Janis Knight, RJE

"In Rav's days, there was a teacher whose prayer for rain was answered promptly. Asked to tell of his special merit, he said: I teach the children of the poor as well as of the rich, I accept no fee from any who cannot afford it, and I have a fishpond to delight the children and to encourage them at their lessons." Taanit 24a

One of my favorite Jewish texts appears above. It comes from Tractate Ta'anit and is found in the midst of a section about acceptable prayers for rain. It embodies my philosophy of Jewish education and charms me with its inherent kindness. In every office I have had since I entered the field full-time, I have had this quote taped next to a small aquarium full of fish.

This practice started over 20 years ago on a Monday morning after a lavish bar mitzvah celebration. The party planner had used live goldfish in her table decorations and left a vase full of dead and dying goldfish for the caretaker to clean up. I was appalled at the unthinking cruelty of the act and wound up fishing out the live goldfish and putting them into a hastily improvised aquarium in my office.

I was not a fish enthusiast and had never kept fish beyond the occasional short-lived Purim carnival fish. The poor things had been pretty stressed out by the events of the weekend so many of them died. But five survived in the little plastic aquarium on my counter. I enjoyed watching them at odd moments during the day and found them soothing. Visitors to my office also seemed to like them. I noticed that kids would come to visit just to see the fish. Nervous, angry students sent to my office for discipline were much calmer if I let them watch the fish for a bit before talking to them and trying to figure out why they had been sent to me.

I decided to find a justification for the role of fish in Jewish education. I began searching text for mentions of fish and found the quote above. There is so much to unpack in this short little piece of text and all of it is relevant to my practice as a professional Jewish educator.

As an educator, I cannot and do not differentiate between my students, whether their parents are wealthy, whether their families are machers in the synagogue, whether each child brings a wealth of Jewish experience. It is my job to see each and every student as an individual and to help them find a path to Jewish learning and practice that suits them best. The inherent commitment to seeing all students as equally deserving of one's best efforts.

With regard to accepting no fee from those who cannot afford it, I have always preferred not to know about a family's financial dealings with the congregation. However, because I strive to make a personal connection with every family in my school, parent will sometimes share such information with me before they think of approaching a Board member. This has allowed me to become an advocate on behalf of a family struggling with financial difficulties. I have been able to help with camp scholarships, congregational school scholarships and sometimes, just share the information with the rabbi, executive director or treasurer in order to help my students. This is a source of special satisfaction for me.

The last line of the text really speaks to my ideal of Jewish education. There should be delights to Jewish learning! I don't propose that it be a non-stop round of jokes, games and candy, but there is absolutely a place for those things in my schools. Learning is often its own reward, but kids sometimes need a more tangible sense of achievement and reward. In fact, last year I had one student in our special Matan class whose daily reward for mastering a Hebrew letter was to come to my office and to feed my fish. He had named all of them and could recite their life histories (such as we had imagined them together).

Rav's teacher doesn't mention another crucial element to his philosophy although I suspect there are clues to it within the other elements of the story. Jewish education is, like any other worthwhile endeavor, a field with frustrations, challenges, failures and opportunities for reflection and growth. As an educator, I have certainly encountered all of these while working with my students, their parents and my staff. I have often stopped, taken a breath and watched the fish swimming about before returning a difficult phone call, listening to a misbehaving student or tackling a new challenge in budgeting or scheduling. I like to think of my long-ago colleague sitting beside his fish pond, taking a quiet moment and a deep breath to refresh and center himself before turning to his next challenge. Then I do the same.

My last office fish, named by my Matan student Lox, Gefilte and Abraham, remain in the care of my successor, presumably still performing their purpose "to delight the children and encourage them at their lessons."

* **

I love being outdoors. Free afternoons often find my husband and me taking hikes, exploring nearby parks or waterways on foot or by canoe or kayak. I grew up on the coast and have spent a lot of time rambling the cliffs, woods and beaches of my hometown. Wherever we have lived, we have gone out to encounter the flora and fauna around us. This has led to canoeing past alligators sunning themselves on logs in the rivers of Florida, discovering fossils along brooks in New Jersey, kayaking circles around an inquisitive sea lion in Ventura harbor, and wishing a black bear and her cubs good morning as they wandered through our campsite in Sequoia National Park.

I find it easy to come close to the ideal of reciting 100 blessings a day when I have the opportunity to get outside. I love to incorporate some aspect of the natural world into family education programs because so much of Jewish tradition is rooted in interacting with nature and understanding our place in God's creation. Beach clean ups, wilderness camping seders, biblical gardening -- all of these have provided me with myriad opportunities to share the fun and joy of the outdoors with my students, and to show them how their Judaism can be found in every single aspect of their lives, not only within the temple.

In California, a colleague and I created the J.O.L.T. program, which stood for "Jews Out Learning Together." The intersection of Judaism with outdoor activities can give families a way to reaffirm their Jewish identity and sometimes, to integrate it more fully into their lives.

One J.O.L.T. activity I really loved was our Tu Bishevat hike into the foothills near Malibu. Families from our two synagogues came together and we studied a little text as we walked up the trail. I had provided

each family with a sheet of brachot for occasions such as smelling spices, viewing the ocean, viewing a majestic mountain, tasting fruit and of course, the Shechecheyanu in order to celebrate just being together and enjoying the moment.

This was experiential Jewish education at its best. We hiked, we encouraged one another, we talked about our own personal beliefs, we smelled the intoxicating scent of sage in the sunlight, we toiled toward the summit and we were Jews just out having fun together. The moment when I cut a fresh prickly pear fruit from a cactus beside the path and shared it with a student and his mother, when I shared its Hebrew name, sabra, and we made the connection with Israel and the holiday, when we recited the blessing together before tasting the fruit -- all of this made the day magical for me. It also made digging out the spines from my thumb later entirely worth it.

I love integrating my love of the outdoors with my love and deep regard for Jewish beliefs and traditions. I am always excited to find new ways to share these with my students and their families.