Smiling Through Tears — A School Year Starts

“Lean on me
when you’re not strong
and I’ll be your friend
I’ll help you carry on…
for it won’t be long
‘til I’m gonna need somebody to lean on.”
                     – Bill Withers

I want to share with you what I shared with our Middle and Upper School students on our first day of school. Many of my colleagues and friends in schools around the country had difficulty knowing how to strike the right note this week. We commiserated over how to lead a community through the joys and excitement of a new school year, while holding space for the sorrow and worry our nation feels after a weekend of funerals and through the anger of our people still at war. How do we create enough space for our own personal feelings? Balloons and new backpacks do not match the crying and kriah of the 48 hours that preceded the first day of school. What could we possibly say?

The best way to create space for all these feelings, both in school and at home for ourselves and our children, is to name what we are experiencing and what we are feeling. Feelings can co-exist, even those feelings that seem at odds with each other. Both can be true, and here at school, both feelings are true. It was a wonderful first few days, filled with balloons and new backpacks, and with questions, laughter, smiles, connection, and exploration. Filled with students getting to be children, and teachers pouring out their passion, knowledge, and patience into a sea of eager students.

We all sat outside together in the Ezra Schwartz zk”l courtyard (named after our graduate who was murdered in Israel by terrorists in 2015), and I named these dichotomous feelings. I created space to feel that range of emotions with our students right then and there. And then I shared that we currently find ourselves in a figurative desert – a space of cruel harsh realities and a tremendous amount of unknown and potential danger, just as the Jews experienced in the literal desert throughout the book of Devarim, which we are currently reading weekly. Moshe our teacher is offering his last lesson to a group of students in the desert who need to recognize the harsh realities of their world, the curses that could be just on the other side of the mountain, and the blessings that lie just around the bend.

It was during that time in the desert that the Jewish people needed to take their temple with them wherever they went. The Mishkan, the portable tabernacle, needed to stay at the center of the community, but also needed to morph and flex to the needs of the community – to be assembled and disassembled for travel depending on the needs of that moment, while always remaining at the center.

The Mishkan’s walls were composed of large wooden beams made into columns that were plated in precious metals. They had tenons, prongs like that of an electric plug, which extended into sockets that anchored the beams in the ground, each flush with its neighboring pillar and sockets. These beams were similarly linked with square metal rings at the top of the beams, and linked again by a miraculous metal pole, the B’reiach HaTichon, that ran through the center of each beam and linked each beam together through its very center.

Structurally, the walls gained stability through these special design features. Spiritually, we gain a treasure trove of insight into the design of the Jewish nation, not just the Jewish nation’s buildings. When we are in a desert, we need to be unified. We are strongest in standing against the dangers and elements of the wilderness when we look to our left and to our right and see our brothers and sisters standing shoulder to shoulder with us, supporting us and giving us strength. When we feel ourselves weakening, we know someone has our back. Someone with whom we are inseparably linked.

The first assignment given to our students this year was to be vigilant in looking out for each other and for themselves. To see who needs help and who needs to be reminded that we are all linked, that we are here to support you and to pick you up. When we make sure to notice, to create space for these feelings, and to lean into and upon each other – we can overcome anything the wilderness throws at us.

May this year, a year that sees our Jewish people still surrounded by desert, be one of connectivity, love, grace, and growth. May our schools continue to be an oasis and safe harbor for our students and for each other. May we find strength in each other, and joy and laughter in a school day filled with children learning and teachers teaching. That is how we survived the desert before, and that is how we will do so once again.