Parashat Shlach Lecha - "Born this Way"

I grew up at an amazing synagogue - Congregation B'nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim (or BJBE as we call it) in the northern suburbs of Chicago. I learned from lot's of wonderful people there and those lessons have helped shape who I am. And the environment was so conducive, that we learned from one another all the time. When I am daydreaming about the kind of environment I hope to help build here at B'nai Israel in Connecticut, I find myself drifting back to BJBE. A lot.

So one of my friends from back in the day is Irwin Keller. Irwin confirmed a ear ahead of me. He was always a little bit brilliant, but not at all standoffish or scary as brilliant people sometimes are. On his Blog, Itzik's Well, he describes himself as a "Singer, comedian, writer, part-time para-rabbi and armchair parshan."He is also an attorney and a member of a really funny drag a capella group, the Kinsey Sicks (He is Winnie). He posted this on his blog. 

I am proud to belong to, work for and to have raised our sons in a synagogue that makes inclusion of all Jews a core value. That includes families with more than one faith in the home, learners with special needs, people with disabilities, people who are LGBTQ as well as Jews who have strong identities, who are ambivalent or just searching.*  Irwin reminded me why. Thanks pal!

I urge you to read the Hebrew above with a little rhythm! 

Irwin Keller

Parashat Shlach Lecha - "Born this Way"

For the Sonoma Pride Interfaith Service

June 12, 2011

Good evening. I am humbled and excited to be here. I've had the good fortune to stand on stage at many a Pride event, but it's my first time doing it neither as an activist nor as a singing drag queen, but rather as a Jew. Truthfully, I can't even remember the last time I attended a Pride event in pants. And as I'm sure many of you can understand, I'm finding it rather constricting.

But I'm honored to be asked to "Share Words," which seems to be the gentile euphemism for "give a sermon but please keep it short." In the Jewish tradition we call these words a drash, in which you expound upon a traditional text in order to draw meaning and relevance from it. Today I'll treat two texts: one from Torah and one from Gaga.

I'll start with Torah. This week, Jews around the world read and argue over a portion of the Book of Numbers called Shlach Lecha. In this well-known story, the Children of Israel are in the Wilderness, camped just outside the borders of the Promised Land. They send scouts to investigate. The scouts return and report that the land is flowing with milk and honey. "But," they add, "the people there are mighty. They are as giants, and stronger than we... 

ונהי בעינינו כחגבים וכן היינו בעיניהם

...and we appeared as grasshoppers in our eyes and in theirs."

The sages of old discuss this moment and how their history of enslavement colored the Children of Israel's sense of self-worth. They were unable to take their rightful place not because they were weak, but because they believed themselves to be weak. And because of this, they were doomed to wander for forty more years.

Feel familiar? For those of you who like me are alte kackers, old timers, in the world of queer activism, this should feel very familiar. Because it also describes our pursuit of a place in this world.

Enter, then, our second text, the Torah of Gaga. In the earliest years of the fight for our rights in this country, our appoach was tentative. This was revealed in our political rhetoric, repeatedly explaining that we were "born this way." Not in a Lady Gaga "we don't care what you think" kind of way. Not topped off with a defiant Queer Nation "get over it." We said it very much in a "we do care what you think" way. "We were born this way," we said, "so it is unfair of you to treat us poorly." At the time, in its context, "born this way" was the strongest case we could make for our rights and it was our great statement of identity. And I never liked it.

It was always a rhetoric of apology. A plea for tolerance, not a demand for anything particularly good and juicy. "We are grasshoppers," we seemed to say, "We were born as grasshoppers. It's not our fault that we're grasshoppers. So please don't step on us as you would step on, say, grasshoppers."

Besides feeling apologetic, the "born this way" rhetoric also felt to me to be simply untrue. Too restrictive. Too static. And under-appreciative of who we are. Yes, we might have been born that way but we didn't stop there. We might have begun with our particular genes and hormones and whatever else goes into the human cocktail, but we've all kept adding and shaking and stirring. And what we've each concocted with our raw ingredients is nothing short of brilliant and brave and, to my mind, holy.

Our births didn't define our destinies. After all, couldn't we have lived as heterosexuals? Just entre nous, couldn't we have? Couldn't we have lived in our body's biological sex? Maybe. Probably. Our forebears did. Could we have done it happily? Maybe not. But we might have chosen to make the tradeoff. We might have been willing to remain closeted or quiet or invisible in exchange for, I don't know, a prominent place in religious life or maybe a seat in Congress. I understand people do that.

All of us who were "born this way" have made choices, from the moment we realized we were different in some way that matters. When to pass. When not to. How to survive. How to leave home. How to create home. How to find community. How to make community where there was none. How to love. How to be brave. How to be fabulous. How to be in this world. Frankly, in a certain way, how any of us here was born is perhaps the least interesting thing about us.

I know that we Jews contributed to the culture the 6-day Creation story, which sets up the idea that things get created and then get set more or less on a kind of autopilot. In other words, things get made and it's a done deal. Things are as they were born. But this is a tediously static view of the world, and of us. And we are far from a static people.

So I'd like to introduce you to a different Jewish view of Creation, a mystical idea that only got written down after our traditions had parted ways. According to Jewish mysticism, often known by its drag name, Kabbalah, Creation is not something that happened once at a finite point of time in the past. Instead, Creation is renewed at every single moment. God's thought pours through the universe continuously. And through this outpouring of shefa, this Divine abundance, Creation keeps Creationing; the world continues to flow like milk and honey. Everything in it continues to become.

This Creation story I like. It moves. We all continue to become -- through our choices, our intentions and our actions. We continue to become by choosing integrity. Honesty. Insight. Compassion. Freedom. Love. Hot deviant sex. Courage. Creativity. Anger and persistence in the face of injustice.

We might have been born grasshoppers, or we might think we were. But we have become giants. We have wandered for decades in a wilderness of sodomy laws and marriage inequality and Will & Grace reruns and the God-hates-fagmongers of Westboro Baptist. 

We have had blessings and we have had reversals. We have had our Harry Hays and our Harvey Milks and our Phyllis and Dels. We've had our Radical Faeries and Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Queer Nations and ACTUPs — and yes, our Lady Gagas. We have lost Matthew Shepherds at the hands of Amalek. We have lost hundreds of thousands of our dearest ones to plague. We continue to witness intersex children surgically "corrected" in the name of gender normativity and our transgender youth suffer the mistreatment of psychoanalysis. We continue to experience both hope and hardship. But we are making a Promised Land of this wilderness. We have become giants and we will have this land flow with milk and honey.

Were we born this way? No. We have grown and survived and flourished to become this way. Or, maybe, taking the mystical view, in which God's shefa, God's divine abundance, flows through and renews this reality at every turn, then we might say, "Yes, we are born this way. Not years ago, but right at this very moment. And we will continue to be born, to become more ourselves, in all our fierceness and fearlessness and fabulousness. We will more and more be the giants we have already dared to become.

And let us say: amen.






* I could have said: "interfaith families , special needs learners, the disabled, LGBTQ..." but today I learned a new truth from my rabbi, Jim Prosnit. The person comes before the adjective. We are all people before we are anything else! 

Sustainable Jewish Education

This is from Joel Lurie Grishaver. He is my hero because he always sees ways in which the world around us can inform us about Jewish Education. I remember when he returned from seeing "The Nightmare Before Christmas" he said "They finally made a movie to teach about the December Dilemma! It's awesome!" I think he is right - we need to adapt the sustainability idea to our work. What do you think?

If you are in anyway a “foodie” you know the words “local and sustainable.”

Jamie Oliver is a British Chef who is very much part of the local and sustainable movement. He is also an upstander who has changed the nature of the food served in British State Schools, opened a restaurant where he trains and employs at risk teenagers, and in a reality TV show – Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution – has come to America to try to teach American’s about healthful eating.

His first season was in Huntsville, Alabama – the most overweight city in America – where he made some significant impacts on school lunches among other things. This year he came to Los Angeles and was pretty much defeated by the local ennui. His one big accomplishment was to get the Los Angeles School district to agree to remove flavored milks. Flavored milks (common practice in American public schools) are seen “as the only way to get kids to drink milk” have three times the sugar content of most soda and are probably significantly responsible (with other villains like pizza and fast food) for the dramatic escalation of diabetes in children.

Last year I wrote a probably incoherent tweet about Jamie Oliver being a fabulous role model for Jewish education—having the fortitude and skill to induce people to do what is right even if it isn’t the easiest or most fun choice.

Recently I sat at a conversation to discuss the future of the complementary school. I don’t know what the complimentary school is except that it is the hip-term now used by federated culture to indicate what most Jewish parents describe as “Hebrew School” and “Sunday School.” It joins Religious Schools, Religion Schools, Supplementary Schools, Torah School and Congregational schools in the list of euphemisms for what started life as the Talmud Torah.

All I can figure out is that a complementary school is a place where you get a lot of positive feedback. I hope it doesn’t mean that we are an accessorizing secular education.

Among the people participating in this discussion of the future of majority Jewish schooling was the local communal camp director. His comment was: “We had a school group out to camp for a retreat and at the end of the year the school voted the camp experience their favorite experience of the year.”
Chocolate and Strawberry milk always score highly when students evaluate their food choices.

Let me make two things absolutely clear:

1. I am NOT saying that camp and camp-style learning present a clear danger the way that flavored milks do, and
2. I am NOT saying that schooling should not be “fun,” but, I will continue to quote the mission statement drafted by the Brookline High School faculty, “We believe that education is an addiction to the tart and not the sweet.” (Quoted by Tom Peters in A Passion for Excellence.)

What I am saying is that good Jewish education should be “local and sustainable.”
By “local” I mean, that Jewish education should take place within the dynamic of a living Jewish community. Judaism that cannot be lived can’t be all that functional. Likewise, those who teach should be part of that Jewish community. This does not mean that one can only hire members to be teachers—BUT RATHER—communities need to work hard at making faculty feel invited to participate.

By “sustainable” I am meaning that Jewish Education should lead to future Jewish living. It is impossible for me to define what is adequate learning to sustain Jewish life. For me, it includes a lot of text literacy and tools for “making-meaning” out of primary Jewish sources. These are the tools to remix the Jewish tradition. But, I am more than willing to admit that adequacy has a lot to one’s definition of Jewish living.

I fully believe that the community built at a camp retreat is a useful and highly functional expression of the community that creates “local,” but I doubt that it transfers a lot of sustainability. I know that you can’t teach until you have engaged. That makes engagement necessary, critical, and probably achievable, but it isn’t sufficient to the task of continuity.

We no longer live within the physics of “if you teach them they will come” but I can’t support reduction past the point of sustainability just to achieve demographics. My tradition teaches me that sha’ar yashuv. We will be sustained by a surviving remnant.

Unflavored milk is best for kids even when it isn’t their first choice.

Cross-posted from The Gris Mill

What is the proper blessing on hearing of the violent death of an Amalekite?

Anyone in the U.S. watching network television last night around 10:45 EDT (we might have had a minyan watching network TV) learned about the killing of Osama bin Laden. (People on Twitter learned a little earlier!) It has been an interesting weekend for news. A royal wedding on Friday, a beatification and an assault on public enemy on Sunday. Thank God for Shabbat. We were so busy celebrating a B'nai Mitzvah that we didn't pay attention to the outside world. BTW, both Divrei Torah were fabulous!


This morning I was struck by the sounds and images of the rejoicing in Washington D.C. and at Ground Zero over the death of bin Laden (may his name be blotted from memory). While I am as happy as anyone that he is no longer at large, and relieved he is not going to be around to stand trial, I am struck by the rejoicing over someone’s death and the singing of God Bless America.

Tonight we have class for our Kitah Zayin and Chet students (7th & 8th grade) and tomorrow we have Daled - Vav (4th - 6th). What should we say - if anything?

I am leaning toward telling the Midrash from Masechet Megillot of the angels rejoicing at the sea juxtaposed with the rejoicing of the Israelites (as retold by Pinchas Peli):

"It was indeed part of the miracle which occurred at the crossing of the sea, that the Israelites looked at what they saw and were moved to faith. It was this spontaneous faith which erupted in the exalted immortal Song of the Sea. Song and praise has remained ever since the most genuine language of faith. Most of Jewish prayer does not consist of petition and supplication, but of hymns and praises. The Song of the Sea sung by Moses and the Israelites is to this day part of the daily Jewish liturgy.


Singing to God is not without limitations, just as not singing may have fateful repercussions.... Rabbi Yohanan comments that when the ministering angels wanted to sing hymns during the crossing of the sea, God silenced them saying: 'The work of my hand is being drowned in the sea, and you chant songs?' (Babylonian Talmud Megilla 10a).


This comment of Rabbi Yohanan was often quoted to show the humaneness of the Jewish attitude even towards the worst enemies. Even as the Egyptians were chasing the Israelites to push them into the sea and God wrought the miracle making the wheels of their chariots swerve, sweeping them into the water which soon covered chariots and horsemen, even then no wrathful vendetta, but consideration for the casualties of the enemy was the order of the day." - Pinchas Peli, Torah Today, p.67-68

It shows that rejoicing is a very human response, but when we think deeper we have to remember that a human life has been ended. Juxtaposed with spilling the ten drops of wine for the ten plagues, it leads to a more thoughtful response. In an e-mail forwarded to me by Rabbi Jim Prosnit, Arthur Waskow points out that the angels are rebuked, but the humans are not. The celebration is a natural response, but when we hold ourselves to a higher standard (which we teach our students to do), we have to remember that four people were killed.


I agree with the president that justice was served. I am not unhappy that bin Laden is gone - even with the likelihood that his followers will retaliate. But I am uncomfortable serving that dish with lots of relish. I am generally opposed to death penalty. Like the State of Israel, I am willing to make an exception for proven or avowed mass murderers like Eichmann or bin Laden. But I am not certain the lesson I want to teach is that we dance when they are killed. The images were eerily reminiscent of the dancing in Gaza and Ramallah and Tehran on September 11, 2001. America and Judaism both teach us to be better than that.


An apocryphal story: Before the outbreak of the War of Independence in 1948, it is said that Golda Meir met secretly with King Abdullah of Jordan (the current king's grandfather) to urge him to sit out the conflict. It is said that he refused because the political fallout of not joining the war was unacceptable, and possibly fatal to him. The story goes that he apologized to Golda in advance of the attacks. She is said to have replied: "I can forgive you for killing our sons. I cannot forgive you for forcing my children to become killers of yours."


Maybe it is just too soon, but I know that we need to help contextualize this for our students and ourselves. I would truly like to hear your ideas. What is the lesson we need to teach here? What is the blessing? Do we bless the true judge, or do we praise God for wondrous deeds?


Cross-posted to Davar Acher

The Fifth Passover Question

Full disclosure: Josh Mason-Barkin found this and posted a section of it on his blog, Yikes. Dahlia Lithwick wrote and posted it on Slate.com where she is a senior editor. I tweeted and Facebook shared his posting and contacted Dahlia for permission to re-post which she granted. Incidentally, it turns out the Lisa she refers to is another friend! There are only two degrees of separation in the Jewish world. I think the chatimah is that given the opportunity and the call to lead, people will step up even if they are not drawn to leadership naturally. 

Our first seder was led by two sisters in a room filled with 40 people including two rabbis and two Jewish educators (who were not called upon to lead happily). They were magnificent and took us successfuly from slavery to redemption. 

And they step up beautifully!

How do we choose who will lead the seder?

Who's going to lead the Seder?
By Dahlia Lithwick

Posted Tuesday, April 19, 2011, at 1:02 PM ET

How do we decide who leads the Passover Seder? Something seems to happen to all the thirtysomething Jewish people I know at Passover. They stare deep down into their own hearts, then look deep down at their own feet, and then ask—in some equal measure of panic and despair—"But who's going to lead the Seder?"

I can't tell you how many conversations I have had this month with friends who have been attending Seders for over 30 years: folks who are adept at Hebrew, familiar with every song, and are nevertheless paralyzed by the prospect of actually leading a Seder of their own. There's something about Passover that makes even the most competent among us crave some real grown-ups, while disavowing the possibility of our own grown-up-ness at the same time. It would be deeply Gen X, were it not for the fact that I'm starting to suspect it might be timeless.

I wonder if my father felt this way when my grandfather died and he and his brothers seemed to slide so effortlessly into his place. I wonder if my grandfather once felt this way as well. Maybe everyone has that sense of sheer fakery and fraud when sitting at the head of the table for the first time.

Even if this anxiety is universal, the irony is rather breathtaking, when you think about it: The word Seder means "order." Every action and word required of us is spelled out in the Haggadah with the precision and clarity of a NASA launch sequence. That so many of us feel unequal to the task of doing something so structured is amazing.

At the Seder last night, someone suggested that leading has in fact become more complicated in our time. Our fathers and grandfathers read aloud or assigned reading to others. Everyone knew the tune and the page. But leading the Seder in 2011 can involve complex choreography, the frog song, the store-bought plague paraphernalia, the extratextual readings, and other heroic efforts to be inclusive/relevant/child-friendly and compelling. The days of mumbling before the brisket and mumbling after the brisket have morphed into something requiring the timing, sensitivity, and theatricality of a performance artist.

It's true, furthermore, that whereas our fathers and mothers tended to go to the same Seder year after year, the members of our ambulatory generation have probably attended several different kinds of Seders, each of which had a slightly different take on how to get from the four questions to Dayenu. So despite the "order" there is no longer a standard format. And with every new Seder, guest, and song, what it means to "lead" the Seder becomes more ambiguous and panic-inducing.

There also seems to be a secret, lingering sense among my women friends—women who own their own businesses and publish books, by the way—that leading a Seder is still somehow a man's job. And even if you went to Hebrew school, even if you know each word by heart, even if you're as good at this stuff as your grandpa once was, and even if in every other context you are the source of Jewish tradition and learning in your household, somehow the feeling still persists among some women (myself included) that on Passover the daddies lead and the mommies ladle.

Passover is really the only Jewish holiday in which most households tap some layperson to be professional clergy for a night, and—as my friend Lisa observed yesterday—it's thus apt that this holiday celebrates one of the most reluctant leaders in all of biblical history. Here is poor Moses, begging to be relieved of the responsibility of Sherpa-ing his people from one dusty place to another—pleading unfitness, a speech impediment, and the absence of meaningful leadership qualities. And here we all are, thousands of years later, pleading unfitness, performance anxiety, and the absence of meaningful leadership qualities.

Stop me if this is starting to sound familiar.

Maybe the real lesson of Passover is that nobody—in any generation—feels fit to lead a bunch of other people, but they do it anyway, because in the end somebody has to. Maybe it's not just the story of the Exodus we are passing down from generation to generation, but the trick of leading, when all you ever wanted to do was follow.

http://www.slate.com/id/2291597/

Answers to Open the Door

Peter Eckstein is one of my favorite colleagues. Not only is he a professional and a deep thinker, but he likes the Grateful Dead so much that Terrapin is part of his e-mail address! He called me recently to talk over some ideas about using technology in our work - it was one of several calls he had with a bunch of colleagues. Hopefully you received an invitation to the survey from JESNA or some other source, but if not, click here. This is the beginning of a conversation. For all of our sakes, I hope you will join in! Here is his post about this from his blog, The Fifth Child. (His blog is definitely worth following!) 

Pesach is a time for questions.

So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to ask you some. I’ll start with one: How do Jewish educators learn to use 21st century educational technology in the Jewish classroom? This will lead to a few more. What follows is a survey with 15 questions (an auspicious number for Pesach). The goal of this short (5-8 minutes) questionnaire is to find some answers to the question of how and what we learn.

My friend and colleague Barry Gruber recently posted a piece about the smorgasbord of opportunities to learn what the ‘net provides. He’s right – it truly is a blessing. I wonder if this cornucopia is so bountiful that there will be many who, like the 4th child, will be so intimidated by all the resources available that they will be daunted by the act of beginning to learn. They won’t know where to start. They won’t know what to ask. If this is the case, what should we do about it?

Ergo the survey. This is an independent project to explore the nature of on-line Jewish professional development related to the utilization of educational technology. It’s focus is to find out how we Jewish educators learn about these new tools, where we learn from, and if we need to make these learning opportunities more accessible. I'm hoping that this information will help shape the way Jewish educators can easily learn more about the use of digital tools in their classrooms.

Teaching is leading. We educators create an environment for our students to construct their knowledge base. The tools that are being developed today and tomorrow empower us to achieve this goal. The complicated part is that we need to learn how to use them. There’s the rub. What’s the best way for the educators, who can’t go to conferences or don’t have local resources provided by central agencies, to learn how to take the next step into the world of digital Jewish learning?

Questions. There are many. And the answers may lead us to an understanding of what we can do to build a solid base of Jewish educators who can comfortably engage their students, speaking a common language. This is why I’m asking you all to take part in this adventure.

I must thank Jonathan Woocher and Rebecca Leshin of the Lippman Kanfer Institute for supporting this project and providing the platform to make it possible. I also want to acknowledge the many educators in the Jewish cloud who have contributed ideas to help create this survey. There are too many to mention by name, but I do want to thank you all for you assistance.

So please click here to access this professional development survey. Answers can be signposts leading us in the direction of creating Jewish futures for our students. We just need to start with the questions. Together let’s find the answers.

If you ask what a teacher makes, be prepared for the answer

My friend and colleague, Arnie Rotenberg, posted a link to this video on Facebook this morning. He said "If you ask what a teacher makes, be prepared for the answer." Enjoy the video. Let's talk about it!



Crossposted to Davar Acher

Please pass the Torah!

Are you a member of the Jewish Education Change Network? If you are not you should be. Stop. Click on Jewish Education Change Network. Join. Come right back her and finish this post! JECN is the brainchild of Jonathan Woocher and the folks at the Lippman-Kanfer Institute at JESNA. It is a Ning network that serves as a platform for Jewish educators to get together and learn from one another.


On March 2, Erica Korman started a discussion forum about Independent Jewish Sunday Schools. I commented and we have gone back and forth a few times and Sara Shapiro Plevan weighed in as well. I thought it was a valuable conversation and I am hoping you will join it http://www.jedchange.net/forum/topics/independent-jewish-sunday and/or here. 

Erica Korman is working on her Masters in Education and Jewish Studies Department at NYU:Steinhardt. Sara Shapiro-Plevan is lead consultant for Rimonim consulting.

Posted by Erica Korman on March 2, 2011 at 2:23 pm

I invite you to take a look at the Boston-area Jewish Education Program. This is an independent, 4-hour weekly program for 2nd-7th grade that is unaffiliated with any synagogue or denomination and is held (although independent of) at Brandeis University. The BJEP, and others like it, accommodate families that want a Jewish education without the attachment to a synagogue. Many of the children of such families would not receive a Jewish education at all without a program of this type.

My question is this: Is an education discrete from a synagogue a viable option? I think it is great that families that would otherwise not enroll at a supplementary educational program at a synagogue are finding a suitable alternative. However, is Jewish education without clergical (sic) attachment sufficient?

Pros:

Because there are no synagogue dues, the cost is kept low

The teachers are all undergraduate Brandeis students, which offers an energy and vitality not usually found among the traditional Jewish supplementary school

It is a place where families who shied away from denominations and synagogue pressures can find refuge

Cons:

While they advocate learning beyond B'nei Mitzvah, they do not offer post-B'nei Mitzvah education.

Without any denomination, religious praxis may be unclear and potentially confusing. Family guidance from a Rabbi is unavailable because, well, there is no Rabbi.

Perhaps this is too liberal of an option. Is this too deviant from tradition?

Here is an article from a 2009 edition of the Jewish Advocate 

reply by Ira Wise on March 15, 2011 at 11:21 pm 

My concern is only tangentially with the lack of clergy. My bigger concern is the lack of community. While I applaud providing for those who cannot or do not wish to find a synagogue home, I fear that this serves to commoditize the Bar Mitzvah in the most cynical way clothed in the guise of serving the disaffected. 

Becoming a Bar/Bat Mitzvah should be about a young man or woman beginning to take their place in the adult community. As described, this program seems to be a way to tag the B'nei Mitzvah base without scoring the run. It is another activity ending in a trophy that is not necessarily earned, since there is no stated intention to complete the act - entering the community. This makes Jewish education an activity on par with soccer, the school play or dance class. You enroll, pay, drop your kid off the prescribed number of days per week. At the end the parents attend the recital and celebrate the accomplishment as a family. And when you age out, you move on to another endeavor. 

I don't see the advantage of accommodating the "need" to claim connection without actually being connected. The only difference between this and a "faux mitzvah" (covered a few years ago in the NY Times, there seems to be some evidence of non-Jews having a celebration that directly and deliberately mirrors the Bar Mitzvah party) is that the child is actually Jewish. I am open to alternative models. I embrace them. This is not an alternative model. It is Dollar Store imitation of Jewish practice.

  Reply by Erica Korman on March 22, 2011 at 11:37 am

Thank you for your input, Ira. I was initially disturbed by this program. I think any Jewish educational program must have strong, non-compromising boundaries forming it.

Taking a communal rite-of-passage outside of a structured community is a dangerous step. I agree it further commoditizes the Bar Mitzvah, which has long been practiced as a spectacle landmark event in many communities. On the other hand, supporters of this type of program could argue that there is a defined community. It consists of the support from those that are also involved with the school. The other students and families are the kehilla and the principal, or whomever is at the highest leadership position, is the "Rabbi," in this case the adviser and head educator. 

It would be great if someone who has experience with this type of organization could provide their input. 

Reply by Ira Wise on March 22, 2011 at 12:32 pm

My one issue with the idea that this type of school is a community is its transitory nature. It has an expiration date: the end of formal education of the youngest child in a family. 

It also lacks a parent modeling component. It has only minimal opportunities - as I see it - for parents to model the behaviors of being part of an adult Jewish community. It makes the focus of Judaism pediatrics. 

Metaphor 1: I grew up playing with my grandfather's tzitzit during services. My son grew up playing with mine. Whose will these kids play with? 

Metaphor 2: When my parents joined the temple for me to go to Sunday school, they were asked to help out with the lox box fundraiser. They sold a few, but most importantly, on the Sunday in November when they were to be delivered, my father was sitting at a long table behind a scale, weighing lox. He passed the foam plate full of fish to Howie Lipshultz who used a Ronco Seal-a-meal to encase it in airtight plastic. Howie gave it to Sandee Schor who put it in a box with bagels she had bagged, and then passed the box to my mom, who added the onion and tomatoes. 

Jump 40 years. We threw my mom a 75th birthday party last summer. Sandee, Howie's wife and a whole bunch of other people who were at that table or others like it over the years were in attendance. My parents modeled community for me and me sister. Many of their most important relationships were and are through the synagogue. No surprise I became an educator. My sister is married to a rabbi. We have very Jewish homes. 

You don't need to be a professional to raise Jewish kids. But you have to demonstrate that being Jewish is not kid stuff. It is for adults living and doing adult things in the context of participating in a Jewish community. 

One of the biggest challenges in the non-orthodox day school world is enculturating students in the life of a synagogue - essentially being part of a community that doesn;t expire on graduation day. I am part of a group that is planning on bringing together synagogue school and day school directors to try and crack this issue. 

Thanks for posting this. I am enjoying the conversation.

Reply by Sara Shapiro-Plevan on March 23

Erica, thanks for posting this. My first paid teaching job was at BJEP, too long ago to date without embarrassing myself. My concern today, as it was then, was that because of the way that the program is built, there is no web of support for families, no larger community (in whatever dimension, style, etc.) for them to "join," and therefore, no reason to continue their engagement after their child(ren) have aged out of the community. 

Sure, families who shy away from synagogue affiliation can find refuge, but they are not finding refuge *with* other families, just refuge *from* others. In this model, parents are minimally engaged, and little or nothing is offered to them or asked of them (see Ira's pediatric Judaism comments above). 

We have much evidence that this pediatric approach doesn't work, and that in fact, parents are at a unique moment in their own lives when they choose ANY Jewish education for their children. A window of opportunity opens, and programs like BJEP are not structured to take advantage of this opportunity. 

Jewish learning needs to engage the entire family in meaningful, rich experiences through which they can feel a part of something larger, be it a community or the whole of the Jewish people. Until programs like BJEP can provide that, they aren't working to their fullest capacity.