The Soul of the Jewish People Needs Oxygen
The soul of the Jewish people needs oxygen.
The Season of Awe is upon us. The Jewish community needs to mobilize to nourish our collective neshama, our enduring Jewish spirit, by investing in Judaism’s most valuable renewable resources: wisdom, shared values, community. Jewish education is the primary delivery system for these resources, and the enterprise desperately needs our community’s renewed focus and attention.
The Jewish community has spent two years defending, protecting, combatting. For half a decade, we have navigated crisis upon crisis. Essays and blogs have bemoaned the professional burnout that erodes our communal infrastructure. Trauma eats at our hearts, as we have had no time to pause and grieve.
And yet, we have witnessed reawakening and resilience among Jews who are showing up, curious, and ready to learn. We can choose to descend into chaos and fear; or we can seize this moment of opportunity to convert the awe of this season into powerful possibility. It’s Elul: it’s time to flip the script.
At BJE: Builders of Jewish Education, our team launched the new year at the Los Angeles headquarters of Gensler, a world-renowned architecture firm that is designing multiple projects in the Jewish education arena. An architecture studio draws upon diverse talents to bring a visionary plan to life. We reflected on what it means to be a world-class, mission-driven, collaborative design team that is responsible for delivering smart engineering, powerful scaffolding, and sustainable, inspiring spaces in which to dream, learn and grow strong.
“And you shall teach your children,” is a more complicated directive to meet in today’s era than it sounds. Architects of Jewish education face strategic challenges that require resources, cooperation, and creative thinking. Sustainability. Quality. Access. The Talent Pipeline. How shall we design and deliver Jewish education for a volatile world, and the most tenuous time for Jews since the Holocaust? How shall we strengthen Jewish peoplehood, as our people splinter and fragment across Israel and the Diaspora?
A flash flood of energy and money has flowed toward combatting antisemitism. Now, our children need us to create a sustainable future for the vital ecosystem of Jewish educational programs that helps them learn and grow – from their very first breath.
With a landmark $1 million bequest, BJE has established the Max Candiottyz”l Day School Affordability Fund, to take a positive step forward and reignite community commitment to Jewish education. The fund supports activities that actualize Max’s dream of making day school possible for every child. The gift will enable BJE to expand its role as evangelist and catalyst for Jewish education while we also convening a diverse coalition of the wise and the willing – community leaders who are passionate about strategic design and finding solutions that address affordability and sustainability.
Max Candiotty z”l understood that a communal engine like BJE is needed to ensure that every Jewish child has access to high quality Jewish education, and that excellent Jewish education is even possible and sustainable. Max’s legacy gift is a call to action to invest more resources in the communal infrastructure that attends to issues of sustainability, talent, quality and access for our diverse Jewish community as a whole. We leverage so much of our communal resources for security initiatives and public advocacy. But we cannot abandon the very essence of what we aim to protect with guards, weapons and legislative bills: the Jewish Neshama.
Jewish education oxygenates the spirit of the Jewish people. Learning has the power to shape and transform people, families, and communities. This can only happen when a delivery system is supported by community resources, institutions, and educators that provide the highest quality learning experiences. When wisdom and heritage bind us together in a world full of creative opportunity, we can imagine together what must come next. We are builders; we can build anew and we can renovate.
A new Jewish year and a new school year are upon us. As we breathe in the complicated emotions of the Days of Awe in such uncertain times and breathe out our hopes and prayers, we must insist that providing the oxygen of Jewish wisdom to the entire Jewish community is a top priority. It’s time to catch our breath.
