Welcome from the Associate Dean

I welcome you to the spring 2024 issue of Gleanings, a publication of The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. This issue, focusing on Learning with Joy, follows our previous difficult issue about Israel Education in a time of war. As I write this, we are still very much in the midst of war, and the many challenges we face here and in Israel are serious and difficult to solve. At the same time, as we learn every day from educators in the field, we need to provide our learners with the education they deserve, and we need to practice with joy and creativity. Learning with Joy involves engaging a variety of emotions such as excitement, curiosity, and imagination; it entails integrating all aspects of happiness and a readiness to act consequently; it enhances learning and improves relationships and outcomes.

For this issue, we approached experienced educators whose thoughtful and innovative initiatives inspire, educate, and support early childhood learners, school-age learners, adults, and teens. We seek to highlight their knowledge and understanding of Learning with Joy, through play, music and having fun.

We invite you to read these profiles of four educators, three of them William Davidson alumni, and the fourth a Talmud professor at JTS whose classes are among the favorite of William Davidson students. These educators think about teaching for joy and happiness as they design their lesson plans and educational activities. As we see, even when they teach difficult texts to their learners, they concern themselves with making “school” accessible and engaging.

Especially in this difficult time, the trauma of war and personal losses make it even more challenging for educators, and we all need all the support and compassion we can get. Connecting with our own sense of joy can help to relieve some of the stress we all feel. We hope you will find this issue interesting and helpful in your own practice.

We send our thoughts to the people who lost their dear ones and to the families of all who have suffered. As we write this in early February, we pray for the return of safety for the land of Israel and all who dwell there.

On a personal note, I wish you, your families, and your friends strength as we all hope for calmer and more peaceful days.

Ofra Backenroth

Associate Dean, William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education

Learning From the Rabbis to Nurture Joy

As a scholar, Dr. Sarah Wolf studies rabbinic legal literature from the perspective of how emotions are represented, often shame or anger. As assistant professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at The Jewish Theological Seminary, she imbues her classrooms with deep emotional awareness, knowing that cultivating joy contributes to an effective learning environment.

In both these roles, Wolf draws on the excitement she felt when she was first exposed to rabbinic texts as an undergraduate literature major at Yale. “My friends encouraged me to take a graduate seminar where we had ‘fun’ decoding the linguistics of Babylonian Aramaic manuscripts of classic stories from the Talmud. We didn’t talk at all about the meaning of the texts, just the linguistics, but the stories themselves captured my curiosity.” Following that intellectual and emotional experience, she entered The Rabbinical School of JTS, came to realize her heart was in academia more than the pulpit, and ultimately completed her PhD at Northwestern.

For the rabbis of the Talmud, said Wolf, emotions are generally linked to action. “The mitzvah to be happy on a holiday is not about how one feels, but what one does, like shaking a lulav. The rabbis of the Talmud were responding to times of crisis and communal change where action mattered a great deal more from a legal perspective than emotion.”

Throughout rabbinic texts, Wolf identifies human emotions alongside—and often within—the legalistic sources. She explores what she calls “the rabbinic legal imagination.” To illustrate the tension between action and emotion, Wolf cited the account in Berakhot 30b of Rabba criticizing his student Abaye for joking around while wearing tefillin.

Abaye was sitting before his teacher Rabba, and Rabba saw that he was excessively joyful. He said to Abaye: It is written: Rejoice with trembling, one’s joy should not be unrestrained. Abaye said to him: It is permissible for me because I am donning phylacteries now, and as long as they are upon me they ensure that the fear of God is upon me.

In this account, Wolf sees Abaye challenging the dichotomy that Rabba maintains between behavior and emotion. He believes that human beings can express spontaneous joy at the same time as they engage in serious tefillah. “The section just before this story introduces the idea that it can’t be expected that everyday people would emulate the supercharged prayer of Hannah or David,” said Wolf. “Here Abaye stresses the recognition that most people have everyday emotions, and these emotions can exist alongside the fulfillment of legal obligations.”

The commandment to feel a certain emotion, such as joy at a holiday or fear during prayer, may have been linked to action in rabbinic literature, but according to Wolf, in contemporary life, we believe we can actually produce deliberate emotions on demand, not necessarily through action but through intention. Wolf pointed to the practice of cultivating gratitude, instituting a deliberate mindset to shape a day-to-day emotional state. Teachers—even those in the Talmud—understood the power of intention. “We know the rabbis thought a lot about what a class looks like and how to create an atmosphere that nurtures orality and memorization,” Wolf said. Similarly, she thinks proactively about the emotional environment of her classroom.

“As teachers, we can work intentionally to help people reach particular emotional states,” she said. “Many students enter a Talmud class with anxiety—almost like what we hear about math anxiety—and that kind of stress can be an impediment to learning.” One strategy Wolf employs to combat the stress over grades is contract grading, where at the start of the semester students agree to complete a certain amount of work and attendance in order to attain the grade for which they individually contract.

Contract grading depends on trust and open communication between teacher and learner, and Wolf has found that when students take responsibility for their own achievements, the pressure of grades is reduced. “Not everyone contracts for an A,” she said. “Students appreciate the freedom to enter the semester with an honest assessment of what they expect to accomplish. JTS students are so motivated and come from so many diverse backgrounds. Contract grading creates some measure of equity and empowers them, makes them comfortable, and enables more pleasure in learning.”

In a Talmud class, Wolf has found that prioritizing hevruta learning—even in the online and asynchronous Introduction to Rabbinic Literature class she teaches for William Davidson students—can remove some of the strong emotions some students bring to a “required” class. She has also found that implementing a thematic approach to the texts she uses encourages students to connect themes to their own personal or professional life.

In the fall 2023 semester when the war in Israel raised the level of anxiety for so many, Wolf recognized that the classroom could become a “welcome reprieve,” where students could tap into the intellectual joy of unpacking a difficult sugya. “Study can be engrossing, even intoxicating,” she said, citing the rabbinic accounts of students who needed to be reminded to go home for Yom Kippur. “Our job as teachers is to create an environment where the joy of learning can stimulate the mind and feed the soul of our learners.”

Creating Joyful Connections Through Tefillah

Eliana Light pays attention when people burst out and exclaim, “Oh My God!” Sometimes it is when they are stuck in traffic, or seeing a sunset, or when a friend does something kind, or when they hear bad news. These moments are all attempts to respond to how little control we have, Light believes. “It’s an exclamation,” she said, “but it is also a prayer.”

As she states on her website, Light, who received a prestigious Pomegranate Prize from the Covenant Foundation in November 2023, envisions a joyful, vibrant, “heart-centered” Judaism that speaks to the soul and moves the spirit. She has built a career inviting people to understand and deepen the ways prayer can infuse their lives. The “OMG” exclamation is just the beginning.

A talented musician and songwriter, Light received her MA in experiential education from The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education in 2016. She has released four albums (with one more on the way) of “catchy, content-rich tunes for all ages.” Light provides meaningful music, inclusive ritual, and powerful programs for kids and families, both as artist-in-residence at Beth El Synagogue in Durham, NC, and as an “itinerant artist-in-residence” who visits synagogues, camps, and JCCs, where she teaches on tefillah, leads professional development for educators, and performs in joyful concerts.

“Head T’fillahsopher” is the title Light goes by at the Light Lab, an umbrella platform she founded for tefillah education. Light’s “t’fillahsophy” starts with the question, “What would it take for an educator to make tefillah accessible to all?” Eliana hosts the Light Lab’s popular podcast that features deep dives into liturgical texts and interviews with creative tefillah educators and practitioners. In 2022 the team at the Light Lab received an Ignition Grant from the Covenant Foundation to create a tefillah fellowship for educators in supplementary schools.

“One of our jobs as educators is to make the world better and to encourage people to feel a sense of connection with all people and with the planet,” said Light. “One of the purposes of tefillah is to help us feel.”

Light was first connected to the William Davidson School by way of an essay contest she entered as a college senior. Her winning submission about smiling in shul caught the eye of Dr. Ofra Backenroth, associate dean, who encouraged her to visit JTS. Originally from Memphis, Light graduated from Brandeis as a sociology major, and she had taught Bar and Bat Mitzvah students and was a song leader in various settings. In the summer of 2012 she attended New CAJE and first saw Jewish education as a true “field.”

When she attended the Hava Nashira songleaders training in May 2013, she “found what [she] wanted to do with the rest of my life: combine Jewish education with songleading.” Light entered the experiential education program at the William Davidson School and began fulfilling that mission as director of music education at Park Avenue Synagogue and then music educator at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, both in New York.

Light’s cohort at the William Davidson School included “curious, thoughtful, fun, talented Jewish educators.” She said, “We had a lot of fun together and pushed each other to grow.”

Light was particularly influenced by an online class she took with Dr. Steve Brown on theology and teaching about God. In the class, Light was able to explore with a more critical eye how she had been taught about God and to appreciate the “beauty and challenge of teaching God to kids.” When she submitted a song she wrote in lieu of an essay, she planted the seeds for her 2020 album, s*ngs ab-ut g?d.

“In that theology course, the final assignment was to find our own metaphor for understanding God,” Light said. “For me, the metaphor was a radio—there are waves all around, but we only hear the music when we are tuned to a particular frequency.” Her mission has been to help people tune in. “God and God language has become a core part of what I teach and do.”

The response to Light’s contributions has spanned denominations and educational settings. She was named in the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36 in 2019 and is widely recognized for her catchy, content-rich tunes and her ability to use joyful music to reach and engage children and adults, creating accessible practices for prayer and liturgy.

As might be expected of an artist, Light often speaks in metaphors. She compared her work in tefillah to running a “spiritual gym.” “When you go to the gym, your end goal is not using a specific machine but strengthening your muscles for when you leave,” she said. “Each piece of liturgy invites us to exercise muscles and then use them. We stop too often with just learning how to use the equipment.”

Literacy—knowing the words of prayers and their origins—matters a great deal, and Light also believes that tefillah holds value for those with no prior knowledge. “Jewish prayer is full of easily accessible wisdom,” she said. “I want my students to experience the work of gratitude, love, and awe rather than only the words of the prayer itself. Most kids won’t grow up to be shlichei tzibur, but I hope all will grow up to lead lives of gratitude and kindness.”

Pervasive Joy in Early Childhood and Beyond

Anna Hartman’s passion for early childhood education mirrors her own personal sense of spirituality. She has been influenced by Rabbi Ariel Burger, who believes in finding the awe and reverence and joy in life and advocates for being deeply open to experience. Thinking about the experiences of early childhood, Hartman reflects, “Young children think really deeply. They embody the dispositions many of us wish we had, such as an ability to exhibit pure joy.”

When Hartman was working on her doctorate at The William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education, Professor Jeff Kress (now JTS Provost) pushed her in a class on research methods to turn her question marks into declarative sentences. “In my career I honed an appreciation for questions and listening more than speaking,” she said. “In an early childhood classroom, we thrive when we leave space for uncertainty and respond to the uniqueness of each child.”

For her research, Hartman took the advice of her advisor, cultivated an academic voice, and used more periods. Her appreciation of the role of questioning in learning remains the core of her practice.

Now vice president of JUF education at Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Hartman was recently promoted after eight years as director of early childhood excellence. She oversees educational initiatives funded by the federation, including early childhood, congregational education, Hebrew in public schools, and the local cohort of the IsraelNow trip for eighth graders. Hartman is a nationally recognized leader who advocates for and strengthens the field of Jewish early childhood education and a recipient of the prestigious Covenant Award. She is also the longtime director and co-founder of the Paradigm Project, which nurtures and networks educators toward a vision of Reggio-inspired Jewish early childhood education.

Hartman’s current priority is to work with the members of her team to apply the successes in early childhood to more sectors of Jewish education. “The efforts that have made a difference include a network for educators to connect to each other, increased professional development, and measurements of success,” said Hartman. “We have the data now, for example, to report on the rising salaries of early childhood educators in the Chicago area. Our work has been not only pedagogic but also innovating ‘hard systems,’ such as data collection and strategy.”

Hartman began her career in Middle East policy and somewhat accidentally fell in love with Jewish early childhood education when she “dipped her toes” into a Jewish day school as a substitute teacher. That led to a full-time early childhood teaching position and a career she loves.

“You always get where you’re meant to be,” said Hartman. As a high school senior, she had originally planned on attending the dual degree program between Barnard and List College. After spending a year in Israel on the Nativ Program, she decided to attend college instead at Emory, where her mother was on faculty. Years later, “when [then dean] Bill Robinson pushed me to consider the Executive Doctoral Program at the William Davidson School, I felt like I was coming back to where I was headed all along. Bill’s encouragement made a huge impact.”

Commuting from Chicago to New York for the program, Hartman greatly valued the focus that came from immersing in learning with a cohort of peers and having dedicated time of her own. “From the minute I got on that plane, my mind was set to engage deeply,” she said, noting her thanks to her mother, who took care of her children so that she could travel twice a year. Hartman pointed to ways the William Davidson faculty were supportive: Meredith Katz helped her to break down research methods into manageable pieces, and Shira Epstein refashioned the transition from coursework to the phase of qualifying tests and dissertation proposals. “To be in such a strong cohort, with the guidance of such amazing professors, I felt energized about the whole doctoral process and had exactly what I needed to finish.”

Hartman’s academic work helped contextualize her professional focus on early childhood. “Much of early childhood is about teaching skills for independence, such as going to the bathroom, learning letters, playing with others,” said Hartman. “These are critical skills in and of themselves, but it is even more important at this phase of learning for children to gain a sense of who they are as individuals.” Hartman referenced the work of David Bryfman and the late Jonathan Woocher, who argued that Jewish education needs to give learners what they can use today—not as a kind of preparation for an “adult” Jewish life, but instead providing real meaning and authentic connection at any age.

In the Reggio Emilia pedagogy that informs Hartman’s work, what happens in the classroom is customized for the children and responds directly to them. “The flow in early childhood has ample blocks of time for children to make choices. What happens each day should be based on the needs of the group, not an arbitrary schedule,” said Hartman. “When we ask a child ‘what would you like to do?’ we are empowering them to express themselves and to find their own joy.” The pedagogy of listening, which is one component of Reggio Emilia, asks the teacher to practice profound observation, notice threads that are coming up, and respond to needs as they emerge.

Educators themselves can replicate that process and find it personally energizing as well, said Hartman. “I know that part of why I fell in love with early childhood education is the pervasive joy and creativity of the children. You can be a joyful educator at any age when you sincerely understand and care for the human beings in your classroom. Our mission is to punctuate the day with moments of joy.”

How can teachers make that happen? For starters, said Hartman, they need to have a sense of their own pulse and seek out what they need for themselves. “Whatever we want to cultivate, we have to model ourselves.” One of Hartman’s favorite examples is the ubiquitous “rest time” that takes place daily in most early childhood programs. “Educators need to make sure to get rest too!” she said. “When we relax, we can find joy—it inevitably shows up in the classroom if we create the space to nurture and notice it.”

Hartman quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who differentiated between the individual emotion of happiness and the social process joy requires. “It is all about connection,” said Hartman. “The positive relationship between teacher and learner is the prerequisite for joy.”