Count Your Freedoms

I was recently with a group of children and parents presenting a program on the symbols of the Passover Seder.  I had asked them to imagine being in ancient Egypt as an Israelite slave.  I conjured up some scorching hot weather, task-masters, raw materials and some context as we began to engage in our ‘very mild re-enactment’ of this slavery experience for only a moment.  I cannot say for sure that my audience was able to be in that place at all or for very long, but I must say that taking some time before and after the program to think about slavery, was for me significant in terms of trying to really ‘get it’!!  Grasp that your time is not your time, it is someone else’s entirely; grasp that you are hungry, tired, scared and aching all of the time; grasp that you are not certain you will see your loved ones regularly or ever; grasp that socializing with friends, going on a walk, running around playing is a wisp of a dream or memory; grasp that you may forever feel hopeless … it is surely a horrific place to be.  Sadly, slavery is still a place that exists in our modern world (Free the Slaves is an organization working to end slavery.  See the discussion about disposable people therein, it is heart-breaking.).

 

This Passover let us count our freedoms [eg.  Loving family and friends, Education, Opportunity, Fresh air and sunshine, Ease of getting around, Time to wonder and wander,  Trust in others, Secureness, Warmth, and so much more… ].  Let us remember how blessed we are.  Let us renew our commitment to seek justice as we open the door to Elijah the prophet, our symbol of hope, and strive to make our communities and world open their eyes to change for the good of the most vulnerable amongst us.  May yours be a blessed and rejuvenating Passover/Spring festival.

 

Ivrit in America

Author with her ulpan Hebrew instructor in Jerusalem

               

I recently attended a parent- educator meeting, as a Hebrew school teacher, at our local synagogue.  The topic at hand was trying to place a particular value on the specific aspects of the Hebrew education of our children, re-evaluating where we are, where we want to go, and how we might get there.  It was a lively discourse with lots of opinions and lots of positive input.  Because we require children to be present for Shabbat-friendly (less school-like) learning on certain Shabbatot (plural of Shabbat/Sabbaths) of the month, we have more limited formal instruction time for Hebrew learning every week.  Our goals are considerable given this: remedial comprehension of modern Hebrew, prayers and Biblical text, reasonable fluidity decoding texts, and the ability to write in block letter notation and to converse in very simple (present tense) Hebrew!!  WOW!!  Achieving these goals has been challenging and we continue to work to enhance our students’ progress.

Within this conversation, I am reminded of the fact that we need to find that kernel in our instruction, in our Hebrew usage, in our Jewish lives that says to our children

·         How amazing that you are learning a real living language that connects us to our ancient heritage

·         How amazing that there are people out there like you and me using Hebrew - to write high school essays, analyses of the arts, plays and poetry and music, science dissertations – to argue about where tax dollars should be spent, how to implement specific safety regulations, the best approach to support learning-disabled children – to dream about being an astronaut when they grow up, how to lighten human’s footprints on the environment, making a real and lasting peace with their Palestinian cousins and neighbors…

·         How amazing that familiarity with Hebrew becomes a gift of continuity and peoplehood shared amongst Jews (and connected non-Jews) for generations to come.

 

I love that we use our children’s Hebrew names in school; their own unique and special place-tag in the Jewish continuum.

Here are some interesting (certainly more extreme) articles (by Leon Weiseltier and David Hazony) that have strong sentiments about why American Jews need to learn Hebrew.  Though I do not necessarily agree with everything therein, I think they are provocative and add to the conversation!