If Not Now: My Daughter in Israel

One of my concerns about October 7th once the security concerns began to be addressed wasn’t about the weeks in front of us, but the months.  For a good stretch of time, the focus on Israel was overwhelming in every sense of that word.  We had a fundamental imperative to both be and feel safe.  There was education to provide our students.  There were displaced Israeli children to absorb and to welcome.  There were rallies for solidarity and rallies for advocacy.  There were media requests and a need for thought-leadership.  And yet, we knew that there was inevitably going to come a time when people’s natural attention spans and bandwidth for crisis was going to yield to a shift and perhaps create a fracture.  And perhaps we are at, or nearing that time…

It isn’t to suggest that our (the school‘s) attention is waning or certainly not that our eye has moved off the ball of security even an iota.  It is, however, to suggest that people have begun to walk down different paths of engagement depending on their personal connections and experiences.  At our school, we still have teachers and families who are awaiting news of hostages and serving on the front lines of Gaza.  We still have siblings and friends experiencing anti-Semitism in their public schools, workplaces and neighborhoods.  We are still teaching “current events”, praying, raising money and engaging in acts of social justice.  But as time inches forward, I think it is fair to say that it simply isn’t top of mind for each and every person as it was…and I state that as a fact of human nature, not a judgement.

I am experiencing the way the heartstrings can be strung and restrung through my parenting.  When we made the decision as a family to stay here in Ottawa for our daughters’ high school years, in a place without a true Jewish high school, we committed to a variety of educational experiences that would build a bridge from their rigorous Jewish day school foundation to their studies in university.  One of those experiences was to spend a semester of Grade 10 studying in Israel.  And that decision got a lot more complicated since Maytal was scheduled to leave for Jerusalem in January.

Our older daughter’s experience was curtailed and compromised by COVID, but she did go.  Our girls are Ramahniks through and through, and although there are other programs, Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim (TRY), was our only choice.  Normally there are upwards of 60-80 teens with a healthy Canadian cohort.  We were looking forward to Maytal getting to have the “full TRY” and then October 7th…

After months of wondering about whether the trip would go, and then worrying about whether sending her was the right choice, we made the family decision – with Maytal as its fiercest champion – that despite the number of students barely in the teens, and without a single other Canadian participating, that now really was the time.  (It very much felt like a true, “If not now, when” moment.)  And so we found ourselves a couple of weeks ago gathering with other families at Newark Airport to send our children to a very different Israel than the one we knew months ago.

Let me pause to state something obvious.  Maytal is in a bubble of privileged North American teens in Jerusalem.  She will only travel to the safest of places under the safest of conditions.   She is not living in a city near the border and we are not comparing our concerns for her wellbeing to those who are truly living in harm’s way.  Not for a moment.  That doesn’t mean, however, that we don’t think she is brave for choosing this time to be in Israel.  (It also won’t stop my mother from worrying herself sleepless until she returns in May.)

Each ping of the WhatsApp brings news of the next adventure or a picture from the most recent one.  She has bonded with her group and has started the experience in full.  She is going to have the time of her life and being in Israel – now – will be extraordinarily impactful on her in ways we could guess and ways we cannot imagine.  We are blessed to be able to provide her with this opportunity (and grateful to the many people and institutions who helped us make it possible).

But each ping of the WhatsApp also brings anxiety.  Each news update on the state of the crisis lands differently than it did a few weeks ago.  I don’t feel like I should say this, but I don’t know how to say it differently – obviously as a member of the Jewish People, I always have skin in the game when it comes to Israel.  But now, for a short while, I also have flesh and blood.  And whether it should or not…it feels different.

I share all of this in the spirit of wanting to ensure that we continue to ask ourselves what is the right amount of space the situation in Israel should continue to occupy – for our school, for our families and for ourselves.  I know there is no “right answer” but I guess I hope that whatever newfound insight or empathy (again, I don’t think that is exactly the best word) or perspective having a child of my own living in Israel provides me, that it helps guide me to the right place.  And invite you to reflect for what the right amount of space you believe it should occupy as well.  Are we doing too much or too little as a community?  As a school?  (As a family?)

Let me know what you think.  Let’s make sure Israel remains in our thoughts and our prayers and our actions even as life inevitably encroaches.

It only gets harder and more complicated the longer it goes.

#StandWithIsrael

#AmYisraelChai

ExPat Files: American Thanksgiving In Canada Comes With a Side of Gratitude

To all my friends and family in the States, I wish you a “Happy Thanksgiving”.  And to all my friends in Canada, I wish you a “Happy Thursday”.

Sigh.

I know, truly, all the things about Thanksgiving in America.  And I know, truly, all the things about Thanksgiving in Canada.  [If you don’t believe me, I wrote a post about it a few years ago.]  And yet this time of year brings such strong feelings that “body memory” has to be real.  It actually starts on the weekend prior where you just know that Thanksgiving Week is coming…it is the shortest of school/work weeks…children are coming home from college (that’s American for “university”), relatives are gathering, food is being cooked, football is coming on, a four or five-day weekend is ahead, and it just goes on and on.  The whole week is filled with such anticipatory joy.

I fully acknowledge that if it has not been your experience, it may not make sense; but if it has, then it is the only thing that makes sense.  [Ask an American.]  The fomo really starts on Wednesday when you realize that you should be starting to relax and it is just another school night.  And now, today, when the only emails and social media posts you get are full of Thanksgiving, the games are starting up, and you are just…at school or work…that’s some next-level fomo.

Whatever your position on Thanksgiving (either of them) are, I would hope that we can all agree that the giving-of-the-thanks part is a net positive.  We could and should be grateful more than once a year and at a Jewish school, we have multiple opportunities each day to express our gratitude.  But since I am feeling all the Thanksgiving feels as I write my weekly blog post, I figured if I can’t watch the game, or see the family, or eat the food, the one thing I can do is express a little gratitude.

What I am grateful for this (American) Thanksgiving:

  • I am grateful for the soon-to-be gift of dual American and Canadian citizenship.  (Spoiler Alert!  Jaimee and I passed our citizenship tests and are waiting for the call to God Save the King!  We are looking forward to sharing the ceremony with our local community.)  Seven years a Canadian has been a blessing for our family and we remain proud Americans.  Doubly-blessed are we.
  • I am grateful for the men and women who defend the Land, State and People of Israel, our Holy Homeland.  We pray for the return of all the hostages and a peaceful resolution to this current conflict.  We are so hopeful that the world calms down enough for our younger daughter, Maytal, to have her semester-in-Israel experience this January, but regardless, the safety and security of Israel is never to be taken for granted and always to be grateful for.  Now more than ever.  Am Yisrael Chai.
  • I grateful for the technology that keeps me connected to friends and family.  COVID or no COVID, it is miracle that FaceTime, Zoom and Google Meet allow us to “see” parents, grandparents and friends across borders and thousands of miles.
  • I am eternally grateful to have a wife, Jaimee, whose Type A/perfectionist mothering and wife-ing creates so much space for me to dedicate my time and energy to my work and my passion.
  • I am thankful to have landed in a Jewish community that is extraordinarily capable and generous; a community that is committed to its future by its support for Jewish day school.
  • I am grateful to have landed in a Jewish day school that is full of committed, talented, caring, innovating and hardworking teachers.  A school is only as good as its teachers and we have a pretty great school!

I could go on, of course, but let me just say that I am also grateful to anyone and everyone who has ever read, shared, or commented on one of my 450+ blog posts over the years.  You often wonder/worry that you are speaking into the wind, but every now and again someone takes the time to let you know that they are, in fact, paying attention.  And that always feels great.

For my friends in the States…enjoy Thanksgiving!  For my friends in Canada…enjoy Thursday!

This is being planned with all due haste, and I do have a seat at the table, so please know that all the details of the program and our school’s participation are coming out just as soon as humanly possible.

Ten Years Without A Father

[NOTE: It remains true that the concentric circles for this blog’s audience centers on my local school community, and then zooms out to Jewish day school, education and the universe.  I do, like here, occasionally publish on topics that are deeply personal.  For those posts, I calibrate the web of social media leading to the blog, but the blog remains the same.]

“Yizkor?!  I don’t even know her!”

Because there can be no reminiscence of my father of blessed memory without at least one awful pun and, although timely, that is simply awful.

Although yizkor comes four times a year, for me, this one, this year – at Shemini Atzeret – feels like yizkor with a capital “Y”.  I don’t know why.  Maybe the emotions at the time of his yahrzeit (20 Av) weren’t process-able at the time, and maybe the Yizkor of Yom Kippur was too wrapped up in the High Holidays.  But now, headed into the comparatively quiet of this Yizkor, I am finally both struck and somewhat capable of wrestling with the enormity of what it means to have lived a full decade since my father, Michael Mitzmacher, passed away on July 27, 2013, weeks after having suffered a massive stroke.

Grief makes me think in fractions.

I have now spent almost 1/5 of my life without my father.  I have almost spent half my married life without my father.  Eliana has now spent 5/9 and Maytal 2/3 of their lives without my father.  The fractions explain and describe the enormity of the time taken, the experiences missed and the pain caused by a life taken too soon.  They explain and they describe.  They don’t heal and they don’t comfort and they don’t provide closure.  Time is supposed to be the author of those feelings, but in my experience time dulls and distances.  I’m not sure how the rest is achieved.

The need for my children to remember things they cannot be reasonably expected to remember is the fuel on the fire of my loss.  Pictures, videos, catchphrases and memories are all I have to tilt at the windmill of time.  As it inexorably goes by, my greatest fear is that all my children will have to remember him by is his absence.  He was the grandparent who wasn’t at the Bat Mitzvah or the Graduation.  He was the grandparent who we spoke about because he wasn’t there; not the grandparent we speak to because he is there.  But focusing my mourning on my children’s loss is as much a dodge as it is true, because focusing on what it means for them not to have a grandfather is a helpful distraction from focusing on what it means for me not to have a father.

With all the other things that it means, the one I am thinking about most this year is how remarkable nature and nurture truly are.  I see it through my own children.  There are traits and habits and personality quirks that are clearly present in my children because they are present in me.  Silly things and not-so-silly things.  Not having a father, or better said, for me, not having my father, means that the person who most saw the world the way I did is not here to share it.  There are moments, all the time, where I know exactly what my father would have thought, felt, said and done, but that knowledge is equal parts comforting (it reminds me of my Dad!) and gutting (it reminds me of my Dad’s absence).

That’s the loss.  Of course, I miss the wisdom he could have provided.  Obviously, I mourn the experiences he should have had.  But, this year, ten years into grieving, I feel the absence of being in the world with the one person who experienced it most like I did.  I feel it when I watch TV.  I feel it when I watch sports.  I feel it when we are with family.  I feel it scrolling through my phone.  And the only thing worse than feeling it, is the fear that one day I won’t feel it all.

I can pledge tzedakah in his name (and do).  I can volunteer my time in his name (and do).  I can create family rituals designed to keep his stories alive  for my children to own and to pass down (and I have).  I light candles and go to synagogue at the appropriate times.  I do all these things to make up for what I do not have.   I am both grateful for what I had and angry for what I don’t.

And somehow it means everything and accomplishes nothing at the same time because ten years ago my father died too soon.

I have sat with this blog post for a few days trying to figure out how to wrap it up.  What big lesson have I learned that I want to pass along?  What new insights have I to offer upon reaching this milestone of grief?  How do I tie this up and move forward?

I have no idea.

There are days where I think of my father and it brings me great joy.  There are days where I think of my father and it brings me great sadness.  And there are days – despite all the safeguards I have put into play – where I don’t think of my father at all.  That’s what is true.  Yizkors and yahrtzeits are valuable waystations on grief’s journey, but it is a journey that has no ending.  The work – work that I will lean into on Saturday – is to try to make the journey one of meaning and purpose.  Even when the meaning and the purpose aren’t so clear…

The 49ers play the Cowboys on Sunday.  If one takes the liberty to imagine a heavenly broadcast, one can – and I will – update the puns that animated so many childhood Sundays.  Yes, Jerry Rice and his brother Fried, remains an undisputed champion.  But what about Brock Purdy?  Deebo Samuel?  One can only imagine…

Leaning Into Forgiveness 5784

We are right now near the finish line of the עשרת ימי תשובה‎ – the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Each year, I look forward to the opportunity to pick a personal growth goal general enough to my work with students, teachers, parents, colleagues, community, etc.  By doing this publicly, I hope, it will inspire others to think about how they wish to grow, and provide me with a little public accountability to keep me honest.

This past Rosh Hashanah presented me with the strangest and strongest sense memory – or, perhaps, palpable wave of nostalgia that I can ever remember.  (Forgive this American for making a Thanksgiving reference, choose the memory that works for you.)  I can smell, taste and even feel that sense of “coming home” that only comes from having left home first.  For me, the strongest such memories come from returning home from university for Thanksgiving or Passover, or as I got older, coming home with a friend (girlfriend or otherwise) to spend a holiday at the home I grew up in with my parents.  At some point, what was once routine – the same house with the same people – totally transforms.  If I was to make a Jewish analogy, it takes something that was khol (weekday/mundane) into something kadosh (holy).  And I had almost forgotten how that felt until my older daughter Eliana came home from Queens University for Rosh Hashanah…

Sure, she had only been gone for two weeks and, yes, she’s been away from home for much longer stretches before.  And, yes, who knows what her future post-university holds.  But the feeling of anticipation for her arrival and the giddiness of having her home transformed what a month earlier had been the same four people in the same house from the regular to the special – its fleeting nature made our time together feel like a holiday.

Isn’t all time fleeting?  Don’t we all look back on our family journeys and wonder how it could be that we are at this stage when just a minute ago we were at that stage?  Wasn’t she just born?  Learned how to walk and talk?  Start Kindergarten?  Become a Bat Mitzvah?  Graduate High School?  How can she be that old when I’m not?

Each moment cannot be a holiday, of course, otherwise it would lose its meaning.  But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t or shouldn’t try to elevate the everyday miracles we take for granted into moments of liminality.  And so when I think about teshuvah and seeking “forgiveness” during this time of year, I’m sorry that I have not taken the time or the energy to appreciate what is right in front of me – a wife to treasure, daughters to savor, friends to enjoy, a job which brings me deep fulfillment, and more.  As someone who lost his father too young (as if there is any other way), I should already know better.  But I’m human and, thus, prone to error.

Let this be the year that I spend ten less minutes returning emails and ten more minutes in classrooms with children.  Let this be the year that I spend one less hour drowning in administrivia and one more hour building genuine relationship with a teacher.  Let this be the year that I send more proactive expressions of gratitude to parents than reactive responses to inevitable issues.  Let this be the year that I give myself permission to leave work while the sun still shines to take time to be with friends.  Let this be the year that “work-life balance” moves from cliché to creed.

In the end, let me be sorry now for all the ways in which I have failed to appreciate the opportunity to transform the everyday into moments of meaning so that my sorrow later not become a regret too late to remedy.

Additionally, during this time of introspection, let me take this opportunity to ask forgiveness for anything I have done – purposely or unknowingly – to cause offense or upset during the last year.  I am sincerely sorry and ask for your forgiveness.  As you ponder the purpose of this season for you and your family, I hope you find the time for introspection and the inspiration for the teshuvah you are seeking.  From my family to yours, wishing you a tzom kal (easy fast) and a day of meaning.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

Eight Joyous Nights to Celebrate Eight Inspirational Lights

It is sometimes difficult to find new ground to tread – especially when it comes to the Jewish Holidays.  There are some holidays (like Sukkot and Passover) where I kinda recycle/upgrade the same basic idea each year.  [Like this and this.]  There are some holidays (like Yom Kippur) where I take a basic premise or prompt and respond differently each year.  [Like this.]  And then there are those holidays, like Chanukah, where I kinda do a bit both, and perhaps not so artfully.  Like this.

This year, I want to do something different.  It will be something borrowed and something new.  To the degree that Chanukah is a re(dedication); to the degree that the lights of the chanukiah are intended to serve as a public statement and an inspiration; and because the season tends to encourage a sense of gratitude, I am going to dedicate my annual Chanukah Blog Post to eight lights – either people, places or ideas – that have inspired me as a person and as a professional.  By doing so, I hope to shine a light of thankfulness upon them and to light a light under me to try harder and be better.  If the idea speaks to you, pick a night (or pick all eight) and identify those lights who have lit your path, and figure out a way that makes sense to you, to honor and celebrate those people and ideas who inspire you.

Night #1

I dedicate the first night to my father of blessed memory, Michael Mitzmacher.  It will be ten years this summer since he has passed and it only gets better and worse each year.  To learn more about my father and how his legacy has shaped and continues to shape me, please check out this blog post that I published in September of 2015 where I reflect with a little distance on his passing: Remembering My Dad.

Night #2

I dedicate the second night to my first professional mentor and role model in the field of Jewish Education, Dr. David Ackerman.  We have not been in touch for quite a while, but it doesn’t diminish the impact he made on my life and my career.  I don’t wear a bow-tie, but I do go by “Doc”.  To learn more about the original Doc, perhaps more than you (or he!) would want to know, you can revisit this blog post from April 2011: Mentor in a Speedo.

Night #3

This night I seek to remember the life and legacy of Esther Ohayon Z”l and to revel in the strength and courage of her daughter, Orly, who survived the car crash that claimed her mother.  Esther was Maytal’s teacher in Preschool and Orly is a graduate of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School (MJGDS) where I served as Head from 2010-2014.  This was one of the hardest things to write about and one of the most meaningful.  I think about Orly often (not that I have told her) when I think about what it means to not only survive a tragedy, but to find a way to thrive in its aftermath.  I published A Sukkah for Orly in September 2013.

Night #4

I dedicate this night to the selfless and humble example of Samuel and Esther Galinsky, names you will not recognize unless you live in Jacksonville, Florida, but a story that I hope will stick.  Here is a brief snippet about them from a larger speech I gave at the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of MJGDS:

“Samuel and Esther Galinsky were, by all accounts, modest and unassuming members of our synagogue.  They participated in synagogue life and were respected members of the congregation.  They cared about Jewish education, but had no children of their own.  They were, in many ways, like any other couple.  When they died, their friends mourned their passing.  And that should be the end of the story.  But it isn’t.  Because this ordinary couple did something extraordinary.  With no fanfare and no notice, Samuel and Esther Galinsky left the Jacksonville Jewish Center amongst the most significant gifts it has ever received – $3 million.  And it was given for one purpose – this childless couple gave their fortune to ensure that Jewish children would be able to have a Jewish education.  Has there ever been a more selfless gift?  Have any people ever more embodied the idea of L’dor V’dor?”

Let their memory serve as an example to us all…

Night #5

This is a night to celebrate the light that lights all our schools…our teachers.  A school is only as good as its teachers and good teachers feeling good about teaching is the best recipe.  I think for many parents, schooling during COVID opened up a lot of eyes to how amazing our teachers are and so, here, I’d like to revisit my plea to honor and celebrate those who dedicate their lives to the sacred and holy task of educating children by asking that you read If You Really Want to Appreciate Teachers, Give Them the Benefit of the Doubt, which was published in May of 2020.

Night #6

This one will be a bit of a leap, but on this night I want to think about Killer Mike.  I am a bit leery linking my January 2016 post called, Praying With Your Legs in 2016: What JDS Can Learn From Killer Mike, because re-reading it in 2022, I am not sure that I love everything that I had to say.  But the money quote, the thing that I want to remember on the Sixth Night of Chanukah is,

…the second takeaway – and the one that has more applicability to Jewish day school – is Killer Mike’s proscription for how to best support underserved communities.  He lays out a vision of empathy which can only be achieved through relationship.  This requires us to leave our comfort zones and engage with the wider world.  In Killer Mike’s context he is talking essentially about white, middle-class folk, but in it I heard echoes of a common concern families have about the ghettoization of Jewish day schools, their lack of racial diversity and the impact it has on children who will need to live, work and contribute to a multicultural world.

To make a difference in the world, I want to rededicate myself to the idea that I need to do more than engage in hashtag activism; I need to engage with people and communities outside my own.

Night #7

For night seven, I cast my eyes southward – not just south of the border, but to the actual South.  As we enter our sixth year in Ottawa, I am reminded that we will soon have lived longer in Ottawa than any other place we have ever lived.  It will beat out the seven years we lived in Jacksonville, Florida.  For this night, I want to reflect on what made living in that community so special and reflect back that light to build upon what makes living here special as well.  So there is salty taste of southern hospitality to be found in L’hitraot Y’all: A Farewell to Seven Years of SaltLife published in June of 2017.

Night #8

Chanukah is about miracles.  So I will close out this holiday by reflecting on The Disruptive Miracle of Silvia Tolisano, which I wrote – in shock and tears – in March of 2021.  I still cannot believe she’s gone.

Hopefully, your family is planning on joining our OJCS Family in this triumphant return to an actual, in-person Annual Chanukah Family Program on Tuesday, December 20th at 6:30 PM in the Gym!

Chag urim sameach from my family to yours!

The Text is Timeless; I am Not: Re-re-reading “The Sabbath”

Or “How I Spent My February Break”.

This past week marked my third required reading of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath as part of my third seminary experience.  As much of a north star as this book has been for my twinned personal and professional Jewish journeys, I am struck by how different and how similar my responses have been from those different waypoints.  My first reading – as a single person studying for his first set of graduate degrees at the University of Judaism – along with other books, helped inspire me to take on a maximal Shabbat observance as it provided me, at that time, with what felt like a rational and modern justification for an otherwise irrational set of behaviors.  My second reading – as a married man with a pregnant wife studying for his doctorate at the Jewish Theological Seminary – provided us with inspiration and courage for making Shabbat the center of our not-yet-family with hope for what it would mean for us and our not-yet-children.  This third reading – as a nearly half-century-old man with teenage daughters studying to be a rabbi at the Academy for Jewish Religion – reaches me at a point in my life where the trickle of sand through the hourglass feels more like an avalanche and the desire to experience time as infinite is palpably more painful.  Shabbat as a “palace in time” in my twenties was a brilliant metaphor; in my thirties and forties it has been a family fortress; as I prepare to enter my fifties, I yearn to make it real.

Heschel’s “Shabbat” is decidedly non-Kabbalistic, but that doesn’t make it rational, however I may have read it in my twenties.  What jumped out at me during this reading of The Sabbath is that I would describe his view of Shabbat as “mythical” – his “palace in time” is not a metaphor advocating better work-life balance (to use a more modern valance), but an actual experience of transcendence.  For Heschel, the value of Shabbat is that it is not the other six days of the week – the goal is not to extend Shabbat’s transcendence into the week or even to devalue the this-worldly occupation of the work week.  Shabbat provides us with a taste of the “World to Come”  so that this life has added meaning.  Eastern philosophy wants us to use the tool of mindfulness to transcend the world through detachment; Judaism wants us to use the tool of Shabbat to experience God in this world through attachment – that’s where the imagery of weddings and couples bleed into reality and fuel transcendence.

In my first two readings of The Sabbath, I was more interested in what Shabbat wasn’t than what it was.  The “palace in time” was more about what I was keeping outside than what I could be experiencing inside.  Shabbat was an oasis of rest, of joy, and of family, precisely because that is not how the rest of the week was experienced.  This reading, perhaps influenced by my other rabbinic studies or by my own midlife ruminations, leaves me more interested in living beyond time than within it.  My understanding of the metaphor is such that it is halakhah which provides the frame and the construction – one can only build a palace in time through normative Jewish behaviors – and as I was coming to these behaviors in adulthood, I was much more interested in building the palace than dwelling in it.  As my children were born and have since transitioned into adolescence, my emphasis has shifted to dwelling in it, but more like a cottage or vacation home than a vehicle for God’s holiness (although there has always been a holiness in sacred family time), in that the reason for weekly visitation is at least as much, if not more, the opportunity it presents for togetherness, rather than transcendence.  Now, as the waystation of empty-nested-ness is within reach, I am forced to wonder who will dwell in this palace in the end?

On Friday evenings, sits a palace in time.  The famous piyut (poem) Lekhah Dodi is the midpoint of that palace’s drawbridge between Kabbalat Shabbat and Shabbat Maariv – coming literally after six psalms representing the six days who are not Shabbat and (just about) the beginning of the evening service.  It is the liminal moment when Shabbat transcendence becomes available – if the palace had a registration desk and a check-in time, they would both be Lekhah Dodi.  My hope is that the straight line of my temporal life continues to intersect with the sacred circle of weekly time each and every Shabbat, and that Lekhah Dodi serves as both entrance and exit.  And that if I am lucky, in addition to family and friends, meaning and mindfulness, peacefulness and rest; that my palace in time not only be visited by divinity, but that I be capable of recognizing and experiencing it – in my time, in this world.

Ken y’hi ratzon.  Let it be so…

Please know that as the situation continues to unfold in the Ukraine that we are, in grade-appropriate ways, providing our students with both information and opportunities for thinking about how we can respond.  Teachers have been provided with resources, including Jewish prayers for peace, and we are having conversations about a larger school response.

This feels like one of those moments that is bigger than the curriculum…we are a school that values student voice, leadership, global connectedness, social justice, mutual human and Jewish responsibility, etc.   We want to provide our students with all the information and support they need to be educated and active citizens in the world.  If you are looking for family resources, I recommend you start with this blog post from our amazing librarian, Brigitte Ruel.

How Studying to be a Rabbi is Making Me a Better Head of School

We have been conducting a series of “Town Hall” meetings with Middle School classes as part of amplifying student voice [North Star Alert!  “We own our learning.”] and I found myself in Grade 7.  We were chit-chatting at the end and a student raised his hand and asked me a question: “I heard that you were in school or something?  That you are studying to be a rabbi?”

Yup!

And after a little more back-and-forth, the money quote: “Why would you choose to be in school when you don’t have to?!”

Why indeed!

As I am spending my late nights and Sundays preparing my final papers and studying for my final exams, I sometimes wonder that exact same thing!  But as I am preparing to finish my first year (this marks the end of my third trimester) of rabbinical school, I wanted to reflect for a bit about what this journey has meant to me, not only personally, but professionally – how has becoming a rabbinical school student impacted my headship?

I am currently taking my fourth and fifth classes.  (I barely have the bandwidth for two classes a trimester, which is why I am on a long, slow journey towards ordination.)  My first class was a unique “Peace & Conflict Studies” course that dealt with navigating conflict in a Jewish workplace with a spiritual dimension.  My second and third classes were a Liturgy class about the High Holidays and the second trimester (I was grandfathered in) of Beginning Talmud.  I am currently finishing out the Beginning Talmud track and am taking a Halakhah class about “Genetics & Jewish Law”.  However interesting or not you may think those classes sound, let me take a moment to answer my own question.

It feels good to put myself outside my comfort zone and inside a student’s mindset once again.  I look forward to sitting at the kitchen table and doing my Jewish Studies homework alongside my children.

That’s what I wrote last January when I announced that I was becoming a rabbi.  The first part for sure has come true.  (The second part is true metaphorically, if not in practice.)  And that is what I shared with my Grade 7s – that the fact that I am struggling to remember long-ago buried Hebrew, while working in Aramaic trying to unpack talmudic conversation, and having to do so publicly, out loud in front of classmates and teacher, really does give me much-needed empathy for my students.  I have days when I pray that the teacher calls on me because I am totally excited to share my learning, and there are days when I pray that the teacher doesn’t notice me because I am not sure that I understand something and I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of my peers – “student’s mindset” for sure!

Whether it is time management (when do I do my homework?), imposter syndrome (will they realize that I don’t know things?), second (or third) language acquisition (please don’t make me express myself in a language that I am not totally comfortable in!), and so much more – for my students for whom academics are not their strongest suit, this experience has been and will be wonderful for my empathy.  And that empathy will, hopefully, help me think carefully about the kinds of supports those students need to be – and, more importantly -to feel successful.

Of course, for those students who LOVE to learn…me too!  Other than not having enough time in the day or days in the week, I am so enjoying learning again (especially Talmud)!

What is most fun for me, however, is when I can make a direct application between something I am studying and something I am working on.  [Obviously, a Jewish workplace would never have conflict so that class on “Peace & Conflict Studies” wouldn’t apply.  Ha.]  I have the pleasure – which I mean sincerely – of leading services each morning with Grade 6.  One of the things we have studied this year in Talmud is the Weekday Amidah, especially the first three brakhot.  In a wonderful bit of happenstance, that exact sugya of Talmud is one that we were studying – how did the Rabbis decide how many brakhot we should say, what should they be about and from where were they derived?  The fact that I could unpack that in a very grade-appropriate way with our Grade 6s is exactly why I wanted to go to rabbinical school.  Not because it was neat for me (it was so cool!), but because it allows me to subtly enhance the learning of my students and to add their link of learning to the chain of Jewish learning through the ages.

So, one year down, many (many) years to go!  In the meanwhile, I can put my report card on the fridge next to my children’s and I will doubly enjoy Winter Break with both my student and principal hats.

Do you want to see how JK at OJCS will set your child up for success in school?  Do you have a friend or relative with a child entering JK?  Please contact our Admissions Director, Jennifer Greenberg ([email protected]), to find out more or to book a COVID-friendly tour.  You may also reserve your spot at our upcoming “JK Parlour Meeting” scheduled for Tuesday, December 17th at 7:00 PM (link made available when you RSVP).

We will be sending home information next week about how the school will navigate COVID protocols coming out of Winter Break, including providing families with rapid testing.  Please be on the lookout for an important EMAIL.

We have a VERY EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT to share next week that you are definitely going to want to hear!  No spoilers here!

My 400th Post: Blogging “The Moral Imperative of Sharing”

I published my first blog post on July 27th, 2010, entitled “Southern Hospitality”.  It was during the summer that I transitioned from being the founding Head of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Las Vegas (z”l) to being the Head of the Martin J. Gottlieb Day School, in Jacksonville, FL.

Why did I start blogging?

Our teachers are required to blog and, therefore, so should I.  So here I am.

If only I had remained that pithy!

What did I plan on blogging about?

We are a 21st century learning school invested in the continuity of a five thousand year-old tradition.  Our attempts to marry the past and the future into an engaging present will largely be the focus of my blog.

That still sounds about right.

Who did I imagine my blog’s audience to be?

Most of my blogging will center on experiences here at school, but I hope to be of interest to anyone interested in Jewish day school, Jewish education, education in general, and in the kinds of stuff I think happen to be interesting and worth sharing.  I guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Or I’ll still never really know if and who is reading!

Why did I call it “A Floor, But Not a Ceiling”?

Because it represents what I believe the purpose of education to be – to ensure each child fulfills his or her own individual maximum potentials in academic, emotional, physical, and spiritual terms.  For there to be no ceiling has direct implications about what we teach and how we teach it.  I hope to use this blog to discuss these ideas and more.

And so here I am…

…11 years, 399 blog posts, three jobs and one country later.

I did a little research into my stats and metrics, but because I didn’t actually take ownership of my own website until coming here to Ottawa, most of the stats and metrics are skewed towards recency bias.  But there are a few things that (at least) I find interesting.

…here are my “Top 5” categories (a post can be assigned multiple categories):

  1. 21st Century Learning (145)
  2. Jewish Education (133)
  3. Community Building (107)
  4. Thought Leadership (106)
  5. Teaching & Learning (92)

(Crowd favorite “Transparency Files” clocked in at 60.)

…here are my “Top 5” tags (a post can be assigned multiple tags):

  1. Transparency (28)
  2. COVID (21)
  3. Innovation (20)
  4. 7 Habits (9)
  5. Second-Language Acquisition (8)

My audience has grown each year I have been here at OJCS (just like our school!) and so it comes as no surprise that 4 of my “Top 5” posts all come in the last four years:

  1. The Disruptive Miracle of Silvia Tolisano (1,171)
  2. OJCS Announces $1,000,000 Gift (689)
  3. The Coronavirus Diaries: OJCS Plans for a “Five-Day, Full-Day” Safe Reopening (495)
  4. Choosing Ottawa Again: Writing My First Second Chapter (446)
  5. L’hitraot Y’all: A Farewell to Seven Years of SaltLife (432)

So, why do I still crank out 40+ blog posts a year with a completely absurd and unacceptable average word count of nearly 900 words?

Because last week a parent emailed me to share some thoughts about something I wrote and it meant something to both of us.

Because I still believe in Dean Shareski‘s “The Moral Imperative of Sharing“.

Because it makes me a better educator, a better communicator and maybe, just maybe, a better person.

Because Silvia told me to.  [Read the post, I am still not able to talk about her in the past tense.]

Because I really believe in this stuff – that the act of putting stuff into the universe matters, even if when and how it matters is unseen or unknowable.

Because it is still true that “Our teachers are required to blog and, therefore, so should I.  So here I am.”

Here I am and here I plan to remain.  Even when I am not sure anyone is reading.  Even when I am sure that almost no one is going to comment (no matter how desperately I plead).  Here is where I will continue to plant seeds and sow dreams.  Here is where I will continue to be transparent, even when what needs to be said is difficult.  Here is where I will work out new ideas.  Here is where I will (occasionally) let my true personality be seen.  Here is where I will advocate for teachers, for students, and for Jewish schools.

Thank you to everyone who ever read a post, subscribed, shared, commented, encouraged or helped.  It is both a privilege and a responsibility to have a voice.  I feel blessed to have been able to share mine over these 400 posts and I look forward to showing up and sharing out over the next 400 posts.

[Under 770 words! Nailed it!]

Leaning Into Forgiveness 5782

We are right now at the finish line of the עשרת ימי תשובה‎ – the ten days of repentance between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  Each year, I look forward to the opportunity to pick a personal growth goal general enough to my work with students, teachers, parents, colleagues, community, etc.  [Last year at this time, I blogged out my personal growth goals as well.]  By doing this publicly, I hope, it will inspire others to think about how they wish to grow and provide me with a little public accountability to keep me honest.

Of course it feels a bit chutzphadik to name yet another growth goal, as if I have somehow achieved total success tackling my last two!  (I can assure you that I have not – and if you reread the last two years’ posts, you’ll be able to see that for yourself!)  And yet, despite my fits and starts and failures – and occasional successes – I do find value in this annual exercise and encourage you to share your own growth goals with whomever and in whatever ways you are comfortable.  It feels good!

So this year, I am going take a more literal approach and actually focus in on how I would like to do better in the actual spiritual work of the High Holidays.  I will be honest and say that my thinking here has been highly influenced by one of my rabbinical school courses which conveniently was about the liturgy for the High Holidays.  I have been marinating in readings and conversation about what this time of year is truly supposed to be about and have been thinking deeply about how to incorporate a more traditional understanding of teshuvah and forgiveness into my personal practice.

Repentance contemplated, and not verbalized, is valueless. – Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Wow.

For this class, I read On Repentance in the Thought and Oral Discourses of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik by Pinchas H. Peli, published in 1980, and this was – for me – the money quote.

Soloveitchik goes into lots of detail and scriptural sources to prove the point, but to the degree that I use my time during Yammim Noraim to engage in repentance at all, I certainly do not put almost any energy into its verbalization.  His idea here is that it is not sufficient to repent merely as part of an inner dialogue with either oneself or with God; that to make it real, it must have a physical manifestation – you have to say it out loud, or perhaps put it in writing, but you cannot truly do it without putting it into the universe.  Now in the classic distinction between the sins one commits against one’s fellow-person, and the sins one commits against God (which I will discuss below), it is easier to imagine how this might work.  I may not do it each year or with each person, but the idea that I would seek forgiveness from those I may have wronged automatically requires me to put thought into words.  Ideally, I would seek out each person for a heart-to-heart conversation, but a letter or an email would at least put physical form to my repentance.  That makes sense.  But what about my wrongs that are not directed at other people?

I do not believe that I have ever tried to speak out loud or even put in writing my annual thoughts and feelings about repenting for the all the ways I fall short.  At best, I try to use my time and my prayer to engage in an inner dialogue that is sometimes aimed towards God, but I am seriously contemplating adding this notion into my practice as I gear up for next season.  I am not sure whether I would carve out time and space to vocalize or simply to write it out, but if doing so takes me one step farther in being the person I yearn to be rather than the normal, faltering half-steps I normally accomplish, I will have gained much more from this class than knowledge.

 

So during this time of introspection, let me take this opportunity to ask forgiveness for anything I have done – purposely or unknowingly – to cause offense or upset during the last year.  I am sincerely sorry and ask for your forgiveness.  As you ponder the purpose of this season for you and your family, I hope you find the time for introspection and the inspiration for the teshuvah you are seeking.  From my family to yours, wishing you a tzom kal (easy fast) and a day of meaning.

G’mar chatimah tovah.

I am going to try really hard to blog out some thoughts, pictures and videos from our amazing COVID-friendly 4th Annual Middle School Retreat!

I Didn’t Want to Have to Write an Israel Blog Post

I found myself nudged early last week – and justly so – by my Jewish Studies Faculty for not having quickly issued a statement about the situation in Israel.  It wasn’t that I wasn’t paying close attention.  I just shared last month my perspective (and my pride) about having my older daughter studying in Jerusalem.  I always try to pay attention to what is happening in Israel, but I have naturally been paying even-closer-attention since she arrived.  I knew as soon as anyone about the current escalation of violence through the WhatsApp message you can see above.  I knew and I cared and yet still I delayed speaking.  Why?

Well, I guess that similar to other issues of national or international import, I am never entirely certain whether it is an appropriate use of my small slice of the blogosphere to add to a conversation in which I bring no particular expertise and no concrete suggestions.  Is there something I can say or offer that will help address what is going on in Israel right now and how we could or should respond?  Do I have something critical to share with our school community about how to process and discuss current events?

The truth is that our school is taught by talented and bright professionals who have access to a myriad of resources.  Our community (in concentric circles of city, province, country and international) provides all kinds of additional expertise which I do my best to funnel to our families, teachers and alumni.  I can be a hub for sharing inwards and a megaphone for sharing outwards, but I certainly don’t think that I have an answer or a perspective that will move the needle in anyone’s conversation or advocacy.

And yet…

Saying nothing at all doesn’t feel right either.  As a Jewish educator – as a Jew – I believe it is appropriate to speak purely from the heart about Israel…

…a place that changed my life in 1988.

…a place that changed it again in 1992.

…a place that changed it once again in 1997 and 1998.

…a place in 2021 that I have sent my older daughter to study, and will do the same for my younger one when she, too, reaches Grade 10 in 2024.

…a place that I anxiously await revisiting.

Because like a lot of Jews of my generation, a teen Israel experience (along with camp) was a crucial step on my Jewish journey.  It also was my very first job in Jewish education.

I’ve shared this first part before.  I first went to Israel in 1988 as part of our local Federation’s teen tour.  It was an extraordinary experience and I met friends that summer that I am still close with today.  I returned to Israel in 1992 as part of a NFTY in Israel summer experience.  (Yes, that is a bandana over my long, long hair.)

My very first job in Jewish education was working for the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angles (BJE-LA) running teen programs, paramount of which was the LA Summer-in-Israel Ulpan.  I cannot provide a link to the program because, unfortunately, it no longer exists, but for many years it was a signature summer-in-Israel program combining the regular touring experiences of other trips with an actual Hebrew ulpan for which students received high school and college credit.  I spent the summers of 1997 and 1998 leading this trip and having an opportunity to provide teens with the experiences I had been blessed to have as a teen myself.

The power of the Israel experience is real.

That’s why we visit.  That’s why so many do our first or second b’nai mitzvah there.  That’s why we have Federation and synagogue missions.  That’s why we send our Jewish day school classes (like I hope we will one day do here at OJCS).  That’s why we send our teachers for professional development.  That’s why we make aliyah.

That’s why the current situation is heartbreaking.

I have no interest in injecting politics of any kind.  I have my beliefs and I am sure you do as well.  I don’t know what the answers are to safeguard our homeland, our beating heart.  I’m not even sure that I even know the questions.  I am sure that the opportunity to experience Israel transformed me and the opportunity to provide that experience to others transformed me just as thoroughly.  To contemplate the idea that one day it could prove too unsafe to visit stirs my soul to anger. To wonder if one day it could prove impossible shakes me to my core.

Our daily prayers call upon us to face our sacred ancestral home.  May a day come when peace envelopes our home, our Israel.

And may that day come without delay…