Rabbi Sacks shares a story about his father, an immigrant to Britain who had to leave school at a young age to help support his family. Walking home with his father from synagogue as a child he would question his father about Judaism. His father would give the same answer every time: “I never had a Jewish education, so I cannot answer your questions. But, one day you will have the education that I never had and when that will happen, you will teach me the answers to those questions.”
Sefer Malachi (3:23–24) tells us of the task of Eliyahu HaNavi, the herald of the ultimate redemption: “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents.”
Rabbi Moshe Alshich asks how we act in order to succeed in educating our children. He said: “It is what you love that your children will learn to love.” It is the way your life reflects your loves, those are the things that our children will absorb and eventually make their own.” Rabbi Sacks commented: “It is by reflecting our love for Jewish life and practice that our children will choose to commit to become engaged and enthusiastic Jews.”
Chanukah, is related to the word chanuch, meaning re-dedication, referring to the re-dedication of the Temple by the Maccabees. Chanukah is also related to the word chinuch, meaning education. On Chanukah we don’t celebrate the re-dedication of the Temple, a physical building, rather we celebrate the living embodiments of Judaism, namely our children.
As Rabbi Sacks said in Radical Then, Radical Now: “Moses realised that a people achieves immortality not by building temples or mausoleums, but by engraving their values on the hearts of their children, and they on theirs, and so on until the end of time.”
Starting the 8th day of Chanukah 5781, you will receive a daily few minute WhatsApp voice note based on teachings from the Piaseczna Rebbi’s groundbreaking work Chovat HaTalmidim. We will begin with his introduction addressed to parents and educators and hope to complete it in time for Pesach 5781.
I look forward to beginning this conversation together with you, adapting these timeless chassidic teachings to our generation’s parenting and educational realities.
Over the last 6 weeks, like most, I have felt a whirlwind of emotion – from sadness, fear and grief to empathy, joy and hope. Sometimes these feelings are felt on their own, but usually they come all intertwined. Even though this is certainly normal for these extraordinary times, it doesn’t make it any easier.
A new emotion popped up recently – a feeling of guilt. While I am certainly grateful to still have a job, unemployment has been a critical mass casualty of this crisis. I watch as friends and colleagues face the most acute challenges of the pandemic with great courage and bravery – whether medical professionals on the frontlines, clergy performing unimaginable types of funerals, community volunteers bringing people who are isolated meals, and the like. And so I ask myself, what am I doing professionally? How am I contributing?
Are you, my colleagues, and I, sitting in the comfort of our homes, essentially asking young people to get off the couch and their screens, only to tell them to sit back on the couch and get on a screen? Are we a digital babysitting service for the young and a fancy means of keeping teens out of trouble? Are we “virtually” teaching or are we “actually” teaching?
But of course, while there is value and some truth to those aspects of our work, keeping the young busy so that the acute essential services can run smoother, we are doing and accomplishing much more than that. And I hope we are learning that ours are also essential services, albeit in a different way.
I worry deeply about the impact this crisis will have on our students, now and in the long term, on so many levels – spiritual, emotional, psychological, physical. My hope, of course, is that they, and we, all emerge healthy and safe, AND one foot taller – ever changed for the good.
I recently had a breakthrough discussion with our high school Seniors. Since the beginning we knew they would be the most intensely affected group from our student body. While they may sometimes mask and try to numb their distress, as they watch all of their most anticipated senior year events cancelled one by one, their heartbreak is there nonetheless.
We discussed the difference between maasim(deeds) and middot (character), in the context of study of Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) – essentially the central Jewish character guide book. We spoke about the distinction between BEING Jewish and DOING Jewish.
While deeds and character may be interdependent, they are often mistakenly interchanged. For example, a person can perform a kind act (deed), but that doesn’t necessarily mean his kindness is refined (character). Similarly, a person can perform an unjust act (deed), but her sense of justice (character) can be quite upright. Who we are is not always analogous to what we do.
Together we re-discovered who the Seniors ARE. As painful as it is to have had senior trips cancelled, special events moved online, and other experiences remaining in limbo, that doesn’t change who they are. They are High School Seniors. That can only be refined, or, God forbid, can degenerate. What the Class of 2020 events and rituals look like may be influenced by COVID-19, but who they look like when they emerge as High School Graduates is up to them.
I believe this lesson is applicable to all aspects of our identity – whether as individuals, as a people, as parents, as children, as spouses, as professionals. It is especially important now.
Yes, our classrooms have moved to uncharted platforms, our textbooks are nowhere to be found. Our shared experiences have become almost unrecognizable: We have no Batei Midrash, no resource rooms, no libraries, no gymnasiums, no yards. We have been banished from our staff rooms, our offices and our common spaces. Our student-teacher interactions don’t look the same and clarity of what is to come seems ever elusive. Yet, we remain educators and it is very much in our hands to make our “virtual” schools very real.
We are still educators. That can only be refined, or, God forbid, can degenerate. What our teaching looks like may be influenced by COVID-19, but who we look like as educators when we emerge and when we return to our beloved schools is up to us.
In short, thank you for being you.
Thank you for your courage to show up and be part of society’s essential services, shepherding a generation of young people through these challenging times with professionalism and creativity, with care and compassion, with empathy and patience, so that they can emerge one foot taller from this extraordinary experience.
Thank you for being educators.
B’vracha (with blessing) ve’ahava (and love),
Eddie Shostak.
This past summer, my family and I were Shabbat guests at Camp Moshava Ennismore. Just as the stars were coming out, we marched down to the synagogue, escorting out the Shabbat Queen together with the chanichim (campers) and tzevet (staff). All of a sudden, my soon-to-be six-year old son turned to me and uttered in the sweetest and most innocent of ways: “Abba, I wish it was Shabbos every day.”
With those unforgettable words ringing in my ears, I was left wondering, what is the essence of camp and how can we bring a little of that magic back to the city?
I grew up in camp. From city and sports day programs to 11 years as a sleepaway camper and staff member, camp offered the fondest of memories, experiences that helped shape my identity, and relationships that went deeper and beyond that “bridge to summer.” Back home, my friends and I obsessively reminisced about the previous summer during the first five months of the school year, and we devoted the next five months to enthusiastic anticipation of the next summer. Camp was exciting; camp was magical. In tribute to the iconic film Field of Dreams, in camp one can picture asking: “Is this Heaven?” “No, it’s [insert random country town here].”
After conducting hundreds of interviews of campers and former campers, psychologist Dr. Michael Thompson concludes in his book Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow that “many young people do not really know how strong they are, how competent they are or even who they are until they get away from their parents and test themselves in a new and challenging environment.” Thompson writes that many children told him the best thing about camp was, “I can really be myself here.”
As a city educator, I have often felt envious of camp educators. It’s not enough for me that our students look forward and backward to that special camp feeling. I want them to have that feeling now and in the summer.
Summer camps are incubators for Jewish life. No matter what the activity, from baseball and boating to crafts and campfires, camp is a 24/7 immersion in Jewishness. This is the great limitation of city life. With all the distractions and pressures, how can we compete?
So, I set out to speak to the director of that same camp where I spent Shabbat, to see what we could learn from her and import into our school life. To my amazement, as I opened the conversation, she, who had been joining our high school minyan for several weeks reciting kaddish for her late father, commented that she was impressed with the decorum, rhythm, and engagement of our middle and high school students during tefillah, while at the same time she observed similar challenges in instilling inspiration during tefillah at camp. She was interested in putting our minds together on the issue of improving tefillah and perhaps other areas.
I was shocked. I was primed to import some of that camp magic into the city. Meanwhile, she wanted the same in the other direction. This was the first step toward partnership and mutual learning.
And why not? Why should I be shocked? We’ve worked hard to build strong tefillahhabits, moving toward more creative, educationally sound approaches for girls in an Orthodox setting. We are working toward more innovative, 21st century Judaic classrooms. We are helping to develop a growth mindset in our teachers, staff, and students. We work toward good habits of order, decorum, and limits. Why shouldn’t camp benefit from these things? Why shouldn’t we develop a common language?
We need to build educational bridges from camp to the city and from the city to camp and to create seamless transitions from one to the other, with each maintaining its uniqueness.
Bridge Building
Over the last few years we have seen examples of summer camp successfully invading the city. Examples such as Moshava Ba’ir Toronto and Camp Ilan (Montreal) bring into the city a taste of the summer camp atmosphere and are educationally aligned as well. My children attended both camps this summer, and it was amazing to see them sharing in the joy of unique camp cheers and dances with their cousins who attended Camp Moshava Ennismore. Our synagogue has taken this one step further by creating Camp Ilan @ TBDJ, where there is an overlap of counselors and youth leaders, as well as educational programming.
More “invasion” is needed. Schools, shuls, and community organizations could partner with camps to staff school Shabbatonim, programming, and trips with camp-trained and -branded educators. This bridge would contribute to activating a fluid expansion of camp energy and spirit into the city.
And it goes the other way as well. The best and most current educational practices can be transposed to camp. Setting clear learning goals, creatively assessing their effectiveness, and addressing differentiated learning methodologies could have tremendous benefit to camps. Inviting city educators more often to contribute to the camp in different ways would go a long way toward building that bridge.
Aligning Goals
Ultimately, the key to building that bridge is to ensure that our goals are aligned. Are we creating institutions where our students can fully be themselves? Are we creating supportive environments and opportunities where our students can discover who they are, Jewishly? Are we allowing them to explore their interests, to experience Jewish life, placing less emphasis on skills and more on kavanah?
Our schools could pay closer attention to the core strengths of camp, including, according to Dr. Thompson, the cultivation of imagination and creativity, elimination of judgment and unnecessary pressure, intentional character development, meaningful daily rituals, fostering of independence, self-esteem, and identity, building a social community, connecting with nature, mentoring, and leadership training.
And our camps can pay closer attention to the core strengths of our schools, including empowering the campers to develop their learning experience, building a social learning community that is committed to the betterment of the wider society, and participating in Jewish learning that is engaging and relevant – not only tomorrow but today.
We can certainly take these core focuses and intentionally transplant them from one to the other.
Good camps and good schools are authentic, spirited, meaningful, and fun. They are orderly, educationally innovative, and socially and emotionally supportive. Creating strong educational partnerships can allow each to be stronger.
As that Shabbat in camp ended, my son told me he didn’t want to ever leave. I so wanted to grant him his wish of Shabbos every day. I look forward to fruitful conversations with our camp director, and I believe together we can work toward making that happen.
It’s butterfly season again. Yes, it’s that time of year when butterflies seem to congregate especially in little tummies, and maybe most in those of grade 1 students on the eve of their first day at school. And for this first time grade 1 parent, the butterflies seem to have found a home in me.
(And now, if you will hearken well to Me and observe My covenant, you shall be to Me the most beloved treasure of all the peoples, for Mine is the entire world! – Shemot 19:5)
“And now”, Rashi comments, “If you will accept upon yourselves it will be sweet from here on. From here we learn that all beginnings are difficult.” Meaning, if it’s sweet from “here on”, it means it was difficult to begin with.
How do we get out of that difficult beginning and get to the sweet?
The first step is to expect and to accept that beginnings are in fact difficult. Grade 1 is an especially exciting time for students, it’s also an anxiety provoking time. On the one hand, kids are filled with a sense of pride, donning fresh, new school uniforms and joining the ranks of older kids. With this special feeling, though comes the sense of responsibility bearing down on their shoulders, not to mention more “serious” time and less “play” time on the horizon. It’s a time of transition and of adjustment and the sense of the unknown brings out fears and anxieties. Everything seems new: new teachers, new classroom, new desks, new routines, new friends. Kids’ comfort zones are seriously challenged.
These anxieties are natural and expected. And while teachers assure us that they will be “just fine”, and they will, there are strategies that we can use to reduce and manage those anxieties. I like to talk to my children about my first days at school, show them pictures of the first time I wore a school uniform. Playdates, can reduce the fear of social unknowns. Speaking out fears and anxieties, playing them out, or even having them draw them out can be helpful.
Many times, anxieties can manifest in physical symptoms like stomach aches and headaches, or in acting out at home with siblings or parents. Reassuring children that their feelings are normal is a critical first step.
If things don’t settle, speak to your child’s teachers, they’ll have a greater handle on the situation. Teachers anticipate our children’s butterflies—and ours—and will consciously work to put everyone at ease.
So why am I anxious? Why do I, sit here the week my daughter enters grade 1, with butterflies in MY stomach?
As parents, one of our primary goals is to ensure that our children are in healthy academic and social environments and that they are safe. The transition to grade 1 may feel like a letting go, or an abdication of those responsibilities to others. And those “others” are, sometimes unfamiliar to us. What also makes us anxious is how uncomfortable we are with our children’s anxieties.
These feelings are also natural and expected, and this reality needs to be accepted. That is the first step. The second, is to take a deep breath and trust. Trust that we are handing off our precious children to professionals, namely, trained, experienced and caring teachers who are waiting on the other side of that door.
But, I believe there is something deeper going on here, that will help us get to the next stage of sweetness.
Symbols play an important role in our lives. Especially this time of year, symbols like the shofar, apples and honey, pomegranates are but a few examples of symbols that help to focus us on Rosh Hashana. Symbols capture meaning and evoke emotion. But, there is a danger to symbols that can trap us into missing the entire point.
The Mishna in Pirkei Avot teaches: “Rabbi Tzadok said: Do not make the Torah into a crown with which to aggrandize yourself or a spade with which to dig.” (Avot 4:5)
Our sages are teaching us that turning the Torah into a symbol, namely a crown, is fine. Turning the Torah into a symbol in order to use it for personal, social or financial gain is an abuse of God’s greatest gift.
There is purpose to God’s greatest gift. We were granted the Torah as a guide towards selflessness.
Grade 1 can also be turned into a symbol. A significant symbol. If grade 1 turns into a symbol of ME letting go or of MY abdication of responsibilities, then the symbol takes a selfish turn and perhaps this is when anxieties persist. However, if grade 1 is turned into a symbol of entrance through the gateway of Jewish education, and for us, parents, our obligation and duty to herd our children through those gates, we become filled with emotions of pride, joy and fulfillment.
Beginnings are difficult, that is a fact of life. When approaching our responsibilities selflessly, they may still be difficult at first, but with the right attitude, it will be sweet from here on.
L’chaim to new beginnings and blessings for a sweet new year!
rEddieTalk 