This week was a wake-up jolt. The
Lieberman-Smith family returned to our regular non-holiday life: work, school,
meetings, Nature Club, soccer, piano, a snow day, and Hebrew
school. Aside from writing books and teaching almost full time, I also teach Hebrew school. That's right, not only do I write and
teach five days a week, but Saturday mornings I get up and teach Hebrew school
to my two kids and ten others at our Reform temple. This is both exhausting and
incredibly rewarding. Each week I get to create a tiny Jewish oasis of
community. For the years my kids and I go to Hebrew school, that's what Shabbat
means to us. (In another lifetime I'm hoping Shabbos will also involve rest!)
I teach the program so I can create a meaningful Jewish experience for my children. I didn't want their Judaism to be, as one friend put it,
only bagel and Holocaust. So what is important to me as a Jewish educator? I teach Hebrew reading, tfillah (prayer), holidays, bible stories,
and about tzedakah(good deeds) and mitzvot. (There's also a
healthy dose of snack, socializing and crafts.)
Every once in awhile I stand back
and think about why I want my kids and students to be Jewish. I want them to use Judaism to celebrate
family, create community, do Gimilut Hasidim (acts of loving kindness), and also as a way to approach the sacred
and divine in life. I want them to know how to pray in Hebrew as a way to
express the happiness and sadness they'll encounter in life. Is
that a big goal to achieve in two-and-a-half hours once a week? You bet.
Recently I heard an interview on
Unorthodox that put what I was feeling into words. If you haven't listened to
Unorthodox yet, I suggest you momentarily stop reading and check it out.
Unorthodox is a wildly entertaining, irreverent and frequently
enlightening weekly Jewish podcast from Tablet magazine. For someone
like who me who lives far away from major Jewish centers, it's a fantastic way
to be engulfed in all things Jewy. For example, where else am I going to
hear interviews with author and filmmaker David Bezmogis, musings on Drake's
Jewishness, Holocaust puns, or interviews with divinity students who analyze
Harry Potter as a sacred text? How else will I possibly know if there are or
were Jewish pirates? If that doesn't move you, let it be said that Unorthodox
takes Leonard Cohen very seriously. And that should be enough to move you.
As I said Unorthodox is also
enlightening, and that brings me back teaching Hebrew school. A few episodes back the Unorthodox crew interviewed
Rabbi Brent Chaim Spodek, the spiritual leader of Beacon Hebrew Alliance
of New York. He's a rabbi interested in bringing Judaism out of the shul and
into the daily life of his congregants. In the interview Spodek said
that, "Part of the problem with American Judaism is that we think Judaism
is the goal not the tool." If kids are bored in services or disconnected
from Jewish traditions, why would they be invested in learning that tool? I
agree with Spodek that Judaism needs to engage children and be relevant to them.
Even more so, I agree with Spodek that kids should be Jewish so that they have
tools to have a sense of awe and wonder, and to express frustration or
hope. Being Jewish because you mother said you should, or because Hitler tried
to eradicate the Jews is to miss the whole point of what Judaism, and other religions too, can do for
you.
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| Tibetan Prayer Wheels |
When I was much younger I
travelled in Northern India and Nepal for several months. I visited a lot of
Buddhist temples with prayer wheels. Pilgrims circumnavigate the temples and
spin these prayer wheels as they walk, and as the wheels turn, the prayers
written on them float up to the gods. As I spun those wheels, I couldn't help
singing parts of the Jewish liturgy. The words rose up into my mouth and I
sang. It was how I expressed the beauty and wonder of what I saw as I walked.
And I was thankful for the knowledge of how to pray.
Before Hebrew school broke for the
holidays, we had a service with our once-a-month rabbi that happened to fall on
the same day as Amnesty International's Write-for Rights Letter Writing
Campaign. I'd planned to write letters with my kids that morning as part of
our Tikkun Olam (healing the earth) and social action curriculum. This term I'm
proud that my students (and their families) collected food and volunteered at the
Kingston food bank, and donated money and items for Syrian Refugees coming to
our city. When preparing for our Amnesty lesson, I did some research on Human
Rights to share with my students. It occurred to me that these rights are
almost identical to the list of things we are thankful for in the Baruch
Hashchar, a prayer chanted at the beginning of the morning service. I quickly
decided to re-write the prayer to reflect the human rights we enjoy
in Canada. The whole congregation joined me in praying our Human Rights Baruch Hashachar, and at least for me, it was an incredible connection between
being thankful, being present, and helping heal the world a little bit.
And these are also the Jewish tools I wish to impart to my children and
students.
I'm
currently reading Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railway. I heard about
this book not because it's an Oprah Pick, but because the amazing Eleanor
Wachtel interviewed him on her show, Writers and Company. Although I was
slightly suspicious of the idea of the underground railroad being a real train, as opposed to a series of people
and safe houses, this doesn't take away from the book. In fact, I'm sure this sort-of historical novel/genre-bending picaresque adventure will be
one of my favourite reads this year.
Forget
Amazon or Goodreads algorithms, most of my reading comes from other people's
suggestions. My former professor at the University of Windsor, Dale Jacobs,
posted his top ten reads of 2016 on FB, and although it means I'll be a year
behind in my reading, I'm looking forward to digging into Maggie O'Farrell's
This Must Be The Place. I know very little about this book except it's about a
man trying to find his place in the world.
