The Impacted Observer

by Rabbi Jordan D. Soffer

I was 18 years old when I first met Jihad. Jihad was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin and the leader of Students for Justice in Palestine. Over the ensuing years, he would lead protests, set up “apartheid walls”, and be the loudest voice of antisemitic propaganda during my undergraduate studies. When I first met him, he was, ostensibly, minding his own business. I was standing in the lobby of the Memorial Library, waiting to meet a study group, when I overheard him pontificating, convincingly, about Israel’s kidnapping and forced conversion of black Ethiopians. Israel, he claimed, stole these people, turned them into second-class citizens, and did so under the cover of protecting Jews.

I was, understandably, furious. Against my better judgment, I decided to interject and interrupt his private conversations. My peers, who had seen the entire interaction, told me just to move on. Sure, they argued, he presented corrosive lies, but my intervention would do little to change his hateful ideas. It was a futile effort. I, however, was not particularly concerned about Jihad. I could tell that nothing I could say would change his hateful views. My peers were right: he was not worth my energy. They were also right that I could probably not change the opinions of people with whom he had already built a relationship. But I knew that if I overheard his loud conversation in the lobby, others must also have. If his comments went unchallenged, these onlookers may assume they were unchallengeable. I was more concerned with those around him than those engaged in the actual conversation.

Nearly two decades later, I reflect on this conversation as a rabbi and an educator. Similar to that moment in the library, classroom interactions rarely consist of two actors. The entire class is, in some sense, invested in the conversation’s outcome. How we handle any interaction does not just affect the person with whom we’re in conversation; it affects everyone who is witnessing the conversation, whom I refer to as the impacted observers.

The idea of the impacted observer spurred me to action in the library lobby. As an educator, this creates a daunting challenge. Finding words to properly convey a message that will land well for all my students is not so simple. In particular, conversations about the expectations of Jewish law and practice can feel exclusionary when some of the participants don’t practice Judaism that way. As we engage in our primary work of Jewish education, some students may feel pushed away, which is the last thing we want.

In a recent lesson about sefirat haomer, I made a passing remark to the effect of “and that’s why we don’t shave.” At first glance, this may appear to be an innocuous comment, and I certainly meant it as such, but the use of an undefined “we” is dangerous. Who is this unnamed “we”? Indeed, I didn’t mean the ten-year-old, fresh-faced students to whom the comment was made. My general “we” must have referred to Jewish men and included their fathers. How do they hear my words if their father shaved that morning?! In fact, in this case, one student responded, “But my dad shaves…”

Although my heart stopped momentarily, the situation quickly diffused as I explained that there are different minhagim vis-à-vis acceptable practices during the sefira period. In this case, there was no real risk of offending that particular student or the other students in the room. The moment was, however, illustrative of a larger challenge facing Jewish educators. On one hand, we seek to impart a fidelity to Jewish wisdom, law, and practice. On the other hand, we strive to cultivate a supportive and welcoming environment for everyone. How ought we navigate the moments when those two values come into apparent conflict? What if the response for one student isn’t the exact response we’d give to another, or if the message that resonates with one family may be jarring to another? How do we uphold both imperatives?

This challenge is real because, while it was not difficult to validate the father’s practice in this instance, other situations are not as simple. Last year, for example, I was introducing the students to the concepts of chiyuv (obligated), patur (exempt), and yotze (having fulfilled one’s obligation). We used the example of tefillin and explored which people would be obligated, who would be exempt, and what an obligated person would have to do to fulfill the mitzvah. One student interjected in the middle of the lesson, “But what about my Dad? He never puts on tefillin!”

This was trickier than the sefirat haomer question, as it related to an obligatory area in Jewish law that would not recognize space for family minhagim, including not wearing tefillin. Here, we had an apparent conflict between our values of halacha observance and making all students feel welcome. And as I considered possible responses in my head, I realized that I wasn’t speaking only to the student who had asked the question; the whole room was looking to me for a response.

How can Jewish educators convey the value of obligatory Jewish practice while ensuring that students and their families feel included in this community and way of life? Four general approaches can be taken. Let’s list them and then consider the consequences of each:

1. Families may have different practices regarding halacha observance.
2. Your father may not do this mitzvah, but he really should.
3. I’m sure your father does this important mitzvah!
4. Get curious! Ask your father about his practices.

The first response, that families may have different practices regarding halacha, supports the student who asked the question and validates the practice of not wearing tefillin to all the students in the classroom. As an Orthodox school, we don’t believe mitzvot are optional or subject to family preference. Questions about minhag (for example, not eating kitniyot on Pesach) can be easily validated without harming any other practice, but not wearing tefillin isn’t a valid halachic option. This response may work for the student who asked the question , but it comes at the expense of sending the wrong message to the impacted observers.

The second response is the inverse of the first; it affirms the primary value of halacha observance, but at the expense of the child who asked the question (and their father!). Certainly, there’s truth and a simple convenience to this answer, but it disenfranchises Jewish students who have come eagerly to our schools to learn about living a Jewish life. Additionally, inviting children to criticize their parents is problematic. It is ineffective and is likely to deteriorate kibud av v’em. Although the educator believes that the father should be wearing tefillin each day, and he or she is motivated to make sure all the students know this value, there is little value in shaming the child and family or introducing a wedge or conflict in the family.

The third response, “I’m sure your father wears tefillin,” may seem to solve the problem. The impacted observers get the message that the mitzva of tefillin is an obligation, and perhaps the student can save face. The problem is that it’s potentially untrue. Jewish educators know that not all parents will practice precisely in the way we teach them in school; saying something does not make it so. The student who asked the question will be left with confusion and a feeling of guilt, having no way of connecting the learning in school with real life in his or her family.

Though it’s still imperfect, I am strongly partial to the fourth response. By encouraging the student to bring his or her question home, you are not validating the practice of the parent, not to the asker, and not to the observer. You are also not undermining the parent or shaming the family. Instead, you are helping to cultivate a deeper and more meaningful relationship between the parent and the child. That child will ask his father, and the other students will ask theirs, too, leading to richer and deeper relationships throughout.

Such a response affirms the obligatory nature of halacha while recognizing the diversity of real-life Jewish practice. It respects the parent as a person while not conceding the point that the educator is conveying to the students. Like in my response to Jihad, it does not attempt to change the parent’s mind but shows the child and the impacted observers that there is an opposing viewpoint that reasonable people hold.

In the end, each of these responses is imperfect, and necessarily so. The situation is complicated, so a simple response is unattainable. To live in the messiness of Jewish communal life and the parent-school partnership of Jewish education, we must trust parents and empower them. To build schools that are inclusive of different practices and welcoming of all Jewish students, we must dignify the parents without dignifying everything they might do or not do. Walking that line can be difficult, but ultimately, it is the only way to create enduring Jewish communities.

Rabbi Jordan David Soffer is the Head of School at Striar Hebrew Academy in Sharon, MA, and the Rabbinic Mentor for DSLTI. Rabbi Soffer has an MA from the Azrieli school at Yeshiva University, where he is currently working on his doctoral dissertation about the experience of non-Orthodox students in Orthodox day schools.

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