Why does the Torah begin with stories about families: families characterized by all the tumult and wondrous complications that make them so much like our own? Professor Arnold Eisen of Stanford, in his book “Taking Hold of Torah,” answers the question as follows:
“It is that the Torah starts where we do. It locates each and every one of us in the chain of human actors stretching back to the very beginning, in order to have us reflect on the consequences and responsibilities entailed in being who we are: ourselves and not someone else, the children of our parents and not others, members in a family and fate that claim us as their own.”
In short, we all begin in family.
When we think about education, most of us first think about school. But our education doesn’t begin and end in school. Where do we learn about good and evil or right and wrong? Where do we learn what is important and what isn’t, what we should care most about and to what we should be indifferent? Where do we learn to be curious about the world and to offer praise for the good that is ours? Where do we learn to take responsibility for who we are and to aspire to who we can become?
It may take a village or a community to educate a child, but Jewish learning begins in the family. We are instructed in the Sh’ma to teach our children at every opportunity, morning, noon and night. And in truth we do teach them both directly and indirectly, by what we say and by what we do. Formal education may take place in school, but it is in family that we are all lifelong learners.
The BJE places family education at the heart of our mission because Jewish memories, Jewish practice and Jewish identities are created, nurtured and sustained in Jewish families. We seek to empower families to “write” their own Jewish stories — stories that link each family’s unique journey to the master epic of the Jewish people. We invite you to tell yours.