Parshat Behar 2014/5774
I’m finishing up a class on how to design curriculum. One of the major lessons I learned this
semester is something that, for sure, was not written into the syllabus and the
teacher did not raise up this red flag: Is it really possible to teach something fully?
And what is the best way to teach a lesson?
Do we write it up on the board, ask students to make notes,
then test student memory?
Do we conduct a hands-on activity, and following the ideas
of John Dewey, learn by doing?
Which lesson planning style do we use, Understanding by
Design, 4Mat, Jigsaw method?
How do we figure out if anyone learned something (or not)?
And one of the more interesting issues is the way that a
school teaches not only by what it chooses to teach and how but also by what it
doesn’t teach explicitly, what is implicit, what is the message of what is left
out?
In our Torah reading this week we notice just how artificial
the distinction between curricular and extra-curricular can be. With God as the teacher, life itself is the curriculum. God creates the world itself with lessons and
assessments built in.
Every seventh year, farmers must let their fields lie
fallow; planting and all farming activity must stop. No sowing, reaping, pruning, or picking. Only those things that grow naturally will be
food.
This shemittah, this release, this break for the land, is
not just a nice idea. It was a necessary
part of the system. Irrigation water for
crops dumped a variety of chemicals into the soil, poisoning the soil. High chemical content in the soil was a major
cause of a civilization’s downfall. The
area of modern day Iraq, between the Tigris and Euphrates, experienced decline
when chemicals built up around one of the rivers. Crops would not grow. The economy in the area failed.(Sarna, Excursus
10, JPS Leviticus)
The descendants of those who for hundreds of years had
worked under Pharaoh’s orders, who now work the fields in their own Promised
Land, cannot overwork them the same way that Pharaoh mistreated the slaves as
expendable, killing their spirit and bodies until they had no option but to
shout out to God. It’s as though God
wants to remind us that we came from the soil, God formed us from the ground
and breathed life into us, and so we must nourish the source of our existence,
the soil that in turn produces the food that gives us life.
Clearly, despite the fact that the lesson was written into
nature, there were those who needed to hear it.
Caring for the soil was the only way the Promised Land could become a
Land of Promise.
The chemical build up is not limited to the soil. We see after a long winter, and the
claustrophobia of staying inside month after month, that we are starving for
fresh air, straining to take a walk, see the sun, plant seeds in the soil and
watch them grow. The weather affects our
bodies and souls. We want to be around
other people to remind ourselves that we are alive, just like we do during
shivah.
God also builds into nature the ways to revive our own
souls, to nourish our spirits and selves.
Our voices and language allow us to speak and sing, and teach, our eyes
enable us to read and study holy words.
Our hearts help us to match what we say and see to what we do, challenge
us to create new growth in ourselves, in each other.
2014 is in fact a Shemitah year, a 7th year, and
now, 7 months from Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there is a chance to begin the
work that will get us ready for the New Year.
If we wait until summer turns to fall, it will be too late.
Nature is a curriculum.
Time is a curriculum. However
long we merit staying in God’s classroom, let’s get to work.
Shabbat Shalom.
