Jewish Educators Challenged by Time

 Jewish educators are charged with teaching their students the knowledge and skills they need to participate in Jewish life as well as giving them the experiences they need in order to develop the desire to do so.  This  includes 4,000 years of Jewish tradition; 2,000 years of Jewish history; all Jewish holidays and their practices; primary Jewish texts; Israeli culture; prayers; mitzvoth; halachot (Jewish law); Holocaust; Middle East conflict; and ever-changing current events.  We have between 80 and 160 hours (2-4 hours/week for 40 weeks) to accomplish this task.  

And, in reality, we don’t have 2-4 hours of class time.  We have to take out time from teaching to perform administrative tasks (like taking attendance); to move students from class to class; and to provide class snacks.  Periodically, we lose additional time due to bad weather, Steeler football games and traffic jams.  This adds up to perhaps an additional 20 hours a year, leaving us with a mere 60-140 hours a year to provide the ideal Jewish education. 

Complicating our task is student absence. Our students are absent for many reasons: family emergencies and celebrations; public/private school activities; hobbies; sports; youth group activities; and family trips.  Even a few such absences on the part of each student cumulatively reduces our total teaching time by many, many hours.  What is not reduced is the responsibility to enable our students to participate fully in Jewish life.  What is not reduced is the number of years of Jewish history or the number of Jewish holidays or the complexities of learning a foreign language. 

How much time is 160 hours?  It’s the same amount of time the average teen spends texting and using social media in two months.  It’s the same amount of time the average American spends watching TV in four weeks.  In the same 40 week period to time, people will watch as much time of TV COMMERCIALS as our students attend J-SITE.    

Succeeding in life requires three steps:

1.  Show Up – Unless you show up you can never move forward.

2.  Step Forward –       In the words of Mishnah, “The bashful cannot learn.” 

3.  Be There --             Be in the present and avoid anything that distracts from that kavanah.

Jewish educators show up, step forward, and are there—day after day, week after week, year after year. 

We invite our students—and their parents--to do the same. 

Why Does J-SITE Offer a Talmud Course?

Talmud is a compilation of Jewish Oral Tradition (Mishnah and Gemora) that took nearly 500 years to complete and records the arguments, discussions, and final decisions of Jewish scholars in Israel and Babylon (now Iraq) about how to practice Jewish life. While Judaism is rooted in the mitzvot of Torah, day-to-day Jewish life is detailed in Talmud. There are actually two Talmuds, the Jerusalem Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. Most Jewish students learn from the Babylonian Talmud and this is what we also teach at J-SITE.

The Babylonian Talmud contains more than 2 million words and is larger than an encyclopedia. It includes every conceivable discussion on every aspect of every Jewish law. These discussions range from what constitutes a "cup" of wine on Passover to how early in the morning we can say the Shema. Talmud also includes fanciful stories called aggadot - stories about gigantic birds that can walk the length of Israel in two strides, worms used to cut the stones for building the Temple, and half-people/half-plant creatures.

An interesting fact about the Talmud is that its first page is not paginated as "aleph" or number one. Rather, the first page of Talmud is numbered as page 2 or "bet." The reasoning behind this is a reminder that no matter how expert one becomes in Talmud, there is still more to learn. Not surprisingly, therefore, it takes years before someone can say they have "learned" Talmud. Some people spend their entire lives in the study of Talmud.

Talmud is unique. There is no other text in human history like it and perhaps no better way to "train" one's brain to manage complex and conflicting points of view than the study of Talmud. Pick any page in Talmud and most likely you will find a discussion involving no less than half a dozen rabbis. Sometimes it's difficult even to understand who is disagreeing with whom and about what! But, there's more. Every page of Talmud also includes commentaries on the text, each commentary printed in its own box on the side or bottom of the page. It takes practice just to learn how to keep one finger on a particular line of Talmud text while locating Rashi's commentary with a thumb and checking a more contemporary commentary with the little finger.

J-SITE offers a course in Talmud for many reasons. One reason is because the study of Talmud prepares students for college in a way that simply is not possible through any other type of study or text. Planning a career in government, social work, law? Thinking about becoming a teacher, scientist, doctor, or engineer? Learning Talmud is at once the best way to sharpen your powers of critical analysis and enhance your ability to carry on creative and purposeful dialogue grounded in important human values.

If Torah is the heart of Judaism, then Talmud is its soul. Students exposed to Talmud begin to understand just how rich and pertinent to modern Jewish life the teachings of Judaism are. They become, in effect, participants in a conversation that has stretched through thousands of years and which explores Judaism's "take" on an enormous variety of political, social, ethical, environmental, and spiritual issues. It's exciting, challenging-and fun!

Dr. Gabe Goldman

Rosh Hashanah and the World Series: What Would You Do?

Prelude
Looks like the Pirates are going to make it to the playoffs this year. Fortunately, with holidays coming so early in the calendar year there’s no “conflict” with the World Series. But, what if there was? What would you do if the Pirates were playing in the World Series and you had tickets to the opening game in Pittsburgh – which happened to be the first night of Rosh Hashanah? Would you go to synagogue services or would you go to the game? Serious answers only please.
In 1964, a Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher named Sandy Koufax (who is Jewish), made international news when he refused to pitch in the opening game of the World Series because it was scheduled for Yom Kippur. Koufax wasn’t just any pitcher. To this day, he’s one of the 10 best pitchers of all times. Not starting the opening game would mean that he would not have enough rest between games to be available for a seventh game if one were needed. And it was. With the series tied 3-3, Koufax did pitch the seventh game of the Series on only two days of rest. And, he actually pitched a three-hit shutout.
(Here’s an interesting side note: Sandy Koufax tried out with the Pittsburgh Pirates before he signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Wikipedia says, “During his Pirates’ tryout, Koufax's fastball broke the thumb of Sam Narron, the team's bullpen coach. Branch Rickey, then the general manager of the Pirates, told his scout Clyde Sukeforth that Koufax had the "greatest arm [he had] ever seen.” By time the Pirates offered Koufax a contract, though, he already signed with the Dodgers.)

Story
When I was in high school in 1968, the St. Louis Cardinals were repeat winners of the National League Pennant and advanced to the World Series against the Detroit Tigers. Bob Gibson, the St. Louis ace, was slated to pitch the first game. Much to my surprise, a week before the game, my parents revealed that my dad had been given two seats to the opening game. For my father, a former minor league player and part-time major league pitching coach, this was the dream of a lifetime. And I knew he would take me. My mother didn’t like baseball. My younger brother was too young to sit through a full game, let alone appreciate its significance. And my older brother was fighting a war in Vietnam.
The problem was that game day was also the first day of Rosh Hashanah. I knew that dad wouldn’t care if we skipped services and went to the game. The problem was mom. She’s what we would call “a person of principle” and one of those principles was Jewish education. She made me attend afternoon Hebrew school through my bar mitzvah and Sunday morning religious school through 12th grade. No excuses were accepted and unless I was so sick that she had to take me to the doctor, I went to school.
That’s why I was so surprised when mom said, “Son, you’re in high school now and old enough to make your own decision about this. So, it’s your choice whether you go to Rosh Hashanah services or go to the game with your father.” She told me I could think about it if I wanted some time to sort things out. I didn’t. It wasn’t even a contest. There was nothing I wanted more than to go to that World Series game with the man who had spent countless hours teaching me to play baseball, coaching my little league teams, taking me to professional games and generally helping me understand how many ways that baseball skills prepares one for life. I chose the Game.
The experience was as special as I imagined it would be and the game proved historic. Gibson set a new strike out record of 17 batters. And, my World Series ticket stub ensured I was the center of attention in school for at least a week.

Post-Story Lesson
I’ve been to dozens of Rosh Hashanah services since 1968 but I have yet to go to another World Series game. I don’t know what would have happened if mom had put her foot down and told me outright that I couldn’t go “because your Jewish education is more important than a baseball game.” I suspect that I would have been filled with great resentment that would have led to bad decisions and possibly to decisions that would have altered the path leading me to become a life-long Jewish educator. I don’t know what motivated her to give me the choice rather than telling me what to do. (Over the years, though, I’ve discovered that my mother was far wiser than I realized in my younger days. I wish I could say that I caused her less grief about going to religious school over the final two years of high school--but that wouldn’t be true. I continued to invent new excuses for not going and recycled old ones in the hope that she had forgotten them. Thankfully, she was a strong woman and my efforts repeatedly failed.

Final Note
Two months after graduating from high school, I was in Israel attending the Chaim Greenberg Teacher Institute.