Teaching Kindness – Living Kindness

Each year, I have the privilege of convening a Community of Practice for Congregational Education Directors, this extraordinary group of leaders who care deeply about Jewish learning, community, and the next generation. We come together not just to share best practices, but to support one another, to dream together, and to build something bigger than any one of us could do alone.

This work is personal for me. I believe that Jewish education is not just about what we teach – it’s about how we teach it. It’s about the tone we set in our families, schools, classrooms, the relationships we nurture, and the values we model. At the center of all of this is chesed, kindness, and how we treat one another.  It is easy for young people to look around and feel little hope, yet it is through those personal relationships with mentors and teachers, where they model acts of chesed and treat one another with dignity and kindness, that we actually have the ability to transform lives. 

The Congregational Education Directors have dreamed up the idea for the annual Congregational School Conference, coming up in a few weeks, focusing on chesed or “We Will Build This World from Kindness.”

This isn’t just a title. It’s a declaration of purpose and a reminder that every lesson plan, every conversation, and every moment of connection is an opportunity to build a kinder, more compassionate world.

The conference will bring together educators and teens for a morning of inspiration and practical learning. Teachers include:  Rabba Yaffa Epstein, from the Jewish Education Project, Beverly Socher-Lerner from Makom Community who will speak about Jewish Placemaking, and Nina Woldin from Chai Mitzvah who will introduce the #10XSTRONGER curriculum which focuses on the Ten Commandments and will explore the value/middah of kindness.

A special Teen program will be facilitated by Moving Traditions and focus on Jewish Identity in a world with rising antisemitism.

I am so excited for this conference to not only support teachers in practical and create strategies in their classroom, but also to center the idea of chesed in our own lives.