Because Everyone Belongs

  This past Shabbos my family and I had the privilege of being invited to be guests Friday night at a Yachad Shabbaton in Teaneck.  I always enjoy my time with Yachad and look forward to seeing “old friends” from Yachad Shabbatons with Yavneh, from the Yachad members who volunteered weekly with our students organizing the Yavneh Lost and Found, and seeing those who have been with us at our Chesed Team Chanukah parties and other Chesed Team events.  It is also a huge source of nachat for me as I see Yavneh graduates who have become advisors and are working for Yachad. (And, as a parent, seeing my son who is a Yachad coordinator running some of the programming was a huge source of pride!) 

For those who have ever attended a Yachad Shabbaton, or perhaps an NCSY Shabbaton, you would know that there is something called “circle time” where everyone brings their chairs into a circle after the meal and they sing songs before bentching. Many schools and camps have adopted this practice as well. Some of the songs are Shabbos songs and some of them are the participatory “camp-like” songs. I enjoy the yearly “Pizza-man,” “Introduce yourself,” “Down by the bay” songs, just to name a few.  A Yachad Shabbaton is just not complete without them. 

There is one song/cheer that has changed over my years of attending shabbatonim.  When someone gets up to start a new song, or say a Dvar Torah, people cheer “You look so beautiful, as usual,  inside and outside and all around…” The song used to end “especially your hair, and everything you wear, your shoes, and everything you choose etc. “  But, the past few years it ends, “especially your Neshama.” The first time I heard it struck me… what a perfect ending for a Yachad song!

At Yachad, all that matters is the neshama that everyone has inside. It doesn’t matter, how cool you are, what you’re wearing, whether you are in honors classes, or if you made the basketball team. It doesn’t matter if you are popular, or you aced your standardized testing or even got into the high school of your choice. All that matters is your neshama- the beautiful soul that Hashem has granted each and every one of us.  Every Yachad member truly feels that he/she has an incredible neshama because of the way they are treated at Yachad. They are treated as if there is no one better! 

And, that is why I encourage our students at Yavneh to get involved in organizations like Yachad. Because that feeling that you have an incredible neshama and no one is better rubs off on the volunteers and advisors, and frankly on the teachers who attend,  as well.  You leave a Shabbaton or a Yachad event feeling that EVERYONE deserves to be treated with respect, honor and love, as the Yachad motto aptly expresses, “because everyone belongs.” Not only is it good for the Yachad members when our students volunteer, but it is good for our children as well. One cannot help but leave a Yachad event feeling that he/she matters and can make a difference. While boosting the self- esteem of the Yachad members,  the volunteer’s self-esteem is boosted as well. It’s not just the research on the self-esteem boost that chesed causes that I quoted in last week’s column. It’s about that at Yachad our volunteer students enter an environment where no one is judged. Everyone is accepted. And, everyone is amazing. 

This past week we began an Advisory lesson in the 8th grade we call a “Quality Circle.” A quality circle is based on BRAVE- part of a bullying prevention program created by Dr. Rona Novick,  for which Yavneh was part of the research study when it was first created. Dr. Novick described how  automotive companies sit and evaluate as a team each car as each one is produced. So too, we at Yavneh,  as a group, evaluate how we are doing at Yavneh with our product- which is an atmosphere where people are respected.  Are we doing that? Are we creating a good "product”? The crux of the lesson is to have the students discuss how we are treating each other and have we created an atmosphere where all feel respected (like Yachad has!)? 

Each time we do a Quality Circle I base it on a trigger- something in either current events or in the media that relates to the topic.  This time the beginning of the lesson was a discussion about a new movie that came out recently called “White Bird” which is a sequel to the movie/book “Wonder.” The movie focuses on the boy Julian who was one of the children who picked on Auggie in Wonder.  In this movie he was expelled from his school due to his treatment of Auggie and was in a new school just beginning to navigate the social situation. His grandmother, played by Helen Mirren, has a frank conversation with him about the lessons he needed to learn from the way he treated Auggie. She does so by sharing her Holocaust survival story. To simply summarize, when she was a teen, a handicapped boy in her school, whom everyone made fun of- including her- was the one who saved her life when the Nazis popped by her school to collect all the Jewish children.  (I highly recommend watching the movie which is available to watch on Amazon Prime etc. There are some Nazi scenes, so not appropriate for younger children). 

The grandmother says to Julian in the movie,  “You forget many things in life, but you never forget kindness. Because when kindness can cost you your life it becomes like a miracle.” Kindness can truly save your life- literally and emotionally.  In addition, the grandmother points out to Julian what she (as a Jew) and the handicapped boy had in common, “We had both seen how much hate people are capable of and the courage it took to be kind.”  It is quite courageous to treat everyone you meet with respect.  R.J. Palacio, the author of the books that led to both movies “Wonder” and “White Bird” notes another commonality that the grandmother was trying to highlight between Julian’s picking on Auggie (in Wonder) and her Holocaust survival story: 

“... but also what they (Auggie, the handicapped boy and the grandmother- as a Jew) actually had in common was that they were judged for things that were beyond [their] control.”   The key to being kind is not being judgemental and being accepting or rather honoring everyone for whom he/she is. 

That is the success of Yachad. No judging. No one acts condescending or cliquey to another.  Everyone belongs! 

We are in the middle of our “Hey Dude- That’s Rude” unit with our sixth graders on manners and etiquette. The highlight of this unit is the bar/bat mitzvah behavior lesson.  One topic we highlight is the importance of being inclusive at such events. Look around the room. Notice who has no one to sit with or has a hard time joining the dancing. Invite that person in “because everyone belongs.” 

In the next few weeks we read of the story of Yoseph and his brothers. The pasuk in Bereishit 37:2, which we will read in two weeks, describes Yoseph

 וְה֣וּא נַ֗עַר אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י בִלְהָ֛ה וְאֶת־בְּנֵ֥י זִלְפָּ֖ה נְשֵׁ֣י אָבִ֑יו וַיָּבֵ֥א יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶת־דִּבָּתָ֥ם רָעָ֖ה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶֽם׃…

…as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

The Midrash Tanchuma Veyeishev 7 describes a special quality of Yoseph that these words are stressing:

וּמָה אָמַר לוֹ. רַבָּנָן אָמְרֵי, אָמַר לְאָבִיו, שֶׁהֵן נוֹהֲגִין בִּבְנֵי בִלְהָה וְזִלְפָּה מִנְהַג עֲבָדִים וְקוֹרִין אוֹתָן עֲבָדִים, וַאֲנִי נוֹהֵג בָּהֶן מִנְהַג אַחֲוָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וְהוּא נַעַר אֶת בְּנֵי בִלְהָה וְאֶת בְּנֵי זִלְפָּה וְגוֹ'.,

What did he tell Jacob? Our rabbis maintain that he told his father: They treat the children of Bilhah and Zilpah as though they were servants. They call them servants, but I act toward them as one does to a brother, as it is said: Even with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah (ibid., v. 2). 

Yoseph was upset with the way the sons of Leah were treating the sons of Bilha and Zilpa. They were condescending. They thought they were better. Yoseph, on the other hand, treated them with respect “because everyone belongs.”  This is definitely a lesson to point out at the Shabbos table when you discuss the Yoseph story. 

Let us remember as parents to model this sense of “everyone belongs” to our children as well in the way we treat everyone we meet. Our children need to get the direct message from us that “in our home, we are inclusive and we treat everyone with respect.”  Every day can be a Yachad Shabbaton- in the Yavneh lunchroom, on the bus, during recess, in shul on Shabbos, at a bar mitzvah.  And, of course, let us encourage our children to get involved in organizations like Yachad where they remind us that everyone has a beautiful neshama,  as Mordechai Shapiro aptly sings (some lyrics in his song “B’Yachad” below):

I like to be with friends

And to connect with them

I like to feel that I belong 

We aren't quite the same

But really that's okay

I know that we can get along

'Cause both you and I

See the same blue sky

We're under one star

Let's bridge the distances

Forget our differences

Wherever we are

I like when people see

The good I have in me

We all can give in our own way 

Let's spread the love around

Our differences don't count

Let's make the world a better place

 We can all sing

We can all sing

We can all sing B'yachad, yachad

We're creating B'yachad

It's a special harmony

Advisory Update:

Sixth Grade: Students began their “Hey Dude- That’s Rude” unit focusing this week on basic manners.

Seventh Grade:  Students focused this week on the skills of empathy. 

Eighth Grade:  Students considered what their talents are and how that related to the extra-curricular activities they got involved in in their time at Yavneh.