HaMakom: EXPANDING Space for God
The Innovators Retreat (IR) – sponsored by the Mayberg Foundation – is our annual convening of Jewish communal provocateurs including educators, philanthropists, influencers and consumers committed to their role as change agents in Jewish day schools.
The ultimate goal is to explore together ways to help Jewish day schools across North America reignite students’ passion for Jewish learning and improve the student learning experience around Jewish values, literacy, practice, and belief.
Our 2020 Innovators Retreat convened virtually on May 7, 2020. During this abbreviated, online retreat, we shared words of hope and promise for the future.
IR20 Video Highlights
In the videos below, Todd Sukol, Mayberg Foundation Executive Director, reflects on the value of counting, Manette Mayberg, Trustee of the Mayberg Foundation, speaks to the importance of God-student relationships, and Sharon Freundel, Jewish Education Innovation Challenge Managing Director, discusses the launch of the God Expansion initiative, including expanded funding opportunities through our Ignition Grants program.
During our virtual retreat we also engaged in small group discussions (see below) and reconvened as one community to recite Tehillim (Psalms).
We have scheduled our next convening in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Thursday, April 21 and 22, 2021. If you have ideas for next year’s retreat, we’d love to hear them!
Some take-aways from IR20 small group discussions:
The Challenges
The enthusiasm around tefillah (prayer) is greater when students are in school; they need to be part of a live liturgical community. How do we keep that enthusiasm going in a world of remote learning?
Questions about why God has “done this to the world” are arising and we have seen a related uptick in searching for God. How do we respond?
We, as educators, need to think further about the parent-child-God relationship and to “wear God on our sleeves” at all times. How do we perpetuate this tiring stance?
How do we relate to a benign, loving God with a pandemic that is killing mass numbers of people indiscriminately? How can children depend on God if they don’t have firm knowledge of the One Above?
The Good News
We come to know God through people with whom we are in relationship. This has intensified through the intentional relationship development during remote learning.
Leaders are working with teachers as individuals on their own relationships with God and supporting them lovingly so that they can connect with their students.
In a conversation about what it means to really listen, a child offered, “We need to work together just as the world needs to work together.”
The definition of partnership is feeling different now in terms of bringing in God. Parents and educators together are modeling what it means to be God-like.
One unique opportunity afforded by this time is that students have more time for reflection and introspection, to hear their own thoughts and feel their own feelings. They are finding their voices.
For inspiration and further exploration of these issues, please visit our God Expansion page. And please let us know if you have thoughts or experiences to share about our God Expansion program.