Hear The Cries

In a few minutes I'm supposed to give a student an oral test. Soon the school day will be over and then there's a Model UN meeting. Then I hope to go home and bake an apple pie and make stuffing.

This morning I spilled Powerade all over my desk and books and floor, while telling a kid to stop semi-goodnaturedly teasing another kid. It was an effort to clean it up but I seem to have done a decent job because when my room-mate (Felix Unger) came in he didn't seem to notice.

We had a meeting today about integration week and teaching talking with the kids about issues of individual versus community and society, etc. The suggested texts are articles by Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rav Soloveitchik, and Rabbi Yehuda Amital...

It amazes me beyond words to what degree people who think of themselves as intellectuals can accept almost anything couched as intellectual and can accept close to nothing when it's viewed as salt of the earth. Perception is nine tenths of the flaw.

Rav Amital starts his essay on community with a story about one of the Rebbes of Lubavitch who didn't hear that his infant was crying because he was immersed in study. His father tended to the baby and told his son that if he wanted to be a Jewish leader he'd have to learn when to stop his learning and hear the baby's cry. An administrator quoted that story in Rav Amital's name and said that it presents us with "deep, deep, deep mussar." This colleague is not a fan of stories, and had it not come from a Rosh Yeshiva of Gush he would probably dismiss this Chasidic tale out of hand.

The last and only time I told a story at one of these slotted meetings (six years ago when we were learning Gemorah Shabbos and an administrator said that we should not only teach the tractate, but try to convey an appreciation of the day - I mentioned that I told my class about how the Sefer HaChinuch was written as an attempt by a father to give his son and said son's friends a meaningful way to spend Shabbos) I was told sarcastically that this was very nice and then asked if I gave the students crayons and a coloring book too.

Time to make the donuts...