“Awake, you sleepers from your sleep. Arouse you slumberers from your slumber and ponder your deeds; remember your Creator and return to the right path. Look well to your souls and consider your deeds; turn away from your wrong ways and improper thoughts.” We discussed what this quotation from Rambam - Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon (a/k/a Maimonides) might mean for a bit. Then I asked the students to listen carefully to certain sounds played from my computer, to see if they could figure out what the sounds had to do with the quotation.
All the students recognized the sound of the shofar immediately. We determined that the shofar, according to Rambam, is an alarm clock which we set each year to "wake" us from a deep sleep (forgetting to "do the right thing"). I then explained that each sound that we make on the shofar has a meaning and purpose - originally, one of the uses of this ancient instrument was to sound an alarm in times of danger. The word "shofar" itself is built from the Hebrew root letters 'shin-fey-resh.' All the words built from this root must have something to do with "improvement." The names of the three sounds we make with the shofar, tell us what needs to be improved: t'roo'a (9 staccato notes) comes from the root letters 'tav-resh-ayeen' and means "alarm." We are being warned that there is a dangerous situation afoot. Sh'vareem (3 short notes) is built from the root letters 'shin-vet-resh,' and means "broken." Something is broken. The third sound's name, 'tekee'a' is built from the root letters "tav-koof-ayeen" and is related to the word "teekoon" meaning "repair."
Alarm-something is broken-repair. The shofar's sounds are "waking us up," reminding us that we are here to be God's partners in doing our best each day to "balance on the timeline" - to do our best to make the world a just (fair) place to live. To achieve this goal, we are asked by Talmudic era rabbis to follow the commandments and do good deeds for ourselves and fellow human beings, for the environment, for all of Creation, in order to create a just universe. Once every part of Creation is in balance, they taught, time will end and we will enter the Messianic Age, or Absolute Time as they termed it. Time's purpose will have been served, and time will disappear to allow us to exist in the dimension of Absolute Time, in which God exists.
From this point on, the students will see me every now and then "balancing" myself on the timeline, as we discuss how and why the different edot (Jewish Diaspora communities) never gave up on maintaining a strong Jewish identity no matter what their circumstances.
Once we had established that we are expected to maintain our balance by following the commandments and doing good deeds, I opened up a discussion about what happens if you don't do so. What, I asked, happens, if we "lose our balance, and fall off the timeline?" At this point, I introduced the Hebrew word/concept of "t'shoova," which is usually translated as "repentence." Literally, the word means "return." If we lose our balance, and realize we are falling off, we have a chance to "turn around", to get back on the timeline. How do we "do t'shoova" - how do we return? To help answer this question, I introduced the students to 4 case studies of people who had, indeed, "fallen off." At the end of each case, I asked, "do you think this person has found his/her way back to the timeline? From the case studies, the students determined there were 4 steps that had to be taken to "do t'shoova":
1. Realize you've lost your balance - that you've done something wrong.
2. Ask forgiveness from yourself and from the person/people you've hurt.
3. If possible, correct the specific situation that you "lost your footing" over.
4. Make a plan to avoid the same situation, or how to react if the situation should arise again.
Once we established these 4 steps, I informed the students that if a situation arises in our classroom where someone has "lost their balance" and won't respond to two warnings that I'll give them, I'll ask them to write a "t'shoova essay." Very simply, the student will be asked to go home and think carefully about why they were assigned the essay, then write a sentence or two for each of the 4 steps. This "essay" will be his/her ticket back into the next session of our classroom. I'll keep the "essay," and if the situation arises again, I'll ask the student to re-visit the 4th step, and find a solution that will work. I want each student to take responsibility for his/her own actions, and to become aware when those actions can sometimes be disruptive to others around them.
During our HTM (Hebrew Through Movement) session, I introduced the term "leet'ko'a shofar" (blow a shofar), and we had fun with the shofar itself and with trying to blow the three different sounds we listened to earlier in the session.
Here are the sounds of the shofar that we listened to in class today. Just one week from this evening, we'll be greeting the new year - Rosh Ha'shana - as a community with those sounds. Let me take this opportunity to wish you all "Shana tova u'm'tooka" - a good and sweet year, 5777. A year of good health and success at balancing on the timeline! "L'shana tova teekateivoo" - "May you be written for a good year."
No comments:
Post a Comment