As we count ourselves through the omer and towards Shavuot, many Jewish educators turn their thoughts to the year to come. How might we change our curricula? Is there something new to respond to, or have we to adapt to changes from within? Are we happy with our students’ learning, attitude, and engagement?

These are not new challenges, surely we can see the threads of these in the after-stories of Sinai, and also in the everyday writings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. In 1934, he came up with some goals to work towards, and we will share them here, then spend the next few newsletters ruminating on them. Here they are:

• Encourage an appreciation of Hebrew language and literature.
• Boost participation in the life of the synagogue and community.
• Put Jewish values and ethics into action. 
• Craft models of living creatively in both Jewish and national / global civilization. 
• Enrich Jewish living through the arts.

This week, in appreciation of the Hebrew Language, we share with you a poem by Chaim Nachman Bialik, one that resonates with Shavuot:

And should you wish to see and know
Their Mother, faithful, loving, kind
Who…sheltered them and shielded them.
And lulled them on her lap to sleep?

If you, my brother, know not
Then enter now the House of God,
The House of study, old and gray,
Throughout the scorching summer days
Throughout the gloomy winter nights,
At morning midday or at eve…
And there you may still behold,
A group of Jews from the exile who bore the yoke of its burden who forget their toil,
through a worn out page of the Talmud.

And then your heart shall guess the truth,
That you have touched the sacred ground
Of a great people's house of life.
And that your eyes do gaze upon
The treasure of a nation's soul.