Three Videos to Watch about how Israel honors its Memorial and Independence Days
I teach Hebrew school in the afternoons to sixth graders.
As a teacher, my greatest wish is for my students, my budding Jewish scholars, to ask deep meaningful questions about God, Judaism and our 5,000 year old tradition.
Can you guess what their most asked question is when their hands go up in my class, after being in public school all day?
If you guessed: “Can I go to the bathroom?” or “Can I get a drink of water,” or “Are we going to get a chance to play?” you would be on the right track; except my students need to pose their question in Hebrew.
But today, when they asked me, I turned their questions back on them: Are you really thirsty? How badly do you need that drink? And … what if there was just nowhere to go to the bathroom?
This week, as in Israel, Jews have come off the sorrow of observing Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. It will be a challenge for these kids — the last generation to have any access to the first-account testimony from survivors — to get a comprehension of the enormity of the loss and the depths of cruelty suffered by the Jews who endured and who did not endure through the Holocaust.
But perhaps they could understand it through their own most basic needs, the needs of kids just like them during the darkest years of humanity. They looked at pictures of kids starving on the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto, asking for food when there was none. They read an account of a girl who “stole” an icicle to get water to drink when there was none. They read about kids in hiding who asked for a bathroom but there was none; too risky.
Of course I let my students go get a drink of water and go to the bathroom, but when posed with these questions about survival and enduring the unendurable, they thought twice today before they asked.
Over the last week, Israelis have been on an emotional roller coaster ride: They observe Holocaust Remembrance Day, then Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, then move right into the triumph and joy (and yes, barbecues) of Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israel Independence Day. But how to convey these emotions to Jewish American kids who are tired after a long day of school on a rainy and cold April Day?
Youtube, of course!
Here are three videos I showed my students today. The first shows Israeli soldiers, strong, young and proud, singing Ani Ma’amin – I believe. A song that was sung as an act of spiritual resistance by the Jews in the concentration camps even as they faced death:
One of my students said, this song makes me want to cry. Crying about the Holocaust is okay, I said. It’s part of the learning.
This video shows how Israelis honor their fallen soldiers, by observing a complete two minutes of stillness by the sound of a siren. Even cars on the highway stop:
After seeing this, one of my students said “This is how we should honor Memorial Day in America!”
Finally, the singing of Hatikvah (The Hope), the Israeli National Anthem, and this is not your typical Hatikvah:
Funny, but when watching these videos, not a single hand went up to ask to go to the bathroom.
Happy Birthday, Israel!
Shhhh! Please Don’t Tell my Parents!!
For the first time in your life, your parents are away. They leave their home, the home they raised you and taught you right from wrong, in your trusted care while they take a long overdue romantic vacation for just the two of them.
You know where this is going.
The Party. It’s the right of passage for every American Teen. At least it seems that way in the movies. As the weather warms up, think of all those teen movies that ended in a springtime house party bash. Some that come to mind just from my generation include Risky Business, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and later, Mean Girls
When I was growing up on Staten Island, it was rare to find a house that was not an attached townhouse. For those of you in suburbia, this means a house that shares at least one common wall with one neighbor. Or maybe your house was flanked by townhouses on both sides. The walls that separated one home from another were exceedingly thin and provided no sound proofing.
How thin? We could say “God Bless You!” when we heard our neighbors sneeze. When there was a birthday party, a family fight, or when their coo-coo clock went off at all hours of the night, you heard that too.
So, the first time – the only time – I had a party the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, I did the right thing. I let my neighbors know that I was going to have a few friends over. Just a few. And, we might get a little loud. And, would they mind if we put some beer bottles in their trash the next day?
My neighbor, Dom, a man in his late 60’s who played Frank Sinatra on his backyard transistor radio all summer and who introduced me to my first grilled Italian pepper, said it wouldn’t be a problem.
I was a good kid. Really I was. Still am. Even though my teen daughter now views me as irresponsible because I caught mono in my sophomore year of college after a weekend of parties. So, when planning my first keg party, no I was not of age, but my friends and I were all right at the cusp. We were all turning 20 that year. That’s why we had the party, it was for a friend, a girl who received all honors in high school and was studying economics at SUNY Binghamton. She was turning 20 that weekend. We did the responsible thing by asking my friends’ of-age boyfriend to buy the beer.
My underage friends and I were responsible for hiring the DJ. He charged $75 for the night and three of us each chipped in $25. We cleared a spot in my basement where he could set up and play. We didn’t want to set up outside because again, I was trying to be considerate of my neighbors.
More importantly, I was trying not to get caught and get in the worst trouble of my short 19-year-old life.
The party was a success! It was a beautiful night and we would have gone swimming in the pool if there weren’t so many damned mosquitos. (Another thing about Staten Island. No matter how small the backyard, everyone managed to have a pool. It may have been an above-ground pool, but it was wet and cold in the hot New York City summer, that is what mattered most). I remember dancing and lots of kids coming, most invited, some, who barely spoke to me in high school but oh look who’s having a party and decided now they wanted to be my friends.
My friends had their boyfriends with them. A friend of mine became a friend with benefits.
Most importantly, no one got too drunk and no one got hurt. And, my considerate party goers didn’t stay or make noise too too late into the night and my college roommate even mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors when it was all over.
Only one household possession was broken as a result of the party. The kitchen clock came crashing down. That was because one of those previously mentioned mosquitos got in and my brother tried to kill it when it landed on the clock.
My brother…..
Now, my parents are very wise. Later, they told me that they had their suspicions that I had a party whether or not they found a letter on computer print-out paper (the kind that came in a stack with holes on the sides to feed it into the printer. Remember, this was the late 80’s). The letter was written by my brother, an impressionable teenager at the time who had just written a letter to his friend that “my sister had a wild crazy party at our house and there was beer and everything!”
Yes, that was a very dark week in the Cooper household. My parents felt betrayed by me and my good girl friends that never got in any trouble in high school. There were tears of guilt and apology later that week in my parents’ living room among all the guilty. But I’m 43 now and I’m not grounded anymore and I still love my brother.
So, why do I bring this up now?
Now, after 20 years of being away, it is my parents who are the retired empty nesters living on the other side of the wall from a family with three teenagers. Last weekend, the parents of these teenagers went away for a vacation. Last weekend, it was my parents who were the couple who could not get to sleep because of a teen house party that went deep into the night.
The next night, my parents pulled into their driveway after spending the evening with friends and were greeted by all three of the kids next-door. With a big plate of home-baked, shamrock-shaped cookies.
“We baked these for you. We are SO sorry that we made so much noise and kept you up all night,” mom told me over the phone, and we laughed as she described how this girl pleaded for forgiveness.
Sure, they were sorry about the noise. But they were more worried about getting potentially ratted out to their parents. That was the main reason for the cookies.
At this, my mom took the cookies and laughed. “No problem. Been there. Done that.”
So, Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everyone. And keep the music down after 1 a.m., will ya?”
What to do when you are the “not-quite-Out-of-Town guests?”
semi-finals at a Bat Mitzvah Hula Hoop Contest. How long can she spin 12 hoops at once?
To anyone reading this who lives in a BIG metro area like Los Angeles, New York City, Toronto…. let me ask you this:
If you are invited to a wedding/Bar Mitzvah/christening/fill-in-the-blank life occasion across town with a religious service in the morning and party at night,do you get a hotel room for the weekend?
I didn’t think so.
If you are the planner of a big life event occasion and invite many out-of-town guests, do you pull out all the stops in providing them with extra special treatment: (reserve a block of hotel rooms, extra dinners and brunches, goodie bags in their hotel rooms)?
Of course you do, they are the out-of-towners!
This past weekend, my whole family was invited to the Bat Mitzvah of a friend my son made in Camp Ramah. My daughter is friends with the girl’s sister, and our two families have developed this great Camp Ramah connection over the years. We were very honored to be invited to this happy occasion as a family. There are too many sad occasions in life that we juggle our lives to attend,so why not do a little schlepping for the happy ones?
As a kid growing up in Staten Island, I remember going to weddings and bar mitzvahs, and later on youth group dances “out on the Island” – in this case Long Island. My dad had a special name for this stretch of suburbia that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. It didn’t matter where your destination was on the Island. Any trip from SI to LI was to a place called “all the way out” on the Island.
I remember the traffic as we traveled and my dads angry muttering at the wheel. There was traffic on the Belt. The BQE. The LIE. And the GCP. (If you don’t know what these stand for, you are not from NYC.) It would take what seemed hours to get anywhere. And still does.
In reality, the distance in miles was only 40 miles or so, but it was the traffic that made the journey take hours. But never did my parents think about getting a hotel room or consider staying overnight. Because LI was still considered “in town.” I remember drowsy drives back to the other island, Staten Island, when my brother and I would fall asleep in the back in our party clothes, my parents singing doo-wop oldies tunes to their heart’s content in the front seat.
Drive over an hour in the New York Metro Area, you are still in the New York Metro area.
Drive over an hour in Rochester, you are in Buffalo
So, at the beginning of the weekend, when we parted with friends at a Friday night dinner and announced to our Rochester friends we were headed to Buffalo for a Bat Mitzvah, they actually said to us “Have a nice trip!”
When you are transplantednorth, traveling an hour to go for a visit is nothing. Staying at a hotel overnight was out of the question.But the question remained, how were we going to pull this day off?
The day came with logistical challenges. We left our house very early Saturday morning to get to the synagogue in Buffalo**. We had to pack two extra sets of clothes for each family member, one casual outfit for hanging around the hotel, and then more formal attire for the evening party. Plus bathing suits because the kids were invited to swim in the hotel pool, so that meant toiletries too, but where to shower?
When we got to Buffalo, we sat through a very nice warm service and at the luncheon reception, known as the kiddush, we made fast friends with several couples who all were from out-of-town to bring their children, also campers, to celebrate their friends’ Bat Mitzvah. I told them we were “from” Rochester, but as conversations went on, our native accents revealed themselves.
As we relaxed that afternoon in the hotel lobby, one of the dads spoke up and asked my husband and I: “You didn’t grow up in Rochester, did you? Where are you really from?”
That night, after eating and dancing to the sounds provided by a DJ company called the Bar Mitzvah Boys – who are from Rochester – we didn’t get home until 1 a.m. For my husband and I, it was now our turn to stay awake and sing while the kids slept in the back all the way home.
**Yes, we drive on Shabbat. Conservative Judaism has a decree that allows one to drive if it is to worship at a synagogue. There was some irony to all this, because once we arrived in Buffalo, we had nowhere to go and nothing to do but read and chat with some real “out-of-town” guests who invited us to spend the afternoon at their hotel. So, we did drive, but in the end had a very relaxing Shabbat.
Just the Facts, Mom! I’m studying for midterms.
Can you name this world leader?
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night.
No, this sentence warrants a six-column headline:
My daughter came down from her bedroom to talk to me the other night
That’s better.
After all, she is 15. Aside from emerging for meals, school, and showers, she lives in her room.
In another astounding development, my brilliant, confident and extremely disciplined daughter came down to ask me – her mom (!) to help her study!
She asked me to help her study! She still needs me!
Fantastic!
This week marks her first set of high school midterms. I admire her extra efforts for studying for them. Math and science is dad’s department. But current events and English, that is my domain. We began to review for her social studies exam. But as we started to review the material – and please – JUST the material – the thought-provoking documentary Race to Nowhere came to mind.
As she crammed the names and positions of 40 current world leaders into her head, was she truly gaining an understanding of current world events? I am a news junkie, so I couldn’t help but wonder – she was memorizing names with faces, but was she learning?
My daughter thrust into my hands a four-page study packet that had 40 mug shots of leaders of North America, Asia and Europe. Also included in the lineup were that week’s Republican candidates who were vying for the nomination for this November’s presidential election. We started with those:
I asked: “Can you name the candidates who are running in the Republican primary?’
“Sure: Gingrich. Romney, and, um — Santorum!”
Great, she had them down. And Perry had just dropped out. But for me, these answers aren’t good enough. After all, in by the time the 2016 Presidential election comes around, she’ll be old enough to vote. So I press on:
“Who is this Newt Gingrich and what position of government did he hold in the past? What was he known for doing in this position?
“I don’t care, mom, that’s not on the test! Just names and positions, Mom.”
I could in some ways empathize with her. The Social Studies midterm was just one test in a slew of tests she will face this week. She still had to conjugate lots of verbs in Spanish for another test. And tackle some tough algebra problems for yet another. Names and faces of world leaders, that’s plenty to know. But is it?
I pressed on.
“Who is the secretary of state?”
“Easy. Hillary Clinton.”
I couldn’t help myself: “And what does the secretary of state do? And what was she before she was secretary of state?”
“Not important, it won’t be on the test! Next leader, please….This is why I like to study with dad more than you!”
“Who is the leader of Venezuela?”
“No problem, Ces, Chavez…. he has a mustache!
“Yes. Now, which other world leader is he getting into bed with and why is this a problem?”
“Into bed with?!?”
“It’s just an expression. It means getting buddy-buddy with.”
“I don’t know! Who cares, it’s-“
“….I know it’s not on the test. But he is getting cozy with a leader in the Middle East in a country that starts with an I-“
“Okay, I know this one, the president of Iran is Ahmadinejad.”
I personally hope she won’t have to spell that one…
“And why is this a problem? What do these countries both have a lot of that we depend on?
“I don’t knoooooww, mom! Sugar? This will not be on the test!”
“Oil, honey, they both have oil and they are both consider the US as an enemy. Oh, and what other country does Iran consider an enemy?”
“This is not on the TEST!”
But she knows. She knows the leaders of Iran want to wipe Israel off the map. She knows this because it’s what we discuss at home. Just like she knew the leader of Israel was Benjamin Netanyahu before she got that study packet.
So, how many world leaders or members of the US cabinet can you recognize or name? And does rattling off these names make our high school students any more knowledgeable on current events?
On a final note, my daughter invited a friend home to study and have dinner with us tonight. Another source of midterm stress: the English composition.
“This could be on ANYTHING, mom. We just won’t know what we are going to have to write about. I mean, the topic could be: What are the social implications of when Neil Young walked on the moon?!”
The Netnanny Diaries, or How to Keep your Teens Safe Online
if you don't want to disable your computer, DO NOT buy this product
This time of year, Americans everywhere are shopping and carefully wrapping gifts picked out for those special someones in our lives. Odds are, if that special someone is a teenager, that Christmas or Chanukkah gift, I’m talking the big-ticket item, will come with a screen.
Last year, my husband and I bit the bullet and begrudgingly gave our adolescent children a laptop. We rationalized that the laptop was a necessity for homework. Our children get assignments that have to be completed at online websites like Pearson’s Successnet. We further rationalized that the children would want to send the occasional email to a friend. Furthermore, we told our children the laptop was to be used in a common room like the kitchen.
But, laptops being what they are, and teens being who they are, my kids inevitably used their gift to chat with friends in the privacy of their rooms behind closed doors.
There are many pros and cons to this virtual social life. Through Facebook and Skype, my kids share their daily minutia with faraway friends without running up my phone bill. They will never know what it was like to have to wait until late at night for the phone rates to go down to place that long distance call.
Just one generation ago, having a phone line in one’s own room caused concerns for parents. Remember hiding under the covers with the phone?
Now, the Internet is the place where parents of teens feel like they are losing control. Will they become vulnerable to online bullying if they are not savvy to the nuances of social networking? Will one wrong click result in viewing inappropriate web content?
In a last-gasp effort to maintain some control of my kids’ online activities, I hired Netnanny. This is a content monitoring software program that allows parents to use customizable filters to monitor where kids can go online.
- parents can customize the program as they wish to limit or completely block sites containing violence, sexual or hateful language or images
- Parents can limit or completely block websites to games or sites that support online gambling
- parents can monitor posts or conversations on social networking sites like Faceboook
- Parents can also use Netnanny to put limits on Internet time. You can set how many hours a child can use the Internet, and what times of day these hours are to take place. If you don’t want your kids on the Internet after 10 on a school night, Netnanny shuts off Internet capabilities after 10 p.m.
Sounds great, right? Perhaps there are parents who use this program with success. However, our situation wrote itself out like a bad reality TV show that could have been called “Netnannies Gone Wild.”
My daughter’s Netnanny woes:
- One day, she wanted to go online to search for ski equipment on Dicks Sporting Goods’ website. Netnanny blocked her because the retailer also sold guns for hunting. Reason for blocking: possible violent content.
- When she wanted to do some online window shopping for some bathing suits on Landsend.com, Netnanny again pulled her back by the apron strings. This time: risqué sexual content. On Land’s End. Sure.
- When she needed to research a paper for social studies about racism, she could not enter certain sites because they contained “hateful language.” or images of swastikas.
- Finally, Netnanny blocked my daughter from Skyping with a friend in Israel. Perhaps the program detected a Middle Eastern ISP address and determined it was thwarting some kind of terror plot.
I did find Netnanny’s monitoring reports useful in terms of tracking what she and her Facebook friends were chatting about. However, Netnanny was a bit too overprotective when she deemed that “Hiya Hon, Luv ya” written by one of her BFFs was considered sexually explicit language.
My son had his own woes with Miss Netnanny
- He could play no games on miniclips.com. Wait, that was my intention. Miniclips always spread viruses on my computer and I find these games to be a complete waste of time.
- But, in an attempt to play an innocent game of solitaire, my son was blocked. Why? The game involved the use of cards: potential for online gambling. In my defense, I did block video games, but barring a game of solitaire was going a bit too far.
- My son is an avid guitar player. Often, he looks guitar tabs up to play the latest song he hears on the radio. But Netnanny blocked guitar tab websites. The reason: Music and entertainment, may have explicit language.
After a few months, Netnanny disabled and corrupted all of the laptop’s Internet capabilities. I needed outside help and turned to Microworx, a Brighton information technology company that specializes in computer troubleshooting.
It took several days and about $200 to free my computer from Netnanny’s clutches. When I called the company to ask for a refund, Content Watch, the maker of Netnanny, refused because the software’s warranty had expired. In the end, there is no substitute for giving your teens a good lesson in common sense, social networking etiquette and harsh warnings about not trying to search for anything illicit before you let them go online.
Excuse me, Content Watch, if I was not a fortune teller and could not predict your crappy software would cause my computer such problems.
In the end, we fired Netnanny. In the New Year, and the years to come, raising teens will come with many challenges. Now, it is navigating the information superhighway. Soon, it will be learning to drive on a real highway.
The best I can do is to offer my guidance and always let them know that if they need me, I will always be on the other side of that closed door.
I’m routing for this Science Mom: Vote for her today!
Every now and again, I get a story idea in my inbox that just cannot wait a week until it is published in my column. In our age of overtesting our children to the point of desparation where they even cheat on college entrance examinations, here is a story of Melissa Gertner.
Melissa is a mom who was inspired by her son’s curiosity to solve problems by tinkering with old machine parts in his basement to start an after school club called FIRST LEGO® League that lights the spark of science and technology in tween and teen-aged kids in Victor, NY.
She is competing for a scholarship to win $10,000 for the Victor school district to continue and grow the LEGO program for years to come in Victor.
Here is her story. Vote for her at this link
A Mom and a STEM Advocate
I never liked science. Or math. Technology scares me. So, you must wonder, how could I have helped connect others to science, technology, engineering and math? I am not a teacher. Or an engineer. I can barely balance my checkbook. Still you wonder…
The answer is simple. I am a mom and an advocate. My son is endlessly curious and creative. He is always inventing things in the basement, taking machines apart to see how they work, reading about the way our world works, drawing his plans, bringing them to life, making a mess, starting all over again. Every day. All day. And he inspires me. To provide opportunities for him and others like him to find their very special and immensely valuable place our world.
So, two and a half years ago, with the guidance of the Victor Intermediate School, another devoted mom and I started the Victor Intermediate School FIRST LEGO League (VIS FLL) Club, a 3 year after-school pilot program designed to capture students’ interest in science, technology and engineering. The program offers hands-on real–world learning experiences that reach beyond the traditional classroom.
In our first year, we served 26 4th graders in a non-competitive format. In 2010, we took six teams of 43 4th and 5th graders to qualifiers. Three of those teams advanced to the Regional Championship. This year we will serve 80 students, including six teams of 5th and 6th graders attending the qualifiers in November and six teams of 4th and 5th graders participating in a non-competitive season starting in January 2012.
How did I find my way to this program you ask. Well, three years ago, I had the privilege of coaching my son’s Jr. FIRST LEGO® League team. Little did I know, I had embarked upon the journey of a lifetime. Somewhere along the way, perhaps when I saw the pride in the faces of my son and his teammates at their show and share event or the incredible ideas they generated or the solutions these 8 year olds developed, I was hooked and committed to providing a continuum of science and engineering opportunities to as many students as I could possibly embrace.
Since that time, I have coached his FLL team for two more consecutive years, been a co-coordinator for the club in the off-season and am currently the coordinator of the VIS FLL Club. I have also actively helped other teams get started in our region by sharing information, resources and encouragement.
I continue to be inspired by the imagination, ideas, teamwork and passion these kids generate. Not only do our students participate in community events and competitions, they also mentor local students and others throughout our region, and spread the word about how exciting science and engineering can be. As much as I am helping to connect all these kids with science, technology and engineering experiences, they are the true connectors, connecting me with the best of myself and the best of themselves with our world.
Buy Daughter Skis, Feed the Chickadees, Mendon, NY
Ever since my daughter started high school, I don’t see her that much. She doesn’t talk to me that much either. She is either in school, at practice, or up in her room studying, texting or skyping.
So, when she starts talking to me about taking on a new challenge like cross-country skiing, even though it’s a language almost foreign to me, I had better listen.
I tried to downhill ski, once. It was in California on a weekend away with my husband’s grad school buddies. Long ago, on a bunny hill somewhere in Lake Tahoe, Calif., I decided that strapping waxed wooden pieces to my feet and then surrenduring my body to the mercy of gravity was simply a horrible idea.
I was better suited for a flatter, more level playing field. So, the next year, I attempted cross-country skiing. I thought, how hard could it be? There are no hills to hurtle down and cause bodily injury. There are no ski lifts to try to jump on. Again, my new husband and I headed to Lake Tahoe for the weekend. It was a perfect, fresh-powdered blue-skied day to take my first five-mile trek on cross-country skis. I could run five miles at a time, so how much harder could skiing it be?
Much harder. Much.
Any ability to get my poles and my arms in rhythm with my feet in my skis completely escaped me. As soon as I would get any momentum going, I’d topple over into the snow. After falling over for about the 72nd time (I’m not exaggerating), I just sat there and wept in frustration. I took off my skis, walked back to the lodge and had a hot chocolate while the others effortlessly glided along the lakeshore.
So, when my daughter came to me with those big blue eyes sparkling with the promise of a new challenge, I was not going to put my failure on the slopes and the trails on her. But how much was this going to cost us?
We head out to a ski swap and sale at a middle school surrounded by farmland. This is one of the biggest ski swap and sales in the area, and the gym is packed with parents like us shopping from the area’s ski retailers. Thankfully, the high school ski coach is there to teach us the lingo (Classic skis, Combi skis and boots, Poles, Bindings.) and show us what we needed to buy. We need skis that she can use for both disciplines.
No, the two disciplines are not scary downhill and frustrating cross-country, as I thought. There are actually two disciplines of cross-country: classic and skate. About 40 minutes, — and hundreds of dollars – later, she had what she needed to hit the trails.
On the way home, we stopped at one of our favorite places to hike, Mendon Ponds Park, where my kids have been hand feeding the chickadees since they were little. It is one thing they still like to do and each time a bird lands in their hand, I get a glimpse into the past, see the little kids my big kids once were.
My daughter brings her poles along for the 2 mile hike, just to get a feel for them. Then, out of nowhere, my daughter wants me to give them a try. I listen to her and slip my thumb in the proper hole, adjust the velcro secure around the rest of my hand. Bend my elbows just so. And, in one final hike before the snows fall, my daughter and I take turns with the poles along the trail. Together. Side by side.
A lesson in hospitality
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to write a blog post, perhaps because I’ve been a little pre-occupied. Hosting a Bar Mitzvah that includes many out of town guests becomes a four-day affair. My column, teaching and profile pieces also kept me spinning these last few weeks. So instead of my rantings, I’ll offer my son’s Bar Mitzvah speech (otherwise known as a d’var Torah – words of Torah) for this post. I am thankful that he took direction from me during the writing process. After all, what are writing/blogging moms for?
Shabbat shalom,
It has been an honor reading from the torah today. Actually, I was kind of lucky
that my parasha is Vayera. Unlike other parts in the Torah that deal with leprosy, animal sacrifices, or the appropriate punishment for stealing an ox, Vayera offers a classic narrative of stories we all know: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham casting his handmaiden Hagar and their Child Ishmael into the wilderness; and finally the long-awaited birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah after they showed hospitality to three visiting angels.
If anything, there was too much to write about in my parasha. But I would like to
focus on two central themes: bargaining with Gd and the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, or hospitality. These themes were repeatedly contrasted in this morning’s reading. Let’s start
withSodom and Gomorrah.
Gd calls out to Abraham on the news that He is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. This
is one of several instances where Gd calls to Abraham, who then says: Heneini –
here I am. The inhabitants of these two cities are said to be so evil that a kind act such as hospitality to strangers is decreed a crime. The rabbis capture just how bad
the Sodomites were with this Midrash: The Sodomites refused to expend any of their
lavish wealth on strangers. In fact, Sodom provided only one bed for strangers;
if an unlucky traveler was too short to fit, he was stretched until he could;
if another was too tall, his legs were chopped off.
Even so, when informed of the news of the impending destruction, Abraham shows
courage and actually bargains with Gd: Finally, Abraham agreed with Gd about
the destruction when not even 10 good people could be found. Gd was pleased that Abraham bargained for the sake of his fellow human beings, even though Gd knew there were not enough good people to save Sodom andGomorrah.
This part of the parsha taught me that one should work very hard to try finding the
good in any instance or that one can find the good in any person.
But this d’var Torah is not about the evil in the world, it’s about people doing
good for others. The main message I learned from Vayera that I can apply
throughout my life is the mitzvah of hospitality. The Talmud states that
hospitality is such a great mitzvah that it is more important to show
hospitality than it is to attend classes of study or to greet Gd in prayer.
In one point in today’s Torah reading, we find Abraham sick and old, yet he is
still waiting in front of his tent to receive guests. In the distance, he sees three strangers
walking towards him. Suddenly, he moves into action. The text in the Torah
demonstrates how animated he became for the sake of greeting guests. He BOWS to
his guests, he RUNS into his house and SHOUTS to his wife Sarah,
“maheri shalosh s’eem kamah solet lushi, v’asi oogot.”
This translates into something along the lines of “Quick woman! We have guests, make
some cake!”
The words “run” and “quick” are repeated over and over as Abraham hurries to attend
to the strangers’ every need. He personally gets the whole family into the
catering business as they lavish their guests with an abundant feast.
This teaches me that although Abraham is weak and advanced in age, when he sees the
weary travelers, he suddenly finds energy in the mitzvah of welcoming guests
into his tent. Greeting guests to Abraham is more important than his own
comfort.
In another reference to hospitality, Lot, who is
living in the town of Sodom, is also greeted by angels. He also makes haste in preparing their meal.
However, he does not involve his family, and where Abraham serves his guests at
the doorway of his tent – in view of the public eye – Lot’s
hospitality is done secretly. Still, the Sodomites show their true nature and
look to punishingLot for his good deed.
Perhaps the reason why Abraham enjoyed having so many guests is because of the things
he learned from them.
Pirkei Avot asks: “Who is wise? He who learns from many is wise.”
As long as I can remember, my family participates in a chavurah every other Friday
night for Erev Shabbat. Everyone in the chavurah takes turn hosting the other
families, and we all pitch in bringing different parts of the meal. When it is
my family’s turn to host, for us kids, it’s not easy. It’s the end of a long
school week and we are tired. But, we are expected to help get the house ready
for our guests. There’s no time to sit around and watch “That 70’s Show.” We
have to rid the kitchen of any papers or any evidence that three busy children
live in the house. After sterilizing the kitchen, we have to find white
tablecloths, sort the silverware, and set up the glasses for Kiddush. But after
our guests arrive, the beautiful singing of Kabbalat Shabbat, plus the usual
ice cream for dessert makes all that work totally worth it.
Inviting guests into your home makes them feel special and more connected to the
community. In turn, perhaps the hospitality they were shown will inspire them
to extend hospitality to someone else.
Sometimes, guests can be close friends and family. Other times, guests can be complete
strangers.
I’ve learned a lot about Israelis by having teachers from Modi’in stay with us. This past Sukkot, we
opened our sukkah not only to our guest Inbar, but the other teachers who were
visiting plus their hosts. The house was full of energy and about 30 people had
a chance to eat in our Sukkah before the rain started.
Another form of hospitality is letting someone into a group. A good example of this is when you
are in school and your math teacher asks you to split up into groups of two to
work on a project. Kids, don’t wait for that fellow student that didn’t get put in a group to go through the humiliation of sitting alone in class. Go over and invite him or her into your group.
Another example of being shown hospitality by being included in a group I learned from my mitzvah
project. Over the past few months, I helped train dogs for Guiding Eyes for the Blind. The tricky thing is, I don’t have a dog.
YET!
But one puppy raiser named
Becky showed me hospitality by letting me “borrow” her dog Ben during the
class. If it wasn’t for her, I would not have gotten anything out of my mitzvah
project. She and Ben wouldn’t have progressed at a more rapid pace if I wasn’t tagging
along saying things like like “how do you hold the leash?” or “Ooops, I dropped
all the treats on the floor again.”
Guiding Eyes is an all-volunteer run foundation for people who take dogs into their homes, train
them and prepare the dogs for one day serving as a companion to a blind or
disabled person. It has been very inspiring to see how much Ben has improved in paying attention in the weeks I have worked with him.
Now that I am a Bar Mitzvah, I am honored that the entire Jewish
community is showing hospitality to me, welcoming me in as a fully participating Jewish adult. Now, if I’m home, or in Hebrew school one afternoon and there is no minyan for mincha/ma’ariv, I can be called upon to help. This will really make me feel important and part of the community.
Vayera concludes with the Akedah, the binding of Isaac. It’s hard to argue that Abraham was being
very hospitable when he obeyed Gd’s command and brought his son Isaac to Mount
Moriah to be sacrificed.
I find that strange, this is a man who bargains and with Gd to save two cities full of strangers who
are really bad people but doesn’t open his mouth in defense of his son.
I think about my own life, and situations that might happen that might somehow
relate to this, for instance: if my father ever asks me to hike up a mountain
for no apparent reason, I might buy it, but that will change when I notice a saddled donkey in the driveway.
Yes, the Beatles are Immortal
In my crazy rushed day, my son added to the craziness by declaring that, yet again, his glasses were in desperate need of repair.
I didn’t get my workout in. I had a little over an hour before my Hebrew school class.
I was really stressed.
But my son’s nose, without the proper padding that had fallen off his glasses, was really scratched. So, I said I would take him to the Twelve Corners Optician only if we ran there. So we did. We ran because I knew that picking out another pair of glasses was going to take much more time than I had, and time was running short.
We were making good time, until we arrived at 12 Corners Plaza. A group of high school boys were slowly walking in front of us. Slowly, as if they had nowhere else in the world to be. And at 16 or 17, that’s the way one should look upon an after-school afternoon.
I started getting annoyed that they were in my way, until I heard one starting to sing.
This kid, born decades after the British Invasion, born two generations after the Beatles first landed at JFK International airport, was singing a Beatles tune. He wasn’t rapping or singing some horrid contemporary pop tune, but a song that was older than he and would outlast anything on the radio now.
Instantly I was calmed. And I couldn’t help but harmonize walking behind him, until his friends told him that he could NOT sing in the pizzeria.
Can 9/11 ever be just another day? And what will I tell my students?
Making the past relevant: students at a Jewish summer camp learning about one sad event, the destruction of the Holy Temple, through the tragedy of 9/11
What a challenging day to make a first impression. On the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, right around the time when the towers crumbled, I will be standing before my class of newly minted seventh graders. I will have to save face and cheerfully smile at my new students and welcome them to a new year of Jewish learning.
All the while, I know at this time I would usually be crying. All the while, I know, in truth, my students would rather be sleeping in on a Sunday morning. I’m wondering if any other Jewish educators of middle school aged children and older are feeling the way I do; about how to get through this first day.
Let’s hope I don’t lose it and get all teary-eyed in those first introductory moments about an event that happened when my new students were barely out of diapers. After all, ten years to a 13-year-old is a very long time.
I can hear the conversation in the Hebrew School carpool ride home tomorrow: “…..my new teacher, like, cried on the first day. Ewww.”
For better or worse, time does go on and obligations do not stop just because of a date. Over the years, the date of 9/11 shifted around the days of the week. There have been weddings and homecomings, meetings and business trips. Sometimes, the anniversary falls in the middle of the week. Sometimes it happens on a Tuesday, the very day of the attacks.
What do I usually do between 8:45 and 9:00 a.m. on the anniversary of 9/11? I’m usually alone. Everyone else in the family has left for school and work. I feel as I should watch the real-time replay of those horrible moments, as CNN plays it every year. Sometimes, I watch it. Most years, I hide in my laundry room in the basement and have a good cry. Then I get on with my day.
What do I usually do the first day of a new school year with my new kids? I go over expectations. Together, we make a list of class rules. I review classroom procedures and what we will be learning. Also, we have some ice breaker games to get acquainted.
Can we ignore the events of a decade ago and go on with business as usual? Talking about something as painful as 9/11 on our very first day will be a very difficult thing to do, but just as difficult to ignore. I don’t think crying in front of them, or showing the slightest tear will be an option. Not while we are still strangers.
It’s not that difficult subjects don’t arise in Hebrew school. In fact, it’s these really sensitive topics that have motivated my past students. They really open up and we have amazing conversations. (That’s what I love about the seventh grade, they never cease to surprise you on what they can handle.)
Kids in the seventh grade are ready to not to be kids anymore. After all, it’s the year of their B’nei Mitzvah, their coming of age. They want to talk and they told me last year that sheltering them does them a disservice anyway.
I remember last year, sitting on the floor with my seventh graders, discussing the Holocaust with them and how the lessons they learned from the Shoah still mean something to them today. But that discussion happened on one of the last days of school, not the first.
So, come Sunday, I’ll stick to my plan. Unless the plan needs to change. In the Talmud, the rabbis instruct to “go with the way a child wants to learn.”
So, if the topic comes up, I’ll share. I’ll tell them that a decade ago, I was in the middle of filling out my own Rosh Hashanah cards, wishing friends and family a happy New Year when the planes hit. I’ll tell them that I wrestled with the choice of sending those cards out at all, but in the end I did. Because that Rosh Hashanah, praying for the New Year seemed more important than ever before.
So if I have to scrap my whole lesson so we can gather on the floor, open up and talk about how to approach the madness and the sadness of this day, so be it.
Then, perhaps the next week, they will derive some meaning during Tefilot, or prayers.
They really will thank G-d for sustaining them and giving them the energy for waking to a new day.
They really will thank G-d for making them free and not a slave.
They really thank G-d for strenghening us with courage.
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Stacy Gittleman 