Five years ago, JEIC began posting a weekly “A Motivational Moment from the Parasha” on Facebook, every Monday at 7am. That was followed the next year by “A Motivational Moment from the Haftarah”. For the past three years or so, we have posted “A Motivational Moment from Tehillim [Psalms]”. We are about to finish the 150th chapter, and with that, the Book of Psalms. Our goal was to give everyone a short, inspirational boost at the beginning of the work week. No matter where we turn in the Tanakh, there is a verse that we can learn from and be excited about. And there is always something in the text that has a message for us as educators: how we approach Jewish education, how we interact with our students, how we conduct our own lives as teachers.
On September 4th, at 7am, JEIC will begin posting “A Motivational Moment from Tefillah”. Tefillah is our next unexplored territory for weekly inspiration. Here is our thinking: Tanakh is how God communicates with humans. The rabbis of the Talmud believe that the Torah contains the words of the Almighty, and the Nakh (the Prophets and the Writings) is Divinely inspired. Whatever your personal belief, the Tanakh–and the Talmud–are the Jewish people’s shared foundational texts.
In contrast, tefillah is how we communicate with God, how we become part of the larger Jewish community, and how we connect with ourselves on a daily basis. It is also a way that we can inspire our students to create a relationship with the One, with other Jews, and with themselves, as they figure out where they belong in the universe.
Social media, like any other invention throughout history, has its advantages and disadvantages. We speak frequently about the dangers of cyberbullying, tech addiction, and trolling for likes. We, at JEIC, want to leverage the good in social media in order to get the most out of this modern phenomenon. We want to allow people to see in their feeds a short message that will inspire and illuminate them, giving them ideas for their own lives that they may be able to incorporate into their students’ lives. They can utilize the thoughts to give themselves encouragement, to make themselves better educators, and/or to share lessons with their students in a formal or informal manner.
So beginning in September, we will post a new inspiring message from tefillah, starting with the tefillot of Yamim Nora’im (the High Holidays) and Sukkot, and in October, we will commence with weekly posts from the weekday Shacharit. We will also expand our reach by posting not only on Facebook, but also on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Please follow JEIC on these three platforms, and please watch your feeds for our weekly messages; we encourage you to engage with the posts by adding your own thoughts. Together, we can elevate our lives and the lives of our students through inspiration and education.