How Much Do We Expect?

Which holidays do most Jews take part in?  Passover, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.  I find it strange and fascinating that the holidays that require the most effort from us are the ones we observe the most.  Passover is a major ordeal with cleaning out chametz and eating special food, a dinner party that lasts all night.  The high holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur bring people out in droves to shul; where there may be typically 50 people at a service, now there is hundreds.  And of course lets not forget the fasting.  These holidays require a lot from us.  What about Purim, Tu B' Shevat, Shavuot, Lag B Omer?  Not much required here and not much done here. 

So what is the point I am making?  When little is expected, little is done.  When much is expected, much is done. 

How many times have you given your child a chore to do and they never seem to do it?  But, if you give them 3 things to do, they will do 1 or 2 of them.  Much is expected, so they do accomplish something.  It is the same in the adult world.  When I have a really busy day I get so much accomplished.  On the rare occasion I have just a few things to do, nothing gets done. 

Why have the Jewish people lasted so long against all odds when other nations have perished?  We have been persecuted and exiled and yet we still exist.  Its because we value the Torah.  In Devarim (Deuteronomy) it says my law is not too difficult for you.  So, is Hashem saying follow my law to the letter and you will be ok, you will be "saved" as some people like to put it?  No, this is western thinking.  What I think is meant by this is here is my Torah, do it.  Do your best, keep trying, I love you and just ask that you love me back by listening. 
Will we be like our kids and do 3 things when 5 are expected?  Most likely.  Does Hashem know this about us?  Yes.  Am I giving permission here to slack off?  Certainly not.  Doing everything would be fabulous, and is our goal.  The point is there has to be much expected or we would do nothing.  The more we do, the more we do.  When we do less and less then we will eventually do nothing and we would miss out on the beauty of the Torah and our relationship with Hashem and with each other.  Do we not want our children to have self respect and integrity?  We make sure they don't sit on their rear end all day, we give them projects, chores, books to read.  As they get older they get even more responsibility.  However, with more responsibility comes more privelege.  In the material world it means the ability to make our own choices, in the spiritual world it means more understanding so we can benefit more from our actions. 

How wonderful Hashem is that He expects much of us so we would always have something to grasp onto, something to keep us close to Him and each other, to live a more spiritual life.

Why Do We Call it the High Holidays?

Why do we call Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur the High Holidays?  How about the Days of Awe?  I woke up with this on my mind and realize G-d has given me some introspection on the matter.  

We have been told over the years this is a solemn time, a happy time, a sorrowful time.  So what gives?  I think what we need to do is focus on the words high and awe.  What are they associated with?  High also means lofty, towering, soaring.  Awe means wonderment, respect.  This does not sound like a sad, scary time waiting for G-d's wrath to come down and cause us all to perish because we did something wrong this past year.

I explained to my kids the purpose of this time is joyful because we all count.  Yes, we all make mistakes and we need to ask forgiveness from those we have offended and also from G-d.  But we need not dwell on this.  Once we do it we are done.  Be sincere and be done.  Why should we not dwell on our past mistakes?  Because they are in the past and G-d doesn't want us to dwell on them, He wants us to acknowledge them, ask forgiveness from them, learn from them and move on.

Our focus during these days after all is on G-d. The fact that He loves us enough to help us evaluate ourselves, to help us improve ourselves, that we count!  Our actions matter!  Our focus is on the Almighty our Creator, this is joyful, this is what "awe" and "high" are all about!  Then to show we get it we go live in a sukkah (or at least eat in one), a symbolism of how our ancestors trusted the Almighty when leaving Egypt so long ago and we still do to this day.  Sukkot brings things full circle, its a time to forgive and forget, it is a joyful time between each other and G-d our Creator!

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!