Nasso 74 - Motives and Community or Behaviors and Competition

The end of our Parasha-portion Nasso deals with how the leaders of the 12 tribes celebrated the dedication and inauguration of the tabernacle-mishkan and the altar = חנוכת המזבח which took place on the first day of Nissan. On their own initiative they first brought 6 wagons and 12 oxen – 2 tribes, jointly brought a wagon and 2 oxen – in order to help the Levites transport the tabernacle and its parts during journeys. Then each tribe on his specific day brought his own personal offering out of his own funds in celebration of the momentous event.

   Not only (1) did God agree to the initiative and instructed Moshe to accept the gifts and offerings, but (2) the Bible-Torah goes out of its way to list each individual offering despite the fact they were identical. It would have been much simpler to say that each leader brought the following offering.  And thirdly (3) an exception was made for the leaders' personal offerings - they were treated as communal offerings and thus were allowed to be brought on the Sabbath which is not the case for personal offerings.

The reason that each tribe's offering is mentioned in detail despite being identical is that the thoughts, intentions, motives, symbolism and values underlying each component of their offerings were different. They were expressions of the meaning behind their individual names and the  tribal missions to the joint national goal of inaugurating the Tabernacle.

 The reason that God agreed to the initiatives of the tribes – the gifts of the wagons and oxen and treated the offerings as communal offerings= korban Tzibur and not a korban Yachid = individual offering - is that leaders dedicated themselves, both in a spiritual and material way to the service of the nation. They did it in a way that showed cooperation, partnership and brotherly friendship. It was quite possible that a tribe would try to do better than the tribe that brought his offering on the previous and bring a bigger offering.  Instead of competition, all the offerings were brought exactly like one another in order to maintain the sense of community .This made them worthy for the Divine Presence to rest among them. After the Torah lists each offering separately, the total sum of the offering is given to show how each leader shared his and his tribe's spiritual and material resources with the nation.

The account of the tribal leaders offerings teach us the importance of inner thoughts, feelings, motives and values together with a concern for the community. But when it comes to families and schools the focus is on behaviors and competition, how can I  help  the kid choose appropriate behaviors or more accurately how can we get obedience and compliance. And this is done using rewards, awards, punishments, logical consequences, positive reinforcement, praise and competition. In this way we ignore what matters most about a child- his thoughts, feelings, perspectives, motives and values, concerns, needs and lagging skills, in other words the child himself. 

 A kid can choose to share some candy with a classmate for at least 3 different reasons. He may want to have some of his chocolate - he  has been taught that if you want kids to share with you, you must share with them,-  or he shares  in the hope that his teacher will notice and praise him for it, or he shares  simply out of concern for his friend who did not have any candy.  A teacher responding to the behavior with praise is trying to reinforce the behavior and in the process strengthens the kid's dependence on adult approval. A teacher focusing on motives will ask why he decided to give his friend some candy and ask did he see his face, he is really happy with that candy. Isn't he? Here the teacher helps the sharer experience the impact of sharing and to come to see himself as the kind of person who focuses on community and wants to make other people feel good – irrespective of verbal rewards. Instead of focusing on behavior and competition - focus on motives and community.

Bamidbar 74 - Family and School Mission Statements

The Parasha-portion of Ba'midbar= in the wilderness   describes the structure of the Israelite camp in the desert. Each tribe had its own place and own flag. The verse Bamidbar 2:2 says - The children of Israel shall encamp, each man according to his banner/flag according to the emblem of their fathers' household, at a distance surrounding the Tabernacle

. אִישׁ עַל-דִּגְלוֹ בְאֹתֹת לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם, יַחֲנוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל  מִנֶּגֶד, סָבִיב לְאֹהֶל-מוֹעֵד יַחֲנוּ. 

The flags symbolized the individual characteristics and mission of each tribe, Yehuda – royalty, Issachar – Torah, Re'uvein – Repentance and Bravery etc. The individual tribes had their own flags and goals and yet they were united and complimented each other by  ' raising their flags in the name of our God' - Psalms 20:6-תהילים כ:ו וּבְשֵׁם-אֱלֹהֵינוּ נִדְגֹּל;

The tribes, like our modern day companies, organizations or   institutions had their own mission or vision statements expressed by their flags. Mission/vision statements can be very useful for both families and schools when kids participate in drawing up the statement. This conscious pledge   to live by our values is not only a unifying factor, but helps to a create a culture of compassion, of integrity, and schools and families where kids (and adults) grow to hold the well-being of the larger community in mind.

Julie Stevens of the Center of Spiritual and Ethical education shares author Marie Sherlock's suggestion of a three-step process for developing a document that can serve as a spiritual roadmap, reflective of and unique to your own family or school. First hold a values brainstorming meeting. Then hold a vision-brainstorming meeting. Finally, use notes generated in these meetings to draft a family mission statement.

A .Values Brainstorming meeting – Questions can help kids focus on the purpose of a family or school, characteristics of people, their core values and goals of individuals and the community.  Empathy, compassion, integrity, honesty, fairness, respect, courage, and responsibility, are examples of goals and virtues

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B Vision Brain-storming meeting  - Here we attach these values and core virtues to actual examples from daily life –how we live by these values,  how we can support each other , solve problems in a collaborative way and make a contribution to the community as a whole . We can then invite kids to imagine what the family, school and community at large would look like if everyone practiced these values.

C Drafting the mission/vision statement

·         Our Family Values. In our family we value the following: List each value with descriptions of each.

·         Living Our Values. Our family/school practices it values in the following ways - List each value and the different behaviors and actions that show family/school members living in concert with that value.

·         Our Family/School and World Vision. We believe that practicing these values can make a difference: List each value again and state what would happen if your family/school – and the rest of the world – practiced that value.

Family and School mission statements are in contrast with discipline approaches where things – rewards, punishments, consequences etc. are done to kids and students to control their behavior and get compliance. Family and school mission statements are examples of  ' working with ' kids to create caring communities where decisions are made together and problems are solved in a collaborative way. In this way we can promote character, ethical and moral development of the child in contrast with traditional approaches that just teach the child to ask – what are the consequences of my behavior for me and not ask how my behavior has an impact on others. 

Bechukotai 74 - Materialism and Learning

Governments, schools, parents and the media exclusively focus on one benefit of education: how it is positively related to one's earning power.  Students agree that the chief benefits of a university education are to increase one's earning power and to be able to make more money. (I prefer Judith Shapiro's reason for investing in one's education - .  “You want the inside of your head to be an interesting place to spend the rest of your life.")

 The Bible – Torah seems to be giving the same advice.Leviticus 26:3 if you will follow my decrees and observe my commandments and perform them ……אם בחוקותי תלכו ואת מצוותי תשמרו ועשיתם אותם,   a list of material blessings follow. Because the phrases seem to be repetitious the Sifra explains – if you will follow my decrees as' toiling and being engaged to intensive Torah study',   אם בחוקותי תלכו- שתהיו עמלים בתורה   then material blessings will come your way. Study hard and you will gain financially.

The research however says that materialism has a negative impact on learning and the efforts to promote learning by impressing on teenagers  and  pre-teens  the financial benefits of education may be in fact counterproductive.

Materialism's negative effects on school performance are that it undermines intrinsic Mastery orientated learning and shifts the learners' attention from competence development to   competence demonstration. Thus materialism is associated with lower intrinsic Mastery goals and higher extrinsic performance goals and higher extrinsic performance avoidance goals. Materialistic students believe that 'having' material possessions are the prime indicator of success and status, and essential to their happiness and well-being. Eric Fromm says that these students have also a materialistic extrinsic orientation to knowledge and learning. They 'have' knowledge so that they can pass an exam, get good grades or a degree …..But the content does not become part of their own individual system of thought, enriching it and widening it…This leads to superficial learning and lower Mastery goals. Materialistic kids tend to give up on the chance of learning by choosing a performance-oriented task and exhibit much less persistence. Materialism is further enhanced by negative social motives -  engaging in social comparisons as their self-esteem and self-worth is dependent upon their  ' achievements ' in comparison to others, behaving or appearing in certain ways or possessing certain material goods. They also tend to also avoid challenging tasks as not to appear unsuccessful or incompetent. The positive effects of high performance goals are often short-lived and together with high performance avoidance goals there is a significant   deterioration in learning outcomes over a 1- year time period. Kids who adopt a performance goals orientation usually see intelligence as a fixed entity – they have a fixed mindset and see failure as something personal.  They then seek to repair their negative feelings and overcome self –doubt   by using material possessions, seeing them as good ways to impress peers and gain status and thus avoid peer rejection.

Kids who adopt an intrinsic Mastery goal orientation have a growth mindset, are self-accepting and view failure as mere information as what needs to be improved or worked on.

The problem with materialism is that it does not buy much in terms of happiness and well-being. According to Self-Determination theory S.D.T, intrinsic goals such as self- acceptance, mastery, community feelings, affiliation etc. satisfy our innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness and hence bring fulfillment, intrinsic reward and pleasure. When these needs are frustrated people tend to seek compensation from extrinsic goals such as materialism. In turn extrinsic goals further frustrate these innate needs as they are guided by external influences, such as rewards or approval from others and therefore are less likely to bring happiness. In addition excessive concentration on external rewards can distract people from intrinsic endeavors and interfere with personal integration and actualization.

So what about our verse from the Torah that seems to imply – study hard and there is the promise of financial reward. The blessings really are not a reward but God providing support and more opportunities for authentic learning. Learning is not 'instrumental' but has intrinsic value. Education – John Dewey said, is not the preparation for life, but life its self – how much more can we say of the study of Torah. Ameilim Ba'torah is intensive study- toiling in Torah, being creative and enjoying the learning. The reward for learning, is the intrinsic reward of the learning itself - s'char mitzvah = mitzvah , the reward of the mitzvah is the mitzvah itself.

Behar 74 - Shemittah, faith and Community

The parasha-portion of Behar deals with the Sabbatical  year = Shemittah,  when the land lies fallow and the Jubilee= Yovel = 50^th year  when in addition to the land lying fallow , land is returned to its original owners, slaves are freed  and debts are canceled .In the middle of this section , the Torah warns us not to transgress  the negative commandments of Ona'at ma'mon and ona'at devarim = cheating, being financially dishonest and hurting  others with words - being insulting , using put-downs to belittle someone or even giving him bad advice in a way he thinks you are trying to help him.  God knows one's true intentions. The question is why did the Torah choose to teach the negative commandments of Ona'at ma'mon and ona'at devarim = financial cheating and using insulting words in the context of the mitzvoth of the Sabbatical year= Shemittah and Yovel- Jubilee?  We can find plenty of reasons why cheating or insulting others is bad in the context of the Man to man relationship, so what does Shemittah and the Yovel add to our understanding?

A man of faith believes that his livelihood is preordained by God on Rosh Hashanah and what he earns is what he needs in order to be a faithful servant of God in this world. The challenge is not only-  not be dishonest in ones' dealings or insulting to others in order to get ahead, but to know that what looks like the fruits of our labor's and our efforts  is actually a  gift from God in order that we should we should be able to live more  spiritual lives. The Yovel   also teaches us not to become attached to our physical possessions as ownership is a temporary state. Land reverts back to the original owner and debts are cancelled.  If we do not use our earnings in service of God and man, we are in fact stealing from God and this is sacrilege. Dishonest dealings and hurtful words completely disregard the role of God in the world and are a declaration that what I have is my hard earned money and I can choose how to spend it.  This person will then find it pretty easy to justify his dishonest dealings and hurtful words.

But the sabbatical year = Shemittah and the Jubilee =Yovel are not just a ' mind shifts', they are leaps of faith. The farmer has really got to give up working for a year and put his trust in God that he will have a livelihood and be able to provide for his family. The contrast between the man of faith putting his trust In God and the man who feels he can only get ahead by being dishonest in his business dealings, or by insulting people and putting them down is most apparent in the context of Shemittah and Yovel years.

The Se'fat Emet adds another important dimension to this connection between Shemittah and ona'at ma'mon and de'varim = dishonest dealings and insults. Shemittah is a communal mitzvah, not a private one. It should lead to unity and cooperation among people of a community in order to support each other. In order to be successful and get ahead, it is not the competitive drive, being number one, being a winner and not a loser that makes people successful. What makes people successful is being able to cooperate and collaborate with others, having a sense of purpose bigger than yourself and your company, and wanting to be of service etc. 

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We can help our children see the value of family and community and that others are not obstacles in the way of our success. The opposite is true. When we view our resources and earnings as a gift from God, not only are we careful to be honest in our dealings and sensitive with our words but we use these resources in the service of God and to help other people. This is the way we get ahead in life.

Emor 74 - Pe-sach and the Redemption of speech on Shavuot.

Pesach – Passover, the festival celebrating the exodus from Egypt and Shavuot – the festival celebrating the giving of the Torah 50 days later are considered in a sense as one holiday. The intervening days when we count the o'mer -= sefirat ha'omer   marks   the process of spiritual growth and elevation towards the receiving of the Torah and thus connects Pesach and Shavuot, similar to chol ha'moed. The Zohar makes a similar connection. In Egypt speech = di'bur was in galut=exile. On Shavuot, the final redemption of speech = ge'ulat ha'dibur took place. When the Egyptian king died and it became clear that the new Pharaoh was no better than the old, the people moaned and cried out in pent- up despair. Their outcry was not one of repentance or prayer but of pain.  Because of the slavery and oppression they could not speak to God but only lift up their eyes to God as the verse in Psalms 123:2 הנה כעיני עבדים אל יד אדוניהם, כן עינינו אל ה' , תהילים קכג:ב  the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master so are our eyes unto Hashem our God They could not communicate with God as 'dibur' =speech was in exile. The process of  redemption of speech  began on Pesach = פה –סח , the' mouth relates and says' , continued when they reached ' Pee  ha'chirot' or called Pee Ha'cherut '  the mouth of freedom and reached a high after the miracle of  the Red Sea when  the children of Israel sang praises to God – the song of the Sea שירת הים.The final redemption   of speech took place on shavu'ot  when  God spoke directly to the children of Israel ( the first 2 commandments ) and Moses despite previously having a speech disability spoke  the rest of the commandments.

We give expression to the process of the redemption of speech – geulat ha'dibur on the seider night by telling and recalling the story of the exodus from Egypt. We encourage the participants and especially the children to ask questions because authentic questions drive true speech and communication.

Unfortunately, we soon forget the educational lessons of the seider night. A teacher complained that he could not get a kid in his class to listen. On the seider night we discuss the 4 sons and their questions and if a child has difficulty in asking questions we help him. Instead of theorizing about the reason the kid is not listening we should try and get that info from the kid. We might need to reassure him  that he is not in trouble and all we are trying to do is gather information from him about why it is difficult for him to listen during a lesson in Gemorrah. 

The famous educationalist Deborah Meier said that teaching is essentially listening and learning is essentially talking. Ross Greene, the originator of the CPS – collaborative problem solving approach asks challenging kids the following question - to build trust but also to understand the parent – child dynamic from the kid's point of view. What's the matter with them ( your parents )? Most often the answer is ' they don't listen to me, so I have stopped talking to them'.

If we want kids to talk to us, we must listen to them and in this way we can contribute to the redemption of their speech - ge'ulat ha'dibur.

Kedoshim 74 - Love yourself so you can Love your friend

The Torah tells us to ' Love your fellow as yourself '- Leviticus 19:18 .ואהבת לרעך כמוך  -ויקרא יט:יח

 From this verse it seems that loving oneself is a condition for being able to love other people. Now self-love is generally regarded as having a sense of entitlement, being self- indulgent and hedonistic, and only really being concerned only about oneself and certainly not about others. So how does self-love make one into a more caring person? True self-love is about people who regard themselves as self-directed and autonomous, competent, caring and responsible people. For them, self-love is nurturing the spiritual and emotional side of them, the part that defines them. As The sage Hillel – the elder said about him going to the bath-house or having a meal that he was doing a chesed – a kindness to his soul – -גומל חסד לנפשו which was resident in his body . Loving yourself is taught in another place in the context of helping others - וחי אחיך עמך ויקרא כה: לו –'and let your brother live with you '-Leviticus 25:36. Rabbi Akiva says – your life comes first, before the life of your friend (but your friend comes a close second.)

 These people experience themselves on a fundamental level as worthy of esteem and love. Loving and caring for others is not in competition of oneself, but just an extension of loving oneself if done in a healthy way.

Children who see themselves as worthy of esteem and love and see themselves as fundamentally good people will be able to be caring and act in altruistic ways. On the other hand children, who view their pro-social conduct as compliance with external authority, will act pro-socially only when they believe external pressures are present. Helping children to come to believe that their pro-social behavior reflects values or dispositions in themselves is best achieved by verbally attributing such values or dispositions to the child. In one experiment, in which children gave away some of their game winnings after watching a model do so, those who were told that they had made the donation "because you're the kind of person who likes to help other people" were subsequently more generous than those who were told that they had donated because they were expected to do so. In another study, the likelihood of children's donating increased both when they were praised and when they were led to think of themselves as helpful people. But in a follow-up experiment, it was the latter group who turned out to be more generous than those who had received verbal reinforcement. In other words, praise increased generosity in a given setting but ceased to be effective outside of that setting, whereas children with an intrinsic impulse to be generous continued to act on that motivation in other circumstances. These findings by Joan Grusec of the University of Toronto  provides a concrete alternative to the use of rewards or praise (the problem with praise is that it is controlling and judgmental) to elicit generosity and is important because it implies that being led to think of oneself as generous does not affect behavior merely because it is a kind of reinforcement or a mood-enhancer; this label apparently encourages pro-social action because it helps to build a view of the self as altruistic.- Alfie Kohn – Caring Kids, the Role of schools

Another very important predictor of whether children will accept themselves as fundamentally valuable and capable is to the extent to which they been accepted unconditionally by others.  As Carl Rogers (1959) argued half a century ago, those on the receiving end of conditional love – that is, affection based not on who they are but on what they do -- come to disown the parts of themselves that aren’t valued.  Eventually they regard themselves as worthy only when they act (or think or feel) in specific ways and often end up not 'liking' themselves. They then create a' false' self that their parents will like. The research can be summarized as follows -    The more conditional the support [one experiences], the lower one’s perceptions of overall worth as a person. When children receive affection with strings attached, they do indeed tend to accept themselves only with strings attached. Their self-esteem becomes contingent – I only like myself when … instead of non-contingent and inherently stable self-esteem. – Alfie Kohn – Unconditional Parenting/Teaching

 

Children will  act in accordance with the Torah's teaching of Love your fellow as yourself if they feel unconditionally accepted, worthy of esteem and love, feel valuable and capable and see their pro-social behavior as intrinsic to who they are as people.

Acharei Mot 74 Say Sorry!! Empathy vs. Blame

  I am sure we have either witnessed or we ourselves have tried to force a sibling to ' say sorry' because they hit a brother or said a mean word – you are stupid - to a sister. There is usually a display of defiance and when the kid gives in, it is usually said in a mean tone or a whisper or even ' I am sorry that ' You are stupid'.

 Instead of repairing the relationship, forcing an apology makes it worse. I don't know how parents expect this type of apology to be sincere. Some parents don't really care if the apology is sincere or not, what matters is the act of uttering the appropriate words. They may justify this by saying that in time the child will come to say 'I am sorry' with sincerity. According to the principle -that we should do the right thing even if our feelings or motives are not so pure, for in time we will come to do things with the right feelings and for the right motives - mi'toch she'lo lishmah bah lishmah, these parents seem to be doing the right thing by forcing an apology.

The Torah portion –parasha of Acharei Mot talks about the Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement service when the High Priest and the nation confess their sins –the Vidui and say they are sorry to God and to each other  as part of the Teshuvah –repentance process. Rabbi E. Dessler says that the principle of doing things 'lo lishmah' for the wrong reasons so in time it will be lishmah – right reasons does not apply to the mitzvah of Teshuvah or saying sorry. The whole essence of Teshuvah and saying sorry is sincerity.

 If we force apologies and don't give the child time to calm down and reflect, then the only thing we are teaching kids is to LIE. The source of our problem is that we see enforcing an apology as part of our need to discipline kids. It means getting the kid to admit that he did wrong and take the blame. The focus is no longer on the pain of the sibling, but on the adult trying to enforce the apology. If we take blame out of repertoire and replace it with empathy we are now not being disciplinarians enforcing consequences but parents helping and guiding kids to be compassionate and moral.

We may also want to solve the underlying problem in a durable and realistic way using CPS – the collaborative problem solving approach model. The first thing we may need to do is reassure the child that he is not in trouble and that we are not in the 'blame game'. All we want to do is help people feel and do better. The first stage in the CPS process – the empathy and info gathering steps starts with a neutral statement. 'I have noticed that you and your sister were playing ball together, and now she is crying – what's up? We try to get his perspective and hear his concerns which are needed to solve the problem. He will be able to then hear his sister's perspective and concerns if he feels heard. The focus is now on the ' hurt child' – We ask the brother – how does he think his sister is feeling now? Why is she feeling that way? This helps him take his sister's perspective and become empathic .We can then ask him – can we brainstorm solutions that will help both of you be happy and you can play without any fighting. Once we have a solution we can ask how does he think he can make her feel better and also make amends. Some situations demand that we only help him take his sister's perspective and come up with a plan to make her feel better and not solve the underlying problem.

 Instead of using ' Blame ' and imposing consequences and solutions on kids, we can focus on empathy. We should support kids' 'autonomy' so that they can in an autonomous way engage in the moral act of reparation and making amends. We promote competence as the child will thus leave this encounter with a reminder of how others feel or might feel as the result of his actions, and with the knowledge that an adult trusted his competence sufficiently to allow for his input into how this matter should be handled. Also relationships are improved. Using empathy means we encourage kids to feel sorry for siblings or the 'hurt' friend, but when we use 'blame' we encourage kids to feel sorry for themselves.