A Purim Special

I have always been enthralled with the holiday of Purim and the Book of Esther. The first unit I ever designed to teach was of the book of Esther. I explored its satiric storytelling use to create a blueprint for a diaspora community struggling to survive and maintain its Jewish identity amidst great assimilation and mortal threats. I think it went over most of those eighth graders heads.

The Book of Esther provides the basis for celebrating the holiday of Purim. Amidst a story of threatened genocide and a "miraculous" turn of events leading to revenge, the authors of the book of Esther provide a response intended to guide the diaspora community of Jews against future threats and long term sustainability. Yet unlike many other biblical guides, the book of Esther avoids any religious, theological or even the centrality of a homeland in their prescription for future success.

In Esther, Chapter 9, Queen Esther and Mordechai, the Jew, instruct the Jews, and subsequent generations to observe a holiday of feasting a drinking. During this holiday, the people are instructed to partake in four activities to remember their history and commemorate their victory. In a world of upheaval, where only by "turning things upside down" can the Jews be safe, these four activities serve as a guide to securing the one element that will provide for the future:

1. Mishloach Manot: The giving of a portion to another
2. Matanot L'evyonim: Gifts to the Poor
3. Seudat Purim: The Purim Feast
4. Megillat Esther: A Public Reading of the Book of Esther (twice)

These four activities provide the means to create COMMUNITY, in varied ways. Gift giving and feasting occur within the private domain, with close friends and family.  The reading of the holiday's narrative and providing monies to the poor occur within the public domain within a broader circle of one's community. Each emphasizes a different aspect of sustaining relationships, and relating community to past, present and future.

Here is an article exploring this theme within the Mitzvot of Purim: http://www.jewishmag.co.il/111mag/purimmitvot/purimmitvot.htm
 
So in the spirit of Purim, I would like to borrow from these four mitzvot and apply them to the field of Jewish education. Much has been said about the importance of Jewish education to do the very thing that Esther and Mordechai fought so hard for: to create a vital Jewish people in the face of assimilation outside of the land of Israel. To do this, we must enure that our community of Jewish educators remains strong and vital.

I propose the following for activities for Jewish educational leaders:

1. Mishloach Manot: As Rav Shmuel Herzfeld explains in this article, in lieu of gifts of food, we can share Torah with others. Jewish educational leaders should find ways to openly share their wisdom and understanding. It is not just a matter of self aggrandizement, but rather in spirit of building community that each and every Jewish educational leader should create a blog, a twitter account and facebook account to be a part of a larger professional learning network and share their "Torah" with others.
2. Matanot L'evyonim: Jewish educational institutions struggle even to provide the highest quality of educational services to their consumers/members/constituents/students, but it is imperative to fully strengthen our community for the long term that Jewish education also concern itself with those beyond its walls. How can educational leaders provide educational opportunities to those in need of quality Jewish education, but may not be able to afford it, access it or be ready for it. Projects like Harkham Hillel Academy's Project Kesher are great stars.
3. The Purim feast: This is intended as a joyous way to bring people together to celebrate, be merry and connect. Unlike the Shabbat dinner, there are no Shabbat restrictions or rituals. This is the Thanksgiving dinner for the Jews. So let's remember to give thanks and be merry. It is so critical to bring your stakeholders together to celebrate the many accomplishments of your institution. This includes your faculty, staff, board, lay leaders, parents, volunteer AND students. By celebrating together we appreciate each other and the roles we play in creating success.
4. Reading the Story: Every institution should share its history. Thankfully many institutions have proven success over time, but as time passes and generations of students move in, it is critical to be reminded why the school originated, what community it was intended to serve and all those that have sacrificed for its success. Yet, even when creating a mythology around history, be very careful to remember to lessons of the Megillat Esther. Being able to satirize one's narrative, and poke fun at one's authority figures is what enables creativity and innovation to thrive, rather than fear and survivalism.

These four activties, inspired by Purim, serve as a worthy guide to creating stronger community through Jewish education, internally and externally. There is one more aspect of Purim, coming from the term V'nahafoch Hu, meaning "it was turned upside down." This reference from the Book of Esther, provided over time as a source for other Purim customs, including masquerading, drinking during the Purim Feast and the Purim Shpiel (Play) and carnival. While these customs bring much joy to children, bring about false parallels to Halloween and enhance the spirit of the Purim feast, they also provide a final lessons for Jewish education.

1. Don't take yourself so seriously
2. Don't forget to leave time for play.
3. Don't forget it is all about the children.

Here is a brilliantly Purimy, Stupid Video my former students did for the Jewish Journal

Happy Purim and get ready, it's just one month until Passover.

Shavuot as Experiential Education

Shavuot: A Commemoration of Experiential Education

Shavuot: Celebrating Experiential Education

I HEAR AND I FORGET

I SEE AND I REMEMBER

I DO AND I UNDERSTAND.

(Confucius)

WE WILL DO, AND WE WILL UNDERSTAND

(Exodus, 24:7)

The discussion of experiential education within Jewish education has evolved over the past decade thanks to the work of Barry Chazan, Joseph Reimer, David Bryfman and others.  Foundations, such as Avi Chai, seek to support research, experimentation and implementation of experiential education in Jewish schools and programs. Even more recently, academic institutions have embraced training and studying experiential education in Jewish educational settings through graduate and certificate programs at Yeshiva University, Hebrew Union College, Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew College and Brandeis University. Yet despite the recent investment institutionally and academically in Jewish experiential education, the Jewish tradition bears witness to a commitment to experiential education as probably the oldest form of Jewish education.

The Association for Experiential Educators offers the following definition of experiential education:

Experiential education is a philosophy and methodology in which educators purposefully engage with learners in direct experience and focused reflection in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values.

In some forms, experiential education engages participants holistically, incorporating physical activity, while providing social and emotional challenges. The “teacher” serves as an active learning alongside the learning, facilitating the engagement and providing structure and goals for the experience. The “student” functions as a fully active participant who shapes their experiences in constructing a learned understanding.

During the holiday of Shavuot, amongst a variety of celebrations, we commemorate the experience of revelation at Sinai. This event serves to educate the Israelites experientially for how to live as a purposeful (covenantal) community in relationship to God, with the guidance and support of their “Rav” or teacher, Moshe. The experience itself bears the criteria of an experience designed, constructed and conducted to educate experientially.

Diana Silberman-Keller, in her article “Images of Time and Place in the Narrative of Nonformal Pedagogy” from the seminal book on informal education, Learning in Places, describes the critical importance of space and time in defining effective nonformal education.  Immediately, at the opening of the Sinai narrative, the text defines the time and space for this experience:

In the third month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. And when they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the wilderness of Sinai, they encamped in the wilderness; and there Israel encamped before the mount.  (Exodus, 19:1-2)

The teacher establishes specific goals for the experience:

Now therefore, if ye will hearken unto My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be Mine own treasure from among all peoples; for all the earth is Mine; and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.

(Exodus, 19:5-6)

The teacher provides specific actions and structures to create active participation and safe boundaries:

And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their garments. And he said unto the people: 'Be ready against the third day; come not near a woman.' And it came to pass on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of a horn exceeding loud; and all the people that were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.            

(Exodus, 19:14-17)

The experience itself creates wonder and eventfulness:

Now mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire; and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the horn waxed louder and louder Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice.

(Exodus, 19:18-19)

The participants engage in reflection and reaction

And they said unto Moses: 'Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

(Exodus, 20:16)

According to Menachem Leibtag, citing the Ramban, the Israelites even engage in democratic negotiations twice with God throughout the process, although these conversations are read between the lines of the text.  Initially God was to have spoken exclusively through Moshe, but later God offers an alternative plan of direct revelation. According to many commentators, the Israelies later counter in the midst of the experience itself, and Moshe takes over for God in delivering the final eight of the dibrot. This reveals a direct engagement between the participants and the constructor of the experience, allow for the participants to have ownership and control over their learning, along with a degree of risk of failure.

Later on, the Israelites create their own experience with Moshe, without God’s direct involvment. During this encounter their seal their covenant to the Book and announce their response to this experiential learning process:

And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the hearing of the people; and they said: 'All that the LORD hath spoken will we do, and obey.'

(Exodus, 24:7)

The Hebrew Na’aseh V’Nishmah, literally mean “We will do, and we will listen”, but often the root of Nishma, Shma, can mean to understand. With this final statement, sealing the Jewish tradition to engage in action in order to develop understanding. Here we learn to “do first, understand later”.

On Shavuot, a relative new custom takes on the form of promoting experiential education in the Tikkun Leil Shavuot. The first night of Shavuot, before we read the Torah portion of this momentous experience at Sinai, Jews all over the world engage in communal study of Jewish texts and ideas. As the hour becomes late, and the suns starts to rise, the delirium of a night with no sleep (and too much junk food and caffeine, create a “high” that allows us to in some way recreate the euphoria of those early Israelites engaging experientially in the most awesome education of our people’s history.

Utilize this year’s Shavuot to reclaim for your whole year the power of the educational experience that the commemorative holiday of Shavuot imparts to us. Free yourself of your own educational boundaries to do and then understand.