Machon Micah Transforms Jewish Education

Temple micah did away with traditional religious school this fall, but it didn’t abandon Jewish education. On the contrary, with the creation of Machon Micah (Hebrew for “Micah Institute”) it expanded formal Jewish learning to encompass the entire temple community. “Temple Micah is Machon Micah,” Rabbi Zemel said. “The whole idea is to create a congregation-wide Institute for Jewish Living.”

"Temple Micah is Machon Micah," Rabbi Zemel said. "The whole idea is to create a congregation-wide Institute for Jewish Living."

Three logical but seemingly radical principles drive Machon Micah: learn Judaism in real Jewish time, not simulated on a Sunday morning; learn Jewish customs and ritual by experiencing them, and meaningfully involve the whole community in the experience.

"We want to connect Judaism to all of their lives," Rabbi Zemel said.

Thus the Micah community will learn about Hanukkah and experience the joy of the festival on Sunday morning, Dec. 13, during Hanukkah. The entire congregation is urged to participate. Students will meet in grade-level groups while adults choose among study sessions. Afterward, there will be learning and fun activities for everyone, including a brunch--latkes eight ways-- provided by Temple Micah Cooks.

The shift to a new system started in 2007 when Rabbi Zemel returned from a sabbatical with a yearning to "rethink Jewish education," he said recently. So he established the Education Task Force and included members who were professional educators, parents of school-aged children and adults without children in the religious school.

"The Education Task Force spent a year in broad-based discussions on the goals of Jewish education and ways to build Jewish identity in America in this century," said Mary Beth Schiffman, who chaired the panel. "We came up with the basic concept and the three principles. We wanted everybody of all ages in the building together learning at their age-appropriate level. But this was all very conceptual. We didn't know how to implement it."

Enter Deborah Ayala Srabstein. Hired as education director in July 2008, Srabstein had spent years as a teacher and education director at Jewish schools in this area and around the country. During that time, she developed a vision of experiential Jewish learning taking place in Jewish time, and other sweeping innovations. Srabstein likens her vision to a fruit, unusual to this region, that she tasted for the first time while on vacation. Its name is mangosteen.

"There are things in this world that we haven't even imagined. There can be new things under the sun. This fruit is my metaphor for what Jewish education can and should be," she said.

When she returned home, Srabstein began searching for a job in the most creative congregation in the country. When she interviewed at Temple Micah, "I found they were asking the same questions I had been asking. It was a perfect fit," she said. "I wanted to make changes and they let me do it."

In fall 2008, Srabstein began to restructure Micah's approach to Hebrew education. Religious education experts like Joel Hoffman, with whom the Education Task Force had consulted, have concluded that traditional Hebrew schools not only are ineffective in teaching children Hebrew but tend to turn them off Hebrew study altogether.

Individual tutoring does appear to work, but private tutoring for all of Micah's students would be unrealistic and prohibitively expensive. "So, I thought, if we can't do one-on-one [tutoring] in person why not try using the computer? And that's what led to Skype," Srabstein said.

Skype is a program that, with a webcam, enables face-to-face communication over the Internet. Hebrew students now commit to spending five minutes a day on the computer, with an interactive Hebrew curriculum that comes on a CD-ROM. Once or twice a week, depending on grade level, each student has a 10-minute virtual meeting over Skype with a Hebrew tutor.

The experiment began last year with fourth and fifth grade. "People thought it was crazy. Even the teachers I hired didn't think it would work," Srabstein said. But it did. A formal assessment at the beginning, middle and end of the 2008-2009 school year showed the Skype students dramatically outpacing their predecessors in traditional Hebrew classes. Now, all students in grades three through six use Skype. And--to involve the whole Micah community in the endeavor--adults have been invited to sign up for Hebrew lessons.

"Both of my kids are doing very well with Skype," said Sharon Davis, a task force member with children in third and fifth grades. "They are learning Hebrew much more efficiently and getting more personal attention than in Hebrew class. They are much more attentive and responsive."

For students in fifth, sixth and seventh grades, Skype sessions have freed up Tuesday afternoon classes for more meaningful sessions on prayer.

"American Judaism has created a generation of Jews who don't see prayer as an important component of life," Rabbi Zemel said. "If prayer is critical to Jewish life--and I believe it is--how do we teach that?"

The students now study prayer by experiencing their own prayer services, discussing the concept of prayer and talking about their ethical insights. In addition, they absorb prayer through music, dance, drama and art.

"We want kids to have an `aha' experience when they pray," Srabstein said.

Riding on the momentum generated last year by the new method for teaching Hebrew, Rabbi Zemel and Srabstein changed the name of the education program to Machon Micah and rolled out the new approach this fall. Students still meet in grade-level groups on most Sunday mornings to study history and other Jewish content. But the lessons are much more hands-on and geared to actually experiencing Judaism. In addition, as a way of involving the whole community, each Sunday features a program for adults, whether they have children in Machon Micah or not.

"I recently stopped by the temple on a Sunday morning and was surprised to notice that it really felt different to me," said Virginia Spatz, who doesn't have children in the program. Previously when she visited during religious school, "I always felt like I was trespassing, that `we' had to wait until `they' were done." This time, there was a much more inclusive atmosphere, she said.

The third Machon Micah innovation directly targets learning about Jewish rituals, customs and holidays in real Jewish time within the context of family and community. For this school year, special events are scheduled on 11 holidays for the entire congregation to come together to learn, celebrate and eat. They follow the general pattern of the upcoming Hanukkah celebration, the third such event: age-appropriate study sessions; intergenerational learning and activities; all-community eating, celebrating and fun.

"This is a great concept, very Micah-like," Schiffman said. "Everyone comes together in the building, but learns at their own level."

"I think it is very important for the children to see adults in the building learning," Srabstein said. "It demonstrates to them that learning about Judaism is a fulfilling lifelong endeavor." Machon Micah remains an experiment. Everyone involved acknowledges that it needs refinement. Some parents are concerned about fitting the holiday events into their children's highly scheduled lives. Parents of very young children want a program to include toddlers. Rabbi Zemel and Srabstein want to concentrate on curriculum content. The experiment has been very labor intensive and requires additional staff, which means more money.

But positive feedback far outweighs complaints. As one third-grader exclaimed to his mother, "I love Machon Micah!"

[By Shelley Grossman; from December 2009/January 2010 Vine]