Goal Achieved

Rebecca, my source for all things hip and delightful on the Internet, recently turned me on to a way that I sometimes sit and waste my time now when I'm online and should be looking for an apartment.

http://www.43things.com

I was hooked immediately and did not even have to stop and think before entering my first goal: Facilitate a Revolution. This was something Sarah and I used to talk about a lot, mostly in the context of school but also in the context of life: how could we help people to see their own strengths, to identify things they wanted to be different, to bring about change? We recognized, I recognize that a revolution of any sort--political, sociological, spiritual, emotional, interpersonal--is never the work of one select person or of a chosen few but rather is the result of the effort and energy of a group working together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. Even though Sarah and I are no longer partners is revolutionary crime and I am now an individual agent for change, I still believe wholeheartedly in the worthiness of my goal and I still work towards making it happen, in big and small ways, in whatever circumstance I can.

My goal was achieved at school last Thursday when unfortunately my revolution-facilitating skills rose up and took hold of a situation without me even orchestrating it, completely disrupting one of my fifth grade classes and requiring a lengthy and vociferious intervention from their other English teacher to get things back on track. The students had just come back from aruchat v'hafsakah, morning snack and recess, and it was time to recite Birkat HaMazon, the blessing after meals. Just as the class and all three teachers (that is how many of us there are on Thursdays in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade because it is Reading Assessment day, an initiative spearheaded by yours truly and potential grounds for another revolutions entirely) began to recite the blessing all the boys dug around in the pencil boxes and backpacks for their kippot, or yarmulkes, and so did I.

For the past six or so years I have chosen to wear a kippah while participating in Jewish rituals or events, and am known among my circle of friends and students for my trademark: the watermelon kippah. So on this day, as on any other, I pulled it from my bag and clipped it onto my head to say the blessing.

"WHAT? WHAT? WHY IS SARAH WEARING KIPPAH? SHE'S NOT A BOY! SHE IS FROM AMERICA AND IN AMERICA ONLY REFORM JEWS WEAR KIPPAH! THEY ALSO WEAR TALLIT--SARAH MAYBE WEARS TALLIT! REFORM JEWS ARE NOT REAL JEWS! SARAH IS NOT A BOY AND ALSO IS NOT JEWISH! WHY IS SARAH WEARING THAT WATERMELON KIPPAH?!"

Yelling, pointing, people up out of the seats jumping up and down...this required, as do many student behavioral matters, Judy to bang on the teacher desk over and over with her text book to restore order. The Birkat HaMazon long abandoned, we three teachers tried to have a conversation with the class about appearance, assumptions, Jewish identity, pluralism, and the fact that Rashi's daughter used to lay tefillin but all hope of a teachable moment was lost and finally we gave up and I took off my kippah and we started reading groups. Some of the boys refused to come read with me, so rankled were they by my watermelon.

Long ago Chaim told me that the Jewish community at Brandeis is not like the Jewish community anywhere else and I believed him, in theory, but in reality I had nothing to which I could compare it. I am learning now in practice exactly what he meant. Will I still wear my kipppah at school? I plan to. It is my hope that as part of facilitating the revolution, of supporting the process of dialogue among my students, the shouting will stop and the listening will begin--them to me, and also me to them. We'll see.