A Retrospective on Our Fellowship Through the Lens of Torah Godly Play

THROUGH THE LENS OF TORAH GODLY PLAY

Imagine a piece of brown fabric on a carpeted floor with 20 pounds of sand forming a mound in the center. Our colleague Rabbi Dr. Michael Shire is sitting opposite our group of fellows on the other side of this fabric, gazing down at the sand. In a calm, slow, quiet voice, he begins to tell you about the sand as he runs his fingers thorough it, moving and molding it:

“This is the desert. It’s not all of the desert, it’s just a part of the desert.  We need the desert to tell our story today.“

“The desert is an amazing and interesting place; it can be dangerous but also great things can happen there.”

“When the wind blows, it changes the shape of the desert. People can get lost in the desert and may want help to find their way.”

“The desert can be a dangerous place. People don’t go out into the desert unless they have to. But the desert is also an open clear place without distraction and great things can happen in the desert.“

We the fellows at the Fellowship in Educating for Applied Jewish Wisdom first saw this piece of the desert within the context of a much larger desert, at a retreat center in Phoenix, Arizona in January 2018. In the warm desert, away from the myriad distractions of our busy lives, we were presented with the potential for amazing things to happen.

We gathered then as a group of strangers. We met in a room with comfortable oversized chairs and couches. We began by asking questions. One of the fellows, Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann, posed a question that continues to haunt me, “Are we just art-fully rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic?” We were 11 fellows of different ages, from different parts of the country, different personal practices, serving different populations and functioning under different mission statements. What did each of us uniquely bring to the table, or deck, to extend the metaphor?

We discussed philosophy, learned in havruta (partner study), and shared our crafts. We pursued the question, “What is the ultimate purpose of Jewish education?” “Thriving” or “flourishing” seemed to evolve as that goal as we loosely compared our practice to “Soul Cycle.”

Another fellow, Beth Huppin, taught a text about tables: “It has become the custom in some places for a number of people to be buried in coffins which were made from the tables upon which they studied, or upon which they fed the poor, or upon which they worked faithfully at their trade.” (Kav HaYashar, Rabbi Tzvi Hirsch Kaidanover)

“Good-hearted people who fed the poor at their tables should have a coffin made from that table, as it is written: “And your righteousness shall go before you.”” (Isaiah 58: 8; Kitzur Shulchan Aruch, 1874)

We wondered at length about the meaning of these texts for us as Jewish educators whose lives are devoted to teaching our Torah at our tables, (or possibly on the deck of the Titanic).

A third fellow, Dr. Jane Shapiro, began a text study by using walnuts to engage our minds and our senses. Then she presented us with the text:

“When Israel was in Egypt, awareness was in exile; the shell which preceded the fruit, served to cover it. This is the hard shell of the nut spoken of in the Song of Songs “I went down to the garden of walnuts” (6:11), referring to the exile in Egypt. The nut has a hard outer shell and several finer membranes inside it, hiding the meat within. The hard outer shell was broken in Egypt so that we can see what is inside. The thin membranes are still there, until our messiah comes (speedily in our day!).Then inwardness will be revealed completely.” (Me’Or Eynaim on Parashat Va’era)

As Jewish educators, how do we nurture and strengthen those fine membranes?

After our time in Phoenix, we continued with virtual meetings in webinars taught by scholars and rabbis, followed by havruta sessions. Then in June 2018, we met again, in Chicago. This time, Michael did not bring sand, but rather a large circular piece of black felt, six small chalkboards, and six large wooden letters: S, P, I, R, I, and T. He had composed a new Torah Godly Play story, “Spirit” about the practice of Torah Godly Play and he used these elements to tell that story. While the chalkboards and letters did not mesmerize as the sand did, the model, with six points that became a Jewish star, promoted deep thinking and a different kind of wondering. Torah Godly Play is about sacred Space, Play (the work of childhood), the Imagination of the child, the child’s many Relationships, the child’s Inner life and the sacred Texts of our tradition. We then asked ourselves, could we envision a model for Jewish education with a similar six-pointed star?

The Torah Godly Play star actually had two sets of three points: one set (Play, Space, and Text) represented the approach and the other three (Imagination, Relationships, and Inner Life) represented the dispositions of the learner. Michael explained, “Torah Godly Play uses the features of a pedagogical practice to cultivate dispositions of heart and mind able to draw upon sources of Jewish language and story in order to form and deepen the spiritual lives from the very youngest to those ever open to spiritual awakening.”

Thus, our group of fellows began to wonder, could this be a model for what we all aspire to do? The Torah Godly Play model challenged us to create something that represented the “what” that we hope we do. It developed into a new set of six inter-related points that could also be a Jewish star:

• Cultivating dispositions,
• Being in relationship,
• Attuning to the world,
• Presencing the sacred,
• Practicing Jewish, and
• Authoring the self

For me, each session throughout this fellowship experience seemed to be highlighted with “I wonder” questions. While this journey has served to concretize my understanding of and investment in the Torah Godly Play philosophy and methodology, it has also stretched my thinking. In fact, within our group of fellows, we became a circle of critical friends refining our frameworks for questioning, clarifying, understanding, and responding.

As always, I would return to Torah Godly Play. After each Torah Godly Play story is told, those who engaged in the story are invited to wonder. The Torah Godly Play storyteller asks:

• I wonder which part of the story did you like the best?
• I wonder which part of the story is the most important?
• I wonder which part of the story was about you or where were you in the story?
• I wonder what part of the story could we leave out and still have all the story that we need?

As I consider our new inter-connected six-pointed star, or jewel, as some have begun to refer to it, I wonder, which point do I like the best? I wonder which point is the most important? I wonder where I might be in the star or which part of the star could be about me? Finally, I wonder if we could leave out any point on this star and still have all the points that we need?

I wonder where this will lead? I wonder who will join this journey? I wonder how might Jewish education provide opportunities for thriving and flourishing? I wonder which points on the star are essential for flourishing? I wonder where do we go from here?

 

Gretchen Marks Brandt serves as a Torah Godly Play instructor in the Shoolman Graduate School of Jewish Education, Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts. She is also associate head of school for education at MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, Massachusetts.