Two postings today on the RJ.org Virtual
Symposium on Jewish Education. I am honored to have been invited to submit a response to Dr. Edelsberg's initial posting. As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
I am so pleased that this symposium began with Dr. Charles
Edelsberg’s words, as I have known of and benefited from his vision as
realized through his work with the Jim Joseph Foundation. He writes,
“[We] must begin with the understanding that education
does not equal schooling. In fact, the very place of Jewish institutions
as centers of Jewish teaching and learning – day and congregational
schools perhaps most prominent among them – must be called into question
by any earnest futurist.”
Reading this, I felt a visceral response. After all, I have dedicated
my life to being a synagogue educator. Then I took a breath and
remembered that for the past several years I have been saying more or
less the same thing. We do need to question how learning is best
transmitted. In fact, we need to question the language we use in the
entire endeavor.
At the same time, I also question those
who have already decided the answer is to jettison the schools – and the
synagogues for that matter – and find the new new thing, to
borrow a phrase from Michael Lewis. We do need to find the new new
thing, but I don’t think that means jettisoning the models we have.
We need to transform our schools. And for a visionary idea, I look to the past, to John Dewey. As recently as 1897, he said:
I believe that the only true education comes through the
stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social
situations in which he finds himself… I believe that the school is
primarily a social institution… I believe that the school must represent
present life-life as real and vital to the child as that which he
carries on in the home, in the neighborhood, or on the playground.
So when Dr. Edelsberg invokes the idea that “profound revolutions in
information and communications technologies are accelerating deep
learning outside of formal institutional settings – occurring in real
time, all the time,” he is restating Dewey. It is the same as it ever
was, and we need to be constantly adapting how learning happens in our
congregations.
To me, the focus is on creating community and relationship. While the
self-direct approach will serve some better than anything we have done
before, I believe it must – particularly for younger learners – be a
component of the learning experience, not the totality.
For the last few years at Congregation B’nai Israel
in Bridgeport, CT, we have been trying to focus on relationship
building. While our school is still a school, it is not monolithic and
unchanging. This past spring, a parent emailed to explain that the
timing of school as her daughter moved to a new grade was not going to
work – and because we couldn’t help her, they were going to “do it on
their own.” Another parent expressed concern with the content and the
methodology of the program – and because we couldn’t help her, they were
going to “do it on their own.” We invited both to bring their concerns
to and join our Religious School Vision Team.
On September 9, we opened
our fully subscribed Etgar class, a pilot program that meets the
challenge of logistics, integrates Hebrew and Judaic learning and brings
experiential learning to the forefront – all in response to the needs
we helped our families articulate.
It comes down to relationships. Between adults. Between children.
Between congregational leadership, professionals, and our congregants.
My wife, a healthcare marketing professional, told me once that all
problems are ultimately communications problems. Sometimes we don’t ask
the right questions; sometimes we don’t correctly hear the answers or
questions directed to us. Instead of meeting the needs we think people have, we need to focus on the needs they really have.
One of the ways we do that in our temple is through organizing the
parents to help them build their own relationships in the context of the
congregation. In Torah at the Center
(page 6), our Room Parent Coordinator Amy Newman described how our room
parents don’t do what traditional room parents do. Their role is to get
the parents of the students to socialize and build relationships.
Parents of older students create programs that get our students to do
the same.
My teacher Jerry Kaye, director of URJ Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute,
teaches his staff that “camp is for the campers.” That means that all
activity (not just teaching) must be designed with, as Dr. Edelsberg
says, “personal relevance to the learner foremost in mind.” I use the
same teaching with my faculty: Everything we do is in service of the
learner’s experience and that of her family – not the experience we
think they should have, but the one they have come to expect, because we
developed it together.
Dr. Edelsberg gives us a lot to chew on. And we have to both embrace where have been and let go enough to bring in other possibilities. Soon, we will be asking students to turn their phones on
at the start of class, so they can bring the world in with them – and
so they can go out into the world and bring their classmates with them,
as well.
Ira J. Wise, RJE, is the director of education at Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport, CT. He blogs about Jewish Education at Welcome to the Next Level
and first met Dr. Charles Edelsberg as a Jim Joseph Foundation Fellow
at the Lookstein Institute for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at Bar
Ilan University. He is a graduate of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education
at HUC-JIR.
Two postings today on the RJ.org Virtual Symposium on Jewish Education. The first is by my friend, colleague and occasional mentor, Rabbi Stan Schickler, R.J.E., the Executive Director of the National Association of Temple Educators (NATE). As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
Much of the reaction to Charles Edelsberg’s initial blog post has
offered specific examples of responses to the challenges we face in our
communities and their settings. During this High Holy Days season of
introspection, I would like to take a more general approach.
My first thought after reading Dr. Edelsberg’s piece was of a
quotation attributed to Yogi Berra: “It’s tough to make predictions,
especially about the future.” My next thought was to remember an essay
by Simon Rawidowicz, the great 20th century Jewish philosopher, called Israel: The Ever-Dying People.
The premise of this essay is that every generation of Jews sees itself
as the final generation, as the last generation that will exist before
we perish:
Israel makes only one image of itself: that of a being constantly on the verge of ceasing to be, of disappearing. (p. 53)
He who studies Jewish history will readily discover that there was
hardly a generation in the Diaspora that did not consider itself the
final link in Israel’s chain. . . . . Each generation grieved not only
for itself but also for the great past that was going to disappear, as
well as for the future of unborn generations who would never see the
light of day. (p. 54)
I periodically return to this essay, which has become a touchstone
for me. Why? Because I find it heartening and encouraging that our
current generation is motivated and moved by this same impulse that has
moved the preceding generations. What initially sounds like something
negative and pessimistic is actually hopeful — Rawidowicz points out:
[Our] seers and mentors have time and again pronounced
the dire warning: “Israel, thou art going to be wiped off from the face
of the earth; the end is near—unless and if…” There were many “ifs,”
and yet they were always the same. (p. 53)
It seems to me that most of our attempts to both predict and take
hold of the future come from this impulse, this notion, that we are the
final generation. There is something paradoxical about that. It is
pessimistic, yet hopeful. Rawidowicz issues a jeremiad regarding our
continued existence, but then ends on a promising and even encouraging
note: “unless and if.” These qualifying words imply that we
have some control over our fate, that our fate is connected to steps we
can proactively undertake, to behavior we can actually carry out. That
is tremendously encouraging and motivating — the notion that what we do
can and does make a difference as we work to transmit our heritage and
our way of life on to the next generation. The stakes are high — they
are no less than the perpetuation of Judaism and Jewish life.
While much of the activity in Jewish life and in the world of Jewish
education right now is a reaction to the economic challenges of the past
number of years, I find the ferment and the fertility to be incredibly
exciting and encouraging. Indeed, this activity flows from our
commitment to Rawidowicz’s “unless and if.” We seem to be on the cusp of
a sea change in the way we carry out Reform Jewish education, and Dr.
Edelsberg’s insights and observations are tremendously relevant as we go
forward. In fact, this is a wonderfully exciting time to be involved in
the field of Jewish education.
At the same time, I, too, am apprehensive about trying to predict the
future. It is not clear what will have staying power, what will be
“sticky.” Everything moves so rapidly and so quickly that it is tough to
know where to put down a stake and where to make commitments to
particular venues or media or delivery strategies. But I do agree with
Dr. Edelsberg’s assertions regarding the power of our Reform Movement
and its distinctive qualities that uniquely position us to engage our
members in order to foster and enhance and deepen relationships —
between individuals, between individuals and institutions, and to
Judaism and Jewish life.
To bring us back to where we started: There is always the impulse to
think about the generations that will come after us. This impulse has
been at work throughout our history, and continues to be operative
today. The famous story of Honi the Circlemaker illustrates this
beautifully.
One day while [Honi was] walking on the road, he noticed a man planting a carob tree. Said Honi to the man: “You know that it takes 70 years before a carob tree bears fruit. Are you so sure that you will live 70 years and eat from it?” “I found this world filled with carob trees,” the man replied. “As my ancestors planted them for me, so do I plant them for my progeny.”(Ta’anit 23)
I got behind and missed yesterday's postings on the RJ.org Virtual Symposium on Jewish Education. The RJ.org blog had three yesterday. Here is the third, by Micah Ellenson. As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
“In a global world, there is unprecedented opportunity for
relationship building, inter-connectedness, learning and meaning-making
between and among Reform Jews across the globe,” Dr. Charles Edelsberg writes.
Relationship-building between congregants and the institutions to
which they belong is at the core of creating a meaningful Judaism in the
21st century. However, many barriers prevent connection
between congregants and institutions. It is crucial to identify the
obstacles that exist today in creating relationships of intimacy and
meaning between congregant and congregation. Although there are many –
and each congregation has a unique set – I will identify a few that I
feel are the most universal and important.
One of the first barriers to successful
relationship building occurs because we are always worried about the
future of the Jewish people. As a result, we oftentimes negate the
present. As Jewish professionals and lay people we have become so
focused on b’nai mitzvah, post-b’nai mitzvah,
retention, and the future of Judaism that we sometimes unintentionally
ignore the children and families that show up every week to the local
synagogue and are highly committed to providing a Jewish education to
their children. Jews are, in fact, showing up to synagogues – and they
will continue to show up whether or not they have Smart Boards in their
children’s religious school classrooms. The thing we should really be
concerned with is creating deep and meaningful relationships between
families and the synagogue while they are there.
The second difficulty is the ever-changing dynamic between clergy,
synagogue, and the congregant. There was a time, not so long ago, when
the rabbi could rely on the aura of his dynamic presence to get those
who did not know him to follow him. Today, with community organizing
models and access to so much information, the only way clergy and
educators will reach the people who walk through the doors of the
synagogue is by knowing them personally and cultivating engaging
relationships with them. This type of relationship-building requires
more work, and there is more risk of rejection. However, without the
rabbi, cantor, and educator being real and accessible and speaking from
the heart, they will be unable to reach the hearts of the people they
wish to shepherd and have join them.
The third hurdle is that American Jews have changed in their
self-perception and self-definition. Judaism has always been a religion
of questions and very few answers. The Talmud is full of thousands of
debates and very few resolutions to those great discussions. With so
much access to information, we have become a culture that values answers
over the process of asking questions. Rabbis, cantors, educators and
congregants are all guilty of becoming infatuated with the product of
Jewish living as opposed to the process – as if the point of Jewish
education were to be able to read Hebrew, chant Torah, and be able to
“pray anywhere in the world.” The point of Jewish education needs to be
about process-seeking, and not about finding. When one is taught to be a
Jew, by questioning and seeking, then Jewish values – like community,
ritual, mitzvot, lifecycles, and God – will flow naturally and
authentically from their very being. It is not the products of education
that are important, rather it is the process of being educated that is
truly what Jewish education needs to be about. Therefore, it is a model
of process over product in Jewish education within the synagogue that
will truly be what makes Judaism generative and personally relevant to
the congregant.
Relationship has always been at the core of Judaism. Relationship
leads to community, and community is, at its core, what Judaism strives
to achieve. In Exodus 19:6, God tells the people of Israel right before
they receive the Ten Commandments, “And you shall be unto me a kingdom
of priests and a holy nation.” However, we can only become this holy
nation by being a connected community. The real implication of
post-denominationalism and the technology boom is that people will
imagine they have community and all that Judaism has to offer because they know the facts of Judaism – but it is a shift from product to process, from dynamic leadership to community organizing, from paying attention to our present and not just our future, that will ensure a vibrant and meaningful Jewish future and it all starts with relationship.
Micah Ellenson
received his Masters in Education from the University of Judaism in
2005 and served as Director of Youth Activities and Dean of the Academy
of Stephen S. Wise for four years. He is currently in the rabbinic
program at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, where he lives with his
wife, Sara, and daughter, Lily.
I got behind and missed yesterday's postings on the RJ.org Virtual Symposium on Jewish Education. The RJ.org blog had three yesterday. Here is the second, by URJ Vice President Jonah Pesner. As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
The Jewish month of Elul is the perfect time for this symposium,
and not just because synagogues are opening of their religious school
doors to young people and their parents for another year of Jewish
learning. Elul is the very season of return. This month, in anticipation
of the new year, we pause to recommit ourselves, communally and
individually, to the enterprise of Jewish life and learning. So it’s the
perfect time not only to imagine the future, but also to examine ways
to inspire the next generation to discover joy in Jewish learning.
Dr. Charles Edelsberg’s recent essay,
characteristically, is both exciting and challenging. Jewish learning
in the future, Reform or otherwise, will need to be more personal, more
multimedia- and tech-savvy, and increasingly positioned as a lifelong
endeavor. But the point that resonated most with me, based on the
insight of The Power of Pull, is that to succeed, Jewish education will need to be relationship-based, rather than didactic and transactional.
Let’s be honest about the past and
present of Reform Jewish education: Although there are important pockets
of innovation, the synagogue religious school is not fundamentally
different than it was one or even two generations ago. Most temples have
“formal” classrooms, teachers, and students, and curricula that lead to
bar and bat mitzvah. Thankfully, we have made enormous strides with
family education, retreats, and “informal education,” both in and out of
the classroom. And yet, we are still, overwhelmingly, organized around
what Dr. Edelsberg’s calls “schooling” as opposed to education. He
rightly argues that the shifts in information and communication call
into question the very role of the formal school, forcing us to ask this
critical question: What is the role of formal schooling in today’s
24/7, completely connected environment?
I would take it one step further.
Despite enormously creative innovation and experimentation, Reform Jewish education today is, by some measure, failing.
Fifty percent of teens who become bar and bat mitzvah drop out of
synagogue participation by tenth grade, and 80 percent drop out by their
senior year. Why does that matter? Over and above the question of how
much “content knowledge” students retain (my hunch is that it’s not
much), the alienation from Jewish communal participation that this
schooling continues to engender should alarm us.
That’s why the language of The Power of Pull resonates with
me. Over and over again, when asked why they continue to engage in
Jewish communal life, involved teens, parents, and others describe the
inspiration created by key relationships with those who kept them
engaged. They describe a dynamic rabbi, a loving cantor, an inspiring
teacher, a camp counselor or a youth advisor, a peer mentor, or someone
else in their social or educational network who invited and sustained
their participation. They describe moving experiences shared with others
and memorable moments they will never forget. Although I don’t remember
much of what I learned in all those years of Sunday school, I certainly
do remember the wonderful people and the inspiring experiences we
shared.
The Reform Movement launched the Campaign for Youth Engagement
(CYE) with this paramount insight as a baseline assumption: In the
context of inspiring Jewish experiences, we need to foster stronger and
deeper relationships with and among teens, parents, and families, in
order to turn the dropout rate on its head. No one is more committed to
the CYE than are the members of the National Association of Temple Educators, who yearn to change the dynamic and are willing to test new modes aggressively.
There are some compelling examples of success across the Reform
Movement. Congregations such as B’nai Shalom in Fairfax Station, VA,
Beth Elohim in Wellesley, MA, and Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, NC,
retain nearly 100 percent of their teens through high school because
they have elevated learning through individual relationships and
transformative experiences. As Rabbi Fred Guttman of Greensboro likes to say, “Youth engagement is not a curriculum; it’s the curriculum.” To be sure, there are other examples – but not nearly enough.
So what’s the implication for the future of Reform Jewish education?
Perhaps this will be the generation that ends “schooling” in favor of
new models of engaged, inspired learning and community. This fall, the
URJ and HUC-JIR jointly launched the B’nai Mitzvah Revolution
as one step toward that possibility. If we are going to be honest about
synagogue education, let’s be honest too, about bar and bat mitzvah.
After all, that is now the end game for so many of our kids. Shouldn’t
our goal be to have such a creative and exciting build up to the b’nai mitzvah
experience – and to have a once-in-a-lifetime transformative experience
of the event itself so that our young people will not abandon our
synagogues afterward, but rather yearn to continue onward? As Dr. Isa
Aron explained when we first started imagining the B’nai Mitzvah
Revolution: If we can change that, we might be able to change
everything.
Now
more than ever, during these sacred days of renewal and return, the
time has come to focus on how we bring people (parents and their
children) into relationships with one another and with talented,
engaging facilitators of Jewish learning who will inspire and promote
just that—not more “schooling.” How appropriate that now, on the brink
of the new year, we can lay the groundwork for such a critical new
beginning.
I got behind and missed yesterday's postings on the RJ.org Virtual Symposium on Jewish Education. The RJ.org blog had three yesterday. Here is the first, by my friend and colleague Deborah Niederman. As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
I am grateful for the way that Dr. Charles Edelsberg frames his piece on education in the Reform Movement.
Too often, what is written about Jewish education is merely a critique
and sometimes an outright attack. We often read that Jewish education,
especially complementary education through our congregations, is in
crisis. But the truth is that we have always been reading articles that
make such claims, and there has always been great innovation in
congregational education, especially in the Reform Movement. (Innovative
projects such as the Experiment in Congregational Education of the Rhea Hirsch School of Education
and communal initiatives locally have been helping congregations
rethink how they approach education for over two decades.) I am grateful
that Dr. Edelsberg frames his piece around phenomena that can offer a
robust approach to Reform Jewish education.
I agree with the challenge and necessity of discussing this important topic despite all the unknowns – and the National Association of Temple Educators
(NATE) is not shying away from this difficult conversation. Like Dr.
Edelsberg, we, too, struggle with the distinction between fads and
trends. In this rapidly changing world, communication is constant and
access to information has been democratized. The demand we face is in
determining how to harness this power and accessibility to create
rigorous, individualized approaches to learning that will meet the needs
of all learners, in all situations, all the time. Many of NATE’s
members are on the very front lines of this challenging work, and often
on the receiving end of such demands. And really, this is an
overwhelming demand! For NATE and our members, any request or demand
related to education should be seen as an opportunity. The demand for
offering education in a personalized and relevant way is our greatest
opportunity yet.
The world around us is rapidly changing – and not only the
organizational world of Jewish communal life. In this globalized world,
Reform Jewish learners of all ages and interests have access to
information in a way that, just a generation ago, we could not have
imagined. As educators, our tasks are now much more as facilitators and
guides, rather than as sole creators and providers. We must become
co-creators with our learners and families in order to provide
meaningful learning opportunities – but let us never give up on
congregational education and the potential that lies within
congregations. The truth is that the vast majority of Jews will always
be educated in the congregational system, even if not literally within
the walls of synagogues. There has been much innovation over the last
several decades, and the religious school of this generation is new,
vibrant, and robust in many ways. New models abound everywhere!
In her response to Dr. Edelsberg, NATE President Lisa Lieberman Barzilai states,
“As the North American Jewish community changes, it is our
responsibility to make this a time of inspiration and spiritual growth
that will create an ever-vibrant Judaism. NATE and its members
understand and embrace our role in shalshelet hakabalah, the chain of tradition.” Indeed, NATE strives to help its members embrace this role by remaining true to what has always been at the heart of Reform Judaism: a commitment to meaningful and purposeful change that acknowledges the positive influences of society, while at the same time remaining true to the prophetic values of justice, mercy, and the pursuit of shalom, peace and wholeness.
Deborah Niederman, RJE, serves as the first vice-president of NATE. She is the Alumni
Engagement Coordinator for the HUC-JIR Schools of Education and the
Coordinator of Induction and Retention for the Jim Joseph Education
Initiative of HUC-JIR.
The RJ.org blog had two postings in the Virtual Symposium today. Here is the second, by Cathy Rolland and Jennifer Magalnick. As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
The seven phenomenon that Dr. Charles Edelsberg outlines
are compelling, astute, and inspirational. Two of the ideas he offers –
expanding the concept of education and focusing on relationships – are
key ingredients in excellent early childhood education. We agree
wholeheartedly with his vision and differ on only one point: The future
he describes does not require prognostication and prediction, because
the future is now.
Dr. Edelsberg advises that we move beyond the concept of schooling in
our thinking about Jewish education. Early childhood education lends
itself naturally to a broader view of this idea. We see our students as
learners from the moment they enter the world, and we see them in the
context of their families. The family is the student, and early
childhood education theory tells us that we must address the needs of
the family if we are to nurture the development of the child. This
naturally promotes a holistic view of Jewish education; the system must
be seen as a whole.
Reform Jewish life today is about
choice, not obligation. The idea of choosing is certainly not new to
Reform Judaism, but the types of choices that families face are. The
youngest learners in our congregations – the students in our early
childhood programs or the babes in arms of the families walking through
the doors of our buildings – live in a rapidly changing and expanding
world. Jewish choices are not only measured against each other but
against everything else, as well. The engagement our congregations offer
to families on all levels competes with a plethora of opportunities for
spiritual enrichment, community building, education, and, ultimately,
identity development. Young Jewish families seek intentional communities
where they can engage deeply and meaningfully, and the moment is ours
to capture.
Our thinking about Jewish education must include early childhood
programs, including schools and other early engagement offerings, as
well as congregational schools, day schools, camps, youth groups, adult
learning, congregational and community life; everything is sacred. Not
only must we think holistically and broadly about the entire system, we
must also think strategically. Human beings are becoming more and more
accustomed to the concierge lifestyle: We are shepherded from one
product, idea, or activity to another as our electronic devices flash
suggestions for what else we might like or need based on what they
“know” about us. If professionals in the Jewish world don’t learn from
this model and work together to guide the Jewish journey of the families
they encounter, we, as a community, are missing the boat.
Dr. Edelsberg also reminds us that we must make the shift to
relationship-based learning. This concept is the foundation of learning
in the field of early childhood education. Research from Harvard
University’s National Scientific Council on the Developing Child
shows that young children learn in the context of relationships:
“Stated simply, relationships are the ’active ingredients‘ of the
environments influence on healthy human development… Relationships
engage children in the human community in ways that help them define who
they are, what they can become and how and why they are important to
other people.” In order to ensure that there will be Jewish adults of
the future, Jewish children of today must have relationships both in and
out of the family context that help them learn about who they are and
why that is important. The Jewish families of today have similar needs.
They must connect with each other, with clergy and synagogue
professionals and with their communities, to process who they are as a
Jewish family and the importance of their place in the Jewish community.
Early childhood education has never been limited in scope, only in
chronology. We have always known that young children are students of
their environment; their classroom is the world, beginning with the
microcosm of their family and blossoming outward as they grow.
Relationships are integral to human development from the beginning of
life. As Dr. Edelsberg teaches us to broaden our view of education,
these should be among the tenets of Jewish education for all learners,
for all time.
The RJ.org blog had two postings in the Virtual Symposium today. Here is the first, by my friend and collegue Lisa Lieberman Barzilai, who is also the president of the National Association of Temple Educators (NATE). As before, please comment on the RJ.org blog, so that we are all part of the same conversation!
I share Dr. Charles Edelsberg’s trepidations about making predictions,
especially when it comes to the curriculum – in its broadest sense – of
Reform Jewish education. With dramatic changes underway in both the
American and Jewish communal landscapes, it would seem folly to make
statements for which one might be held accountable. And yet, because we
are at a point in history when, as they say, “change is the new
constant,” it is a question that must be addressed.
Indeed all learning, and most especially Jewish learning, needs to be
relevant to the student— from the very youngest to those who are older.
Watching my 5-year-old nephew sing Jewish songs because he understands
the relevance of the lyrics to his life brings joy to my heart. Even
better is to watch him talk with my 95-year-old grandmother, his
great-grandmother, about a particular Jewish holiday about which he also
sings. Here, it is clear that the curriculum is touching the heart of a
student and is being shared with others. This core of relevancy will be
vital to the avenue of delivery that is chosen.
Harnessing technology’s potential for
education is one area that Jewish educators likely will need to address
to ensure that we are on the cutting edge and not lagging behind. With
today’s ever-changing technology, however, we cannot limit ourselves by
stating that a curriculum ought to use the web, or a particular app or
social utility such as Twitter or Pinterest. All too often, Jewish
education lacks the ability to make nimble adjustments based on changes
in our North American culture.
Abraham Joshua Heschel taught us, “What we need more than anything
else is not textbooks but text people.” My interpretation of this quote
for our times is that we need teachers who are living models of Judaism
and masters in the art of engagement. Although the faculty as a whole
needs to embrace the beautiful tapestry in which one can live a Jewish
life, individual teachers—through their relationships with students—must
be able to translate a true love of Judaism to the next generation. The
world we live in does not embrace community in the same ways as of old.
Once, people joined congregations to be part of a community, to seek
opportunities for education and spiritual fulfillment; today, people
join congregations because of individuals. It is the one-on-one
relationships that then grow to create a community. Such
community-building needs to take place in all our educational settings –
encompassing the youngest of our learners through to those with
lived-life wisdom.
 |
| Lisa Lieberman Barzilai |
As
the North American Jewish community changes, it is our responsibility
to make this a time of inspiration and spiritual growth that will create
an ever-vibrant Judaism. The National Association of Temple Educators (NATE) and its members understand and embrace our role in shalshelet hakabalah, the chain of tradition.
