Jewish education and the future of our children
The Badchanim are joyful and funny people who like to share joy (Taanit 22/A). They're also inspiring people for change and self-improvement. It's under this name of the "Badchan" that I like to practice my profession as a comedian-mime artist. Making people laugh is a great thing, and I feel fulfilled when my audience leaves delighted. But I've always wanted to give them more than just that brief moment, so that they can take away with them a kind of "know-how".
Seven years ago, I made a very extraordinary discovery:
When children are given what they need, they can grow up serenely and develop their full potential.
For me, it was a shocking revelation. It was even more remarkable because I saw it happen with my own eyes. I was convinced: "I'd just found something I'd been looking for so long".
Studies on childhood and pedagogy
I immediately started researching, exploring academic sources and reading over a hundred books. Then I met with teachers and educators.
It is in the person of Rabbi Jonathan Rietti of Monsey USA (www.breakthroughchinuch.com) that I finally found the best pedagogical lessons. For me, Rabbi Rietti is one of today's most competent pedagogues. He has developed a pedagogical methodology and a Jewish teaching style drawn from the Torah and from the Chachamim. Through his hard work and personal engagement he rediscovered the true Chinuch who makes SENS. He had the chance to meet and learn from modest and remarkable personalities, specialists of the Mesora of Limud and a powerful transmission (he talks about it in his book "The One Minute Masmid »).
To say that all you have to do is give a child what they want and "it works" seems rather simplistic and childish. Yes, it's true, but the truth is that it does, and that's wonderful news. Our children all have potential that will blossom if we respect their rhythm, their character traits, their way of doing things; if we respect them, we'll be able to help them blossom. Their Kedarko.
It's up to us, parents, educators, teachers... to understand how this KEDARKO works to "make it grow as it should, straight, high and strong". Mistakes are never in the child, never!
The stakes are high, and the task one of the most precious.
I had the great chance to have "grown" for five years at the Yechiva Yad Mordechai by Rav Chaim Yaacov Rottenberg זצ׳׳ל and the Rebetzen in Paris. (My unforgettable mentors and guides were also Rav Claude Lemmel - זצ׳׳ל and זצ׳׳ל et le Dr. Elie Temstet - זצ׳׳ל . They opened their doors to me and I became a student, an active member of this wonderful community.
I am a living witness, I have witnessed the most impressive; young people have turned into real Baale Teshuva in a few days, in a few hours, it was unheard of. And one wedding followed another. It was a memorable and intense time that left its mark on everyone involved.
Unfortunately, the world is moving fast and it's changed a lot. I am there again witness... but this time; children who leave the world of the Torah. And yet they were lured into it all their youth... what happened?
"JEWISH PEDAGOGY" is the word I don't hear so much. We talk about "teaching", "educating" and many books give advice to parents and teachers. But I did not find that it is based on a clear pedagogy.
What if THE Jewish pedagogy existed, almost engraved in the stone and that it is left to the intelligence of parents and educators to adjust and adapt according to the children?
Translation of books on education
Here are two books on sale on Amazon.fr (the originals on Amazon.com) I had the chance to translate. On the Haschkafa of Chinuch Kedarko of Rabbi Jonathan Rietti, and on the abandonment of Judaism from our Jewish youth, written by his son Eli Rietti:
