Temple Educator's Column - December 2024

The TRUE story of Chanukah

The difference between Jewish and secular calendars this year means that Religious School is not in session for Chanukah. We adapt. And that to me, is the lesson of Chanukah – and of the Jewish people for that matter. We survived nearly 2,000 years of exile and being kicked out of nearly every country and city state in Europe – not to mention the Roman empire, the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust – by adapting. We continually find ways to not simply survive, but to thrive and find new joys in living Jewishly.

I am going to share some historical accuracy with you now. Do not confuse that with Truth. Truth is what we believe in our hearts. Sometimes it is informed by historical events. Sometimes by our beliefs. If hearing something different about Chanukah will disturb you, I urge you to scroll to the next article. This is not something that you NEED to know.

Still with me? Judah and the rest of the Maccabees were real. We have lots of contemporary evidence. It is extremely unlikely, however, that any of them ever heard about a little jug of oil that burned for eight days. The first time we hear that part of the story is in the Babylonian Talmud, written 460-660 years after the actual events.

In the First Book of the Maccabees, written just four years after the war, the dedication is celebrated for eight days just as the original temple dedication under King Solomon and dedication of the tabernacle in the wilderness with Moses, Miriam and Aaron was held. And Judah declared all Jews everywhere should celebrate each year.

Forty years later, it seems that Jewish communities outside of the land of Israel were not celebrating Chanukah. So, a Second Book of Maccabees was written. “They celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the Feast of Booths, remembering how not long before, during the Feast of Booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals.” It seems the holiday soon gained traction in the diaspora communities after that. Still no oil though.

One hundred and ninety or so years after the original events, Flavius Josephus describes the first Chanukah. Josephus had been a Judean general in the war against Rome that resulted in the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E. He went over to the Roman side and spent the rest of his life writing about Jewish history and customs. Historians believe that he was trying to create an image of the Jewish people in the minds of the Romans that would lead them to think we were not a threat and should leave us alone. He wrote: “Judah celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no form of pleasures…” A very Roman type of simcha.

Finally, Pesikta Rabbati is a collection of Midrashic tales written in the land of Israel in the 8th or 9th century CE. while the land was under Muslim rule. In it we read “When they entered the Temple, they found eight rods of iron (spears), which they hollowed out and then kindled wicks in oil which they had poured in the grooves.” This version reminds us of turning swords into plow shares – making weapons into tools of peace. A good metaphor while living under foreign rule.

So too, the Talmudic story of the oil teaches those around us that we are not looking for a fight. God made the miracle of the oil and the victory of the few over the many – not humans. We celebrate God and our faith not war.

In each case, we adapted. In each case we recast the story in a way that gives us reason to celebrate. I am not debunking the story of the oil and its miracle. I am saying we have four more facets to the jewel that is Chanukah. They are ALL our stories.

And I am sticking to them. I invite you to join me. No need to tell the young kids just yet.

L’shalom,
Ira Wise, Temple Educator

Temple Educator's Column - October 2024

From the Education Center

This month we will all spend a lot of time thinking about (and hopefully doing) T’shuvah - repentance. The High Holy liturgy and all of the practice surrounding the Days of Awe demands that we atone, we change our hurtful behaviors and seek to make restitution with those we have wronged. Remember this for a moment while I digress, please.

When I started working in the religious school as a ninth grader in Chicago, they called me an aide. By the time I became a teacher eight years later, we were calling teens doing this work Madrikhim. (A boy was a madrikh and a girl was a madrikhah.) It means “leader or one who shows the way.” It was a good name. And that was what we were calling them here at TBT through last May.

Hebrew, like French and Spanish, is a gendered language. It is simply how it developed from ancient times. And I am sure you are aware that the language surrounding gender in our society has become very fluid and somewhat complicated. When we get it wrong – in the eyes of the person about whom we are speaking – we may cause pain, harm, and even alienation. It does not matter that we did not intend to do so. The impact of our words matter.

This past spring the Education Committee had a discussion about this and came to the conclusion that we need to do a bit of T’shuvah. It is entirely possible that we have not had a single madrikh or madrikhah who identified as non-binary. It is also possible that we might have, but the titles we used for teens who just wanted to connect and help teach kept someone away who did not identify as male or female. We may be lucky and can fix the language before someone feels that their temple does not have a place for them in this role.

So, the committee has changed the name of the group to the Hadrakhah Team. Hadrakhah means “leadership,” so the basic intent is the same. These teens are still showing our younger learners the way to go forward. And we will call them Hadrakhahniks – a word that is a bit of mixed language salad, but a word pioneered by the Kibbutzniks! It will take time to wrap our tongues around this change, but it gives us the opportunity to be as welcoming as we have always tried to be.

L’shanah tova u’metukah and G’mar Chatimah Tovah,

Ira Wise
Temple Educator

Temple Educator's Column - September 2024

From the Education Center - Let’s Play Two…

The summer of 2016 was amazing for me. In our family we had new jobs, a high school graduation and the last child was off to college. Special for us, but most of you have those things happening as well. If not that summer, then another. Those of you that know me are aware that summer was amazing for me in particular for one other reason: The Chicago Cubs.

My Red Sox fan friends chortled “Now that we’ve had a few World Series, it might as well be your turn.” And I remind them that Red Sox have NEVER been the longest suffering team in baseball. They missed that honor by ten years. And in 1918, they beat…the Cubs. But I digress.

My beloved team was in first place the entire season. They last did that in 1969, and Mets fans know how that turned out. I digress again. I mention this here because I need to explain the baseball bat I have hung in my office. It is a metaphor for Jewish learning.

The bat is signed by Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, one of the heroes of my childhood and was a gift to me from my previous congregation on the occasion of my 10th anniversary as educator. Whenever someone said “Hey Ernie! It’s a beautiful day for a ball game!” he would respond: “Let’s play two!”

I would tell this story whenever teaching about the Yotzer or Ma'ariv prayers. These are prayers we say as part of our regular worship service, praising God for creating the world in which we live. (We say Yotzer in the morning and Ma'ariv at night.) I would explain that Ernie believed that when it is a beautiful day, we need to show God our appreciation by doing the things we love best and by sharing it with others we love. For Ernie it was playing baseball and sharing it with all of Chicago. I was fortunate enough to meet him in the 80’s and confirm that is what he meant.

So what does the bat have to do with Jewish learning? Jewish learning – doing it myself or facilitating it for others – is the thing I love doing best. Ernie’s bat reminds me that no matter the weather outside, it is ALWAYS a beautiful day for Jewish learning.

Whatever your age it is a beautiful day for Jewish learning.

Our Preschool gets fully underway on September 3rd.

Religious School begins on Sunday the 8th.

The Curriculum Working Group and the Education Committee have been working through the summer to imagine what that will look and feel like.

Torah Study has been continuous, and the Program Committee just arranged for our wonderful Scholar-in Residence who will be coming the first weekend of December.

When it comes to Jewish learning, let’s play two!

L’shalom!
Ira Wise

Temple Educator's Column - Summer 2024

Our first day of classes will be Sunday, September 8!

Returning Students are enrolled for Religious School already!

We are doing enrollment for returning students a little differently this year. We are assuming they are all coming back, so we are saving you the hassle of filling out a lot of forms with information that is the same as it ever was.

You should have already received a personal email from me where I will explain this more fully. And I will ask for some information we may not already have, like your child’s Hebrew name, any new information about special learning needs, changes in the family, etc.

Billing happens later in the summer and will happen automatically. If for some reason your child is not coming back to us, that email will explain the process for making that happen as well. It is important to know how many students we will have in each grade as early as possible, so we can make sure to have the correct number of trained teachers!

For children who have not been enrolled in Religious School before…

We will need you to complete a basic form in addition to the one described above. If you have a child who is ready to enroll for the first time this fall, and have not gotten an email from me, I apologize. We are still getting some of the kinks out of our new data base. Please reach out to me at rsdirector@tbtshoreline.org

And we are still looking a for a few good people…

Each year, we find that a few of our wonderful teachers move on to other amazing things. We wish them well! At the same time, we have lots of amazing kids who need teachers to create wonderful learning experiences.

There are three requirements for all of our positions, and one additional requirement for some our positions. To teach in the TBT Religious School you MUST:

1. Love being Jewish and have or develop a passion for transmitting that love to others.

2. Know how to listen. Teaching is as much about listening to our kids and hearing what is on their minds and in their hearts. There is no need for lectures or speeches!

3. Like kids!

Some of our teaching roles require some level of Hebrew skill as well. The more the better.

If you are a professional educator, that is wonderful, but it is not required. We have a temple educator whose job is to help teachers develop a teaching repertoire. If you are very knowledgeable about Judaism and all of the topics that entails, that is wonderful, but it is not required. I can help you with that.

We have amazing teachers who come to TBT just for Religious School. We also have amazing teachers who are members of TBT and serve as living examples. Please contact me at rsdirector@tbtshoreline.org or on my cell 203-727-2831. Let’s talk about what being a teacher might be like for you. And if you are only interested in getting your feet wet by starting out as a substitute, that would also be amazing. Reach out, please.

L'shalom,
Ira Wise

Temple Educator's Column - June 2024

Excerpt from Ira's TBT Annual Meeting Report

I want to thank the leadership, Rabbi Moss and the staff for putting your trust in me as Interim Director nine and a half months ago. I was told at the time that my main task was to bring a sense of stability and calm to the teachers, parents and students of our Religious School.

I am very proud of the work of our teachers and madrichim who were instrumental in bringing this goal to reality. While I could teach, lead and encourage them – they were the ones in the rooms with our children. They created meaningful and authentic experiences and made each child feel seen and heard…

As Temple Educator, it is my task to work with you – our members and leaders, the senior staff and our faculty – to determine how to move forward and take us to the next level of learning.

The first thing we have to ask ourselves is "Why Change?"

Research tells us that the unique experiences of each generation mold their views, wants, needs and expectations. Our sacred challenge is to figure out how to engage and inspire the younger generations without disenfranchising or disenchanting those who have been here for decades. And even better - to bring the older generations along on this joyous road.

Part of this challenge involves building the plane while the plane is in the air. We do not have the luxury of putting everything on pause while we sit down to flesh out where we are going. There will be Shabbat this weekend. There will be Religious School tomorrow and Sunday and again in September. And Preschool will march on.

Our first steps are around curriculum and pedagogy – the content and the methods of learning. Our current curriculum is built around a pre-packaged and purchased product that was originally designed to respond to the needs of using Zoom as the primary medium for learning. It is a good, but limited curriculum, especially as we have returned to being in the same spaces with our students.

Once we agree why we need to change, we need to decide where to begin.

We are taking a three-pronged approach. We will focus on
1) curriculum – what we learn,
2) pedagogy – how we teach or transmit the curriculum, and
3) communication – how we describe and tell the story of how youth learning happens at Temple Beth Tikvah.

In April, the Curriculum Working Group was convened by chair Lizzie Sharp. It is a group of fourteen people that includes professional educators, parents of future and current students as well as alumni, two religious school teachers and two teenagers.

The next question is what content What Should Be Learned? (Curriculum)

If a child attends our school from kindergarten through high school graduation, they will have approximately 900 hours of class time over 13 years. And most children, even those who love the experience and are encouraged by dedicated parents, attend far less than that. It’s a reality.

The other reality is that even in 900 hours we cannot squeeze in all the history and customs and language and tradition and community-building and… that we’d like. So decisions have to be made about what gets more attention and what gets less. These types of decisions can be made based on the experiences and expertise of our Temple Educator or dictated by an off-the-shelf curriculum, but to be truly effective the choices need to be made through careful reflection which incorporates Temple Beth Tikvah’s values and philosophies as well as a deep understanding of the needs and desires of our students and their parents.

Our learning goals will be framed by our temple’s mission: “Temple Beth Tikvah is a vibrant, inclusive Reform Jewish community, guided by Torah and interconnected through our traditions and values of tikkun hanefesh (enriching our lives) and tikkun olam (improving our world).”

The Curriculum Working Group is working to recommend a framework for the curriculum, the values and content that will be taught. I will use that process and product to develop the guidelines for teachers and determine the needed supplies and training for it to be implemented. This will be a staged process, with successive areas of the curriculum rolled out over the next 18 months. The Education Committee will be asked to adopt the recommendations as they are developed.

Second, it’s critical that we focus on How We Teach (Pedagogy)

I have been working with our teachers to expand their pedagogic toolboxes, with an intense focus on experiential learning. This refers to the deliberate infusion of Jewish values into engaging and memorable experiences that impact the formation of Jewish identity. The idea is to focus less on learning facts, dates and data – although we will still do that – and more on creating experiences that help our kids be hands-on with being Jewish.

We will continue to work on developing Experiential learning skills, and will expand our focus to include Social, Emotional and Spiritual learning goals – reaching inside the learners, trying to connect to their hearts and souls in addition to their minds.

Our third focus is on Communication – how we will describe how youth learning happens at Temple Beth Tikvah.

A separate working group will begin to meet in the fall to explore a name change for what we now call Religious School and how we tell our story. The name may change or it may not. Whatever we choose, we need to be able to articulate to ourselves as well as to those looking for a congregation what we are all about. And we want it to be something unique that speaks to how kids learn today.

We are about to celebrate Shavuot, which marks the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Every member of the children of Israel was there, regardless of gender or age. In Parshat Nitzavim, we are told “I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before our God and with those who are not with us here this day.”

The rabbis interpreted this to mean that every member of Am Yisrael – the people of Israel – who would ever live was also there. Let me conclude by asking that we all stand at Sinai together.

We are looking for a few new teachers, and I invite you to consider joining our faculty or serving as a substitute.

Participate in one of our working groups or serve on the education committee which guides learning at TBT.

Pirkei Avot teaches that we are not required to complete the task, but we are not free to desist from it. A congregation of learners means we are all learners and teachers.

Join us.
Ira Wise

Temple Educator's Column - May 2024

Which Truth Do You Mean?

There has been a lot of talk about the truth – or lack of it – in the news. People talk about “the big lie” and disagree about a variety of events of the day. Seen from various perspectives, it is hard for many to believe that so many can disagree on what seems to be the plain truth, based on what we can all see with our own eyes. These are troubling ideas that are dividing us one from the other. I encourage everyone to try and imagine perspectives different from our own and remember they are held by members of our community, even our own families. We have to figure out how to move forward together. I am not going to discuss that here though.

This is not just a current events story. I cannot remember a year when a learner – sometimes and adult, sometimes a youth – has not asked me or one of the rabbis “Are the stories in the Torah true?” The answer to that question is another question: “What do you mean by true?” To be fair, my answer is different from the one you might get from an Orthodox teacher.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, nearly all Jewish thinkers and rabbis accepted that the Torah was written word for word, letter for letter by God – or at least dictated by God to Moses. So, the answer from the Orthodox perspective is “Yes. The Torah is true. It all happened.” There are of course many orthodoxies, not just one monolithic uniform movement. There is a fair amount of nuance that should be in that discussion. By and large, though, if the Torah is actually directly from God, then the Mitzvot are not just a good idea, they are the law.

From a Reform perspective, I suggest that there is truth and there is Truth. The first, with the lower case “t” refers to historical accuracy. Approximately 150 years ago, a number of biblical scholars – both Jewish and Christian – looked closely at the Hebrew text of the Torah. They noticed that in some sections, God was Elohim. In others, God was Adonai. There were several almost duplicated sections. In the midst of conversations between God and Moses, Aaron would simply appear and disappear. And the entire book of Deuteronomy seems to repeat much of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers – although many of the commandments are stricter in the second version.

The scholars concluded that there must have been more than one – at least four – different authors involved in the writing of the five books of Moses. This was called the Documentary Hypothesis. And if humans – even if Divinely inspired – wrote the words, then the Mitzvot become more or less guidelines for behavior. And this is the core difference between Reform and Orthodoxy (although there are others. Based on this, I would suggest that the Torah is not a great source of historical accuracy. I see it as our people’s record of how we perceive our origin stories.

I will say that I believe that the Torah is filled with Truth with an upper-case “T.” It teaches us how to be Jewish. It teaches us how to embrace what we have come to call Jewish values like Kehilah (community), Kavod (respect, honor), Kedushah (holiness), Savlanut (patience) and Sovlanut (tolerance), to name five out of dozens. It teaches us that we are each created in God’s image, so we must treat one another with the same respect we have for God.

My friend and teacher Joel Lurie Grishaver once taught me that he believes that the Torah was written by humans. And they wrote exactly what God wanted them to write. So that leaves it in our hands. Coming from a human source, we each get to choose how to be Jewish, which values to embrace. Coming from God, filtered through humans, we must remember that we must not choose “none of the above” when it comes to values. We can handle the Truth.

L’shalom,

Ira Wise

Education Director's Column - January 2024

Are you ready for the summer?

I have been quoted as saying that overnight Jewish summer camp is the most valuable thing you can give your child after connecting them to a congregational community and teaching them to care about being Jewish. (I have suggested many other things that it is the best thing after, but let’s stick to the Jewish stuff.) My wife Audrey, I, and both of our adult sons are products of Jewish summer camps, and we all went on to become counselors and more. In fact, we believe much of how we parented our sons is based on what we learned as camp staff.

Camp is an immersive experience. You learn about being part of something by being part of it. In a Jewish camp, Jewish identity, Jewish ideas and Jewish values are built into everyday living. Kids there do all of the fun summer stuff: sports, arts and crafts, hiking, drama, music, climbing and ropes courses, laying down in the grass with your friends and declaring what clouds look like, and even repairing the world. It is a safe cocoon – some camps call it the Bubble – where they can help one another get on with the business of figuring out who they are.

On Sunday, January 21, we will be hosting several overnight Jewish Camp representatives from 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. They will each have different activities for the kids as they move through their stations, giving them a taste of camp. Parents are invited to join us and to have more focused conversations about the possibilities for your children down the road.

Some of our kids are already planning to attend a camp this summer. They will simply have fun. Others might go to an overnight camp in a year, or three, but are not ready for this summer. They will also have fun. We are not trying to convince anyone to go to camp right away. We are trying to plant the seeds with them and with you to think about Jewish summer camp when they and you are ready.

All of the camps we have invited participate in the One Happy Camper program sponsored by the Foundation for Jewish Camp. It offers a significant scholarship for ALL first-time campers at Jewish summer camps, regardless of financial need. They do it because they agree that Jewish Summer Camp is that important to the Jewish development of our kids. I look forward to seeing many of you there!

L’shalom,
Ira Wise Interim
Director of Education