Archive: January 2017

Dear ShalomLearning Friends,

Now up to our fourth enduring understanding, it is no accident that our Jewish Studies program starts the secular new year off with the Jewish value of “Achrayut.”  While Achrayut translates to “responsibility,” we strive to bring this literal meaning into heartfelt actions by asking our students “What can YOU do to make the world a better place?”

This concept ties in so well to the recent American holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and the approaching Jewish holiday, Tu Bishvat.  In our curriculum, Achrayut means both standing up for injustices in the world as well as taking care of the earth. As parents of two children, my wife and I have brought this idea home by asking, “ how we can make our home a better place?”

For us, there is no time more challenging than getting the kids off to school in the morning and getting through the dinner/ bed-time rituals, so we started a morning and an evening checklist. The kids really got into it, and it adds a profound level of responsibility to share the things that need to get done together.

This journey through life is not a solo act, but indeed a chorus of harmony when we are at our best.

Here at ShalomLearning, our achrayut encourages us to constantly improve. We’re listening to your feedback and using it to set our goals for this calendar year: we’re updating our curriculum, expanding to second grade, and adding another Hebrew option.

Most importantly, we’re setting a goal to connect with more of our supporters including the parents, teachers and students.  Looking forward to, “ sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord, All the earth” (Psalms 96:1)

I fully believe that each of us has the power to make the world a better place. Whether it is in your home or fighting for social justice. We are powerful as a community. And of course, to be a true agent of change, it begins with you. I look forward to hearing your stories of Achrayut in your lives.

Please send them in and share.

Gratefully yours,

Josh

Responsibility. 

Miriam-Webster defines it as “moral, legal, or mental accountability”.  As Jews, we also need to ask: to whom are we responsible or accountable?  To ourselves, our children, our neighbors, to God?  Is it asking too much to be accountable to all at once?

In the worlds of investing, business, politics and even sometimes parenting, acting or advocating on behalf on one’s self (or one’s children) is a vital skill.  However, in order to live as fulfilled adults, we also need to be aware of the responsibilities we share toward our communities, our country, the less fortunate around us, and even our planet.  Or, as Rabbi Hillel put it several millennium ago:

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” (Pirkei Avot 1:14)

The fourth unit in the ShalomLearning curriculum is Achrayut.  The most common translations are responsibility and accountability. The root of the Hebrew word ‘achrayut’ actually means acher, ‘other’.   This might lead us to believe that the focus should be solely on others, but as Rabbi Hillel points out, our responsibilities to ourselves and our responsibilities to others are not always mutually exclusive.   The more nuanced meaning of the Hebrew word ‘achrayut’ is that we need to be aware and considerate of our responsibilities to others as we take care of the responsibilities to ourselves.  As our students are learning, this balancing act is not always easy.

The ShalomLearning curriculum was developed according to a framework called Understanding By Design (UbD) also known as backwards design, created by Jay McTigh and Grant Wiggins  A central component of that methodology is that every unit must be focused around one or more Essential Questions to generate Enduring Understandings. Here is a sample of some of the Essential Questions that are the foundation of the Achrayut units for 4^th – 6^th grades:

• For which responsibilities do I hold myself accountable?
• How do I balance my personal desires with my responsibility to others and the community?
• What can “just one person” do to make a difference?
• When should you stand back and when should you get involved?

As our students address these questions in their classroom and independent work, let’s take a look at one of our own.  As Jewish parents and educators, what are our responsibilities to our children?  (And speaking of Hebrew roots, did you know that the Hebrew word for parents, horim, comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for teacher, moreh/morah?

In fact this is even the same Hebrew root as Torah.  Just something to think about.)  Jewish tradition, through the voice of the Rabbis in the Talmud, answers this question with three specific things that parents are obliged to teach their children: the Torah, to earn a living, and how to swim. Yes, that’s right.  Our ancient sages were able to foresee the American Jewish love affair with summer camp.  And yes, according to the Talmudic experts I checked with, sending the kids to summer camp, or swimming lessons at the local JCC satisfy the obligation.

While swimming may not have been a central part of life in the ancient desert, the Rabbis included this as an example of an actual life saving skill, and to emphasize its importance alongside the cultural skills.

We are charged with providing basic survival skills, which, in the northeast, in the middle of winter, may have nothing to do with water: not getting into a car with a stranger, not drinking and driving, knowing with whom they are communicating on the internet… among others.

In fact, many commentators ask us to focus on what the Rabbis are not saying.  If I can paraphrase their language (the language of the commentators that is) and bring it up to date, the Rabbis are not telling us to stand at the edge of the water and hold our children’s hands, or keep a close watch so that they don’t get too close to the deep end.  Our obligation is to teach them to swim, on their own, so that they are not going to drown when they do eventually end up in the deep end.

Of course, thinking about all the many ways that our children can metaphorically, ‘drown’, in a modern, interconnected world can be daunting, if not downright overwhelming.  This is where the acher in achrayut comes in.  Or, to borrow the ecumenical phrase: “It takes a village.” We do not have to do this alone.  We have schools, synagogues, JCC’s, Jewish youth organizations, and our online ShalomLearning community to support us. To quote one last verse that our students are studying in this unit:

“Lo alecha hamlacha ligmor, v’lo atah ben chorin l’hivatel mimena” – “You are not expected to complete the task, but neither are you free to avoid it.” (Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot 2:21)