Shavuah Tov kulanu. Tonight my goal is to walk you through the two foundational values of Midrasha - community-kehillah, and connection-kesher.
We start with community-kehillah, because tonight we embody this beautifully. A Kehillah is not a tzibbur or a collection of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time. A Kehillah is a group of people who work together to co-create something bigger than themselves. It is like the creation of the mishkan, the tent of meeting where G-d dwelled amongst the Israelites in the desert, the mishkan was built by everyone bringing their best talents and eorts to the project. So too each of you brings your best talents and eorts to Midrasha - whether in supporting Midrasha financially, with your time, your advocacy, or driving your teens on a Wednesday night to Walnut Creek. Community is why teens come back week after week. It’s a feeling, a verb and a noun and we embody it tonight.
Tonight we are a Contra Costa and beyond Kehillah community. We come from Beth Chaim, B’nai Shalom, B’nai Tikvah, CCJCC, CCJDS, Netivot Shalom, Beth Abraham, or Temple Isaiah, or coming from newness, looking to belong, but we are shleimut - we are whole in our belief in Midrasha. I love seeing all of us come together at our annual Gala to celebrate our Contra Costa Midrasha. Thank you all for joining us tonight.
Thank you to my family for supporting me and Midrasha: Jon, Leilah, and Jonah. To my Dad, Mom and Jody; Martin, Azy, Ari and Jared. To my beloved friends and colleagues who came out tonight to honor me and our work here at Midrasha.
We are also a community of educators. As a Jewish educator, it’s pretty remarkable to be honored in this spectacular way. I want to take this moment to acknowledge our amazing team of educators, collaborators, mentors and friends. Midrash Educators - please stand as I call your name and then we will applaud you, for in truth Midrasha doesn’t exist without you. Gracie Benhamou, Gabe Isserman, Sarah Romov, Hila Sogauker, Tamar Zaken, Gavin Mentz, Julia Babka-Kurzrock, Brandon Varona, Natalie Connell, Juliana Tenenbaum, Kaitlin Wahl, and Ollie Feldman. Each of you is so talented, dedicated, and giving of yourselves, your time and your spirit. Thank you. I share the spirit of this evening with you.
In Judaism, community is not complete without our forefathers and foremothers. And so I want to acknowledge those who started Midrasha - on whose shoulders I stand tonight. Thank you to Rabbi Gordon Freeman, Rabbi Raphael Asher and Rabbi Stuart Kelman for starting this amazing Midrasha experiment to broaden the community of Jewish teens in the East Bay. And thank you to my mentors - Diane Bernbaum and Elaine Bachrach for starting and building the foundational legacy of Midrasha.
While we celebrate tonight, a Jewish event is not complete without a little sorrow. Even at a wedding, we break the glass to remember the destruction of the Temple. We continue to be in mourning as we grapple with the consequences of October 7th. This week’s news of the Bibas family was devastating. And yet, just today, another 6 Israeli hostages came home: Avera Mengistu, Tal Shoham, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Eliya Cohen, and Hisham al-Sayed. Each Wednesday night at Midrasha we’ve taken a moment: to hear the names of those who have come home, to pray for the release of those who remain, and for peace to return. Let’s take a moment now.
Today we read the Torah portion Mishpatim. It ends with a repeat of the covenant between G-d and the people. Ffter Moses has read a list of laws and regulations to the assembled people. Upon the completion of reading it aloud, the whole community says back to Moses, ‘All that G-d has said we will - na’aseh v’nishmah - do and then understand.’ What amazing psychological insight. How did our ancient Torah writers know that humans need first to do, in order to then understand or to believe?
Many years ago Rabbi Deborah Newbrun taught me this phrase. Na’aseh v’nishma - do first and then you will understand. Over my years of learning from and with teens it’s become a mantra. First, we need to engage teens in doing, in experiences, in doing Jewish. We need to hook them, CONNECT them. THEN they will understand its meaning. Midrasha was built on this precept. Teens need to DO, need to CONNECT so that the understanding will arise.
Contra Costa Midrasha’s work is about the doing of Judaism, the hands-on, get your hands muddy (often literally), so that teens can come to understand the value of Jewish engagement. We know the teen brain sits in a space of deep growth - with new synapses inter-connecting and reweaving constantly. There’s a theory that the teen brain cannot grow the prefrontal cortex to understand consequences without experiences, without some risk, without some pushing of boundaries. At Midrasha we aim to create large nests, spaces where teens can try out new ideas, meet a wide variety of new friends, and lead programs in such a way where even if they fail, it’s a learning and growth opportunity.
When I was chosen for this job 18 years ago, I had already been teaching at Berkeley Midrasha on Sunday mornings and weekend retreats. My very first retreat I was a little intimidated by high school students. And so when I found myself in a cabin of junior and senior girls, I decided to use one of my favorite tools - telling them a bedtime story.
Back then the retreats were run by the East Bay Jewish Federation, in partnership with four Midrasha campuses. We did much then that we do today - hikes amidst tall trees, Shabbat services - reading Torah in the woods, Havdalah under the stars, educational time on Saturday afternoons, dances and karaoke and movies on Saturday nights.
After pandemic lifted, we at Contra Costa Midrasha agreed to become the shomrim - the guardians of the retreats. The first overnight retreat we ran after pandemic began to lift happened over Chanukkah. I remember so clearly saying the word miracle over and over, because the whole thing felt like a miracle. We packed so much into that weekend. We got to celebrate Hanukkah in person again. We each made our own Havdalah candle, so that each of us could hold one while Eric Schoen serenaded us to the holy tune.
We got to be in community in person again and it was a miracle.
THIS is what we are really good at: creating holy and safe spaces to be Jewishly together in a community of teens and educators, building on each other’s strengths and getting time to see each other as whole people - each b’tzelem elohim, created in the image of G-d.
That is what we’ve built together the last 18 years, often because a teen, a parent, or a fellow educator came to me asking to start or continue a new program. I’ve said yes every time and we’ve figured it out together.
When Alex Young and Ethan Gross told me they thought Midrasha should run the teen philanthropy board, I spoke with Phl Hankin about it. He gave me the blueprint for what is now our Hamsa Fund, a way for our Jewish teens to build their own Foudation complete with a mission statement, fundraising to support a chosen issue and then giving out grants to nonprofits serving those communities. Over the ten years since we took it on then under Tamar Zaken’s leadership and now lead by Gavin Mentz, teens have given funds to support giving sewing machines to resettled Afghani refugees, to build defibrillators on the streets in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, to enable the JCRC to write workshops for teens to battle anti-semitism. Since the Hamsa Fund’s inception, over 100 teens have raised $70,000 - DOING - na’aseh – the Jewish work of tzedekah, bringing justice to our world, so that they nishma - understand how the work of philanthropy is a vital part of our Jewish tradition.
In 2014, I heard about this crazy grant from Legacy Heritage Fund, oering teen programs money for teens to meet each month with senior citizens. I talked with Judy Blum about it. She thought it was a great idea and something our community needed. That next year we launched Better Together, where each teen made a mini-documentary about one elder living at Reutlinger. I remember so vividly listening to Varda Goldman tell Tamar Franbuch about making deliveries on her bicycle for the Irgun during Israel’s War for Independence. We ended that first year by turning Reutlinger’s dining hall into a movie theatre with a giant screen and the room was filled with senior citizens and their families watching filmed stories about their beloved grandparents, as filmed and edited by Midrasha students. Now at Better Together, our teens and senior citizens, as lead by Julia Babka-Kurzrock, continue to DO - na’aseh the vital work of listening, sharing, writing letters to support our families in Israel, and sometimes making pickles together. After a year of this work together not only do our teens understand why we respect our elders and what they have to teach us, but our senior citizens have grown to understand today’s teens, giving them faith in the next generation.
On March 12th 2020, a Wednesday night, I sat in a classroom with a group of teens who were planning a Midrasha Purim dance set to happen on March 15th. But on March 14th, the world went into the Covid lockdown and that dance got cancelled. That weekend, it was crystal clear to me that Midrasha would die if we didn’t work our tails o to keep the teen community together. And so we did. Our entire educational team took crash courses on how to use Zoom. We were online the very next Wednesday, five days into lockdown, but it wasn’t the same. I kept thinking and asking all our educators, “how do we bring the magic of Midrasha into our teens’ homes?” That week I got a delivery of food from Farm Fresh to You. And a bell went o in my head. We need “Midrasha Fresh to you!” A grant from the Federation’s Teen Inititiative enabled us to bring in celebrity chefs like Jet Tila onto Zoom to make Pineapple Fried Rice together - complete with a Covid-safe hand-delivery of groceries to each Midrasha teen’s home. It was like having our cooking elective inside everyone’s homes. We made glass hamsas with supplies from Aran’s Art Studio, learned to cook Sephardic meat pies with French chef Helene Jawhara Piner live from France, and held an outdoor drive-in Jewish film festival at the Beth Chaim parking lot. Even during lockdown the work of na-aseh v’nishma continued - we talked, played endless online games of Among Us, and hand-delivered donuts - so that we could keep connecting and building teen community.
But all along - for 18 years of my life and now 38 years of Contra Costa Midrasha - the most magical thing we do is come together 31 Wednesday nights a year. We build community by being together, week after week. Na’aseh - we do - by Learning, making art, cooking Jewish foods, handing out pineapples, supporting each other through the travails of junior high and high school. Here’s what it looks like: It’s Brandon Varona belaying a teen 15 feet up a rock climbing wall, to then talk about being brave. It’s Sarah Romov making clay sculptures with teens, while talking about their inner Jewish selves. It’s Hila Sogauker, our Israeli shinshinit, making her family’s sweet rice Melita for our community Tu B’Shevat so that while we all taste the sweetness of her family’s tradition, we understand another aspect of Jewish peoplehood. It’s seeing Gracie Benahmou or Gabe Isserman encouraging a teen new to Midrasha to come play Gaga with the rest of the 9th graders during elective time. Together, our teens and educators show up for each other, so that we come to understand the impact of being in consistent and connected community.
I could keep telling you stories until tomorrow morning, of the magic we weave together, but tonight we have other stories to hear and new memories to make.
I am honored that this community has provided me with the opportunity to be creative, to try new things, to take on new challenges, and to trust in my leadership. We’ve been blessed by donors and supporters like you who believe in Jewish teen education, community, and engagement. I’ve shared with you what my collaboration, creativity, and flexibility has brought over the last 18 years.
I want to keep being creative, collaborative, and flexible to grow Midrasha into the future. To propel Midrasha into the future, we must build on our strengths of community and connectivity.
Some of you are parents of 7th graders. Jon and I are those parents too. We stand with you on the precipice of the five-year Midrasha journey that begins in just six months when your teens and mine become 8th graders. Let me paint you a picture of the next 5 years into the future of Midrasha.
Our community, as you see here tonight - the tight friendships the teens build at Midrasha - is our secret weapon. We need to oer more time and opportunities for our teens to build that community. Thus, I want to grow our weekly face-to-face engagement opportunities. We know that not all teens can join us on Wednesday nights - soccer, dance, theatre, cheer, homework - so many things might keep a teen from being in community on Wednesdays. I envision a future where CCM creates opportunities for monthly Saturday events: seeing visiting Israeli musicians, bowling, rock-climbing, game night, progressive dinners, etc. Within five years I want to add a monthly Saturday night or Sunday afternoon “Edah” or gathering. For next year, we’ll start with three of these events.
Retreats are our glue - it’s not Elmer’s glue, it’s gorilla glue. It’s strong. Every single CCM teen extols their deep love for retreats in their graduation speeches. They talk about how those weekends create tight friendships, inspire their spirituality through our unique Havdalah and Shabbat services, and foster their appreciation for the healing power of the natural world. So, to make Midrasha stronger I envision enhancing and oering more retreats and longer-term experiences not just because our teens love them (though they do) but because they accomplish every, single one of our Midrasha goals. I envision a future where Midrasha retreats can be longer - 3 nights and four days, not just 2 nights and barely one and a half days. Within five years I want Midrasha to oer more retreats each year, with a few that are longer too, allowing us time to engage in service learning, time on the beach, longer hikes, or maybe time further afield - in Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, or Monterey. For next year, I want to pilot our first three-night, four-day retreat.
How can we both build community and teach about Jewish history, culture, and values? By experiencing it first-hand through heritage trips. Imagine a trip to NY where we visit the Tenement Museum and Ellis Island, celebrate Shabbat at Lab Shul (a Midrasha-like pluralistic Jewish synagogue), eat our way through Jewish delis, and see Midrasha-alum Zach Piser star in Redwood on Broadway! What if we could oer a trip like this to our teens every other year? That means during five years a teen could do at least two of these heritage trips with their Midrasha community. Heritage trips could include a visit to the South to experience Jewish involvement in the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, or an LA adventure to explore the Museum of Tolerance, the Miracle Mile, and the Skirball Cultural Center. Eventually, I hope we can return to Israel too. For next year, I want to pilot a mini heritage trip - a heritage tour of Jewish Los Angeles.
I’d be lying if I told you the last 18 years of growth were free of pain, discomfort, or tears. I work with teens after all. Some of the most worthwhile moments have come through supporting a teen (and their parents) through depression, or bringing our sta together immediately after October 7th to talk about how we would educate and support our teens through the crisis. Our expenses have gone up - since taking on the retreats program a bus TO camp went from $1200 a trip to $2038 a trip. That’s a 70% increase. And don’t get me started on the price of donuts.
So tonight we need you to show up with your support - in two ways. In a minute Deb and Jared are going to invite you to fund my vision - this vision for next year to pilot: 1 - Three Saturday night Midrasha “experiential” events 2 - Help us expand one retreat to three nights 3 - A mini heritage trip to explore Jewish Los Angeles. To reach this collective “pilot” Devra’s Vision we aim to raise $10,500 from you tonight. And maybe you will pledge your support not just for this year, but for two additional years as well.
Secondly, after we hear from our Midrasha teen speakers, we will ask for your general Fund a Need support towards our scholarship fund. Each year Midrasha averages 30% of participants needing some kind of financial support to participate. While our synagogues help support scholarship requests from families who are members, the majority of our asks come from teens who aren’t members of synagogues. Our goal for our scholarship support fund tonight is $18,000.
On my first trip to Israel our group was told a story about one of our counselor’s college professors. Whenever he went to a lecture if someone asked, “do you have any questions?” This professor would ask the lecturer, “what is the meaning of life?” And one time the guest lecturer pulled out a mirror from his pocket and reflected the light in the room back out to the audience. “This,” he said reflecting light all around. Bringing light into dark spaces is the meaning of life to me.
That story became a pivotal meaning-making moment for me. My life’s mission is to bring the light of Judaism to our teens. To ask them to engage with it. To advocate for them. To help bring them closer to the light so that they might carry it too. I am so blessed that in my work I get to see and experience this light.
Earlier in January, I spent an afternoon with some of our teens, our Impact Builder program, lead by Juliana Tenebaum cooking and serving food for the Trinity Center a transitional housing facility for those working their way out of extreme poverty, just a short mile from our Midrasha site at B’nai Tikvah. While watching our teens treat each individual living at the Trinity Center with dignity and respect, with humor and kindness I heard myself whisper, “this is the light.”
On Feb. 1st I was on retreat with our teens in the redwoods of the Santa Cruz mountains. I walked into a small room while a fire crackled to the booming noises of teens singing, “Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu” at the top of their lungs, jumping, laughing, smiling, and holding hands with everyone in the room. That is the light.
That same day we learned about battling anti-semitism with Rebecca Goodman from the JCRC. Rebecca developed that workshop with funds raised by our Midrasha teens from our Hamsa Fund philanthropy program. As together we grappled with understanding how we can all battle anti-semitism - online, in classrooms, and at the lunch table I thought, “this is the light.”
Tonight I ask you to be the light with your generosity. So that we can keep transforming Midrasha for the next 18 years and beyond, into a place that connects and builds community not just with and for our teens, but for all of us. Todah.
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