I have always loved the way a college campus looks: imposing buildings, confident young men and women walking around as if on a mission, Frisbees and schoolbooks casually resting on the Quad. At the end of school, that’s all gone. Nine months of trash makes its way from the closet to the room, from the room to the hall, from the hall to the courtyard. Wire hangers and crumpled up problem sets are everywhere. Casting one look back at your room, you don’t see your favorite posters and the site of so many good memories; you see the pile of someone else’s socks you left on the floor in case they are your roommates.

Late May this year also falls in the middle of the Omer, the “week of weeks,” or 49 days, between Passover and Shavuot. On Passover, Jews celebrate running from slavery into a desert; on Shavuot, Jews celebrate getting the Ten Commandments — in the middle of the desert. Those of you familiar with the story know that everyone present died before the Jews moved into the land of Israel. The counting of the Omer, it seems to me, is a reminder of homelessness. Even now, as we celebrate 60 years of the State of Israel, and it seems like Jews finally have a home again, we remember our usual condition is on the run, leaving, counting, waiting, celebrating, and leaving again. Everyone is always moving. It’s a healthy observation, I think, and appropriate in the spring, when the flowers bloom (they’ll die) and graduates throw their caps into the air: You only live in the same dorm room for a year, and when you really want to show it to your parents, it’s gone.