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ImagInIng the JewIsh Future
inconvenient, even unnatural. It is
frequently out of step with the rhythm
of Western culture.
Learning to lead a Jewish life
requires becoming comfortable
living in Jewish time, which contra-
dictory to folk wisdom is not late.
If anything, Jewish time is early
as we are taught to express our joy
and excitement to perform a
mitzvah
as soon as it is possible.
I remember an Israel experience with
rising 11th-grade students that I had
the privilege to lead. We visited a
kindergarten, where a teacher gave
us a tour. He asked all of the NFTY
students, probably 35 or so, “What is
today’s Hebrew date?” No one knew.
“
What’s this week’s
parashah
(
Torah
reading)?” No one knew. But when
he asked the same of his five-year-old
children, none of whom was Haredi
(
fervently Orthodox), they knew.
That interaction left a lasting impact
on me. Especially at a time of democ-
ratized, privatized, and computerized
learning, we need to recognize that vast
numbers of our people need to know
what it means to live in Jewish time.
Just as there is no vicarious atonement
in Jewish life, so there is no vicarious
fulfillment in Jewish life. I cannot
“
Jew” for you. I cannot learn for you.
And neither can you or anyone else
“
Jew” or learn for me.
The next text I would like us to uncov-
er is a contemporary one by a leading
educational philosopher whose name is
Nel Noddings. She writes, “The prima-
ry aim of every educational institution
and every educational effort must be
the maintenance and the enhancement
of caring.”
I do not presume to know about
your educational experience, but Nel
Noddings is not describing mine.
Caring was and I believe is exception-
al in learning environments. In our
educational culture there is a focus on
assessing, on metrics, on benchmarks,
and on judging. Caring is relegated to
a minor role, a bit part in a lifelong
educational movie. Noddings argues
that we need to challenge the status
quo. Later on, in the book aptly titled
Caring
,
she uses the following phrase:
“
Everybody at every age and stage
needs to have somebody who is just
crazy about you.” Everybody.
We need to have teachers who care.
I’m a really fortunate learner. I’ve had
people crazy about me as a student for
most of my life. And I consider that
to be one of the greatest blessings, a
gift from God in the form of a human
being, I personally have received.
I can remember Dr. Ezra Spicehandler,
of blessed memory, a teacher who cared
about me. I walked into his office as a
first-year rabbinical student at HUC-
JIR in Jerusalem, where he served as
the Dean. In my halting Hebrew I
asked him if he would be willing to
have a Hebrew relationship with me.
I was standing in front of a world-class
scholar in Hebrew literature and I
had the temerity to ask him to be my
teacher outside of a classroom setting.
He didn’t just blow me off. He didn’t
laugh at me. He didn’t think I was a
jerk. He didn’t think I was trying to get
an A. He agreed and I am sure I would
not be here now if he had demurred.
Fast-forward thirty-five years.
I visited Dr. Spicehandler at Cedar
Village, the Jewish retirement commu-
nity in Cincinnati, not long before he
died a few months ago. When I arrived
there was someone else there, someone
who did not speak Hebrew. Ezra could
not really follow the conversation.
When the other visitor left. I spoke to
Ezra in Hebrew. He seemed to recog-
nize me and he responded in kind since
he apparently had access to his Hebrew
mind. The very last words we shared
were in Hebrew, thereby completing
the circle. Ezra said “yes” when it didn’t
make any sense to say yes. He just
cared – about Hebrew and about me.
Jewish learning requires teachers who
care about the subjects they are teach-
ing, but we need to care even more
about the students we are teaching.
Jewish learning is not exclusively
Jewish.
I recommend two books that were
not originally written with a focus on
education. But I believe in terms of
imagining the future, they have pro-
found implications for Jewish learning.
One of them is Daniel Kahneman’s
Thinking, Fast and Slow
.
His primary
argument is that we have two systems
of thought. Once again, not an either/
or dichotomy, but a both/and dialectic.
System one is fast, intuitive, and
emotional. System two is slower, more
deliberative, and more logical. In our
world of instantaneous gratification, we
have a predilection for the fast, intuitive,
The primary aim of every
educational institution and every
educational effort must be the main-
tenance and the enhancement of
caring.
(
Nel Noddings:
Caring
)
Jewish learning aims at creating a
caring, empathic, and compassionate
community.
how does your own expression of
Jewish learning explicitly embrace
kindness as a lived value?
צדק ורחמים
Justice and caring