The Messiah Can Wait, I Am Planting a Tree

In the Talmud it is said that if the Messiah were to come we should keep planting instead of dropping what we are doing to follow him.  Does this sound strange?  Wouldn't we want to stop doing what we are doing so we can follow him?  The answer is no.  If we answer yes then we do not understand our own importance in bringing in the Messianic redemption.

If we are to stop our mitzvot then the redemption will cease.  If we stop what we are doing to follow a Messiah then we are following a false Messiah.  An example would be the xtian doctrine that says J-s-s did away with the law.  We should stop following Torah to follow J-s-s?  Definitely a false Messiah.  Anything or anyone that comes along and says we don't need Torah is leading us astray.  By the way, the man who lived then that is now called J-s-s was a Torah Observant Jew, his teachings have been tampered with to fit a new religion.

We are the key, we need to keep planting, plants grow and flourish and provide new fruit, new seed for another generation.  We can not stop fulfilling our purpose thinking someone else can come along and take over.   Let us never lose our zeal for Torah and Mitzvot.

Jewish Education Begins at Home

I came across this article online in a newspaper called The Forward.  It expresses my feelings pretty well so I thought I would share it here.  I was surprised to see I actually knew the author as well.  My husband, kids and I attended his shul on occassion.  Shabbat Shalom everyone! 

Published Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Jewish Education Begins at Home

Opinion

By Justus Baird

Passover is over this year, but I can’t stop thinking about the educational brilliance of the holiday. Passover is high-impact and low-cost. It’s family-based and grass-roots. And almost like magic, Passover needs no professional support: If all the rabbis, educators, synagogue presidents and federation fundraisers got lost wandering in the desert for 40 years, Jews across the world would still celebrate Passover. All Jewish education programs should be more like Passover.
Jewish education in America is at a crossroads. No generation of Jews has ever seen such a flourishing of learning opportunities: day schools, charter schools, supplementary schools, camps, travel encounters and, more recently, tech-based tools. We have put our best minds and no small amount of money into Jewish education, yet still not enough Jews are leading Jewish lives. What’s going wrong?

Passover may have the answer. Jewish education is failing because we have abandoned the quintessential Jewish pedagogy: family-based learning. With only a Haggadah and memories from childhood, parents and grandparents use the tried-and-true methods of the four questions, the four children and story-telling to transmit Jewish tradition with no Jewish professionals in sight.
Unfortunately, flagship Jewish education programs — day schools, camps and Birthright trips — send a bad message to parents: “Just give us your kids, and let us professionals turn them into Jews!” And the high cost of flagship programs means that they are unsustainable without massive communal investment.

There is another way. The same studies that show the incremental impact of high-cost programs also show that what happens at home is a primary long-term indicator of future Jewish life. It makes sense: If parents are serious about passing along the tradition, it will matter to the kids. Surprisingly, such wisdom has been right before our eyes all the time. The Sh’ma prayer commands us: v’shinantem levanekha, “impress [these teachings] upon your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Many Jews know the prayer, but too few of us heed its call to pass along Jewish tradition directly to our children and grandchildren. Instead, we ask professionals to do all the work.

Telling parents that professionals can teach Judaism to their kids better than they can is wrong. Learning to be Jewish is not like learning math or sports or ballet. Jewish tradition is passed on l’dor vador — from generation to generation — by living it out.

Maybe it’s time to slay some sacred cows of Jewish education: More and better-trained Jewish professionals and more financial resources will not solve the education crisis. The solution is to put families back at the center of Jewish education.

If parents are not serious about Jewish life at home, then even the best $30,000-a-year day school is likely to be a poor investment. We need to direct our money and our creativity toward helping parents and grandparents take back their God-given responsibility to be the transmitters of Jewish tradition.
That’s why I’m experimenting with a family-based supplementary education program in central New Jersey called Yerusha. It costs $30 a month per child. We’ve found that with some educational guidance in the form of curricula and resources, parents and grandparents absolutely love teaching their own kids and their friends’ kids about Judaism (and the kids love it, too). By taking charge of transmitting Jewish tradition to their kids, parents themselves become curious learners and more confident Jews. The impact of empowering parents should not be surprising, given how successful Passover is.

There are many other family-based education programs, but there aren’t enough. Why can’t Jewish camping be more family-based? Why can’t the bar/bat mitzvah process be more family-based? Why can’t we put fewer resources into workbooks for kids and more resources into teaching tools for parents?

There are many barriers to family-based education. Parents feel ignorant and believe that only rabbis or educators can teach Judaism to their kids. They are over-worked and have no extra time. The drop-off syndrome is deeply ingrained. Nuclear families, rather than extended families, are the norm, which means that few grandparents are around to help.

Let’s tackle these barriers by putting at least as much effort into raising Jewish families as we do into raising Jewish funds. Let’s listen to the educational wisdom of Passover, the most celebrated Jewish holiday. Let’s stop encouraging hands-off Judaism, and start encouraging families to get their hands dirty with the daily work of transmitting Jewish tradition. Our Jewish lives will be richer for it, our Jewish lives will cost less, and our kids will love and live Judaism a lot more.

Rabbi Justus Baird is director of the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.

Preparing Our Children for Marriage

Marriage is a scary word for some, an anticipated word for others.  Little girls dress up in their mothers high heels and put on dresses that won't fit for many years just to pretend to get married-I know I did.  Boys don't seem quite as anxious.

So when is the best time to start preparing our kids for marriage?  Its something we do from the beginning.  Teaching our kids about relationships between friends, siblings, parents and of course Hashem.  Giving, recieving, forgiving, sharing, sympathy, empathy, love for fellow man.  These take years to acquire in the physical world.  The more we have Hashem in our lives, the more He is truly a part of our daily process and not a mere after thought when we or a loved one is ill.

Our kids watch mommy and daddy-the good and the bad-and there is plenty of both in all households.  Kids can learn from the bad too, saying, "Well I will never do that".  They're pretty smart.  In other worlds kids do not need the perfect environment to grow in, they do need love, attention and undertstanding.  They need someone to care, so they will turn around and do the same.  They need to feel they count.  I ask my kids for their opinion on things.  They love this.  They see mommy and daddy asking each other for advice/opinions on things.  As they are growing they know they matter and will turn around and ask the opinion of their spouse.

Where does Hashem fit in all of this? We are not purely physical beings, we have a soul we need to connect to as well, just as we wash our hands and brush our teeth to take care of the physical body, the spiritual us must be nurtured.   We tell our kids now to take advantage of opportunities before they grow up because once they have jobs and a family time is limited for these pursuits.  Other things will take precedence.  The same is true of our spiritual lives, we have to go in with certain things already learned.  While we never should stop learning, there are basics that should be a natural part of our lives before we take on a spouse and family.  It creates a maturity in a relationship, enhances and nourishes the physical, makes it really count.

This year for our homeschooling we are going through a book called Encyclopedia of Biblical Personalities. There is so much to be learned from our ancestors.  An example of things we have taught our kids on the spiritual end are to say modeh ani in the morning, blessings before eating, shema in the morning and at night.  We have access to books in our house, they are visible even if not all of our kids are avid readers now.  We have Jewish things in our home, mezzuzahs in the doorways which we taught them to kiss.  They each have their own Hanukiah which makes the holiday more theirs, as we all get to light.  Reading is great but we must include the doing because it connects the physical with the spiritual.  We go through Psalms and talk about it, usually before bed.  These are not huge time consuming things yet they are spread throughout the day and in everything we do, whether walking through a doorway, eating, or waking up.  There are so many more things but these I have found are easily adaptable to our lives because they connect us to the creator, help us not to forget.

The whole point of the Torah is to change us for the better.  Its great to read and gain insight but then what do we do with it?  If we pass it on to our kids and it turns us into more loving and understanding people who see Hashem's hand in this world then we are doing well.  People in general like the familiar, so while we can say they have free will (yes, true) and can choose to leave certain things behind, this should give us more motivation while they are under our roof and our responsibility.    Proverbs 22 says to train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it.  Our kids may get sidetracked on a winding road, but they will have our teachings (G-d's teachings) to get back on the straight path.

When our children have a possible mate in mind, he will have all of these things as part of his makeup which should help in the choosing.   We are always helping to prepare our children for marriage and life ahead. 

Do I Have To Be A Scholar?

We home school our kids.  This does not make me a brainiac or scholar.  Education is more than passing on information, its character development, knowledge that changes a way people think, or at least enhances thoughts we already have.  It is experiencing people and life in general.  I am not of the opinion that it takes millions of dollars and a pristine football field to properly educate a child.  What does it take?  Desire, ambition, drive, willingness.  These things can not be bought, they are priceless.   My daughter watches youtube to learn gymnastics, my son used to watch tutorials to learn some advanced guitar playing methods.  We go to the library, take field trips, talk to people, especially older people who pass on real history (because they lived through it).  If we look and see we can take the power of education back into our own hands, institutions do not have to be the necessity they have become.   Everything has its place, I'm not saying throw out schools altogether, what I am saying is let it be one of many choices, not the dominant choice.

The Torah is important, is meant for all people to read and gain wisdom from.   If something as important as Torah is attainable for even the layman than do not short change yourself and think you can't teach basic living and basic academics to your kids?
If we can't do it ourselves we can join a co-op or get a tutor for certain subjects, or even have an older sibling help teach the younger one.  I believe we are ultimately supposed to work together to get things done vs. rely on a system as the primary educator.   Notice the word "primary."
If you truly can't or really don't feel the desire to homeschool your kids yet you see the benefit of it, rest assured, if you send your kids to school you do not have to lose control of their education, you can be as involved as you want to be, and you, being the parent, will still be the primary example for your child.

Here is an interesting example of that.  A friend was over the other day and we got to talking about different religions.  She said she watched a Mormon church go up in a day while she was working in her office across the street.  The foundation gets poured the week before, and then car loads of people come in shifts taking turns to get the structure done.  Wow.  How amazing is that?  Anyone that has had a house built or had an addition put on their home knows the struggles and length of time involved.  But this is the point.  Everyone had a skill, a skill different from the next person, and put them together and a whole project is complete.

While leadership is important and institutions have a role somewhere for some people, I think we would be better off if we take back our families and our lives and all work together.  

Rhythms of Jewish Living

I'm reading a neat book now called The Rhythms of Jewish Living-A Sephardic Approach.  I found it in our shul library.  Here is an excerpt from chapter 2.

When we attempt to understand the Torah and authentic Jewish spirituality, we need to be mindful of the strong cultural biases we have inherited from the Western philosophic tradition.  The urbanization and westernization of Jews over the past centuries have moved us away from the central religious insights of the Torah tradition.  As we open our eyes more to the outdoors, to the rhythms of nature, we will come into relationship with G0d, Creator of the universe.  The Torah and its words are guides to experience, symbols of undefined and undefinable truths.  Jewish spirituality enatails appreciating the value of calm, natural wisdom, and being aware of the limitations of abstract, analytic, systematic philosophy.

I thought this was very interesting, and food for thought over shabbat and the remainder of the weekend. 

Shabbat Shalom!

I'll Give You Something to Cry About

Have we all heard this saying?  When our kids whine over something that is actually nothing, when we see blessings as curses, its like we are crying over nothing.  So, when G-d was giving us this fabulous land to live in, our response was to sing thanks and praise and move in.  What did we do?  We cried-on the 9th of Av.  Oy vey.  So, as the secular saying goes, we are now being given something to cry about.  On this day throughout history there have been many other calamaties:


422 BCE  First temple destroyed

70 CE   Second temple destroyed

Bar Kokhba revolt was stopped by the Romans

First crusade began killing 10,000 Jews

We were expelled from England

We were expelled from Spain

WWI broke out,  making way for WWII and the Holocaust

Jews were deported from Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka on the eve of Tish B'Av

Is Tish B'Av a punishment from G-d?  I don't think so.  What I think it is is a reminder of how we did not trust Him.  He took us out of Egypt, parted the sea, fed us in the desert, and now we won't enter the land?  Now we become scared and cry?  The other part of this picture is us.  It is not G-d punishing us, we are our own worst enemies sometimes.  Even though we left Egypt etc....it would never have happened if we didn't take part.  We physically listened to G-d by doing what He asked.  Moses went up against Pharoah, a man went into the sea up to his neck out of faith before G-d parted the water, we built the tabernacle in the desert.  Everything involved us, He wasn't going to do these things while we sit and watch.  We are the key.  We don't have to be sitting here fasting, we could be rejoicing.  We are the solution.  The land is wonderful, the temple is wonderful, but we have G0d in us, we have the power to change this world with G0d leading the way.  We have to want it. 

Let's rejoice on Tish B'Av next year!

School vs. Education

I read this on another web site, www.torahhomeschooling.com, and it was too crucial not to repost.  

 

Of Daffodils and Diesels

Author Unknown

I’m not very good in school. This is my second year in the seventh grade, and I’m bigger than most of the other kids. The kids like me all right, even though I don’t say much in class, and that sort of makes up for what goes on in school. I don’t know why the teachers don’t like me. They never have. It seems like they don’t think you know anything unless you can name the book it comes out of.
I read a lot at home—things like Popular Mechanics and Sports Illustrated and the Sears catalog—but I don’t just sit down and read them through like they make us do in school. I use them when I want to find something out, like a batting average or when Mom buys something secondhand and wants to know if she’s getting a good price.

In school, though, we’ve got to learn whatever is in the book and I just can’t memorize the stuff. Last year I stayed after school every night for two weeks trying to learn the names of the presidents. Some of them were easy, like Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln, but there must have been 30 altogether and I never did get them straight. I’m not too sorry, though, because the kids who learned the presidents had to turn right around and learn all the vice presidents.

I am taking the seventh grade over, but our teacher this year isn’t interested in the names of the presidents. She has us trying to learn the names of all the great American inventors. I guess I just can’t remember the names in history. Anyway, I’ve been trying to learn about trucks because my uncle owns three and he says I can drive one when I’m 16. I know the horsepower and gear ratios of 26 American trucks and want to operate a diesel. Those diesels are really something. I started to tell my teacher about them in science class last week when the pump we were using to make a vacuum in a bell jar got hot, but she said she didn’t see what a diesel engine has to do with our experiment on air pressure, so I just shut up. The kids seemed interested, though. I took four of them around to my uncle’s garage after school and we watched his mechanic tear down a big diesel engine. He really knew his stuff.

I’m not very good in geography, either. They call it economic geography this year. We’ve been studying the imports and exports of Turkey all week, but I couldn’t tell you what they are. Maybe the reason is that I missed school for a couple of days when my uncle took me downstate to pick up some livestock. He told me where we were headed and I had to figure out the best way to get there and back. He just drove and turned where I told him. It was over 500 miles round trip and I’m figuring now what his oil cost and the wear and tear on the truck—he calls it depreciation—so we’ll know how much we made. When we got back I wrote up all the bills and sent letters to the farmers about what their pigs and cattle brought at the stockyard. My aunt said I only made 3 mistakes in 17 letters, all commas. I wish I could write school themes that way. The last one I had to write was on “What a daffodil thinks of Spring,” and I just couldn’t get going.

I don’t do very well in arithmetic, either. Seems I just can’t keep my mind on the problems. We had one the other day like this: If a 57 foot telephone pole falls across a highway so that 17 and 3/4 feet extend from one side and 14 and 16/17 feet extend from the other, how wide is the highway? That seemed to me like an awfully silly way to get the size of a highway. I didn’t even try to answer it because it didn’t say whether the pole had fallen straight across or not.
Even in shop class I don’t get very good grades. All of us kids made a broom holder and a bookend this semester and mine were sloppy. I just couldn’t get interested. Mom doesn’t use a broom anymore with her new vacuum cleaner, and all of our books are in a bookcase with glass doors in the family room. Anyway, I wanted to make a tailgate for my uncle’s trailer, but the shop teacher said that meant using metal and wood both, and I’d have to learn how to work with wood first. I didn’t see why, but I kept quiet and made a tie tack even though my dad doesn’t wear ties. I made the tailgate after school in my uncle’s garage, and he said I saved him $20. Government class is hard for me, too.

I’ve been staying after school trying to learn the Articles of Confederation for almost a week, because the teacher said we couldn’t be a good citizen unless we did. I really tried because I want to be a good citizen. I did hate to stay after school, though, because a bunch of us guys from Southend have been cleaning up the old lot across from Taylor’s Machine Shop to make a playground out of it for the little kids from the Methodist home. I made the jungle gym out of the old pipe, and the guys put me in charge of things. We raised enough money collecting scrap this month to build a wire fence clear around the lot.

Dad says I can quit school when I’m 16. I’m sort of anxious to because there are a lot of things I want to learn.

Finding Spirituality

As I was driving down a busy road I passed by a church that had something written on its sign in small print and then in big print it said SONRISE.  A few miles down from there, on the opposite side of the road, I saw a Muslim place of worship and it had a banner out front announcing their monthly fast.  Twenty minutes more of driving and I ended up in a Jewish community, which is where I was headed, and it was bustling with people getting ready for Shabbat.  The cashier said the lines are always long on Friday afternoons. 

This all got me to thinking of how people are looking for something beyond the reach of their hands.  Our physical being is not all we are made of.  If this were true we would not be remembered the way we are once we are gone.  Why?  We have feelings, emotions, we interact, we contribute, we are part of each other-all of this is a part of our spiritual selves-this is the part that means something.  Our physical body carries out who we are, its important but, dare I say not as important as the unseen?  We need our bodies no doubt, but its not who we are.  Why else do people who have everything they need still feel empty?  Because they don't have everything they need, in reality they could have nothing.
 
When a favorite dress is outgrown, or a piece of china breaks we become upset but do we bury it, have services and visit it 20 years later?  No, but why not?  We put so much time into acquiring these things.  Because in reality they don't matter.  Even people who don't go to a place of worship or have much spiritual emphasis in their lives, still show they need what the physical world can't provide.  Love, courage, respect, integrity.  None of these are physical, so what category do they fall into?  Morality?  Where does morality come from?  It can't be seen.  However, even this will turn out not to be enough.  Why?  Because we are not getting to the source.  The worst criminal can have some moral convictions.  What is the source of our being, of who we really are?  What do we stand for?  Why?  Its G0d.  Hashem, Adonai.  The creator of all.  He is our ultimate goal. 

What is important is what is not seen.  We have the written words of the Torah which are very, very important but what is not seen is what was not written down initially, the hows and whys of the Torah-the carrying out of this holy book. 

There is  a love that comes from G0d that does surpass all understanding, it warms like nothing else and it is so intense that we have to pass it on.  When we are told to be a light to the world, it is not just the brightness of the light, but the warmth of the light.  When you stand next to something hot you get hot.  When a pot sits on a stove or in an oven full of delicious food ready to be cooked it is lacking something-heat that comes from light.   Only then will it be delicious.  My Nana, of blessed memory, used to call my kids delicious.  Are we delicious to the world?  Have we lost our sense, our purpose, what is important? 

When people are with us do they sense coldness or heat?  Everyone is looking for G0d, they may not call Him G0d, but we all need Him, we lack without Him.   We are his partner.  If we truly search for G0d He will show us what He wants from us, how to act, raise our kids, be a good spouse, neighbor, etc...isn't this what its all about?

Shabbat Shalom!

It Takes Time

I am reading a book right now on how to heal my back pain naturally.  While I am going to a chiropractor, orthopedist and pain specialist I always feel the need to do my own research, expecially when the doctors don't sound overly positive about the end results.  It is a wonderful book so far, the author, Art Brownstein,  has person experience with this and speaks of how the body, mind and soul work together.  There are always blessings, or at the very least things to learn, in these inconveniences in our lives. 

From Healing Back Pain Naturally:  When you stretch a specific muscle group, you are strengthening other muscle groups as well.  Every opposing muscle in the body gets strengthened when you stretch its counterpart.  It is impossible not to get stronger even if you are only concentrating on stretching.

Leviticus 19 speaks of how we should treat each other:  don't spread gossip, judge with righteousness, not to steal or lie, or rob a man of his wages.  And love your fellow as yourself. Rabbi Akiva says this is he great principle of the Torah. 

So what does back pain have to do with how we treat each other?  We can see how everything is connected.  In our bodies our muscles effect each other, strengthening one strengthens the rest.  We may each be individuals but collectively we are one body.  When we strengthen ourselves we can't help but be a positive influence on those around us.  Just as stretching and healing weak and/or hurting muscles takes time,  being an encouragement to those who don't want to be encouraged or strengthened will also take time.

One smile or good deed will not turn a person around but it is a start.  We can't give up on each other, we have to be there for those around us, and vice versa, when something gets us down we can count on someone to be there for us, to cheer us up and get us going again.  

This reasoning may help when confronting an unpleasant situation, if we look at it from a different angle as an opportunity to do good in the world.   Back pain and relatonships-it all takes time.

Can I Enjoy My Kids Fighting?

I grew up as an only child, no brother and no sisters.   People with siblings wish they were only children.  I wish I wasn't.  We always want what we don't have.  I now have 4 kids of my own, ages 17-9.  While writing that I can't believe it.  It seems like yesterday they were babies and we had more diapers than anyone would care to mention.  As my kids are growing up they are becoming great friends and mortal enemies all at once.  How many times I would say I wish they would just get along.  On one vacation my second oldest son and my daugher (#4), were fighting as usual.  By the end of the night we rented a movie and who was sitting together and eating popcorn in a chair-not even a couch, but a somewhat over-sized chair-but these 2 rivals.

So why do I ask if I can enjoy my kids fighting?  There are 2 reasons off the top of my head.
One is a lesson to learn from them.  You can fight with someone and still have a friendship, still accept each other for who they are.  Obviously they do not hate each other or they wouldn't be sitting so close enjoying popcorn.   We may not like everything about a person but we can appreciate what we do have in common and relish in that.

The other is the more my kids fight now the better equipped they will be to stand up for themselves later on with people not in their immediate family.   It doesn't mean they will be bullies, it means they will less likely be pushovers.  This is their training ground.  They will have years of experience and maturity under their belt that I did not have in this area when they face the world beyond their front door.  As an only child, I complied for the most part, no I wasn't an angel but things were relatively peaceful in my house.  I only had a dog to fight with and blame things on (which didn't go over).

So even though it drives me crazy at times, if I look at their fighting in this respect, I can actually sit back and smile.  Its one thing you can't learn in a book!