• culture

• on the agenda

The religious establishment is making us tired of Judaism.

Our children's teachers can still save the day

The establishment made the observance of halakhah the main point and distanced most of the Israeli public from Judaism.

The secularists feel alienated from it because it is perceived as outdated and irrelevant.

Only if our children learn the Bible from teachers who do not form a conduit for material transfer - will they stop yawning in class | A special column by the author Yochi Brandes

Tags

• Yochi Brands

Yochi Brands

Friday, 26 March 2021, 00:01

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments

• 2021 Election Broadcast, News 13, Tamar Ish-Shalom, Audi ...

• "Waffles + Mochi", Michelle Obama

• Justice League

• Lapid to Netanyahu: Show up for a confrontation live, the studios ...

• Gal, Big Brother

• An excerpt from the series "Naps" starring Louis Nofi

• Trip Trip

• Zehava Ben in the "Big Brother" final

• Bull in the middle, Gili Itzkovich

• Trailer for the musical "Bullets Over Broadway" by Gesher Theater

• Joey's dress break in "Friends"

In the video: Passover 1969 - the first Seder night in the State of Israel (Photo: State Archives)

This week I spoke with two principals of a well-known organization that has been working for years to deepen Jewish identity in public schools.

Behind the seemingly dull words "deepening" and "identity" are active people who produce fascinating and attractive learning materials in Judaism.

But the efforts and talents so far have yielded poor results.

Our students, as is well known, continue to yawn in Bible and Israeli heritage classes and do not understand why they are forced to learn archaic and useless things. In

desperation that the organization's directors decided to meet with artists and artists whose subject is close to their hearts and ask them the million dollar question Develop to make Bible and Judaism lessons an appealing experience?

The two did not come to me to hear compliments.

I therefore mustered up the courage to tell them that the invested learning materials they were working to produce were not the solution but the problem.

Since I used to compile quite a few learning materials myself, I know how it was done.

Expert committees sit in the Ministry of Education and decide what they will learn, how they will learn and when.

This is called "curriculum."

The writers and developers of the learning materials are subordinate to them and create books and booklets, games and sessions, advanced training and tutorials based on them.

And all this good is given to teachers.

The teacher is the pipe.

Choose him, bring him, create him.

He receives baked learning materials and is required to recite them convincingly.

And then we're still amazed that our students die of boredom?

More on Walla!

The elite despised us because we were women and writers.

She's still trying, but the revolution is here

To the full article

"The teacher is not a pipe. He is a man."

Yochi Brands (Photo: Iris Nesher)

If I get excited - my students will get excited too

Long before Freud and modern psychology, the heads of storks stood up and said that every person has his own special soul root.

These spirit giants realized, in the pre-individualism era, that it was forbidden and unthinkable to erase the uniqueness of the individual.

Not in the community, not in the family, and especially not in Talmud Torah.

The teacher is not a pipe.

He is a man.

Every teacher has other interests.

One loves art.

Shani loves geography.

Third loves psychology.

Wednesday loves literature.

Thursday loves language.

Friday loves hiking.

I say "trips" and I remember how I felt as a young teacher when a veteran teacher told me with unquestionable confidence: The Bible is taught outside, not in the classroom. The War of David and Goliath are taught in the Valley of the Gods. .The parable of the Hersh sheep is taught in the Jezreel Valley.

How it scared me. I knew I was bad at geography. Confused between north and south. I do not know how to navigate. How can I take the students into the field? This.

What excites me are the words, the stories, the complements, the poetry, the mental intricacies of the heroes.

It was a long time before I dared to say to myself that I can be a good Bible teacher in the classroom as well. Especially in the classroom! That I do not have to go out. That if I get excited - my students will get excited too. Who is convinced that everyone should teach like him.

"To be enthusiastic, you have to teach what suits me."

Class in Israel (Photo: Shlomi Gabay)

Seder night is allowed to change

Our Judaism is alive, vibrant, multifaceted and dynamic.

Those who see it as only a "Shulchan Aruch" (a canonical collection of laws from the sixteenth century), are invited to study and teach to their heart's content all its rulings and grammar.

But halakhah is only one component.

We have been blessed with a culture deep from the sea and wide from the earth.

It has thought and poetry, literature and morals, customs, rituals, tradition, and countless other areas.

The religious establishment today makes the observance of halakhah the main thing and distances most of the Israeli public from Judaism.

The secular, and to a lesser extent the traditional ones, feel alienated from it.

It is ancient.

It's outdated.

It is irrelevant.

But since life in the State of Israel is conducted according to the calendar and the cycle of Jewish life, complete disengagement is not possible.

So we all celebrate Seder night with the grandparents and uncles, devour Kneidlech and Harima until it explodes, and break our teeth with "Enough ate abhatana" and with "Can a new pre-Talmud say."

But Seder night allows for choice.

In our family, for example, a different facilitator is appointed each year, who chooses the topic we will talk about around the texts of the Haggadah.

Two years ago, my son, a permanent officer, chose the issue of harming innocent people during a battle.

Three years ago, my daughter, who studied at a pre-military preparatory school in south Tel Aviv, chose the subject of the treatment of foreign workers.

We discuss, converse, argue.

And do not necessarily agree.

The foods are the same foods.

The Haggadah is the same Haggadah.

But every Seder night is a different experience.

This is what suits my family.

Other families are suited to other things.

And do not have to celebrate every year in the same format.

If you want, it's a spin, but you can change it.

Yes, change is allowed.

Life is dynamic.

What suited us in the past does not necessarily suit us now.

When my children were small of course our seder negative included games and not discussions.

Rabbi Yehoshua, one of our greatest sages (who is also mentioned in the Haggadah), says in Pirkei Avot: "And the letter of the letter of God is freedom on the tablets - do not read freedom but freedom" The

word freedom ).

His conclusion is already self-evident: "You have no free son but one who deals with Talmud Torah."

And in a paraphrase it is almost obvious in his words: You have no Talmud Torah but one who studies as a free man.

Torah is studied and taught out of freedom.

Only out of freedom.

Yochi Brandes published her eleventh book "When God Was Young" about a month ago, published by Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir

• Share on Facebook

• Share on WhatsApp

• Share on general

• Share on general

• Share on Twitter

• Share on Email

0 comments