Parashat Yitro, 5772, Yossi Fendel
Parashat Yitro
February 11, 2012 / 18 Sh'vat 5772
Yossi Fendel, Chair of the Board, Berkeley, Midrasha
Shabbat Shalom!
I’d like to dedicate these words of Torah to the memory of Herbert Korner, a new member of Netivot Shalom with strong family connections to Midrasha including two of our students and one of our Midrasha Board members. He died earlier this week.
So I’m not a Midrasha student, but I am an alumnus, faculty emeritus, and current Board President. And I’m really excited that we have Midrasha Shabbat falling here on Parshat Yitro, because more than any other Parsha this one just flows as a blueprint for engaging Jewish teens. This is, in essence, the “Midrasha Parsha”. Let me explain.
First, take a look at where we are in the story of our people – we’ve just suffered through 400 years of slavery. Slavery, as we all know, is a defining condition of childhood. We tell our children “Go to bed! Stop fighting with your sister! Clean your room! Build my pyramid! No, you may NOT have another cookie. No, you may NOT watch TV right now. No, you may NOT go and worship your God in the desert. And stop kvetching and asking why; you already know the answer is ‘because I said so’ and you’re just stalling!”
But slavery ends in the huge tumult of a Bar Mitzvah. We hire a DJ to play songs by the Beatles and the Crickets and the Locusts and the Lice and the Frogs that are all chirping and buzzing so loud that nobody can talk to each other. We cover this newly freed slave in a tallit, in a hug, in a pillar of fire and smoke and offer our congratulations and blessings. The ark opens, and the waters part, and this ex-slave delivers a D’var Torah with eloquence and gratitude in their own personally composed Song of the Sea.
And then the noise subsides and this teenager, this ex-slave, begins to wonder what’s next? They’re not yet in the Promised Land, they’re still living at home, and they’re still dependent on their parents’ manna for sustenance, but they’re suddenly a bit more “free” and need to figure out what to make of that.
So in an effort to “figure out what to make of this freedom”, we arrive today in Parshat Yitro. In the Parsha, we gather around Mount Sinai and witness the awesome revelation of the Ten Commandments as they boom forth from the heavens. But what do these theatrics have to do with Midrasha? After all, as my teacher Diane Bernbaum points out, one of the least effective ways to influence a teen’s behavior is to go around bellowing commandments. Thou shalt not stay out late! Thou shalt not text thy friends from the dinner table! But I’d like to share three of the more subtle lessons that I’ve learned from this Parsha in my years on Midrasha faculty for how to effectively engage newly released slaves. That is, teens.
First lesson: Form your students into a camp. The wilderness of adolescence is a frightening place, and the promised land of adulthood even more so. Verse 2 of Chapter 19 reads very strangely in Hebrew, but provides a clue for how to deal with these perils:
וַיִּסְעוּ מֵרְפִידִים, וַיָּבֹאוּ מִדְבַּר סִינַי, וַיַּחֲנוּ, בַּמִּדְבָּר; וַיִּחַן-שָׁם יִשְׂרָאֵל, נֶגֶד הָהָר.
VaYisu MeR’fidim, VaYavo’u Midbar Sinai, VaYachanu BaMidbar, VaYichan Sham Yisrael Neged HaHar.
After leaving Refidim, and arriving at Sinai, the B’nai Yisrael “VaYachanu” – set up camp in plural, and then immediately “VaYachan” – “sets up” camp in the singular. The only thing separating these two “encampment”-verbs is an Etnachta – the little wishbone-shaped cantillation mark that isn’t even in the scroll. But there is a transformation in that etnachta of B’nai Yisrael from a collection of campers to a “camp”. A community has somehow been created, because before revelation can be received, the congregation must be unified. The Midrasha teacher serves as that Etnachta, to create a community – a “camp” – of their students, who feel safe and trust in one another to receive revelation collectively.
Second lesson: Get up early. In Verse 16, we read about the big day:
וַיְהִי בַיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִישִׁי בִּהְיֹת הַבֹּקֶר, וַיְהִי קֹלֹת וּבְרָקִים וְעָנָן כָּבֵד עַל-הָהָר
VaY’hi BaYom HaShlishi BiH’yot HaBoker, VaY’hi Kolot U’Vrakim V’Anan Kaved Al HaHar…
“On the third day, as morning came into existence, the mountain was engulfed in a cloud with thunder and lightning.” Rashi is bothered by the awkward phrasing of “BiH’yot HaBoker”, “On the third day, as morning came into existence”, which seems more cumbersome than a simpler “On the morning of the third day”. (At least, that’s what I think is bothering Rashi. You can never quite tell with Rashi. I love Rashi!) He explains that this extra phrasing “as morning came into existence” shows that God arrived at his classroom extra early to prepare his lesson before the students arrived, so that everything was all set up even as the morning came into existence. And then Rashi adds in a gentle rebuke that “this behavior is unconventional for human teachers.” Everybody knows teens value their sleep. They do not respond well to being woken up in order to wait in a classroom for their teacher. So a Midrasha teacher heeds Rashi’s rebuke and gets up early, xeroxes text sheets, arranges the chairs, puts some food for thought on the whiteboard, and waits for students to arrive so that the learning can begin immediately as the morning “comes into existence”.
Third lesson: Bring the students to a mountain. Bring them to a forest. Bring them to a meadow. But bring them somewhere. The Torah could have been given in Egypt, but nobody would have been paying attention. When you bring teens to a desert, to a canyon – or if your budget permits, a mountain engulfed in a cloud with thunder and lightning – they focus. They listen, they smell, they watch everything closely and feel new emotions and emerge affected by the lesson. At Midrasha we bring our students to mountains.
For 25 years, Midrasha has integrated a retreats program into our curriculum. This program was initiated by the Agency for Jewish Education under the direction of Rabbi Stuart Kelman before he left the Agency to go create a lovely little synagogue in Berkeley. And Midrasha has been faithfully bringing Midrasha students to mountains every year since.
We read Parshat Yitro and imagine how awesomely revelation would have failed if it had taken place in Egypt, or even in Israel. This is why we are committed to continuing to bring our teens to mountains and providing them with the experience described by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel as radical amazement – a sense of complete wonder at God’s creation and an overwhelming urge to play our part in it.
We’re further encouraged that Netivot Shalom shares this commitment, which is why Rabbi Shalom Bochner has been working with Midrasha to create a special backpacking trip for teens this April. This is part of a continual dedication that began when Netivot Shalom was founded over 20 years ago, and one of the first decisions made by that lovely little synagogue in Berkeley was to become a sponsoring congregation of Midrasha, so that our teens will be brought to mountains.
Today is a day to celebrate this relationship, and to renew our commitment to each other. We prepare for a thundering voice to tell us critical information like how many Gods there are, which day of the week we’re supposed to keep holy, and what precisely we are forbidden from coveting. Today we wake up early, gather as a camp, and stand at a mountain in radical amazement, filled with a sense of wonder at God’s creation and an overwhelming urge to play our part in it.
Shabbat Shalom!