Susan and Shari will utilize Jewish texts and resources from the Ayeka Association on “Becoming a Soulful Parent” and “The Blessing of B-” by parenting expert Wendy Mogel, PhD. Together, we will explore questions such as “Who am I as a parent?” and “What makes me uniquely able to raise my child?” as opposed to the questions we more commonly ask, such as “Am I doing this right?” “Will my child succeed?” “What more should I do?”

The class runs for 6 weeks on Tuesdays from 5:15 – 6:45 pm starting on September 8. We are hoping to hold the first class in-person and outdoors at the JCC following all of the Boulder JCC’s Health and Safety Protocols. The remaining classes will be held virtually.

To register for this program, please click here. The cost is $60 per person for the six week session. For more information or for financial assistance, please email Shari Blake Schnee at Shari.BlakeSchnee@boulderjcc.org.

The “Becoming A Soulful Parent” course was designed by Dasee Berkowitz from the Ayeka Association.

“This class has provided perhaps one of the most empowering perspectives on parenting than any I have experienced before. Finally there is a parenting class that is not about the “right way” to parent and how to do it correctly. This one is about understanding our own parenting choices. We looked at and considered the circumstances, contexts and values that come together to influence how we parent our own children. Of course none of what we do as parents is perfect; it never is. And parenting is an ever-evolving practice. But with this class, we take the space and time to more fully appreciate the thoughtfulness and purpose we put into our parenting styles and choices. With my completion of this six week program I feel more confident and resolute in my capabilities to parent my children, even as I continue to try to do it better from moment to moment.” – Previous Boulder JCC participant

It’s the nurturant energy of those in-person connections that root us, enabling the unspoken conversations to unfold. We read in Mishlei (27:19) 

“כַּ֭מַּיִם הַפָּנִ֣ים לַפָּנִ֑ים כֵּ֤ן לֵֽב־הָ֝אָדָ֗ם לָאָדָֽם” 

“Just as face is to face in water, so too is the heart of one man to another.” 

Perhaps, King Solomon whispers, when one is close enough to the water to be reflected back, when one is privileged to truly see and be seen by another, when the relationship is deep enough to embody and give back that which I/they/we hold within, our hearts hold that synchronicity.  I yearn for the moment when the health and nurturant capacity of relationships become our most valued cultural currency.

In the Book of Ruth, read every Shavuot, the book’s namesake loses everything. Her former life is no longer, her world rocked by famine. Facing the same circumstances, her sister-in-law Orpah turns back towards her family of origin. Ruth, however, does something quite beautiful when faced with her new reality. Rather than blanketing herself in safety or losing herself in the depth of her losses, Ruth chooses to cling to another. She pivots, but not towards solitude. She turns towards relationship and leans into the depth of her love for Naomi. As Ruth moves forward into an unexpected and unpredictable future, she chooses the opposite of social distancing. And with that choice, she binds her destiny to Naomi’s. “For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Since mid-March, Ayeka has pivoted online as schools closed their doors and in-person seminars and gatherings became impossible. Ayeka transformed its flagship Soulful Spiritual Development Program for Jewish Day Schools, funded by the Jim Joseph Foundation, to be a source of professional and emotional support for our educators. That Ayeka’s programming has been favorably received is evidenced by the unanimous decision by the schools to continue as members of the cohort for the 2020-2021 academic year, despite the uncertainty created by the COVID 19 pandemic. 

In addition, Ayeka has produced a highly successful series of online webinars, “Moving Soulfully Through Difficult Times” targeted to educators, parents, and the online community, particularly in North America and Israel. Ayeka has also reached out to its partners to provide them with responsive programs and is also actively pursuing new partnerships to expand its ‘Becoming a Soulful Parent’ programs across North America, during this challenging period.

Aryeh Ben David, Ayeka’s founder and Director stated, “For the past two years, Michal successfully directed Ayeka’s team of educators in our efforts to introduce our spiritual development programs across Jewish Day Schools in North America. She worked closely with numerous schools as well as Ayeka’s funders, including the Jim Joseph Foundation and the Avi Chai, Kohelet and Mayberg foundations. On behalf of our entire organization, we extend our thanks and appreciation to Michal for her wisdom, guidance, and leadership, and wish her only the best and success in her future endeavors.” 

I was surprised by his comment.

He wants COVID-19 to end so that suffering will end.

We all do.

We want an end to daily news reports of the death toll that continues to rise.

We want an end to the stories of suffering and loss.

We want an end to the calls from cousins in New York who are sheltering in place with a fever and have been inside for days.

We want an end to the calls to friends and siblings with all the ‘what if’ scenarios which include aging parents and a second wave resurgence months after things have gone back ‘to normal.’

He wants some things to continue too.

Click here to read more.

       Even before recent changes in modern sensibilities around parenting, Jews have been taken aback by the seemingly harsh response of the Haggadah to the Wicked Child — its advice is to “blunt his teeth” or “set his teeth on edge” and tell him that if he had been in Egypt he would not have been redeemed. Many sensitive and creative interpretations of this passage have been offered, but first of all let’s ask, what does the Haggadah even mean when it says “set his teeth on edge”? The language is actually borrowed from an ancient folk saying recorded in the prophets (Jeremiah 31:29, Ezekiel 18:2): “The parents have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth have been set on edge.” Having your teeth “set on edge,” then, is that wretched pang in your mouth when you pop what looks like a sweet grape into your mouth and instead you get a sour one. What’s unusual is that, in this case, it happens to you because your parents ate the sour grape. The prophets promise that in the future redemption this won’t happen anymore: parents will stop passing on their negative experiences to their children.

The wicked children at Seder tables across the world (or inside of us!) are acting wickedly because someone in the previous generation has passed on some negative experience of their own. They don’t want to participate in the Seder because they are reacting to something in the way the elder generation raised them or taught them.

In the Hagaddah’s model, the elder generation reacts to that, shaming them and excluding them, and they are left unredeemed. The Haggadah’s response to the Wicked Child asks us to take a reckoning of our own “sour grape” experiences and transform them from something that sets the Child’s teeth on edge into something redemptive. Here’s one way we might go about doing that:

Ask yourself: 

1. Can you think of an experience you had growing up Jewish that you still carry with you, that may be negatively impacting the way you live today and/or relate to others?
2. How can you transform this past experience into an opportunity for learning and growth? 
3. Name one concrete, actionable step you can take to redeem this experience and bring it into your life in a positive way, for your own sake and the sake of those around you.

Chag Kasher Samayach V’Bari

Click here to receive your copy today. Wishing you a joyous and meaningful journey!

Schools are determined to cover all of the regular curriculum. Organizations are scrambling to provide online content and promising to continue business as usual. Meanwhile people are breaking down, not because of anything actually happening but from their fear of what might be to come. 

We are so busy clinging to the past or imagining a dreaded future that we are failing to embrace the present–A crazy, wonderful, frightening situation unlike anything the world has ever known. But only if we are willing to lean into this experience, to embrace rather than resist it, can we learn the lessons and receive the gifts that this moment has to offer. 

I don’t want to look back on this time—and we will all look back on this time for the rest of our lives—and feel that somehow I squandered it. I want to savor and enjoy this time with my family, to take cheer and inspiration from the crocus that is bravely blooming in my yard. The fact that next week or next month might bring grief doesn’t make this impulse naive, it makes the opportunity we have right now more precious. 

So why aren’t we doing it? I have a few thoughts, none of them easy.  First, of course, is that this moment is fear-laden and fear is a feeling we would rather avoid. Better to stick our heads in the sand and speak into a microphone than lift our gaze and feel the churning in our stomach. But there’s more at play to stop us from playing, and perhaps this is an opportunity to ask ourselves a few hard questions. For instance, is there a way in which we have become addicted to our busyness? For many of us, chronic busyness is a place to hide, and we don’t know what to do without it.

Second, do we need to shift our thinking about time at home and how it matters? Our culture devalues the home in favor of the public sphere, and the workplace in particular. Years ago, when I first decided to leave my dream job to raise my dream children, someone to whom I was introduced said to me, “And you do nothing, right?”  We need to affirm the value of time spent with family. It is NOT doing nothing. Lastly, and this is the hardest one for me right now, has our family forgotten how to spend time together? Now that my kids are grown and their interests diverge, do I know how to bring everyone together for shared and meaningful time? Maybe not, and that’s hard to admit. But let’s not shy away from the challenge, let’s take the gift this opportunity provides and explore what is possible.

So let’s calendar a plan. Shall we say Tuesday, March 23  at 2:00 P.M. EDT? I invite you to join me, not on Zoom, but by being in the room. 

We need to model optimism, hope, and love. 

We’ll leave the panic and fear to those who want to instill panic and fear. There are those who believe that people will listen to them better if they raise their voices and shriek. 

We are not shriekers. 

We embrace the mystery of living in a soulful world. A world of surprise and the unfathomable.  

We need to be forces of healing. And we know that healing is not an exclusively physical domain. 

The plagues of Egypt were also for the Jews. We also needed to learn that “I am the Lord your God”. We need continual reminding of this ineffable mystery throughout our lives. 

And we do have continual reminders – in the beauty and love and kindness that we can choose to perceive, daily, in every minute, if we so choose. 

Let us be contagious viruses of optimism. Of gratitude. Witnessing the precautions taken is a sign of humanity’s love for people they will never even meet, for strangers, and the less powerful and more vulnerable. 

Pluck you soul string. You don’t even have to shake hands to do it.

My great-great-grandfather Haron Karkukli was struck with wanderlust the morning after his wedding. As family lore goes, he set out that very day and disappeared without a trace — and without even knowing that he and his wife had conceived on their wedding night. Haron wandered far from Amara, his Iraqi hometown. 3000 miles. 18 years. One fall day he found himself in a tiny Spanish town at the market, buying the essentials for a Sephardi Rosh Hashana seder. String beans? Check. Carrots? Check. Apples? Check. Honey? Check. The man next to him noticed — since he was buying the same items himself. I imagine Haron and the local carefully sidling up to one another, quietly: 

Jewish? 

Yes. Jews here? 

Yes! We have nine men in town. We need a tenth for the minyan this holiday. Please be our guest. 

Yes! 

Haron stayed in that Spanish village for the holiday, completing the minyan. He woke the next morning and knew:  It is for this reason, to complete this minyan, that God has brought me here. And so he returned straightaway to Amara, arriving on the very day of his daughter’s wedding. No one was mad or surprised to see him there; he was invited to sit at a place of honor as the Father of the Bride. A happy ending.

From our shared family memory:

All seems doomed. The royal decree permits the slaughter of all Jews of Shushan. Esther,  one of the many wives of the king, is Jewish but has hidden her identity. Mordechai sends Esther a message, urging her to intervene with the king:

ומִי יוֹדֵעַ–אִם-לְעֵת כָּזֹאת, הִגַּעַתְּ לַמַּלְכוּת 

Who knows if it is precisely for a moment like this that you have been brought to royalty” (Esther 4:14)

Sometimes I wish I had such a clear sign. An uncle to tell me. A megillah to refer to. A stranger in a market to invite me in. A dramatic minyan-minus-one community that depended on my presence. 

Other times I feel solidly sure that I am precisely where I should be, in my own process of becoming who I am meant to be. 

Most of the time I am trying to figure out my life’s purpose and trying to translate it into my everyday moments. Often an intimidating process.

Esther is understandably afraid. This king is erratic and could unceremoniously put her to death for even daring to approach him. But her fear does not ultimately hold her back. From where does Esther find her courage to act? In part, from leaning on her community, and in part, from daring to act boldly. She asks all the Jews of Shushan for 3 days of fasting and prayer. She also devises a clever plan to appeal to the vanity of this king. Esther does not act with certainty, but despite the uncertainty; she is ready to risk it all; she doesn’t know how the story will end. 

Perhaps as my great-great-grandfather wandered from town to town for those 18 years, he also wondered at many stops along the way: 

Why am I here, now? 

Is this my life’s purpose? 

When will I know?

Perhaps all his wandering was a necessary prelude to his wondering, which was a prelude to his witnessing his own daughter’s wedding.

Wishing us all a Purim filled with Patience and Courage-Despite-Fear as we wander and wonder onwards.

Questions for Reflection: When have you felt “called” to a purpose or action? How did you know? Did you need courage to follow through?

• What we need most in life is love.
• We feel best about ourselves when we are loving human beings.

I’m not talking about crazy wild romantic love (though that is also important) ― I’m talking about everyday love. Loving behavior expressed in words and acts of kindness, in families and communities, amongst friends and strangers. 

We are wired to be loving. When we express love, we are most in sync with our nature. Rav Kook writes that the act of loving is even more powerful than the experience of receiving love.

Though these are obvious statements about human nature, I was oblivious to them for most of my life, as a son, husband, father, and teacher. 

No one told me that life is really about being a loving person. No one told me that I should pay more attention to my capacity to love, and strive to deepen my loving throughout all of my relationships. Not in high school, university, or graduate school. Not in synagogue, yeshiva, or rabbinical school. 

The Kabbalah states that the soul is “a piece of God” (Chelek Eloka m’ma’al). What does it mean that we are “a piece of God?”

Every day we state: Hear Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 

God is oneness. And we, human beings, created in the Image of God, are also forces of oneness. 

Our soul continually pulsates this message: “Be a force of oneness, create oneness”. Acts of kindness; giving; listening generously; and, especially, love ― all create oneness. This is the voice of our soul, our spiritual DNA. Love is the primary force with the power to create oneness between individuals, in a community, and in a nation. Rav Kook writes that when one does not hear the voice of the soul, toxic stones gather around that person’s heart. We suffer pangs of despair, exaggerated anxiety, meaninglessness, loss of hope, and emptiness when we do not actualize the inner voice urging us to generate oneness and love. 

I’ve experienced all of these conditions. But no one told me that these painful feelings are actually symptoms of not listening to my heart. I wasn’t aware that my lack of loving could bring about so much anguish. 

The Judaism I was taught values commitment, knowledge, leadership, social action, and certain elite professions. In the countless sermons, Divrei Torah, and classes I sat through, no one ever mentioned ‘becoming a more loving human being’ as a goal, an aspiration, of the incredible project of Judaism. 

My rabbis were learned and articulate, and their lessons captivated and stimulated me intellectually. But ‘loving’ is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of my teachers, rabbis, or community leaders. 

Personally, when I became a teacher I loved some of my students ― even most of them. But the difficult, awkward, and irritating ones I tended to ignore at best, or hope they would drop out of my class at worst. Looking back, I now understand that those students actually needed my love much more than the others. 

How did we forget to emphasize the value of loving? How did we lose love?  

Many people tell me that love cannot be taught. It is just something people have, or don’t have. 

Many people tell me that love is something that we only learn in our family settings. 

Many people tell me that love is a Christian value, whereas we prioritize mitzvot and social action.

Many people tell me that love is unstable and unpredictable. Didn’t we learn anything from the volatile ‘60s about how destructive and narcissistic it can be when an entire society focuses just on ‘love’?!

Baloney. 

I recently met with a group of 23 rabbis and taught the approach of four leading Jewish thinkers on how to become a more loving person. The thinkers are Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, the Rambam, the Hasidic master S’fat Emet, and Rav Kook. They lay out four different approaches to developing our loving capacities: physical, intellectual, emotional, and mystical. 

We spoke at length about how we feel about ourselves when we fail to love the congregant who is difficult to love. The rabbis dejectedly admitted that in such situations, they feel disappointed; worthless; shamed; fragile; frustrated; betrayed; cowardly; defeated; humiliated; and sad. 

When I asked for strategies of how to deal with the student who is difficult to love, the rabbis at first suggested either asking the person to leave, or ignoring him or her (sound familiar?). 

Eventually, we came to the realization that this difficult person is actually a blessing in our lives. This person offers the opportunity to work on ourselves, open our hearts a bit more, and grow in our loving capacities. In our minds, we moved from avoiding and banishing this person to a sense of purpose and aspiration to self-growth. 

As educators, we have let down our students and communities by not focusing more on the soulful work of learning how to become loving. 

I think our hesitation to focus our teaching on love comes down to fear. 

 Fear that I may not be a loving person.

Fear that if love becomes a primary value in our society, then my honor and prestige as a scholar may be threatened. 

Fear that love may present a radical disruption in the ladder of security and priorities of society, elevating people who may not be as “sophisticated” while diminishing the roles of the elite. 

I am one of those who are afraid. My ego is well invested in my public role and accomplishments. 

Nevertheless, the time has come to shout from the rooftops: “Judaism is about living in the image of God. The only quality it asks of us to embody is loving ― to be a force of oneness in this world.” 

And I’m not the first to say it. 

R’ Akiva said that “Loving your neighbor” is the fundamental principle of Torah. 

Pirkei Avot asserts that the most precious human quality is having a “lev tov” (a good heart). 

Rav Dessler wrote that the primary challenge in life is to transform the ‘desire to take’ into the ‘desire to give’. 

Rav Ashlag wrote extensively on the centrality of love and giving. 

Rav Kook wrote that he could not not love:

“The whole goal of our learning is to remove the obstacles from our becoming more loving human beings.” (Orot HaKodesh IV, 389, 39)

Why are sources and ideas absent from our school curricula, synagogue sermons, and community activities? 

The Jewish world recently celebrated the conclusion of the 7-year cycle of daf yomi. Beyond the fanfare, I quietly wonder how much the acquisition of pages of content affects our behavior, our society, and most certainly our capacity to love. 

What if we had an “Ahava Yomit” project? Promoting and recognizing daily acts of love. Celebrating acts of giving, chesed, and generous loving. Courses, programs, and projects in our schools focusing on acts of love. YouTubes and workshops dedicated to daily acts of love. 

What if becoming loving people became a primary community goal, reflected in our schools and synagogues? Classes taught, role models interviewed, videos going viral?

We may consider ourselves to be kind, giving, and loving people – but we are all works-in-progress. There is always room to expand our hearts even more. 

How much would you give to become a more loving person? 

How much would you give to have your children become more loving people? 

How much would you give to have more love in your community? 

How much would you give to have the Jewish people become a more loving people?

For centuries, Judaism has exalted triumphs of the mind. 

The time has come to prioritize our unique power to create oneness, to celebrate and extoll the victories of our hearts.