Are we coming or going in Parshat BO and I am going to #ARJE18 in Seattle Jan 22-24, 2018

From BIM-BAM, a great recap of the weekly Torah Portion!

In this week's Torah portion, Bo meaning either come or go in Hebrew, we see Moses and Aaron dealing with the last 3 of the 10 plagues (locusts, darkness and the killing of the first born male child).  We know from the text that Pharaoh's heart has been hardened.  The idea of a heart being hardened has always intrigued me.  When your heart is hardened it is set in stone and no one can convince you to change your mind. Again from the text we know that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why did God hardened his heart?  Did God want Pharaoh to keep the children of Israel in Egypt?  Did God know that the children of Israel would ONLY leave Egypt if they had been spared losing their first born and the Egyptians would want them out of their midst?  This is the text of our Pesach Haggadah and it is a intriguing tale.

Another point of deliberation is the name of this Torah portion.  BO, which in modern Hebrew means to come towards.  Why would this Torah portion have a Hebrew word that means to come when the children of Israel are LEAVING Egypt.  One interpretation is that Moses, Aaron, Miriam and company were being welcomed INTO the Eretz Yisrael.  This is confusing.  Are they being welcomed?  Are they being told to leave?  All these interpretations I believe are correct.  I also think that in the day and age of intentional speech and writing we need to take care with how we talk and how we are perceived.  I can also add that we must make sure our heart is not hardened and we take time to look at everything we a clean slate/a clean heart.

This week I am GOING to the Annual Gathering of the Association of Reform Jewish Educators, ARJE, and look forward to welcoming and meeting new colleagues from all over the states.  Want to take a look at our daily schedule feel free to check it out! This is an opportunity for me and other educators to learn, experience and network about Religious school, Jewish institutions who have participants of all ages.  We can take a look at new approaches and make sure that our heart is not hardened and that we give all of the new ideas and methods we are learning a chance especially when we come home to our institutions.

As I COME back home I will be able to begin integrating and sharing what I learned in Seattle.  It is important to always keep learning and renewing yourself so that you keep on top of current trends.  I hope that you will enjoy my twitter/facebook feed as I share in real time next week what is going on in Seattle.  I always look forward to having something to say on social media and an ARJE Annual gathering gives me what to say.  Have a good week as I look forward to Beyond the Box, our ARJE gathering in Seattle.

Thank you for 25 years; I am just beginning!

Last week Lakeside Congregation honored me for 25 years as their Educational Director.  Lital was one years old when I started and both both boys, Jonathan now 23 and Ethan 19 were born during my tenure.  It was a beautiful evening and I am honored and humbled by all the accolades.  I love my work and am passionate about Jewish education at my congregation, at OSRUI and with my work in ARJE (Association of Reform Jewish Educators, formerly NATE).  

My family from left, my sister, Wendy Shanker,Arthur, Jonathan, my Dad, Jerry Michaels, Lital, me, Ethan and my mom, Marian

My children grew up at Lakeside and had to attend many t'filot, all had B'nai Mitzvah there and were confirmed as well.  A highlight of the evening was a great skit, written by my faculty, (mainly Debbie Harris) which highlighted Jewish women throughout Jewish history.  Sarah, Hannah Senesh and Emma Lazarus to name just a few. They raided my costume closet, which is almost as large as my "regular" clothes closet and Ethan was the MC and Lital and Jonathan were the women through the ages.  Jonathan was a great sport and they were all very funny.  Video to be posted later.  

Members of the Chicago Association of Reform Educators (CHARGE)

Another highlight of the evening was celebrating with many colleagues. There is over 200 years of Jewish experience in this particular group of Jewish educators and many people joined us later, sent regards and I thank all of them for being with me on this special night.  

There was also a very funny top 10 reasons to Work for Vanessa which included allusions to  tidiness of my office and surprise announcements before Religious school on Sunday mornings. My faculty work hard to make our school a community where students learn and are proud of their Jewish identity.  I could not do my job without them.  

25 years is a long time.  I usually joke that I was hired right out of high school but the truth is that I have learned much over the years.  I have deep ties in the community and love that he some of my first students now have children in my school.  Nothing speaks louder of Jewish continuity than that.  

Recently I was asked as part of a professional evaluation what I was most proud of in regards to my job.  I answered that I believe I am most proud of the relationships I have created over the years. Seeing families in the community and having the ability to ask about their children, grandchildren or going to weddings of students from our Religious school makes me feel proud and really just fantastic. 

I always encourage students to come back and check in with me.  Over the years I have written 100’s of recommendations for students and for my staff for everything including working at OSRUI to applying to Rabbinical school.  This is my real success and this is what I am most proud of that students and families come back to see me, check in with Lakeside and stay a part of the community.  I am not sure this can be measured. On to the next 25 years.  

My students are my garden!  
(Photographs by Benji Sagarin)

How do we welcome the LGBTQ Community within our community?

In Philadelphia at the most recent  ARJE.  (Formerly NATE, now the Association of Reform Educators, see my blog from last month) annual gathering in February I attended two sessions on learning  to work with the LGBTQ community.

 (Lesbian. gay,  bisexual & transgender. Q stands for questioning – someone who is questioning their sexual and/or gender orientation. Sometimes, the Q stands for “queer,” a term reclaimed by some LGBTs for political reasons.)

 I enjoyed learning with Phoenix Schneider who is the Director, LGBTQ Initiative at Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia.  I learned terms such as Cisgender which  is a word that applies to the vast majority of people, describing a person who is not transgender. If a doctor announces, “It's a girl!” in the delivery room based on the child's body and that baby grows up to identify as a woman, that person is cisgender.  Cisgender and transgender, are just a few of the terms and language we learned in our sessions. 


Currently at Lakeside we are also participating in a training initiative program with the Response Center on LGBTQ.  We are working on creating a safe space at Lakeside and we are committed to being Allies in our community.  Included in our training initiative is our clergy, educators and lay leaders.  It has been an interesting journey and I have learned quite a bit along the way; how to be a welcoming community, how to respond to and be sensitive to all types of issues.

We are meeting next week for the 3rd time to talk about action items for our congregation.  One idea I want to implement is changing our school registration forms.  It will be easy to change the gender question to have a fill in the blank then to check off  Male or Female.  I hope this will be one of many ideas in our action plan.  

 I am sure in the next 5 years we will have transgender students as well as members of our community.   

One challenging issue is to have a non gender specific bathroom in the building.  Right now we do not have a designated bathroom although Rabbi Serotta has a private bathroom and that is a short term solution.  I hope that perhaps one day we will have a family bathroom which would help all of our families young and old.

Once we have completed our action plan I am sure we will share it with the congregation.  If you have any suggestions please feel free to comment here or email me.  

I look forward to continuing to learn, adapt and help our programs and congregation to reflect the community around us.  Thanks too to Phoenix Schneider for a great session to start off this most recent journey. 

What's in a Name? What is Change? Blog Exodus #7 Tell

In February I attended the National Association of Temple Educators Annual Gathering in Philadelphia and we left it was the Association of Reform Jewish Educators.  During the 4 day conference we examined "Engaging Our Changing Jewish Community".  Our keynote speakers included:  Bruce Feiler author of Walking the Bible and Charles T. Lee, self proclaimed idea maker at Ideation and David Bryfman. All 3 of them told their story and helped us to start thinking about all types of changes, innovation and even disruptive change.

This week I was beautiful West Orange, California for ARJE leadership meetings.  We meet to plan for the upcoming year and beyond. 

Leading T'filot at ARJE leadership meetings

We discuss and  exchange ideas about where our organization is heading. We have t'filot together and I am always honored to lead t'filot with my colleagues. 

 This time we had a hard time remembering to  say our new name ARJE.  Many times in the heat of an impassioned speech NATE would just fall out.  We actually had a swear jar for every time we called our organization by it's OLD name.  That helped and we raised money but as I have said: Change is never easy.

Swear jar

Many people have asked why we changed our name from the National Association of Temple Educators to the Association for Reform Educators.  The simple answer is that National and Temple educators does not adequately describe all of our members anymore.  Our organization also celebrated their 60th Anniversary this year and in 1955 the year of our formation the name was accurate.  Now as we welcome members from many different Jewish institutions, Early Childhood, Youth directors to just name a few of our new members; Reform educators is a much more apt description.  We have members from Canada, Israel and other places not located in the United States and therefore National no longer applies as well. 
There was much thought and deliberate care put into the name process.  There was a lengthy task force which then brought the ideas for new names to a leadership meeting.  We broke into groups talked about the different names and it because apparent that one name was favored by the group.  We talked, dreamed and visioned what a new name could be and what would take us into the next 60 years.  I am always energized when I spend time with colleagues and come home with new ideas. This time I saw a great sign at the congregation that hosted us.  They had made a banner which proclaimed they had been accredited.  I can't wait to do my own sign here at Lakeside and let everyone know we have been accredited  3 times which equals  21 years out of the 25 years which I have been at Lakeside!

At Lakeside our sign will read:  Accredited for 21 Years!

I am a week late to Blog Exodus but this post does fall under 6th of Nisan Tell!  I am using it!