Can We Change the System?

Fascinating article on eJewishPhilanthropy, "The Religion You Don't Believe in I Don't Believe in Either" by Dr. Phil Robinson in response to the Pew Study. He raises great points, especially about the nature of teaching religion vs. religious behavior (isn't it really about the pursuit of the sublime).

My question is with regard to the present institutional infrastructure - can they really change to the times?

A Teacher's Worst Fear?

I recently read this well written article by Ari Margolies in TabletMag titled Taking Off My Tefillin.

It is honest and telling of the inner workings of a struggling young man with faith (who will probably go on to be a fine journalist/author).  There is currently a honest and somewhat snarky conversation on Lookjed on Yeshiva Education and Long Term Observance which raises the perspective of parents, teachers, and administrators.

One comment worth sharing from Avi Billet:

I've noted for many years that yeshiva high schools like to boast where their graduates are either accepted or go to university. I'd be interested to see a five-year follow-up boast of how many of those kids still consider themselves observant. I am sure the numbers will not be even close to even. 

As educators, how do we share a long term spiritual mission in digestible and mundane pedagogical encounters.  The school year has ended or is wrapping up this week, but let's face the hard questions - how do we measure our successes and failures?  

The Children's Siddur to Buy or Not to Buy

So I have small children and my wife and I are trying to educate them to be connected to tefilla.  We started with the basic one used in our shul:

It has its advantages and disadvantages - one disadvantage being that it doesn't have "Ashrei" - one of the most popular parts of tefilla.  Another disadvantage is that the spine is very thin and won't survive intensive prayer nor play davening. Meanwhile the graphics are good and my kids love to use it (while it lasts).

Koren Publishers came out last year with a more developed version of a children's siddur.

Seems to me like similar graphics and approach to tefilla, but with some more structure and meat to the siddur.

Today I came across what I must think is the worst siddur that I have come across yet, and that is saying much considering the two dimensional nature of Artscroll publishing.

Apparently Dudu's Fisher's siddur comes with an CD (featured above - same cover on the siddur) and lots of spirit and excitement. I am in some very weird way embrassed by this siddur and its efforts to solely teach the peformance of the prayers without much mention of a self-reflective or mediatiive dimension.  Indded my frustration may stem from my more exclusive focus on teenagers and adult tefilla experiences, but oh how I loathe that this approach is exclusivley pushed as if prayer is a team sport!

Of relevance is Daniel Rose's query in today's Lookjed in which he is reseraching about children's siddurim:

I am doing some initial research into Jewish Day School Siddur use. I am interested in understanding what a school looks for in a siddur for grades 1-4 (ages 6-10). Which siddur do use in your school in these grades? In your school is the siddur primarily used for its text (to learn the tefillot) or do you (or do you think you would like to) use a school siddur as a teaching resource for teaching tefilla? What do you/would you teach from the siddur (Reading? Tefilla skills? Hilchot tefilla? Tefilla themes and ideas?) Does the siddur you use (or would you like it to) come as part of a curriculum with a teacher's resource packet/booklet?

Any feedback you could give is gratefully received (rose.danielj@gmail.com).

I encourage you to share your expreinces of what your kids or students may be using to daven and hope that it will benefit other parents and teachers.  And if you are in the process of writing or publishing a new children's siddur, let us know!

How To Teach Davening So Kids Will Daven

The following is a passage from the national bestseller How To Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk:

Most of the books on child-rearing tell us that one of our important goals as parents is to help our children separate from us, to help them become independent individuals who will one day be able to function on their own without us. We're urged not to think of our children as little carbon copies of us or extensions of ourselves, but as unique human beings with different temperaments, different tastes, different feelings, different desires, different dreams.   

Yet how are we to help them become separate, independent persons?  By allowing them to do things for themselves, by permitting them to wrestle with their own problems, by letting them learn from their own mistakes.   

Easier said than done.  (p.136)

Are you happy with how your students are davening on their own?  Have you observed them in shul on Shabbat or a holiday?  Perhaps the problem is that they have been encouraging them to daven politely in public and not necessarily prepared them for their separation from an adult led environment?

I know that teachers are not to blame for the lack of davening happening outside of school hours (parents do have a role - at my son's first grade siddur party at his religious school the head rabbi not so subtly encouraged even the parents to take more of an opportunity to use their siddurim as well), but I fear that one of the big problems of the prevalent tefilla pedagogy is that students are not being engaged to do so on their own terms and time. It is indeed easier said than done - but I think that the current model is doing just that - modeling behavior and norms and trying to create carbon copies.  Schools need to be laboratories for children to trained to tackle their present and future spiritual challenges, in their own unique way but within a broad and strong tradition and semi-public atmosphere.

A Manifesto

I love a manifesto - the word itself sounds awesome but more so the idea of penning out your ideology and nailing it to a virtual wall, a la Martin Luther as a distinct charm.  The following was posted on the Lookjed Digest and is generating some constructive conversation.   I certainly don't agree with everything here but encourage you read this and join the dialogue.
_________________________________

A MANIFESTO OF JEWISH EDUCATION

We’ve hit a wall in our delivery of Jewish Education. We have made great strides in teaching basic Jewish literacy – in explaining Jewish texts, educating the mind, and disseminating information. Jewish educators have excelled at this during the last 25 years.

But preserving the past will not get us to a better future.

The time has come for the next phase of Jewish Education: Personalizing Jewish wisdom. Bringing Jewish wisdom into our hearts and into our lives. We need to allow Jewish wisdom to make us better Jews and transform us into our best selves. We need to allow it to be the force for hearing the unique calling each of us have – in our daily behavior and in the big issues in our lives. This is the key to our future.

25 years ago Jewish knowledge was restricted to a tiny fraternity of rabbis and scholars. The role of Rabbis and educators was to create a literate people. Today, we have witnessed an explosion of access to Jewish information and texts: Israel study programs, Limmud programs, vast online resources, Melton Mini-Schools and adult education classes. People joke about consulting Rabbi Google. Just about everything has been translated. The battle for disseminating and acquiring information about Judaism is over. We have won. We know how to preserve the wisdom of our past. We have succeeded in teaching people to hear other people’s voices: the voices of tradition, the rabbis, and the commentators. The voices of the past.

Educators have become so expert in delivering the voices of the past that they often never discover their own voice. They are a megaphone for what was, and are often afraid to move out of this comfort zone. We’ve become stuck in the success of our scholarship and pedagogy and the question is often – “who knows more voices of the past?”

But today we need more.

Today – it’s not about information – it’s about transformation. 

Today – it’s not about knowledge – it’s about wisdom.  

Today – our educational goal should be not only to preserve our voices of the past, but to enable and encourage our own authentic voices to be heard and to enable personal and spiritual growth. 

Today – most importantly, it’s about the future.

Today, we must ask:

How can we use the explosion of information to teach for transformation? 

How can we bring this mass of Jewish wisdom into our hearts and lives?

How can Jewish education enable us to become better, kinder, more compassionate, idealistic, and authentic Jews? 

How can we use the voices from the past to create a different and better future?

We need not forego our past successes, but we must wake up to the need for a different model of Jewish education. The Jewish world, like the general world, has evolved drastically over the last 25 years.

We must understand that education for transformation is a wholly different paradigm than education for information.

I contend that the goal of religious education should not only be to know how to continue the tradition, but essentially -    in light of the tradition, how can we help our children find and clarify the unique voice of their souls?

A Rabbi recently told me that this approach is completely treif. He said: “Personal authenticity is just the code word for the yetzer hara and self-indulgence.”

I beg to disagree. This is not a narcissistic indulgence. We did not create our uniqueness – God did. We did not create the singular mandate our soul was given to better this world – God did. God gave us particular qualities and a unique life-mission in this world.

It is heresy to not listen to the voice of the soul that God gave us. It is heresy not to clarify our God-given unique purpose in this world. 

And while we – parents, teachers, rabbis, professionals – try to educate our children with the wisdom of our tradition and experience, there is only one voice which can truly help them achieve this goal of fulfilling their God-given uniqueness and purpose in this world. There is only one voice which truly knows them – and it is the voice of their own soul.

I recently visited four elite high schools in the US. Devoted teachers and talented students. I asked the students: “Where in high school do you have an opportunity to personally explore your own unique spiritual path? When do you have the opportunity to listen to your own voice?” The vast majority of them answered clearly and emphatically: “Nowhere. Zero opportunity. We always have to listen. No one is listening to us. No one gives us the opportunity to listen to ourselves. It’s as if they are afraid of it.”

Our past improvements in Jewish education were necessary to preserve Jewish continuity. Now, we must move ahead and make the improvements necessary to create a vibrant Jewish future.

If we want to become a Holy nation, a light unto other nations, then continuity is not enough. Information alone will not transform us into our better selves. To fulfill our destiny and centuries of dreams, we must find the resolve and courage to open the door to the next level of Jewish education…and then walk boldly in.

Aryeh Ben David is the Founder and Director of Ayeka: Center for Soulful Education. Ayeka developed a unique educational approach and curriculum to enable adults to personalize Jewish wisdom and enhance their lives. www.ayeka.org.il

Carlebach Selichot?

If you poll a bunch of Jews asking what is their favorite prayer service, I am pretty confident that Kabalat Shabbat would be the hands down winner.  If you similarly polled the same bunch of people what is their least favorite service - that would actually be an interesting poll to run - what would they say?

I do not think that selichot would necessarily be at the top of that second list (top 5?) - that is because for serious daveners selichot is a special seasonal addition.  However, for many people selichot can be tedious and a challenge to connect to, because of the hour it is said and the text.  When I asked an educator friend how to better infuse spirit to the Tuesday morning selichot, he replied, "do it Carlebach style".  I think his presumption was that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's music has made kabalat Shabbat so energized that perhaps that should be the approach for selichot.  (I have personally been to first night selichot in the 'Carlebach' genre and do think it was more positive than my more traditional experiences).

Towards this notion, another friend recently passed on to me the following three youtube clips of Reb Shlomo reciting selichot and I encourage you to listen and watch these tefillot.

Part 1/3

Part 2/3

Part 3/3

Here are some of my reflections:

• The power of a unique niggun, the tunes for this season is very powerful and not only gets me in the mood for davening on Rosh Hashanah but is a great educational tool for students.  The nusach of yamim noraim transcends time and never goes out of style.  
• Musical instruments just add to any tefilla experience.
• There needs to be a tune to daven to, not just the silent mumbling along.  I think it gives a great deal of agency and helps one transcend the words to be in the moment, and extends the moment a bit longer; it makes the mediation important.
• Stories - the actual selcihot help to tell the story of the path to teshuvah and forgiveness.  Reb Shlomo adds a few more metaphors and stories.  What story are you telling this year?  

My friend also added the following note - a good inspiration for your upcoming tefillot.  

Reb Shlomo said that sometimes when you go in to the emergency room you sit down and are patient to be seen. But when you have a really serious medical problem that can't wait you go right past the door and scream, "emergency, it's an emergency." Selichos is when a person cries to Hashem and says, "I'm an emergency." 

Selichos is when I realize that I can't wait to be close to You again! I can't wait to correct my ways, I need You to help me let myself be me again, right now. Please. My whole life is an emergency. Praying to G-d on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is the medicine. 

Does Tefilla Make Better Jews?

There is a Jewish Press article making the circuit the past few hours titled Overhauling Orthodox Education To Make Better Jews by Rabbi Dov Lipman (now more well known for his articles in the Times of Israel and as one of the vocal opponents to religious radicalization in Beit Shemesh last year).

I recommend that you give it a full read for I think he raises several crucial issues that educators must face when you take an honest look at the final product graduating from your schools.  Lipman beings with a startling anecdote about a rabbi friend who tries to repay a kindness to another Jew who seemingly shakes said friend down for my money and a heavy dose of guilt.  He takes this frustration to the realm of tefilla and our pedagogical approach:

My friend related how just that morning during Shacharit he was thinking about how “off target” we are as he watched rabbis barking at children to stand during “vayevareich Dovid” and the “vihu rachum,” part of Tachanun at a youth minyan. He was not suggesting we shouldn’t find ways to encourage our children to stand when our custom dictates standing during prayers. But the degree to which the kids were being scolded for not standing struck a chord that led him to reflect upon what we teach as important and what is not important.

Not just writing to complain, Lipman boldly offers a solution to reinvigorate our students as well:

There should certainly be a Talmud track for the elite students with the intellectual, language, and attention skills necessary to enjoy and benefit from it, but for the mainstream yeshiva high school student this almost exclusive focus on Gemara wastes precious time from more productive study and actually turns most students off from interest in Torah and even Judaism. 

Tanach study should lead to meaningful discussions about the lessons each chapter seeks to convey about proper moral, ethical, and spiritual behavior. We should teach our students about meditation and connecting to their deeper selves along with the concept of personal prayer. 

Once they understand that the most important part of davening should be their personal prayers and pouring their hearts out to God in their own words, this has the capacity to change and uplift their entire prayer experience. The topic of prayer must be accompanied by Jewish philosophy courses and providing the framework for students to ask their questions and receive well-thought-out answers.

While I don't agree totally with his thesis, and others have begun to divide his points and critique, I do so appreciate Lipman sentiments about about how central prayer is to reflect to the true achievement of a Jewish education and one's personal growth.  The chief goal of this blog is to discuss how to evaluate the success of teaching tefilla and so far I have not found adequate answers from educators regarding a viable system to share and reproduce (which, by the way, is not the case for teaching Tanach, Talmud, or Jewish Thought). For too long  many of the minyanim in schools (and for that matter, community shuls) do not reflect the pinnacle Jewish experience of that very day, yet we continue to press our students with the centrality of this ritual and its spiritual potential.  If not Lipman's approach, let's reapproach the situation of the spiritual behavior of our graduates - if not now, when? 

Temple Minded

Believe it or not, a great many of Jewish rituals were designed to transmit the rules and habits of the Beit HaMikdash, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, to those that never lived to see its glory.  For example, the custom of washing hands before eating bread (or even wet fruit) was established to recall the behavior of the priests in the times of the Temple.  When you preform this act do you think of the Beit HaMikdash?

During an impromptu discussion with a colleague today about the intensified mourning during the 9 days of Av, I asked this same question. He replied, "No, do you think most people when they say, 'Baruch Atah Hashem...' they often think of Hashem?"  

This cynical response - and perhaps accurate - reminds us that to teach davening is to teach sensitivity and awareness to time, space, and people.  In my early Jewish education, I often heard the word "holy" bounced around but never really understood what the word meant.  One good translation is to define it in terms of being separate, apart.  I think it is appropriate to translate the word kedusha as intimacy, a sense of unique closeness that is somewhat private and distinct to specific time, places, and people.  When teaching (or preaching) the importance of tefilla one must be conscious of the many layers of educational, ideological, and historical that are packed into each individual act - and many are actually routed in the service from the Temple.

Shared Post: Engaging (young) Souls

The following is a post published last summer on the Lookstein website. I reviewed Saul Wachs' approach in January but I think Golombek does a phenomenal job of drawing out his key ideas.  This essay is targeted for elementary school teachers and expresses a sincere desire to hedge off a potential davening crisis or drought for older students.  If there is scholarly or otherwise eloquent article that explains best practices for engaging high school students and tefilla, please share. Golombeks and Wachs' approach might help our tefilla situation in a few years, but I fear that the "autopilot tefilla" continues to quietly spoil the davening atmosphere.  

Engaging Souls: Bringing Elementary Tefillah to Life by Eric Golombek

Ask a teacher to teach the same short story to children every day for eight or more years, and they will likely look at you like you are crazy! Yet, in a sense, that is the challenge of teaching tefillah. We have the same tefillot, more or less, that we use with our children day after day for their entire school career. Unless there is a conscious effort to create a rich tefillah experience, group prayer is at risk of becoming a mindless task, with children (and adults!) on autopilot.

In truth, “autopilot tefillah” can appear good in elementary services because of the natural love of young children to sing. Tefillah expert, Saul Wachs, calls this “the Trap” of elementary tefillah (Wachs, 2009). This is because autopilot elementary tefillah leaves nothing in place when children get older and singing does not have any appeal. It is critical that elementary children form a relationship to tefillah so that by the time they get to middle school, they understand it and value it.

In my opinion, a successful elementary tefillah program depends on how well it addresses the three questions of the davener:

How do I pray?
What do the words mean?
What do the words mean to me?

The first question we address when we teach children to pronounce the words of the tefillah properly, to utilize nusach appropriately, and to be knowledgeable of the choreography of the service (eg. when to stand). The other two questions are often neglected in the elementary tefillah service. When we address the second question, we are teaching children to identify key lines and important vocabulary in the tefillot. We are also teaching them to identify the big idea of each prayer.

The third question is even more complex because it asks us to foster a relationship with the tefillah. We need to have children create personal meaning of the various prayers that they read. The arts are a key avenue for developing this relationship because personal meaning emerges from personal engagement with a text. The arts invite that engagement. Through soul stirring music, through story telling, through movement and through the visual arts, doors into the prayers are opened and children are invited in.

Let us examine these four doors in depth. In the following sections I will share successes I have had using the arts in teaching tefillah to elementary students at Associated Hebrew Schools in Toronto.

Mix up the music: Elementary children love to sing, so it is a mistake not to make the most out of this avenue into the elementary child’s spirit. Take a look at the tunes being used for tefillah—are they the same as last year’s and the year before that? A great way to breathe new life into any elementary tefillah service is to change up the tunes. Search through YouTube, talk to the musical leaders from synagogue and camp, and talk with children. Do not be afraid to adopt an inspiring tune to new words. But, choose tunes that your kids will like as well as you. Look for jazzy beats and music that speaks to kids. If you can bring musical accompaniment to tefillah, it will add an incredible dimension.

One cautionary note: more is not necessarily better when it comes to introducing new tunes. I find that I can introduce two or three new tunes each year. I teach the tunes slowly, with children mastering one part at a time. I make sure that I connect the teaching of the song to overall learning about the tefillah. By moving slowly, children develop a relationship to the specific prayerthey are learning.

One underutilized musical tradition is niggunim.  Niggunim are wordless tunes that are chanted communally. They are from the Chassidic tradition and can be an incredibly powerful tool. Because niggunim are wordless, anyone can participate—even teachers who are nervous around Hebrew or who may even be non-Jewish. The chanting of a niggun can build the energy in a room and transform individuals into a community.  

A relative to the niggun, and an excellent accompaniment to the niggun, is communal drumming. Teach children to drum along on their laps, at tables, or on the floor. You can build unity by having children all drum the same patterns, or you can encourage individualism within the community by having them improvise their own patterns while maintaining a common beat.   After a drumming tefillah, I can often observe children drumming all day long.

Tell a story: Good story telling opens the minds of children to discussing difficult issues without it getting personal. It is much easier, for example, for a child to talk about a character in a story that should do teshuva, repentance, than for that child to share a time when he or she did a wrong that required teshuva. Of course, you need to choose stories with some meat to them—ones that require children to struggle with an issue and that connect to your learning objective for the prayer. Your sources for stories span the history of the Jewish people. I have used stories that range from the Tanach to rabbinic writings in the Talmud and Midrash to folktales to modern writing.

There are two keys to increasing engagement during story telling, especially with a large group. The first is to tell the story in a dramatic way. Regulate your volume to capture the mood of the story. Use voices for the characters that speak. Pause at dramatic moments. All of these techniques develop over time but practicing the story before telling it is an important way to prepare for good story telling. Also, inviting a “guest” to be the story teller can be a great way to engage teachers who are required to be at tefillah but often feel like their sole role is to police.

The second key to increasing engagement during story telling is to give children a task prior to beginning. For example, ask children a question that directs their focus to your objective for the lesson. This is the question that you will start your post-story discussion with. If tefillah occurs in a classroom with children at desks, you can have children actually write their answers as you are telling the story, or they can fill in a graphic organizer. If tefillah occurs in a large group such as in a synagogue, consider having children do something once they have an answer. I often tell children to put their hands together once they have discovered the answer to my question. Setting a task for children during story telling helps prevent most kids from zoning out during tefillah.

Movin’ Movin’: When you get kids moving, you are guaranteeing engagement. Dance and dramatic movement can be powerful ways of connecting children to tefillah. In this section, I would like to focus on one particular technique that I have found extremely powerful for engaging daveners of all ages. I call the technique the “human opinion graph”.   The idea is to pose a question and have children physically move to give an answer. One could argue that human opinion graphs are not really art. However, because human opinion graphs are a visual expression of the beliefs of the participants, I feel their inclusion here is appropriate.

Here are four versions of human opinion graphs that I use frequently:
            - Sit/Stand: This is a good technique for doing a quick survey. You ask a yes/no question like: do you believe God has a role in our day to day lives. If yes, please stand. If not, stay seated.
            - Corners: Set up four chairs in each corner of the makom tefillah. Put a sign (or have a child hold a sign) on each chair that is a possible response to a question. Daveners must then choose the response that most matches their answer. For example, if you had just been made king and God said he would give you any wish, what would you wish for: a long life, victory over your enemies, riches or wisdom? (I use this and the story of Solomon to introduce the blessing “Ata Chonen" in the amidah)
           - Human Bar Graph: Similar to Corners, in the Human Bar Graph, you set the chairs up in a row at the front each with a response. You ask a question and the children have to sit in a straight row behind the chair that matches their response.
           - Values Continuum:  The idea here is for the leader to make a statement that children can strongly agree with, strongly disagree with or be somewhere in the middle. An example of a statement might be: God is the source of all bad things in the world (I use this to introduce the blessing yotzer or). Children who strongly agree move to one end of the room, and those who strongly disagree move to the other end. Most children place themselves somewhere in the middle.

Visual Arts: There are ideas which are simply not captured through words. For this reason, artists throughout the years have attempted to express the meaning of tefillot through drawings, paintings, photography and other forms. At our tefillah, we can invite children to express their ideas about key lines in various prayers through the visual arts.

For example, when we studied the kedushah, I told the children the story from Isaiah 6 where the angels are calling to each other. But, what did this scene look like? What do angels look like? I challenged children to create pastel drawings of the line “kadosh, kadosh, kadosh”. In this case, my first step was to show children a wide variety of artistic depictions of this scene. I did this to open their minds to the idea that angels are not necessarily chubby, little boys with wings. The creations of the children were creative and imaginative. We hung the angel pictures in our makom tefillah and one angel image became the centre of the parochet our fifth graders were making as their “moving on” project.

Eager to try some of these ideas in your next tefillah gathering? Great! But, before you do, examine your school’s culture of tefillah.  Using any of these may require a shift in the adult understanding of children’s prayer at school. It is important not to underestimate the attachment teachers, administrators, parents and even children have to the way tefillah is done. In particular, many people have strong feelings about how much praying should be “sacrificed” for learning about tefillah.

A good way of thinking about this issue is as a tension between kevah and kavanah. Kevah are those parts of the prayer experience which are defined and unchanging. Kevah focused tefillah is filled largely with the recitation of prayers from the siddur. Kavanah is the part of the prayer experience where daveners are engaged in understanding and relating to prayer.

There is no way to introduce arts-based learning to your tefillah without sacrificing kevah for kavanah. If this is an issue at your school, I strongly suggest having this discussion with your stakeholders before you shift the kevah—kavanah balance. You can introduce this idea of kevah and kavanah and you can even do a “values continuum” activity with them—although adults tend to prefer to do this on paper rather than with movement.

In the end, you should come away with an idea of how much time should be spent on kevah and how much time on kavanah. At my school, I spend a third to half of tefillah on building an understanding of and a relationship with the text. While this may seem like a lot, in a thirty minute time slot which includes getting settled at the beginning, I am left with ten to fifteen minutes.  However, with good planning, and by breaking activities into smaller chunks, it is possible to do great things in this time.

Through engaging our children in their tefillah, we inspire your children to be great daveners because they have a personal relationship with their prayers. And, we set the groundwork for the successful continuation of tefillah in middle school, and for the rest of our children’s lives. Truly holy work.

Reference: Wachs, Saul P.  (2009). Towards a theory of practice. New York (NY): The Solomon Schechter Day School Association.

Intentions and Performance

In reaction to recent post about davening and travelling, a reader shared the following source and insight and I wanted to pass it on for your intellectual digestion:

The Shulchan Aruch w/Mishnah Brurah 183:11 states: If one was traveling, and ate while walking/moving, one need not sit for Birchas Hamazon if the delay caused by sitting for Birchas Hamazon will disturb the concentration on the beracha, and one may bentch while walking/moving.

The emphasis being concentration. IMHO in the area of davening chazal (our sages) were always more concerned with kavannah (intention) then the technical execution. It is, l’tzaareynu (to our sadness) a more recent phenomena where the external appearance has taken precedence over the internal connectedness.

Intention is one of the most difficult aspects to teach a child; considering the numerous outside social pressures and outlets that influence children to act, pretend, or deceive, how are educators to go about teaching not only the knowledge of ritual, but the heart of the matter behind such crucial performances? 

Minyan and Anxiety Disorders

Since my time as a teacher and informal education for a program that required students to attend minyan, I have been collecting classic excuses that would exempt someone from participation. The most popular excuse is "I have to go to the bathroom" as it not only gets one away from of the judging eyes of the teachers but has a strong legitimate precedent to disqualify one's tefilla.  

Today I came across the following anonymous question and answer on AskRevach. The "about us" section self describes this Orthodox Jewish resource as "created for Bnei Torah who have a question in any area.  Whether it's halacha or hashkafa pertaining to your work or anything else on your mind you can ask one of qualified staff for answers."  Not so many other details are shared on their actual hashkafa, outlook. 

In trolling for tefilla material I came across this question which may take the prize:

If a person has been diagnosed with an Anxiety Disorder, is he excused from davening with a minyan?

Answer: An emotional illness is also considered to be a condition that would exempt one from davening with a minyan, if attending shul would be likely to aggravate his condition. However if davening with a minyan is not likely to have any negative effect, he certainly should daven in shul. If he would be able to handle a small minyan of 10 men but not a large shul with many dozen, then his condition would outweigh b'rov am hadras Melech. Answered by Rav Peretz Moncharsh

Admittedly I normally wouldn't think much of such an issue but I had just come across the following headline America's Anxiety Epidemic on TheAtlantic online. The actual article, Trickle-Down Distress: How America's Broken Meritocracy Drives Our National Anxiety Epidemic by Maura Kelly, caused me to think about how our students deal with pressures and the outlets we create for them to juggle the societal and religious challenges.  Tefilla is a natural outlet if properly taught, but apparently some people may use it as an exemption as well.  Let me clear as to only inspire and not to offend:  Anxiety disorders are real!  Many people who do not suffer such an illness struggle to use the time gathered in a quorum of worshipers to its full spiritual potential.  How can we make the most of this experience?

What's Wrong with Texting in Shul?

Are you guilty? Do you touch your phone in shul, check for a message or play a quick level of Angry Birds or Tetris to pass the time during davening?  (I am not talking about those who touch the siddur app in their phone).

Clearly young people today feel more comfortable with technology and social interactions and their own confidence in multitasking, but what exactly is their place in Jewish holy spaces? Previously I have written and shared about technology in the spiritual realm.  But can you pinpoint what's so bad about it?

In my opinion, this is a tell tale sign that the tefilla moment is not engaging and the person is willfully or subconsciously distracted.  We want out students (and fellow daveners) to be in the prayerful moment and to use the time to reflect and transcend, right?  How can you do that, let alone in a room by oneself not to mention it a crowded shul, when the objects (read toys) around pull your focus away?

On a daily basis, I am (unfortunately) often in meetings and it is obvious to me that the people fidgeting on their phones in the meeting don't see the conversation - at that very moment - a priority enough to give fill attention and focus.  I know because when I touch my phone it is because I myself am wandering away.

Isn't that one of the nice aspects of shabbat that we have less mundane distractions?  How do we teach students to overcome the mental and physical distractions that buffer their spiritual space and to teach them to negotiate this challenge during the 'profane' hours of the week?

Two post scripts:

1. You can read the Yeshiva World News article on the topic, Please Turn Off Your Cellphone - I love the interactions!
2. According to the Jewish Virtual Library article Synagogue Customs and Etiquette, one of the "no-no's" is the following:  The synagogue may be one of the last remain sanctuaries to escape cell phones and beepers. They should be turned off before entering.

The Debate over Bringing Kids to Shul

This blog is an outlet for educators to discuss and explore approaches and resources on tefilla. As I write from an educator's perspective, a lot of what I share involves approaches of students and children to davening.  There is a sincere need to have a conversation about children in shul as they pose a tremendous educational opportunity and danger to the unique environment for daveners.

Tonight, in doing some research, I have come across a lot of websites dealing with adult approaches to children in davening.  I have shared before on this topic and just reread "In The King's Presence" Teaching for Tefillah: A Communal Responsibility by Dr. Wallace Greene and once again fascinated by the different approaches parents have to bringing kids to shul.  But this article, published last year in The Yeshiva World News site, takes the cake.

Titled, "Why I am going to let my kids run around shul", this article elicited 60 responses that run the gamut, that is the gamut for YWN readers.  My personal favorite line is "Judaism (and life) is about trying your best. If you can't do something perfectly, you do it imperfectly." Nonetheless I thought this article was worth sharing because there really is no single 'Best Practice' when it comes to what age and when to bring your kid to shul and really comes down to a subjective calculation on your child's personality and mood, the atmosphere of the synagogue, and the educational opportunity that is present.

What is your synagogue's policy on children in shul?

Is There an Age to Start Growing your Spiritual Side?

I think this is a fair question to ask.

This thought was instigated by the reading/hearing of the weekly Torah portion in synagogue.  In Bamidbar, also known as the book of Numbers, we learn about the census of the Israelites in the wilderness.  The criteria for counting the people really is for a military purpose in that the desert was a staging ground for the eventual and supposed swift move to Israel.  Further, the essential criteria is for men "from the age of 20, all those that went to fight" (1:3) was  clarifying who could go out to war.

The tribe of Levi was not counted with their brethren, and were selected out for a different purpose - to serve in the Mishkan (the travelling Tabernacle that was the precursor to the Temple).With a careful reading, one can see that the Levites are counted from one month and older, yet they will only serve in the Mishkan from age 30 to age 50.  Thus their training and education for their spiritual burden begins at a much earlier age as well as their actual career of practice is limited to a period of peek performance.  Juxtapose this to the military men where there is no specific criteria beyond their age (note even physicality), there is a stark difference in their call to duty.

I first digested this point in reading Gideon Weitzman's Sparks of Light a few years ago.  Weitzman, a delightful teacher and scholar on the philosophy of Rav Kook, highlights this differing roles between the national entity and spiritual component and argues that this set up was to guard a balance for the nation to "survive and thrive".

One of the most influential books that I have ever read was As a Driven Leaf by Milton Sternberg - which if you haven't read, then what are you waiting for. The book is a historical fictitious account of the life of Elisha Ben Abuye. Sternberg, in sharing the travails of the protagonist, cites the enigmatic Mishna in Pirkei Avit chapter 4:20:

Elisha the son of Abuye would say: One who learns Torah in his childhood, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on fresh paper. One who learns Torah in his old age, what is this comparable to? To ink inscribed on erased paper.

Connecting to the idea presented in the beginning of the post - must spiritual people be nurtured for a longer time and thus before they may be corrupted from complex or negative thoughts?  Is there a latent message in the text promoting the notion of Tabula Rasa?

As a parent AND teacher, tis a daunting task - to raise moral and good children who will strive to care for their world and the people in their community.  And we know that we have to start at a young age to impart habits and values and not just wait to our young people have the physical maturity to "take" responsibility" (I have previously written about the issue with the age of bar/bat mitzvahs). But how can we properly prepare to shape the soulful side and properly measure our effectiveness?

Who's Afraid of an Evaluation?

It is May and the end of the school year is very much in sight.  Students are counting down, teachers are also counting down, and administrators are busy evaluating and making decisions that will impact next year's academic schedule.

However I am finding that some schools just don't want to talk about tefilla.  Doesn't matter that it is now "late" in the year - as it was during the summer prep time or in the beginning of the year preparing for the High Holy Holidays.  It is often stated that tefilla is an important part of the curriculum and that they are searching for ways to improve student engagement and participation but when given the opportunity to actually get free resources on the topic, some people are too busy with other important matters to give tefilla attention.

Pardon my frustration but isn't everything happening in a school important; rather there is a sophisticated juggling of priorities to ensure a clear educational message of content and values. How then does it seem that tefilla is always slipping to the bottom?  If you disagree, PLEASE speak up.

Books about Why We Pray

In the trending discussion (if you can call me posting and talking about a trend) on books that might be useful in teaching and inspiring tefilla I have come across the following English selections:

• Why We Pray What We Pray by Rabbi Dr. Barry Fruendel (2010)
• Praying with Fire 1 by Rabbi Heshy Kleinman (2006)
• Call to the Infinite by Rabby Aryeh Kaplan (1986)
• To Pray as a Jew by Hayim H. Donin (1991)
• A Guide to Jewish Prayer by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz (2002)

What else should or would you add to this list?  

Rav Schachter's Advice for Teaching Tefilla

I have been meaning to share the following interview With Rav Schachter about leading tefillah in day schools (I found this and other resources on tefilla at YU's High Sschool Chinuch Community website).

Whether you know who Rav Hershel Schachter is or not, I think that this video offers a candid glimpse into Orthodox Judaim's educational approach and qualms about tefilla.   Rarely in life do you see an interview of someone tops in their fields talking about the basic A, B's and C's of their subject field and pedagogical approaches for high schools students.

I am amazed at this interviewer's (Rabbi Kenny Schiowitz) approach to the challenging scenarios for contemporary educators and what questions were posed and not posed to this scholar.  Further, it is important to note how Rav Schachter is very open that he doesn't have much practical experience with implementing such approaches in the classrooms "with younger children".  The following are my gleanings from the Rav Schachter's answers:

• Tefilla should be considered optional in schools were students would want to opt out.
• Teaching the siddur is more important than teaching gmera (Talmud)
• Even Rav Schachter abbreviates his tefilla to accommodate what the community does - but it is important for teachers to be with their students, even if you have to interrupt your own tefilla.  
• The repetition of the leader (hazerat ha'shatz) could be dropped from school tefilla as was the practice of Morrocan Jews following the legal ruling of the Rambam (which reflected a low level of interest in the practice).
• Orthodox kids are not connecting to davening and this needs to be addressed seriously and with educational flexibility. 

As an educator, I think this session opens a lot of questions regarding how tefilla is working in schools today.  Are there Orthodox schools that are implementing any of Rav Schachter's approaches?

Best to end with his final words, "oy, we all have to improve in our davening!"

Dare We Change Our Educational Approach

One of my personal favorite bloggers and marketing gurus is Seth Godin.  Around my office we call him Rabbi Seth out of appreciation for some of his insights and perspectives.  Which prompts me to share the following anecdote about the job of a rebbe:

A college student once asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe what is his job. The Rebbe gestured to the ceiling of his room and replied:  Do you see that light bulb? It is connected by wires to a power plant that powers the whole of Brooklyn. And that plant is connected to turbo generators at Niagara Falls that power the whole of New York State and more.  Every one of us is a light bulb wired in to an infinitely powerful generator. But the room may still be dark, because the connection has yet to be made. The job of a rebbe is to take your hand in the dark room and help it find the switch.

Seth Godin has a new free book, Stop Stealing Dreams - it is a manifesto, or in his own words, "This is more of a rant than a book".  I think it is a must-read for educators and believe it has much to say about the structure of our schools and how we improve on what we are trying to do.  In graduate school I remember being strongly impressed by John Dewey's works as well as George Counts who questioned the motivation and overall purpose of trying to teach children.

One point that Seth makes in the beginning of the manifesto is that our schools are essentially training students to be obedient and the skill set for an economic reality that has since disappeared.  On the topic of tefilla, I firmly believe that a significant number of Jewish schools, both day schools and supplementary, have similarly not fully adjusted to the reality of a new economic and cultural reality and how to best prepare their charge for living Jewishly post-graduation.  By this I mean the fast pace nature of today's communication systems, the interactive nature of social networking and sharing of information, and the powerful forces of agency working on the individual identities in a post-modern era.  So it is worth reflecting on the meta-educational approach to what it means to teach kids how to daven and how to prevent their proverbial dreams from being stolen.

The Hawthorne Effect and Evaluating Davening

An interesting question was raised out of a recent post - whether it is easier to daven with people around or by one's self?

There are clearly advantages and disadvantages to each and I will not weigh in on either side except to share that I think the rabbis of old wanted there to be a tension; you can decide for yourself, or perhaps your already have.  But I wanted to begin to push our intellectual comfort zone a bit more (isn't that the point of this blog?) to see how our educational institutions teach people about this tension between public and private prayer.

The Hawthorne effect describes how people react to changes in their environment – particularly to the knowledge that they are being paid attention to. Turn up the lights in the factory and productivity goes up. Turn them down and productivity goes up (a nod to Seth Godin for recently sharing this concept).

Pretty much all of school prayer is with the proverbial lights on and teachers watching - and rarely are the results significant (I may have been persuaded that TV camera lights might make difference after seeing the footage of the Beren Academy davening).  The inverse of this theory is not true either - neglecting to coach tefilla will not develop spiritual souls.  So there is obviously a balance of sometimes tuning up the attention and other times easing back - which I think is probably the pedagogical approach of most tefilla teachers.  However, when it comes to evaluating the success of said pedagogy there seems to be an absence of criteria and literature to share and criticize.  Most Jewish Day Schools have tefilla on a regular basis and prayer is a conceptual part of most supplementary schools (formerly called Hebrew school) curriculum - but how are they being evaluated and are the results positive?

Perhaps we need to shine light on the administrators, paying attention to see if tefilla productivity will go up.

Teaching Spirituality in School

The following article (from the lookjed list)  is thought provoking and the link to the post has several interesting reactions and comments from educators around the world.  Additionally, I think it is good to expose the readers here to Aryeh Ben David, an experienced educator himself who has started Ayeka - Jewish Spiritual Education.

I invite you to share comments - is this practical for your school? Or do you think this better for 'informal educational' environments?

Creative Solutions to Education Challenges - Spiritual Education
by Aryeh Ben David posted on 9 August 2011

There is a problem in Jewish education. Many if not most Jewish educators are aware of this problem. It is a problem that will not be solved by a change in the syllabus. It is a problem that will not be solved by developing more knowledgeable educators. It is not a problem of pedagogy or content.

It is a problem of disconnectedness. Students are not personally connecting to what they are learning. It is a problem that exists on the day school level as well as in advanced yeshiva learning. It is not a problem of the mind. It is a problem of the heart.

This problem did not simply appear. It is the product of an approach that views education as a mind-to-mind experience. It is a product of an approach whose goal is to convey to the student masses of content, regardless of how much of this the student emotionally connects to and/or integrates into his life. It is an approach which lacks sufficient personal relevance, personal meaning, touching of the hearts and/or impassioning the student.

There is another approach. An approach that was, in fact, favored by the Hassidic masters, Rav Kook, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and others. It is an approach that is based on the wisdom of the Kabbalah, on the understanding that there are three primary voices of the soul - the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshama. These voices are expressed through the powers of the mind (neshama), the heart (ruach), and the body (nefesh). For education to be truly effective it has to access and harmonize these three voices of the soul of the student. It is an approach of one whole person to another whole person, of mind & heart & body to mind & heart & body (see Courage to Teach, p. 4, by Parker Palmer, contemporary leader in educational philosophy. "To chart the inner landscape fully, three important paths must be taken - intellectual, emotional, and spiritual - and none can be ignored").

How does this approach work?

The mind is engaged. A subject is studied. Critical and rigorous thinking is  involved.

The heart is engaged. A safe and supportive environment is created in which the student can personally relate to the material studied. An environment bereft of cynicism, sarcasm, or judgment. The Talmud states "A person only learns from the place that his/her heart desires." This safe environment opens one's heart to learning, and promotes active listening of the participant both to his/her self and to others. The students are invited to express and share in pairs how s/he connects to what has been learned.

The body is engaged. An experiential workshop enables the student to take this mind & heart experience and express it through various media, including art, creative writing, drama, or movement. The goal here is not the performance. Rather the aim is to physically actualize what has been heretofore abstract. This tangible experience serves to concretize what the mind and heart have experientially internally.

The Results:

Individual connectedness: A deep personal connectedness to whatever subject has been learned, an impassioned learner. Students begin to realize that Judaism is not just about learning content, it is not just about knowing things, but that the deep wisdom of Judaism can impact and enhance their lives.

Group connectedness: The sharing with others coheres the whole group and begins to foster a community of listening, caring, meaningfulness and passion. Torah becomes Torat Chayim.

This approach has already been tried with well over 1500 students during the last two years with outstanding success. It is suitable for timeframes of 3-hour sessions, day-long seminars, and Shabbatonim. Ultimately, the goal of these sessions is to impact students, to begin to create a community focusing on spiritual growth, and to train Jewish educators and professionals to be able to facilitate these seminars on their own. To date, we have run seminars focusing on spirituality, community, chesed, and the holidays. This approach, however, is suitable for any subject or theme.