Sally Stefano joined the staff of Beth Tikvah as Director of Education in 2002. She brought with her over 30 years of experience in teaching and administration of public and private schools, and teacher education. She had also served as a consultant to the Education department of the Jewish Federation for teacher training since the mid-1990s.

      A native of California, Sally holds degrees or certifications from Pomona College, Claremont Graduate University, Southern Methodist University and Kansas State University. She arrived in Columbus in 1992 with her husband, John, who is the Chairperson of the Department of Theatre and Dance at Otterbein College, and sons David, now a resident of Sydney, Australia, and Andrew, who is married to Lauren and lives in Boston. The Stefano family has been a member of Beth Tikvah since 1993.

EDUCATION TODAY:
Comments of Sally Stefano, Director of Education

I’ve been spending time recently reading research on new trends in Jewish education, and looking for program ideas that will help us get to the kind of school that those who participated in our first planning session identified. I stumbled across the following commentary by Rabbi Marc Gellman who serves Temple Beth Torah in Melville, NY. (You may recognize his name from his many TV appearances as part of the “God Squad.”) He addressed many of the concerns that I heard at our meeting. I feel the rabbi’s words are particularly timely as we close a school year, and the annual discussion begins in your homes. You know, the one that begins, “Do I HAVE to go to Religious School next year?” So here, by permission, is Rabbi Gellman on Jewish Education…

...Let me offer some practical bits of advice on the care and feeding of Jewish children … Religious School begins at home... Parents must lead, not follow their children in the practice of Judaism. You know and we know and your children know that we cannot teach children how to make a Jewish home for themselves when they grow up unless they are already growing up in one now. You know and we know and your children know that the only reason to cherish Judaism in temple is if it is cherished at home.

Mitzvot are the main thing... The whole point of Judaism is to bring us closer to God through the performance of mitzvot, a word often translated as good deeds but which really means a commandment from God. Learning to do mitzvot is the goal of Jewish education… as it is the goal of Jewish life. In order to do a mitzvah, one must feel commanded by God to live as a Jew and one must know what Jews do. It is only the second of these that we can truly provide in the religious school. The personal sense of faith in God and the feeling that each of us stands before God in our lives, that feeling we can nurture and encourage here at Temple but in the end it must be affirmed by each Jewish person in the intimate spiritual privacy of his or her own soul.

Don’t get too happy when your child loves religious school and don’t get too distressed when they don’t.... Jewish education, like education in general, is a requirement for a literate, complete life. Jewish education should not be an option any more than English, math or science is an option. Usually children kvetch about things because they are trying to test limits and they are trying to determine if the thing you want them to do is really important to you. Be firm in explaining that Jewish education is important to you and you want it to be important to them. If they see that at age twelve that is great but if they don’t, you must be prepared to keep them going until they do see it. Also, you should understand that the positive effects of Jewish education may take time to emerge. Life is long and Jewish life holds more meaning the further down the road of life we are permitted by God to walk.

Judaism is more than lighting candles, blessing wine and eating challah... Jewish values are taught in this school and Jewish values, like tzedakah (charity), talmud torah (study), g’milut chasadim (compassion), are the soul of our faith. Jewish values can infuse Jewish rituals (eating the matzah reminds us of the value of freedom) or they can exist without rituals (like picking vegetables for the poor) but in the end this one thing is true: Jewish values are the reason Judaism has moral force in the world. We must always remember that Judaism is a way of making decisions about the great moral issues of our time, not just a way of blessing bread. And so even though your child will probably spend a great deal of time in religious school decorating Seder plates and making clay menorahs, they are always being taught in big and little ways, what it means to live as a Jew in this world. An old rabbinic maxim says, “One who teaches a child is likened to their creator.” Seen in this way, all of us who participate in the holy work of teaching your children about their Jewish heritage are co-creators of the children of [Beth Tikvah].

So, a prayer: May God bless us all with the patience and wisdom, the fortitude and insight, needed to create children who are proud, literate and spiritually sensitive to the needs of their people, all people and all life. Amen.

Rabbi Marc Gellman, Ph.D.