Holy Ground

The opening pages of the book of Exodus, which Jews worldwide are reading this week, recall the mystical moment when Moses encounters the Burning Bush. Among the many details conveyed in the passage is the following:

               God said to Moses, "Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground." 


As I go about my days at The Davis Academy I am blessed to work with many amazing people of all ages. One of my colleagues, our 8th grade Jewish Studies teacher, has a spiritual practice that I truly admire: Whenever a student shares in a way that creates a feeling of holiness in the classroom, my colleague removes his shoes. This simple gesture acknowledges that mundane physical space can be transformed into sacred space through acts of sharing, connection, and vulnerability.

Imagine if we all removed our shoes whenever we felt that one of our students, children, friends, loved ones, or colleagues had either spoken or acted with kedusha (holiness). If we took this idea seriously many of us might end up spending most of the day in our socks-- not a terrible prospect! Surely it would deepen our appreciation of the immeasurable enrichment that exists when sharing our lives with others.  

Recently I received an email from a parent. Another colleague had asked this parent to reflect on the question of diversity at a Jewish day school. The question was prompted by the recognition that many prospective parents question whether Jewish day schools can have true diversity and prepare children to live in our blessedly diverse world. Her response, which I quote below, left me contemplating my socks:


         On the subject of diversity: every child is unique!  This uniqueness is not established by skin color, religious beliefs or by clothing, but by what comes from inside them.  Originally this was something that was said to me regarding uniforms. How can the kids express who they are if they all dress the same? Realizing that kids at Davis learn how to express themselves by words and actions, and cannot depend on an article of clothing to do so was very enlightening!  Most people/children seek out others like themselves when forming relationships.  At Davis, my children have found friends that are like them because of similarities in personality, not the fact that they are the same in a sea of external differences or diversity... If anyone is hesitant [to send their children to Davis] because of diversity or focus on religion, I would say then that is exactly why they should send their children.  Where diversity is something the children create from within, without losing what connects them to each other, it prepares them for whatever challenges- academic or social- they may eventually encounter.  


Each of us is daily inundated with emails, phone calls, and conversations; we're participants in an endless social process. Hopefully amidst the ever flowing current of communication that washes over us, we can all pause to acknowledge the moments when we receive something truly special and holy. Attuning ourselves to these daily glimpses of sacred light might even make our favorite pair of shoes last a little longer. 


Shabbat Shalom! 

8.2 Unsubstantiated Claims (and three questions) about the Meaning and Scope of "Integration" in Jewish and Non-denominational Educational Settings

Welcome! If you've made it past the unfortunate title of this post, then there's something wrong with you: you care. Caring is SO 1990!! Caring means responding, it means engaging in dialogue. It means lovingly denying the premise of the argument. It means sharing your thoughts with me or someone you like more.

Which brings me to the premise (AKA unsubstantiated claim #1):


(1) "Integration" is NOT about making cross curricular references between otherwise discrete and alienated academic disciplines. If that's the essence/ big idea of integration then "lame" on us!


(2) Integration is a noun and not a verb. It's not content specific. It's actually a "process" (really a series of processes).


(3) Integration is a series of processes that reflects a deep and natural human yearning: to be whole. The precondition for integration-- the thing that makes integration a necessary process-- is the fact that our world is fragmented and broken. The fact that teachers who share walls don't share goals is but one dim reflection of the shattered world which we are blessed to inhabit. Sadly it's not our biggest problem.


(4) God has many names: Truth, Good, Beauty, Love, Endlessness, Dwelling... Another name for God is "One." God is Indivisible Unity. God is Perfect and Seamless Integration. God is Process.


(5) The Divine image that resides within every human being remembers the experience of Oneness that we once self-consciously enjoyed (and still CAN enjoy) but more often than not fail to affirm. Healthy individuals integrate all the time and even have moments of joyful affirmation. Spiritually unhealthy individuals need to be guided back to an understanding of how to integrate. Healthy and unhealthy aren't meant to be judgments. I'm sorry that they sound like judgments and would love better vocab.


(6) Children know how to integrate IN SPITE of adults. Maybe it's because they're closer to the initial experience of Oneness. Maybe it's because they're children (but that would be a "tot"-ology). If we think that children are unable to integrate then we need to evaluate the conditions that we've imposed upon them that undermine this natural human process. I'm arguing that these conditions are generally unconscious, deeply embedded, and invariably lamentable and arbitrary.


(7) Two critical areas where the process of integration radically transforms social and educational experience (and therefore makes the world more integrated, whole, and healthy):


             Home/School-- There is nothing more powerful than the integration of these two institutions. Nothing should be easier. Happens all the time right? Go figure.


             Learning/Living-- The places where we learn and the places where we live (i.e. act, interact, impact) need to integrate. The school bell should never actually ring. Learning should be learning, learning should be living, living should be learning, living should be living, and this sentence should stop.


(8) Integration undermines the rigidity of roles and strips away the illusions that perpetuate the compartmentalization, departmentalization, Procrustian Bed-itization, Not In My Back Yard-itization, of the human experience. Teachers are students, students are teachers. We're all in this together. Kumbaya.


Three Questions:


If you've made it this far then let's ask:

(1) What identity markers am I so tied to that I can't experience the transcendent/grounded fullness of being a radically integrating, processing, striving, embracing creature of God?

(2) Why aren't more hugs initiated and received on any given day?

(3) Why do I say hello to some people I pass on the street and not others?

Sincerely,

Micah