that can be answered once. Keep asking them and be very careful if anyone offers you an easy answer — like a really highly paid job or a gorgeous boyfriend — because easy answers don’t last. The important questions about who you really are and what you really want for your life will come back again and again.

— Send email to Valerie Miller-Coleman at valerie@lawrencefamilypromise.org.