Why do educators choose careers in Jewish Education? The challenges are many. I chose to enter Jewish education as a career, and for the past 25 years, I have taught, designed curriculum, and coached teachers. I think one of the  secrets to maintaining a long career in Jewish education is PASSION. Passion, combined with other ingredients, help me do what I do every day with enthusiasm. 

These other ingredients include:

• Love of children

• Love of teaching 

• Dedication to helping ensure an impactful Jewish future 

• Social support of mentors and peers who model what is important

• Commitment to carrying on the links in the chain of learning sacred texts

• Desire to add a sprinkle of tikkun olam into the world. 

As a coach at BetterLesson since 2017, I was trained to ask Judaic Studies teachers what their goals are for their students. Most of the hundreds of educators I coached responded with the same academic goals. They want their students to know text: Tanakh (Bible), Mishnah and Gemara (Oral Law), Jewish history, Halachah (Jewish Law), and Hebrew language. Educators want their students to know HOW to learn these texts, easily identifying the necessary skills: decoding, comprehension, knowledge of vocabulary and important phrases, prefixes, suffixes, and abbreviations. Hebrew language teachers stated their goals for their students as becoming fluent in the four pillars of Hebrew: reading, writing, listening, and speaking, and for their students to connect to the Land of Israel. 

A great many teachers also included affective goals and values in their list.“Do you want your students to love the text, to be passionate about the text?” I asked. “Of course!” they would answer. I call that the “Neshama Factor.” 

The next part of our conversation was always more challenging. “How will you reach those goals? How do you measure an increase in the ‘Neshama Factor’? How do you foster and facilitate an environment that develops feelings of love and dedication we wish to see in the future generation?”

These latter questions were the basis of our coaching experiences together.  Building student-centered classrooms, with engaging and meaningful materials that allowed students to express themselves creatively as well as academically made up the crux of our conversations. Some teachers eagerly tackled the many strategies to increase student-centered learning, simultaneously increasing their passion. Others had a harder time with it. For example, when faced with implementing small group work, many teachers were afraid that they would lose control of the class, and the students would goof off. 

How can we break down the ‘Neshama Factor’ into bite sized, measurable elements? Can we use SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely? Does applying SMART goals to the Neshama Factor reduce the passion part? Building student-centered classrooms requires consistency, commitment, bite-sized goals, and boundless amounts of teacher energy.

When my son was in high school, he brought home a report card with a grade in “Emunah” (faith). “How did they assess that?” I asked him. “Did they hold a ‘faith measurer’ next to you?” He did not answer me. I wondered, “How was this class taught? What were the goals, the celebrated milestones, the classroom discussions, the artifacts, and the evidence of learning?”  I am not popular at parent-teacher conferences, because I am one of those annoying parents that dig down into these discussions with my children’s teachers. When I raised this issue, some teachers excitedly engaged in conversation with me, collaborating on ideas and projects. Others nodded politely,their eyes glazed over until I was done. 

Affective goals and values are more challenging to create, but seem to be one of the main reasons many educators choose Jewish education to begin with. Passion for Judaism, dedication to the Jewish people, and commitment to Jewish values are what has kept the Jewish community alive for millenia. As Rabbi Sacks stated in The Great Partnership, “We may be the dust of the earth, the debris of exploded stars, a concatenation of blindly self-replicating genes, but within us is the breath of God.” That feeling of having the breath of God inside of us keeps educators passionate about our chosen profession, our calling. Keeping the Neshama Factor alive and well within ourselves will allow it to be shared and stimulated in our students, and we as educators find ways to break it down without losing the raw energy involved. 

Passion for Judaism and the Jewish community – the Neshama Factor – is a stepping stone to supporting a Jewish future. Knowledge of the sequence of a Biblical story, and Mishnaic vocabulary and grammar are more easily measurable, but do not necessarily address the challenges facing Jewish education, Jewish communities, and modern Jewish identity. Moving the needle in the Neshama Factor, in helping students develop faith and dedication to Judaism and the Jewish community is a more complicated goal with murkier steps and milestones. Passion is what brought us educators to the field. Sometimes it’s transferable through osmosis. Sometimes it’s not. As with everything in education, we need to be mindful and intentional about how to transmit core ideas. These ten ways to share passion in the classroom may be a good start.   

What are the ways you inspire passion in your classroom? How do you or can you move the needle of passion in your own school?

Smadar Goldstein is the Director of Partnerships at BetterLesson for Jewish Educational Institutions. She’s worked in Jewish education for more than 25 years and loves to examine successful trends.