Rabbi Beth D. Davidson
“This year will mark a new moment in the education of the youth of Manchester and surrounding communities, as together Temple Adath Yeshurun and Temple Israel are creating the Jewish Learning Collective of Manchester, a joint religious school program. School will continue to meet on Sunday mornings, 3 Sundays at TAY, one Sunday at TI, and will cover the traditional academic classes and CHUGIM, hands-on experiential learning. By creating this new program, we can provide even better educations for our kids, and enable them to meet the other Jewish kids in town. I am excited that this new school will help us educate our children, as well as enlarge their Jewish community.”
When you look at our history, we Jews have never been solitary people. We build, and thrive, in community. It is hard to be a Jew in a vacuum because so much of what makes us who we are is rooted in the communal --- our synagogues, our houses of study, and our other institutions. Each of us balances our individual relationship with God with our relationship with our community, and the people in our lives, and I hope that in these challenging times, this balancing act can give us some security and hope.
One of the first things that Jewish communities were expected to create was an educational system, a way in which to educate the next generation. By the time of the Talmud, the rabbis taught that a father was required to circumcise his son(s), teach him Torah, teach him a trade, marry him off, and how to swim. Swimming may seem out of place, but in a time when floods were prevalent, swimming was considered crucial (JT Kiddushin 1:7:2) Each of these building blocks was a requirement for what a child needed to know in order to become an adult. And yes, sadly, the insistence on teaching Torah was for the boys, not the girls, though through much of Jewish history Jewish women did have some level of literacy. And so the Talmud requires that each community set up a school, with professional teachers.
But our insistence on education is even older than the 6th century CE. Each time we worship together, we remind ourselves of this value when we read the V’Ahavta together “And you shall teach them (the words of Torah) diligently to your children.” The Book of Deuteronomy wasn’t created in a time when there was a school system, nor was it likely that most people were literate, but education can take place in many ways. We are told that in fact the people gathered to listen to the Torah each and every week, a tradition we continue to this day.
Over the centuries, when being Jewish came with many disabilities --- not being able to own land or being allowed to enter certain professions for example --- and in times when Jewish communities could be expelled at the whim of the local ruler, education was something that we could, and did, take with us wherever we went. We put our energy into study, creating books and a culture that values education, and that continues to shape us today.
This year will mark a new moment in the education of the youth of Manchester and surrounding communities, as together Temple Adath Yeshurun and Temple Israel are creating the Jewish Learning Collective of Manchester, a joint religious school program. School will continue to meet on Sunday mornings, 3 Sundays at TAY, one Sunday at TI, and will cover the traditional academic classes and CHUGIM, hands-on experiential learning. By creating this new program, we can provide even better educations for our kids, and enable them to meet the other Jewish kids in town. I am excited that this new school will help us educate our children, as well as enlarge their Jewish community.
If you are interested in sending your children to a creative and communal religious school program, one that teaches the best of what Liberal Judaism can offer, please feel free to contact Stacy Garnick, our Education Director (eddirectortay@gmail.com). You need not be a member of Temple Adath Yeshurun, or Temple Israel in order to put your student(s) in our joint school in the younger grades. We are open to all, as we work to create the best community school possible.
Rabbi Beth D. Davidson