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| Similar to doormat outside JCHS lab-class |
While sharing a dvar Torah during a recent school community gathering I said something hurtful that I deeply regret. It was not what I said so much as how I said it. Yet the negative impact was the same.
I meant to say something inclusive about the diversity of Jewish culture around holiday celebrations. When I referred to one particular Persian custom, however, my body language and tone suggested distaste or disrespect. My impact was the opposite of my intent.
So what is the important, single word? Isaac asks Jacob, "Are you my son, Esau?" Jacob answers simply, "Ani." (Genesis 27:24.) Literally it means "I" or "It's me." Some translate it in this context to mean, "Yup, it's me [Esau]."
By contrast, Abravanel (15th century Sephardi commentator) unpacks this one-word answer differently. Abravanel comments that Jacob is saying as little as possible to avoid being forced to lie to his father. He uses the single word “Ani” to mean "It's me [Jacob]" imagining his father can tell from his voice that it's Jacob not Esau. Abravanel is suggesting that rather than continue to deceive his father, Jacob is admitting his true identity.
He is so timid, it's as if Jacob regrets putting the hairy skins on his arm pretending to be Esau. Almost as if he wants to confess his true identity. If he meant to confess, though, he does it so quietly no one notices. In that sense, his intent and his impact are different altogether.
I reflected too on the incident from a few weeks ago when my intent and my impact did not match. I am sorry for being careless about my language and body language.
Back in a similar school community gathering I apologized to students and colleagues generally for setting a poor example and particularly for creating the impression I disrespected Persian heritage. Rather than celebrate those in our community who are Persian or Sephardi or Mizrachi (and in my family too, with a Persian brother-in-law and nieces), my conduct seemed dismissive.
I asked student and colleagues for forgiveness and promised to work hard to avoid this type of disconnect between intent and impact in the future. To help me do that, we are creating a "Listening Lunch" around the time of Mizrachi Remembrance Day (November 30 in Israel) for me to hear directly from students and colleagues about what our school and I can do better to celebrate our diverse cultural heritage with pride.
When we live the lessons we intend to teach, then we enrich the learning we offer. If we want our students or children to learn how to reflect constructively on the gap between their intent and impact, to apologize when necessary, and to learn from those mistakes when appropriate, then educators and parents need to actively practice being reflective text-people.
I meant to say something inclusive about the diversity of Jewish culture around holiday celebrations. When I referred to one particular Persian custom, however, my body language and tone suggested distaste or disrespect. My impact was the opposite of my intent.
So what is the important, single word? Isaac asks Jacob, "Are you my son, Esau?" Jacob answers simply, "Ani." (Genesis 27:24.) Literally it means "I" or "It's me." Some translate it in this context to mean, "Yup, it's me [Esau]."
By contrast, Abravanel (15th century Sephardi commentator) unpacks this one-word answer differently. Abravanel comments that Jacob is saying as little as possible to avoid being forced to lie to his father. He uses the single word “Ani” to mean "It's me [Jacob]" imagining his father can tell from his voice that it's Jacob not Esau. Abravanel is suggesting that rather than continue to deceive his father, Jacob is admitting his true identity.
He is so timid, it's as if Jacob regrets putting the hairy skins on his arm pretending to be Esau. Almost as if he wants to confess his true identity. If he meant to confess, though, he does it so quietly no one notices. In that sense, his intent and his impact are different altogether.
I reflected too on the incident from a few weeks ago when my intent and my impact did not match. I am sorry for being careless about my language and body language.
Back in a similar school community gathering I apologized to students and colleagues generally for setting a poor example and particularly for creating the impression I disrespected Persian heritage. Rather than celebrate those in our community who are Persian or Sephardi or Mizrachi (and in my family too, with a Persian brother-in-law and nieces), my conduct seemed dismissive.
I asked student and colleagues for forgiveness and promised to work hard to avoid this type of disconnect between intent and impact in the future. To help me do that, we are creating a "Listening Lunch" around the time of Mizrachi Remembrance Day (November 30 in Israel) for me to hear directly from students and colleagues about what our school and I can do better to celebrate our diverse cultural heritage with pride.
When we live the lessons we intend to teach, then we enrich the learning we offer. If we want our students or children to learn how to reflect constructively on the gap between their intent and impact, to apologize when necessary, and to learn from those mistakes when appropriate, then educators and parents need to actively practice being reflective text-people.
Right away I was embarrassed enough that part of me wanted to diminish or even dismiss the whole thing. Pretend it didn't happen. It's hard to admit doing something we regret. And can be harder still to apologize for it. Then I took courage from two great 20th century teachers, John Dewey and Abraham Joshua Heschel, and one word from this week's Torah portion.
Dewey taught: “We learn not from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience” (emphasis added). Heschel exhorted educators to ask themselves: "Do I stand for what I teach? Do I believe what I say?" For him "[w]hat we need more than anything else is not text-books but text-people" (emphasis added). In other words we need to become more reflective text-people. Together Dewey and Heschel encouraged me to reflect deeply on the disconnect between my intention and my impact.
That disconnect also seems highlighted by a single word in this week’s Torah portion. For that reason, I used this week's school community gathering to apologize to students and professional colleagues for my earlier, hurtful words.
In this week's Toldot narrative the twins, Esau and Jacob, contend for the primary blessing from their father Isaac. In a dramatic scene the twins' mother convinces Jacob to masquerade as Esau then present himself for the primary, paternal blessing. Jacob does it. He is quite timid, however, with his words. Perhaps he thought saying too much might reveal his true identify. A father can surely distinguish the voice of one son from another. Torah explicitly tells us about Isaac's weak eyes, but we have no reason to suspect his hearing.
I wonder about the extent to which Jacob continued to reflect on whether he had confessed sufficiently. Certainly the rest of the Torah narrative about Jacob's overriding fear of Esau suggests that Jacob did a lot of reflecting about his conduct after the fact.
In this week's Toldot narrative the twins, Esau and Jacob, contend for the primary blessing from their father Isaac. In a dramatic scene the twins' mother convinces Jacob to masquerade as Esau then present himself for the primary, paternal blessing. Jacob does it. He is quite timid, however, with his words. Perhaps he thought saying too much might reveal his true identify. A father can surely distinguish the voice of one son from another. Torah explicitly tells us about Isaac's weak eyes, but we have no reason to suspect his hearing.
I wonder about the extent to which Jacob continued to reflect on whether he had confessed sufficiently. Certainly the rest of the Torah narrative about Jacob's overriding fear of Esau suggests that Jacob did a lot of reflecting about his conduct after the fact.
- More information about Jewish ethnic diversity - Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrachi
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