Update: first hiccup and first expert visit

Sorry this is a long post, two issues together.

First, thank you to everyone who commented here and in personal communications about my first hiccup. I went with the advice from the Boca Boys and gave them more research time. Rabbi Perl’s suggestion seems to be by the PBL books, but I just can’t see the students returning after Sukkos and being excited about finishing a project they almost finished before break. Yehuda’s anecdotal pushed me over the cliff, and I taught Yad Rama and the differences between his opinion and Ran’s as a frontal lesson. I know, I am sad about it too, it’s only three weeks into school and I taught a frontal lesson, I am sorry I let y’all down.  On the bright side we are on to Zarcha HaShemesh.

Second, we had our first expert visit today. Part of PBL is to expose the students to experts in the field who can give expertise the educator doesn’t have, and demonstrate real life applications of the issues being taught. I reached out to an attorney in our community, Josh Kahane, and asked him if he had any attorneys in his office who would be willing to help us. He sent me to Robert Hutton, a criminal attorney at Glankler Brown, who was happy to help. We traveled to their offices and Mr. Hutton presented to the students on the different types of homicide and the justification of self defense in the common law, penal code, and TN law. It was a wonderful trip. We met in their main conference room, which impressed the students, and the aforementioned Josh Kahane brought some kosher snacks. Mr. Hutton’s presentation was wonderfully interactive. The students asked a lot of questions, and presented Mr. Hutton with hypothetical cases to test the boundaries of law he set out. Mr. Hutton was very candid about what the law says and about what he feels are deficiencies and overreaches of the TN code. This will no doubt help the students when they draft their own codes. I hope Mr. Hutton will help grade my students’ codes, but I’ll get to that in a later post. If you can find one as knowledgeable and generous with their time as Robert Hutton, I strongly recommend trips to visit experts.

The First Hiccup

I think I have hit the first road block, and I am not sure how I will manage it just yet. I realized today that if I want the students to do a good job with the United States and Israeli Law, I am going to have to give them more time in class to do it. My original design was to split my 70 minute period roughly 50/20 Gemara/everything else, but while the students are learning the Gemara and the Rishonim nicely they are not moving fast enough on the other side to produce quality work in the time frame I want to spend on this unit. In fact, when I switch to the 20, I have some groups who ask if they can review the Gemara to make sure they can read it properly.

(Don’t think they are abnormal for opting to do Gemara review instead of individual research. I have each student create an MP3 recording of themselves reading the Gemara, which I grade for reading/translation/comprehension. To make sure they aren’t reading Artscroll on the recording I require a signed note from a parent or another student in my class that they witnessed the recording from a clean Gemara. I do this because my first rule of PBL was no examinations, but I need to assess skills somehow.)

The way I see it I have three options: First, allow lesser quality work than I initially hoped to receive. I really don’t like this option but it might be the easiest. Second, take more time from Gemara learning for the State law research. I am torn about this option: on the one hand it is very hard for me to give more time from learning Torah to study general studies, but on the other hand this research should cause them to enjoy the and remember the Torah learning more. Third, spend longer on this sugya than I originally planned. This option gets more complicated with the Yomim Noraim break that I don’t want interrupting a sugya.

I have not figured it out yet, but this is the first hiccup. Any thoughts out there?

PBL Gemara Days 2/3

Here is the class picture, taken from my Windows Phone (yes, that is really what I use) while the students learn in their groups.

I have received from all of the kids their individual assignment responsibilities. I will break our class time into sections when we will focus on the Gemara and Rishonim, and when the students will work on their individual projects and group law drafting. Today I shared this worksheet to help the students through the early Torah sources. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-fYoEPtXIkkFrjbO4yUgceWogbTswHqkezATjKCfeuo/edit The students are reading the sources in their groups and my worksheet is hopefully guiding them in the direction I want. I move through the room to listen and ask questions, I try very hard not to give too many answers. I do some help with words so that groups don’t get too slow. I have been very pleased that the students are working fairly diligently. I have three groups that are through the Gemara and Rashi now starting Ran, and one group that has made it through Ran, and is starting Yad Rama (all source references are on the document I posted on Day 1).

Today I sectioned 45 minutes for only Gemara study and allowed 35 minutes for individual work. Three of the groups broke off to do individual work and one stayed together to finish the questions on the worksheet about Rashi’s understanding of the chain of events. No one is ready for group law drafting yet, they are just starting to learn state laws. To help learn state and federal laws, I have made an appointment for my class with Mr. Robert Hutton Esq., a partner at Glankler Brown who practices criminal law. We will travel next week to their offices and he will present to my class in their conference room about the Tennessee and Federal statutes, including the American legal theory and some applications in different cases. Mr. Brown is volunteering his time, sounds happy and excited to be able to teach, and seems to be very curious himself about the comparison between Biblical/Talmudic Law and that of the United States. I had a very nice, fairly long conversation with Mr. Brown working out the details of our visit and picking each other’s brains about Law and Talmud. I hope my students are behaved, ask good questions, and gain information they can use in addition to having a positive learning experience.

3 days in, still no frontal teaching, and still an excited and positive learning environment. Mr. Noam Davidowitz, our school’s technology guru, stopped in yesterday and remarked that we had a wonderful sound of learning in the classroom. The small compliments make you feel good.

PBL Gemara Day 1

A great start! I greet the students as they enter. I walk to the front of the room and I say “I have no intention of giving any exams this year, you don’t want to take them and I don’t want to grade them.” Gemara Honors erupts in applause. I explain we’re going all in PBL, group projects and presentations with content, collaboration, and presentation rubrics (will post all soon). The class is all on board and we are only five minutes in.

First groupings are based on student seating (I have 15 students and my classroom has four round tables in it, no desks, I will post a picture. So the tables the students sat at when they walked in are the groups they are stuck in for unit one, until I get a better handle on who is who in the class. For the non math teachers out there, I have 3 groups of 4 and one group of 3.)

Admin Team has decided that I am to start from 72a, Mishna of Ha’Ba B’Machteres, so I put this on the board: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ac8ZgXf14TzCzwRmCQhqNyBywiILAp_dzkLG56fhNRs/edit?pli=1

I have a student read it aloud, no questions allowed. Next, five minutes to talk it over in the groups, again no questions allowed. Next I take all the questions about the project. I remind students that I want assigned roles of research tomorrow, and we still have 20 minutes or so left, so we start the learning in their groups. Some of the students break to beis medrash to get chumashim, some use their laptops. I circulate listening to students decode pesukim, a mishna, and start the gemara. (FYI the list of sources on the Doc is not complete, I will be continuously adding to it until the end of the unit.)

So Day 1 is in the books. No frontal teaching, an excited group of students, and a PBL Gemara class off to a great start.

A PBL Tefilas Ha'Derech

Our school (MHAFYOS) is making a shift to project based learning in an attempt to focus on 21^st century skills. I have found that the videos of projects you see at school meetings are lovely, but incomplete in two ways. First, they fail to demonstrate how the learning happens, meaning they show a culminating project, but leave out the part where the students learn the skills needed to create that project. Second, they are almost never about a text based course, and I teach Gemara. So, I am teaching the eighth perek of Sanhedrin this year and I will try to have a project based classroom.  I will be using this blog to explain what I am doing, and reflect on how it went. I will post the projects and scaffolding I give the students in an attempt to demonstrate how the learning happens through the project.  As I begin the journey a Tefilas Haderech is most certainly in order: “May it be the will of Hashem that no mistake come from my hand, that I not falter in a matter of law, and that my colleagues be pleased with my work. May Hashem make the words of Torah sweet in our mouths so that we and our students continuously enjoy studying His Word.” My thanks to Rabbi Noam Stein who is my teammate on the journey.

A year of EdTech

I am still not great with technology and I still wish I could trade in my Windows Phone for an older flip phone without text or email. After spending the past year researching and experimenting with different technologies and their application to education I still believe that the teacher is the most important resource a classroom can have. The lesson will only be as good as the teacher who has prepared and gives it, with or without technology. That being said, the world has changed and is still changing in terms of the way information is taught and learned. There is more information available to today’s students in seconds than was available to past generations in days. Students use more technology, they are communicating in different media than generations past and we have to adjust our teaching to allow students to maximize their potential and prepare them with the skills necessary for future success in the world. Technology is helpful, but the more important factor is to update our lessons to incorporate Twenty First Century Skills.

Webspiration

I like to use Prezi more than PowerPoint to make presentations because I think in flow charts and Prezi is more intuitive for me. I have been playing around with Webspiration, and I think it could be a good planning tool for students who think in flows. From my early trials Webspiration is pretty much a mind mapping tool. What is nice about it is tat it allos you to share your map with others and work collaboratively on it, thus allowing a group of students to chart a project before embarking on it. It should also serve as a good template from which to start putting data into a Prezi, giving you a picture of the whole before starting to create a Prezi. Try Webspiration, http://www.mywebspiration.com/,  and see if you think I am right about using it before Prezi. Also see the sugya I started to chart on Webspiration http://www.webspirationclassroom.com/launch.php.

Ya But...

I just watched Collaboration Fluency: Creating a Learning Environment for the Digital Age Classroom by Lee Crockett with 21st Century Fluency Project. You can find the session from the 2011 ISTE Conference at http://www.isteconference.org/ISTE/2011/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=60754937&selection_id=77398005&rownumber=7&max=54&gopage=

I was disappointed by this session. Crocket opens claiming that in the past he and his partners have focused on the challenges, explaining that in the 21^st Century we are facing a different kind of student. In this session he claims “We are trying to move past the talk … and explain how you do that, how do you teach that.” He mocks the field of education claiming that no field ignores their own research more than teachers, indeed, it is “Ironic that we are over a decade into the 21^st century and we are still trying to define what 21^st century skills are.” He suggests that he will present the process of integrating these skills into the classroom. I felt let down because I didn’t see where he did that for collaboration. I felt this lecture was just more talk about collaboration, exactly what Crocket said he wanted to avoid.  

In his discussion of what he believes 21^st Century skills are, Crocket dismisses teachers who present ‘Ya, buts…’. I however was left with a large ‘ya, but’ at the end of this session: Ya, but you didn’t move past the talk, you didn’t give any examples of how to engender collaboration amongst students.

In the hours long lecture Crocket uses only four minutes (from 32-36) to present the 5 E’s of collaboration which compose the process of collaboration fluency. Establish the group, the roles and responsibilities, the norms, and the group contract. Envision what the groups goals are. Engineer how the group is going to reach its goal, and how the goals will be evaluated. Execution of the plan. Examine the process and determine if the goal was achieved and how the process could be improved.

This seems to be a reasonable process, but without the examples of how it is done it is little more than more talk.

Wiki vs. Apps

This week Edtech 102 has been looking at Wikis. There are three advantages to the Wiki. Fist, it allows students to work collaboratively on the same canvas, both adding their own content as well as editing other’s. Second, Wikis retain older versions of the work allowing edits to be easily undone. Third, they track each individual’s additions to the Wiki, enabling the teacher to monitor each student’s progress within the group Wiki. These features make Wikis a fine place for constructing collaborative work.

I am trying to figure out when it would more appropriate to use a Wiki and when it would be more appropriate to use Google Applications. It appears to me that Google Docs and Google Sites should give you the same functionality as a Wiki. It appears to me that they are similar softwares and one’s comfort with the different programs will dictate which to use.

One life seems like enough

I am having a hard time understanding the value of second life. The only thing I can come up with is that teaching through gaming can make education more fun for kids. That being my understanding, I don’t think that SL is the best platform to send students. There may be an advantage to virtual worlds in that they can show us things we cannot easily observe. For example in a virtual world you can visit foreign or ancient countries, but again I think that many of those experiences can be had using technology and real students.  I am not really up to date with the social media trends, and I do not even have a facebook account, but I really do not understand, what is the allure of hiding behind an avatar and meeting people who aren’t who they claim to be? What is to be gained by using this vast virtual world which cannot be gained by using real software and educational games?

Trying animoto

I have been looking this week at animoto. The program seems simple enough to use, but I am not sold on the functionality for the text based classes I teach. The videos on the site are a nice way of digital storytelling and could be used in introducing a concept or summarizing what was learned. But I do not see how it could be used in the learning process of a text based class, has anyone done this? The free version also seems very limited in the same way as a thirty second clip might be good for an introduction or motivational point, but seems limited in its ability to present a greater topic. It seems to me that this is a great tool for making slideshows come alive and turn pictures more into stories, but its application to the classroom seems limited. Students could use video to demonstrate mastery over a topic, see a Judaics example at https://sites.google.com/a/mhafyos.org/letters/home but this too is using student generated video as a project and not teacher generated video as part of instruction.

Trying Edmodo

I saw everyone in my EdTech class using Edmodo so I had to check it out. I am new to social networking, and I am not sure I like it either. I do not have a facebook, myspace, linkedIn, or any other social networking account, so this was new. (Ok, I set up a twitter account earlier this year.)
My early impression is that this is a good way to organize a class. I can post assignments, send notes to the class, even give and grade quizzes. The RSS feature allows me and my students to receive automatic updates and thus adds a level of convenience to class management.
What remains to be seen is how the communications and collaboration elements will work. As I use it in real classes I should get a better feel of how it will work. Anyone have any tips?

Purim and Yom Kippur

Rabbi Hutner (Pachad Yitzchak Purim 22) quotes from Vilna Gaon that Purim and Yom Kippur are not just linked, but are two halves of the same day. We paskin that Yom Tov is to be Chatzi Lashem and Chatzi Lachem, half for Hashem and half for you. Vilna Gaon suggests that Yom Kippur is the half of the Yom Tov which is Lashem while Purim is the half of the Yom Tov which is Lachem.
Rabbi Hutner explains that Yom Kippur is the day we were saved from Hashem’s decree to destroy the Jews after the sin of the Golden Calf (Devarim 9:14), while Purim is the day we were saved from Haman’s decree to destroy the Jews (Esther 3:13). Both decrees are described with the Hebrew root SHeMaD, and thus they are linked. The difference is that the decree we were saved from on Yom Kippur was heavenly while the decree we were saved from on Purim was earthly. Therefore the expression of Kedusha on those days represents the respective decrees from which we were saved on them, with Yom Kippur being a day of Kedusha which is Lashem (heavenly) and Purim being a day of Kedusha which is Lachem (earthly).
Rabbi Hutner explains that this manifests itself in the interpersonal aspects of the Holidays as well. On both Yom Kippur and Purim we have obligations to other Jews. On Yom Kippur the interpersonal aspects are spiritual, we have to appease others for wrongs we have done them. It is a connection of the spirit because the day is Lashem. On Purim we send others manos, food. It is a gift of the physical, because the day is Lachem.
Purim and Yom Kippur, two halves of the same Holiday.

Experiments with Google Docs

Productivity tools seem like a great way to have kids collaborate. Perhaps the best part about them is that they are accessible to most anyone. Our school has set up Google Accounts for every faculty member and students and thus Google Docs is an easy way to have kids work together, maintaining documents with revisions on the server. My early experiments however have been a mixed bag. The main culprit has been internet speeds. I do not know if it a software problem or a problem with our school’s bandwidth, but at times Google Docs is slow to respond. This frustrates students and derails a lesson. Your technology based lesson will only be as good as the technology you use, but this also iterates what we have seen as a common theme in integrating technology into the classroom, always have a backup plan in case you have technical difficulties.

Fundraising Shekalim

Rosh Chodesh Adar is the day Beis Din would announce the collection of Shekalim. This past shabbos we read parshas shekalim and the Haftora we read presented us with two different ways of fundraising.

King Yoash has decided to make repairs to the Bais Hamikdash. This is a tremendous maneuver on his part, the Beis Hamikdash having fallen into disarray after his father and grandmother, King Achazya and Queen Attalia, worshiped the Baal and allowed the Mikdash to deteriorate. In order to raise the capital needed for these repairs King Yoash decides to send the Kohanim out
as meshulachim for the Mikdash. He instructs them to go to every town and collect funds for the mikdash. The Kohanim are not pleased with this arrangement and they do not collect as much money as the king envisioned.

Yehoyada, the Kohen Gadol, then presents the king with an alternative method of fund raising. He places a chest in the mikdash, beside the mizbeach, and as people are serviced by the kohanim, the kohanim tell them they can make a donation into the chest. The chest is soon filled many times over, and the King’s improvements to the Mikdash are paid for.

It appears that Yoash and Yehoyada present us with two different modes of fundraising, dues and donations. Yoash has the kohanim collect dues from the nation. The result, the people are upset by the taxes, the kohanim are upset they have become tax collectors, and insufficient funds are raised. Yehoyada has the people make donations. The kohanim are to service the people, and as the people experience the mikdash they are moved to donate. The result, people donate sufficient funds for the repairs.

I think we are stuck in a Yoash model, our communal institutions charging dues and requiring community members to make additional building campaign and membership contributions. I am not sure how to switch to a Yehoyada model, but it has to start with servicing people. When people feel that an institution is vital and adds value to their lives they will donate, no dues required. If we have reached a point when we will not support institutions we feel are important we have truly fallen as a nation. If we have not, perhaps the best thing we can for our fundraising efforts is to make our services more relevant and vital to the lives of our constituents.

The Power of Simcha

Another guest post from an amazingly strong Northern Figtree.

We are now entering into a very special time, a time that presents us with an amazing opportunity to change and grow. We are all familiar with the famous Gemarah in Tannis 29 that says When the month Adar enters,we increase in simcha. The obvious question that needs to be asked is why? What is it about the month of Adar that we make a conscious effort to increase our simcha. Shouldnt this be something we do year round. The simple answer is, that if we look at what took place during the month of Adar we can understand why we are so happy. Back in the days of the stroy of the Megilah , Haman Harasha tried to wipe out the jews. He tried to have us all killed and with the help and blessing of Hashem he was not successful. Therefore in order to remember and celebrate the fact that he was not successful in destroying us, we not only celebrate during Adar but we increase our simcha to a higher level. However I think that we can go a little deeper, and see a different reason as to why specifically during the month of Adar, our avodah is to increase our simcha.Says Rabbi Nosson in Likutey Etzot quoting from Rabbanu, Rebbe Nachman Mi Breslov, " Someone who is himself happy, can give heart to somebody else. It is a great thing to bring joy to the heart of your fellow jews. Most people are full of pain and worry and all kinds of troubles , and they find it impossible to speak out what it is in their hearts. Someone who comes with a smiling face ,can LITERALLY GIVE THEM FRESH LIFE. This is a very great thing. You can make another person happy, YOU ARE LITERALLY GIVING NEW LIFE TO A JEWISH SOUL". Explains Reb Nosson , that when we come to someone and cheer them up, give them joy, add some simcha to thier life, we are not just doing a nice thing. We are not just as the saying go's "cheering them up". We are are MAMISH giving them a fresh start, a new life. That simcha has the ability to recharge, reinvigorate, renew the jewish soul. Haman tried to come and annihilate the jewish people. We respond to Haman, by countering exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to take life, so in Adar we respond by giving life. How do we do that? By increasing simcha ,by giving life to the jewish soul.Lets really take this torah of Reb Nosson to heart.Let us try to not only only increase the simcha in our lives, but in the lives of those around us. Lets try and give a new start, a new life, to all those that need it, by giving a smile, or saying a kind word or joke, or even just listening to someone who needs to let some things out. Lets dance a little more and sing a little more. Let us use the koach of simcha to make sure that " these days of Purim will never pass from among the Jews, nor shall their memory depart from their descendants" ( Ester 9:28).GUT CHODESH -GUT PURIM

Convenience (and maybe an authentic assessment)

I have a friend who says that the measure of a good piece of software is if it makes life easier. It appears to me that is what podcasts are good for educationally. They add very little in the realm of new functionality, but they can add quite a bit in convenience. . Having updates automatically downloaded takes away the need to check for new recordings and enables more immediate access.

They could be used by both teachers and students. Teachers can record review podcasts or have students prepare podcasts to demonstrate knowledge. In particular podcasts might be a good way to create an authentic assessment for reading Gemara. Have the students prepare a podcast of themselves reading and explaining a short piece of Gemara. The teacher can grade it on a rubric and the convenience of having it appear without having to go through email or search online will make it easier to organize a student’s reading over time.

I Love Tu B'Shvat

I present here an anonymous guest post from a beautiful Northern Figtree.

I have very fond memories of tu beshvat from my youth. Seriously, what is better then coming to school, having the school provide the ammunition, and spending the rest of the day pelting your friends with rock hard dried fruit.
However as I have gotten older, I may not be much wiser, but the day has become much more then a dried fruit free for all. Tu Beshvat is a day filled with so much meaning and potential, that if we look a little bit beyond the surface we can truly learn a lot.
Says the Divrai Chaim of Sanz ztl that on Tu Beshvat we should make a big feast. We are now entering a time period filled with joy and simcha, because from Tu Beshvat till Shavuos we have a diffrent yom tov every 15 days. (rosh chodesh adar-purim-rosh chodesh nissan-pesach-rosh chodesh iyur-pesach shani-rosh chodesh sivan-shavuos). The question is, as we enter this time period of Simcah, how should we begin.
I think we can find the answer to this question, with a teaching from the Lubavitcher Rebbi ztl that I saw quoted by Yitzchak Buxbaum. On Tu Beshvat we have the custom of eating fruits, but this seems strange. In reality, at this point of the season, fruits aren't even close to being ripe. As a matter of fact on Tu Beshvat only the sap inside the tree begins to flow. So why do we eat fruits now before their season has come?
He answers so beautifully, that on Tu Beshvat we really do have the whole perfection of the trees yearly cycle, however we have it in potential. It make take time, care, and hard work, but the potential that we will need to succeed in growing the fruits of the tree are here now. And as we sit at our feast, enjoying the sweetness of the fruits, we are reminded that with hard work, determination, and a proper use of the hidden potential inside the tree and each one of us, we have the ability to produce beautiful fruits.
Each one of us has so much potential. We are all capable of doing things we never dreamed we would be able to achieve. But we must believe in ourselves and our ability to succeed no matter what the task. We have to take that first step, plant that first little seed and then we can see it grow. Tu Beshvat is beautiful reminder of that. Rabbianu, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov ztl said " its not good to be old. There are pious and rightous elders, but to be older is not good. You must remain young, renewing yourself each day and always making a fresh start". Let us use Tu Beshvat as our fresh start. Let us recognize the potential that each one of us has, and the fruits that we have the potential to grow, if we use our kochos properly.
Enjoy the fruits and Gut Yom Tov- Gut Yur- Gut Purim.

Micro-usage

The Edtech challenge this week is to develop a lesson plan which incorporates Twitter into the classroom. While I am not sure that Twitter can be used as a primary tool in planning an educational activity, I will suggest four micro-usages (micro-blogging pun absolutely intended) of Twitter in a classroom setting.

1. As a bulletin board. Teachers can set up a Twitter account for a class through which they can tweet information about assignments, updates about projects, links to relevant information, or personal messages from the teacher to their class. This is similar to posting on a class website, but has the advantage of being sent immediately to students’ mobile devices. An example of this can be found at http://educationtechnology-theoryandpractice.blogspot.com/2011/05/twitter-in-classroom-part-1.html

2. To create a learning network for students beyond the classroom with the students in the class. Similar to what was suggested above in updating projects, should a student update their own work on a blog or presentation, they can tweet the link to other students who would quickly be aware that updates were available and could follow the link to critique the work.

3. To create a learning network for students beyond the classroom with people who are not in the class. By using hash tags we could in theory develop a network of students across schools learning similar materials that could use Twitter to share and critique work as described above.

4. Backchanneling. There has to be a better way to do this than using Twitter, but allowing students to comment on a lecture via Twitter could make a lecture more interactive making students more involved in the learning and giving the instructor real time feedback on what the students understand and are thinking.

Seeds of Growth

We previously learned (http://southernfigs.blogspot.com/2012/01/youre-beanstalk.html) from Rabbi Shneerson that the ma’ala of trees is that they never stop growing. Rabbi Shneerson further suggests that we learn not only the concept of growth from the trees, but also some methods to achieve continuous growth.

When a tree is first planted the coating around the seed needs to be broken by the emerging root in order for it to blossom. The seed needs to allow itself to be broken in order to take in the necessary water and then eventually take root and sprout. In allowing its coat to rot the seed opens itself up to the nurturing powers of the soil.

We can employ the same method in our attempts to continuously grow. First we have to let our outer coating rot. We need to open ourselves up to the nurturing power of Toras Hashem by riding ourselves of haughtiness and accepting God’s dominion over us.

David HaMelech taught us (Tehillim 126) that those who plant with tears will harvest with joy. It is not easy to plant, long days of physical labor with uncertain outcomes. But only those who plant on through the hardship can harvest a crop. It is not easy to rid oneself of haughtiness and accept the kingship of Hashem, but breaking down the soul is the tree’s path to joyously harvesting continuous growth.

In our Shemona Esrei we ask God to sprout for us the seedling of King David. Maybe the craziness of the world around us is intended to help us break down our coating, humbling us, and thereby opening us up to the nurturing power of Hashem, allowing for the sprouting of Mashiach ben David.

You’re the Beanstalk

Many attempts at explaining the non-halachik significance of Tu B’Shvat focus around Devarim 20:19 “a man is the tree of the field.” The verse is rhetorical in its pshat, but Taanis 7a suggests we can learn the verse as a statement, comparing people to trees. While there are plenty of beautiful trees in the world, this comparison doesn’t seem very flattering, so what are we to learn from the trees, and why would we want to be compared to them?

Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shneerson (Shaarei Ha’Moadim Chodesh Shevat) suggests that the advantage (maalah) of the trees (tzomech) is that they never stop growing. Even after a tree has stopped getting taller it continues to get wider, to sprout new branches, and to produce leaves until it dies. As long as a tree is still alive, it is always growing.

Next week we mark the new year for the trees, and we can be like them, growing everyday!

Crossing the Rubicon

I am all about the truth, and the truth is I am nervous about blogging.
I am all for the sharing of ideas. It’s nice to get quick feedback and to reach audiences beyond my normal peer and professional groups. But this is really out there: I am not sure every rough draft idea I churn out is fit for mass consumption, and once it’s up, the Rubicon has been crossed. I see the value in a process of development via comments and links, but does that process have to be viewed by the entire world, and do the stages along the way have to be so irrevocable? The claim that putting it out there makes you reason better only works when the posts are not mandated. I have to post for school so I need to post every week whether I have a strong thought or not. Here’s the point of contention (the nekuda if you will): In my mind you publish an idea when it has been refined, not as a starting point to refining it.

No more stalling, the figs are ready… I’ll see what the other side of the river looks like.