Senior Educators Program - Final Update

,וְהָיוּ הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם--עַל-לְבָבֶךָ. וְשִׁנַּנְתָּם לְבָנֶיךָ, וְדִבַּרְתָּ בָּם,

בְּשִׁבְתְּךָ בְּבֵיתֶךָ וּבְלֶכְתְּךָ בַדֶּרֶךְ, וּבְשָׁכְבְּךָ וּבְקוּמֶךָ

Deuteronomy 6:6

I have been working in the field of informal and formal Jewish education for over ten years. Of all the subjects I teach, I have the greatest passion and interest for the teaching of Tanach. It is a book that never ceases to enthrall me in its characterization of the human condition, its sparse narrative, the special obligation it outlines for the Jewish people and the real and imagined history it tells of my nation. In addition to a book of religious instruction, I also read the Tanach as the central text of Jewish collective memory. After touch, taste, hearing, sight and smell, Tanach opens me to my sixth sense, memory. Jonathan Safran Foer elaborates on this idea in his book Everything is Illuminated:

The Jew is pricked by a pin and remembers other pins. It is only by tracing the pinprick back to other pinpricks – when his mother tried to fix his sleeve while his arm was still in it, when his grandfather's fingers fell asleep while stroking his great-grandfather's damp forehead, when Abraham tested the knife point to be sure Isaac would feel no pain – that the Jew is able to know why it hurts.When a Jew encounters a pin, he asks: What does it remember like?"

Over the past year I have had a first class tutorial in Jewish memory through living and studying in Jerusalem as a fellow on the Melton Centre's Senior Educators Program. Each day I woke up, ate, read, traveled, socialized, studied, questioned, rested, prayed, wrestled and hugged. The fact that I was doing all of this in the State of Israel provided a constant commentary to each of my activities. I encountered people from across the globe who love this land because of, and in spite of, what it is. I encountered a contemporary spoken language revived from the bible, sounds and songs of deep longing, food flavored with a rainbow of spices and a culture of deep searching for meaning, ritual, money and peace. Being in this most dynamic of societies, everything I learnt this year entered my mind through one of its many filters. After absorbing hundreds of lectures, websites, books, religious and secular shiurim, films,
concerts and tiyulim, I strove to find a medium for professional expression from these encounters.

From Tree of Knowledge to Tree of life, the project I worked on for the past year, is one product of this encounter. For the rest of what I have learnt this year, I invite you to join me at a Shabbat table, class, living room, or lecture theatre in the future.

Thank you very much to The King David School, Melton Mini-School, VUPJ, UPJ and the Jewish Agency for Israel who made this experience possible.

The Meaning of Israel: יום העצמאות ה60‎ ערב

“What is the meaning of the state of Israel? No single answer can exhaust its meaning. One fact is clear. In no other community do we witness such an intense, ongoing search, such an effort to understand itself in terms of a higher vision as in Israel.
–A. J Heschel, Israel: An Echo of Eternity

From the time I was born here, and through my education in Australian Zionist schools and youth movements, I remember repeatedly hearing two contradictory answers to the question of what the purpose of the Israel should be, The first is that we should aspire to be a nation like all other nations. We will know that this purpose has been fulfilled "when Jewish thieves and Jewish prostitutes conduct their business in Hebrew." The second is that we have been selected by God to be different from other nations, and with this chosen status came a special responsibility. “To be a light unto the nations.” Both statements were always attributed to David Ben Gurion.

On the eve of our sixtieth birthday, we are both. Like most other western nations we value money and materialism too much, our inept political leadership generates more apathy than hope, and we struggle to treat our minorities with the same dignity afforded to our majorities. More specifically the way we have dealt with the question of Palestinian nationalism has tarnished our image in the world more than any other event.

Avashai Margalit suggest’s there perhaps is a third, more realistic option between these two ideals. Margalit’s ideal is a society whose institutions do not humiliate the people under their authority, and whose citizens do not humiliate one another. He calls this a “decent society.”

This coming week is not one for these questions. It is a time for honoring and celebrating the great people and achievements of the only Jewish State. But once the smoke from the fireworks has cleared way, and the flags have come down, it would be nice to know where we are headed.

עד 120 יום הולדת שמח יִשְרָאֵל!

Ma Nishtana? Pesach 1960 and 2008

I'd like to share my thoughts in this, the moment before the full moon of Nisan that marks our exodus from Egypt.
In 1960, David Ben-Gurion caused a storm in the Knesset suggesting that only 600 people actually left Egypt in the famous Exodus which we will all celebrate tomorrow night (it's an amazing story).

This year, a controversy has again been caused in the Knesset after Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Tamar Bar-Asher Zaban ruled that it is permitted to display chametz during Pesach inside business establishments, despite the arguments of the religious establishment that this violates the "Festival of Matzot Law, 5746-1986", better known by the paradoxical name 'the Chametz Law'. She concluded that the interior of a business is not considered a public place according to the legal code, and therefore displaying chametz inside does not violate the law, whose intent is not to offend the sensibilities of observers of Torah and Mitzvot.

And what was the response of the religious establishment?
Shas warned that their party would consider leaving the coalition if the cabinet did not intercede immediately to overturn the ruling. Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yonah Metzger voiced sharp criticism in a Saturday sermon when he linked the decline in motivation for service in the IDF to a decline in the State's Jewish values.
"If the court, with its own hands, crushes a sacred Jewish value like the prohibition of chametz on Pesach, it is crushing the Jewish symbol of freedom and we are to blame for the results," Metzger told the congregation.

And the secular?
Here's one opinionated stance

Why do I share this with you? Whether one is for or against the ruling is interesting, but not of great relevance to me. What is important is the question. And the fact that both in 1960, and again this year, significant time is devoted in the Knesset to these types of questions that only a chag like pesach could raise, is for me one of the best reasons to have a Jewish State. Because not only does it provide me with a forum to answer these questions, but more importantly, it forces me to ask them.

Happy Questioning.

Sorry

Today the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Australian government and people, delivered an apology to the Indigenous people of Australia. Watching it online from my temporary home in Jerusalem, I could not help but have mixed feelings. Pride and shame.

In a government motion passed unanimously, Kevin Rudd said, "We apologise for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. For the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry."

Hearing this, I felt proud. Acknowledging the cultural genocide that we now know as the Stolen Generations is an incredibly important symbol. In his Laws of Teshuva, Rambam states that the first step to complete reconciliation must be acknowledging that you have done something wrong. Aboriginal children were removed from their parents from 1869-1969. For finally taking this first step in admitting the consequences of this policy, I feel proud of the Australian government.
But I also feel shame. That Aboriginal life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of the of the average Australian; that indigenous unemployment is three times the rate of the country as a whole; that crime and alcoholism are more prevalent in indigenous communities.

This leads me to reflect on the country where I am living now. What would reconciliation look like in Israel? To whom would the government apologize?
To the Yemenite children whose children were removed from their parents when they arrived in the 1950's? To the Palestinians who lost their homes and homeland in 1948 and 1967? To the many Israelis who have not yet known a year without violence? To the young IDF soldiers who spend the best years of their youth at isolated checkpoints? To the families of Gush Katif who lost their homes and livelihoods for no apparent gain? To the Bedouins whose villages are still not recognized? To the many Holocaust survivors who live below the poverty line? To the parents who lost their sons in the last Lebanon war? To the people of the southern Negev who have been living between their homes and bomb shelters for the past seven years? To the people of Gaza who are bearing the brunt of a cruel collective punishment? Or to today's Ethiopian immigrants who are suffering from same absorption mistakes of the past in terms of social discrimination and peripheralisation?
How would a reconciled Israel look? How would the process begin? The Australian opposition leader Brendon Nelson responded to today's motion with this,

But in saying we are sorry - and deeply so - we remind ourselves that each generation lives in ignorance of the long term consequences of its decisions and actions. Even when motivated by inherent humanity and decency to reach out to the dispossessed in extreme adversity, our actions can have unintended outcomes.

The very short but incredibly tumultuous history of the State of Israel is filled with so many decisions that were motivated by inherent humanity, but have ended in suffering. When I look at this country's history, I feel both pride and shame. Perhaps, on this historic day, the Jewish State can take a eucalyptus leaf out Australia's book and begin the process of reconciling its past because maybe that is the best thing she can do for her future. I can't think of a better gift that Israel could give herself on this, her 60th birthday year.

Mechanchim Bechirim Update

Shalom from Jerusalem,
The flags from Bush’s visit are back in storage, Annapolis is only a city in Maryland, the snow has passed, professors are no longer striking and Winograd is just the name of a retired judge again. Life in Israel has gone back to normal, i guess?

From a personal perspective I really enjoyed visiting Jordan with a few close friends and telling them “on a clear day, you can see Israel from here.” It’s important to visit the neighbors once in a while. From my impression, the folks in Jordan don’t need sugar or eggs, but would love some water and an end to siege on Gaza. They were quite unhappy about us not providing that last item. I guess that’s why we don’t visit each other so often.

In terms of my academic studies, I have been exploring Shwab's common places of curriculum construction, reflecting on Alick Issac's antidote to war called 'Weak Theology,' thinking about how to apply 'blue ocean strategy' to a new field called Educational Entrepreneurship and been challenged by Michael Rosenak's tensions between Authenticity and Relevance(more on Rosenak's theory in the next post).

With reagrd to the major project that I will be completing by May, in conjunction with my stutor Roni Magidov, I have decided to focus on the relationship between human stories and biblical stories, and how they can complement one another within the Jewish Studies classroom. The specifc text I will be focusing on for this task will be Chapters 14-16 of the Book of Samuel (see attachment for more detailed project outline). May the new school/academic semester that begins in Australia this week be filled with an education that not only teaches students how to make a living, but also how to live. (John Adams)

Keep smiling

:)

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda. ~ Martin Buber

Surely God is in the place but I, I did not know it – Jacob the Dreamer 28:16

This blog is best read listening to this.


I went to the desert to learn about the desert people, the ancient Hebrews, who spoke to God from the empty space. It was 5am. I was in Mitzpe Ramon. There was no wind, no birds, no leaves rustling, no other people to be heard. Only silence. The instruction was to sit and think for an hour, and then when the sun rose, return to the bus. Fine.

For the first 10 minutes. Still Fine. But then I started getting bored. I stood up, looked around and sawmy friend Baruch praying on the next hilltop. He was wearing his tallit and tfillin. He was speaking to God, maybe God was listening? I have always found tfilla difficult. I go to shule and there is always something that bothers me. I don’t like the shule’s rabbi, its politics, the location of its mechitza, the length of the service, the tunes and so on. I have many excuses as to why I don’t pray at shule so much. That doesn’t mean I don’t go. I go every week, some would say religiously.

Yet I feel further away from God in Israel than I do in Australia. I thought, maybe in the holy city of Hevron, at Maarat HaMachpela where my heroes lie, there I will find my kavana. But Hebron, unfortunately, is one of the most unharmonious sites of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where many people have their lives curtailed every day in the name the sanctity of this cave. Praying at the tombs of my ancestors from behind iron bars, due to the conflict over their bones, was not a place where I could find God.

But now I was in the desert. Here there is no conflict. No blood is spilt for this soil. Who wants to live in this place? This is neutral ground. And, what did God do for Hagar in the location where I was sitting?

“And she wandered about the wilderness of BeerSheva.. and she thought “let me not look on as the child (Ishmael) dies.” And sitting thus, she burst into tears.

God heard the cry of the boy and an angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “what troubles you Hagar? Fear not, for God has heeded the cry of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him by the hand and I will make a great nation of him” Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.” Gen 21:14-19

I had no excuses not to pray here. There was no politics to bother me in the desert. Davka the opposite. The desert is where my ancestors have prayed, Hagar, Eliyahu, Hannah, and God has listened.

So I tried to pray. I said the Shma, I tried Amida. But nothing. No voice from heaven spoke to me, there was no thunder and lighting, not even a still small voice. I heard only the deafening silence of the desert. I wanted to tell God “Hineni!” But instead I asked Him “Ayeca?”

A week later, I shared this story with my friend Sarah (not her real name) and asked if she has heard God before. She was sure she had. I was very excited. She told me that she once really wanted something in her life, so she went to a rabbi and was told that if she prayed shacharit for 40 days straight at the kotel, her desire would be granted by God. She prayed for 10, 20, 30, 40 days. Nothing happened. On then on the 42nd day, her desire was granted. She was convinced that it was a reward for her tfilla. I asked her, why didn't God grant her desire on day 1? She said, "because God wanted me to earn it, to show I had emunah". “Yafe” I said. "But what if God had not granted your desire? Would you have stopped believing?" Sarah replied “of course not.” I would have understood that I was asking the wrong desire from God. I said “that’s a nice logic there, God wins both ways.” My question was not answered.

So I went to Aviva Zornberg’s Parasha Shiur on Parshat Vyetze. After the class I chatted with a girl named Rina (not her real name) and asked what she did when she had trouble praying. She told that her Rabbi from Kehilat Hadar told her on Yom Kippur, whatever your thoughts about God are right now, tell him. Have a conversation. Whatever you feel, say it. I have tried this too. But how long can you say how you feel, when the audience is an ancient wall whose enormous stones bare only silence despite the overflowing paper requests within her? If the conversation is a monologue, then maybe “God is not in this place?”

But earlier on Aviva had drawn my attention to Yaakov. Yaakov, the ish tam who dwelt in tents, Yaakov, who lied to his father and stole the birthright, Yaakov, who was on the run from Esav. Yaakov, who had a dream, and when he awoke said “God was in this place and I, I did not know it.” What was this place? The Torah tells us it was Beit El, which had previously been the city of Luz. Rashi disagrees. He says that place was in fact Har HaMoriah. The place where father Abraham had prayed, and Yitzchak too. But Yitzchak almost died there. So Yaakov was terrified of this place, where had the akeida been fulfilled, he would not have been born. So Rashi says that at this point “Mount Moriah was forcibly removed from its locality and came hither to Luz.” Why did God have to uproot the mountain and drag it to Luz? Yaakov was running way, and avoiding confronting his past. Like a second generation survivor perhaps?

What did Yaakov mean when he said “God is in this place but I, I did not know it.” It was a revelation he had after his famous dream where Bob Dylan says Yaakov “built a ladder to the stars and climbed on every rung.” Chazal say this was the first time in 14 years that Yaakov had slept, having occupied his nights as well as his days studying Torah in the yeshiva of Shem and Eber until this point. But how could Yaakov, who has been in yeshiva for 14 years, not know God yet? Aviva suggested that perhaps he only learnt Sod HaTorah during this time, not Sod HaTfilla.

Sod Hatorah is going directly to what one wants. It is rolling the giant stone of the well and kissing Rachel. It is working to get what one wants. It is control, unity and harmony.

Sod HaTfilla is spending the whole night calling out the name Rachel and waking up to realize that “Behold, It was Leah.” Leah was not what Yaakov desired. But in order to obtain the bechora he had to find his dark side, saying to his father, “Anochi Esav, your first born.” The Sfat Emet says that Yaakov was speaking the truth at this point. Yaakov wants to amplify his identity beyond that of the ish tam yeshiva student. Yaakov needed to become Esav, the one who was destined to marry Leah, despite her crying her eyelashes out in protest. After Yaakov married Leah he hated her.

After Leah bared three children as the unloved wife, Yehuda was born. She said “This time I will praise the Lord.” How did Leah and Yaakov find their peace and reconcile their animosity for each other?

Because Yaakov stopped being Anochi Esav, and became Anochi Yaakov. How did he find his Anochi Yaakov? Like Hagar it the desert, God opened his eyes. And then Yaakov stumbled over it.

So maybe in order to have a meaningful tfilla experience, I will need to find my “Anochi” this year. That is the Sod Hatfilla. Hineni ki karata li.