A Clean Notebook? Write A Blockbuster This Year!

            As the new school year begins there is nothing like the feeling of that fresh notebook.   September 4th began a clean slate for students, teachers and parents.  As a student, it does not matter if you forgot to do your homework over and over again last year.  If you couldn’t stop talking during Chumash class...all is forgiven.  It’s your opportunity for a fresh start. As a teacher, if your lessons were not as well-prepared as they should have been, or you lost patience with one student, all begins again.  It is your opportunity to do it better this year.  And, as parents, if we didn’t oversee our children’s work enough, (that’s why he kept on forgetting to do it), or we were “helicopter parents,” and did not give him enough independence to do his work on his own, it too is a new year with a clean “notebook.”  No one has judged us.  No grades have been issued.  Nothing is yet written.

            Beginning the school year so close to Rosh Hashana begs for the comparison between the start of the new school year and the new Jewish calendar year.  As we know, at this time of year there is another clean and open book that Hashem opens in which He begins to write.

"בְּרֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה יִכָּתֵבוּן, וּבְיוֹם צוֹם כִּפּוּר יֵחָתֵמוּן"

“On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed, and on Yom Kippur it is sealed,” are the words we heartfully sing on the Yamim Noraim.

This image of Hakadosh Baruch Hu sitting with the books open before Him and busily writing is an image that, since we were young children, has indelibly made its way into our minds, and has inspired our tefillot on Yamim Noraim. However, when one thinks about it, a book is not only open during these yimei ratzon.  There is a daily recording throughout the year. As we know, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi wrote in Masechet Avot 2:1:

הִסְתַּכֵּל בִּשְׁלשָׁה דְבָרִים וְאִי אַתָּה בָא לִידֵי עֲבֵרָה, דַּע מַה לְּמַעְלָה מִמְּךָ, עַיִן רוֹאָה וְאֹזֶן שׁוֹמַעַת, וְכָל מַעֲשֶׂיךָ בַסֵּפֶר נִכְתָּבִין:

Keep your eye on three things, and you will not come to sin: Know what is above you —  An Eye that sees, and an Ear that hears, and all your deeds are written in a book.

            What is the message of this image of everything being written in a book on high?  Is the image of Hashem writing and recording all we do meant to intimidate and terrify us?  I know that for a child the Yamim Noraim are often seen as scary and even sad days.  I recall my year in Israel, when Yom Kippur night there was joyous dancing in shul.  It struck me as so different from the perception that many of us have of these days. These are truly joyous days, as Hashem forgives us.  So, how can we reimagine the image of every iota being recorded with a joyous perspective?  I once read that perhaps it is not Hashem as a harsh judge, but rather as a “compassionate editor.”  He lets us know which parts we should “edit” and how to improve our “life story.”  The editor is not waiting for us to trip up, but rather He is eager for us to write a blockbuster.

             This image of the open sefer particularly hits home to us in the age of technology. Aliza Feder quotes the Chafetz Chaim, in her article “Tech Talk.” “The Chafetz Chaim said that the first sound recording device was invented so the generation would better understand the teaching that all of our deeds are marked in a book.  So does the ubiquity of digital video and voice recorders mean our generation needs that message made even plainer? The smartphone culture instills in us a need to document everything in our lives.  Every event, no matter how big or small —  every outfit, three-dollar coffee, cute face our kids makes —  needs to be captured…”

Rabbi Yaakov Feitman says one can truly understand this open book by comparing it to the webcams, baby-monitors, doorbells who record your comings and goings, and items that record us without our knowing.

In essence, in an age when all is recorded, and our “digital footprints” imprinted, one can truly imagine the G-dly recording.  The difference is that an e-mail or text sent, is forever somewhere in cyberspace.  That which is recorded by Hashem is erasable through teshuva.

True that one perspective is that the books open before Hashem are not meant to intimidate or terrify us, but rather are ways for Hashem to find forgiveness for us.  I would like to present another perspective —  that the sefer maasim does in truth record all, and that it is meant to be a bit intimidating… for our own benefit.  An article from Reader’s Digest, “Your Permanent Record,” by Bob Greene highlights that other viewpoint.  Although it is lengthy, I feel including it here will make an impact.

You remember the Permanent Record. In school you were constantly being told that if you messed up, the news would be sent to the principal and placed in your Permanent Record.

Nothing more needed to be said. No one had ever seen a Permanent Record. That didn't matter. We knew it was there.

We imagined a steel filing cabinet crammed full of Permanent Records — one for each kid in the school. I think we always assumed that our Permanent Record was sent on to college with us, and later to our employers —  probably with a duplicate to the U.S. government.

I have a terrible feeling that mine was the last generation to know what a Permanent Record was —  and it has disappeared as a concept in society.

There was a time when people really stopped before they did something they knew was deceitful, immoral, or unethical. They didn't stop because they were such holy folks. They stopped because they had a nagging fear that if they did the foul deed, it would end up on their Permanent Record.

At some point in the last few decades, I'm afraid, people wised up to something that amazed them: there is no Permanent Record. They discovered that no matter how badly you fouled up your life or the lives of others, there was nothing about it on your record. You would always be forgiven, no matter what.

So pretty soon men and women,  instead of fearing the Permanent Record, started laughing at it. The things they used to be ashamed of —  that once made them cringe when they thought about them —  now became "interesting" aspects of their personalities.

If the details were weird enough, the kind of things that would have really jazzed up the Permanent Record, people sometimes wrote books confessing them, and the books became best-sellers. they found out that other people, far from scorning them, would line up in bookstores to get their autographs. Talk-show hosts would say, "Thank you for being so honest with us. I'm sure our audience understands how much guts it takes for you to tell us these things." Permanent Records were being opened up for the whole world to see — and the sky didn't fall in.

As Americans began to realize that there probably never had been a Permanent Record, they deduced that any kind of behavior was permissible. All you had to do was say, "That was a real crazy period in my life." All would be okay.

And there is where we are today. We have accepted the notion that no one is keeping track. No one is even allowed to keep track. I doubt you could scare a school-kid nowadays by telling him that the principal was going to inscribe something on his Permanent Record; the kid would file a suit under the Freedom of Information Act and expect to obtain his Permanent Record by recess. Either that, or call it up on his or her computer and delete it.

As for us adults, it has been so long since we believed in the Permanent Record that the very mention of it now brings a nostalgic smile to our faces. We feel naive for ever having believed there was such a thing.

            We live in a society where “everything goes,” and some even gain fame and glory from their misdeeds. But, we as Jews do not believe that is the case.  Jews are meant to be רחמנים ביישנים וגומלי חסדים — to have a sense of shame —  (as noted in Yevamot 89a).  In fact, Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler in Michtav M’Eliyahu Part 1, page 253 asserts that when a person feels ashamed of a sin, not only is that sin forgiven but all of his sins are forgiven. His shame demonstrates that he is ashamed that he transgressed Hashem’s will.

 There is some shame that is missing in the general culture today.  It is good for our religious development for us to realize that someone is always watching and recording. It creates a sense of responsibility to actually do the right thing...even when no one is physically there.  With our students, we often use the imagery that in order to decide if an act is appropriate, ask yourself — would you do it if someone you respect, your teacher, principal, the President was standing there and watching? As parents, we do not want to raise fearful and nervous children, but we do want to raise children who have some sense that everything they do matters and counts.  Sometimes, we are so focused on raising children who are always feeling good about themselves that we forget to help them do what it is right.  It is for their and our  benefit to envision Hashem’s book open and recording. 

There has been much recent research on the benefit of some inner sense of shame.   In the past, psychologists all maintained that shame was maladaptive and harmful.  However, research from the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that shame is actually a way of maintaining social order.  As Amy Ellis Nutt writes in her article  “Feel Ashamed? Good For You!”  “Step out of line, transgress the codes of normal behavior, and we risk being devalued by others in the community. Shame, or the fear of it, prevents us from acting outside the norm.  In other words, it is a healthy defense mechanism.”  As the authors of the study maintain that shame is “...designed to deter injurious choices and to make the best of bad situation.”  We need shame to succeed as a society.   As Shoshana Kordova writes in her article, “The Evolutionary Advantage of Feeling Ashamed of Yourself,” anticipating the shame we will feel if we, for example, become a thief and are found out, helps prevent us from stealing in the first place.

This does not mean that as parents we should shame our children That sort of inescapable shame can lead to depression, anxiety  and low self-esteem. Rather to raise them with an inner sense of  shame- בושה and a sense of that  what they do does impact on others,  and they do need to think before they do.  Not everything goes. 

As we stand at the start of the school year with clean notebooks, and  before Hashem and ask Him to inscribe us in the book of life,  may we remember that the book’s editor is compassionate, inspirational, and instructive during the Yamim Noraim and each and every day of our lives.  It is now our chance for each one of us to write our own blockbusters- whether in school or in life.

May we all merit a כְּתִיבָה וַחֲתִימָה טוֹבָה.

Advisory Update:

Due to the fact that we did not have a full week of school, some of our groups have begun Advisory, while some will start  when they have their first session.  But, those who did have Advisory covered…

Sixth Grade: Students learned about the goals of Advisory and got to know each other through a puzzle making activity.

Seventh Grade: Students were introduced to the theme of the 7th grade Advisory curriculum “Prepare Yourself To Change The World” through focusing on the fact that kids can in fact make a difference and the importance of self- change and working on self- improvement.

Eighth Grade:  Students began with real-life interviews of Yavneh graduates discussing what the 8th grade year is like.  These interviews launched the topics of the  first half their Advisory year. Students also played a getting to know you game to learn more about their fellow advisees and adviser- Mrs. Rubin.