This school year my son’s Jewish preschool is teaching the 3 and 4 year old students the entire Torah. Each morning from 9am-Noon they arrive at school after answering a Covid questionnaire, have their temperatures checked, put on their face masks and wash their hands. They each in their own little way are doing everything they can to keep one another, their families, their teachers and our community safe from this lethal pandemic. And that’s the whole Torah. The rest, as Rabbi Hillel says, is just explanation.
Have you heard the midrash about the man who wanted to learn the entire Torah standing on one foot? Rabbi Shammai dismissed him, but Rabbi Hillel answered him easily, ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation of this’. In 2020 billions of people on this Earth are all praying for a single thing – an end to this pandemic and the health of those in its clutches. To wear a mask is the single kindest, most considerate way of caring for one another. To selfishly (and often illegally) leave home without one is hateful to your neighbor. To do so and to claim it is somehow a Jewish right not to need one, is a chillul hashem an act in violation of the Torah and God’s name.
I of course wrestled with the decision to send my son back to school this year, and ultimately made the choice knowing what was right for our family and his social emotional growth. I also wasn’t optimistic that this would ‘all be over’ in a few months and realized we needed to create a sustainable way to continue to educate our children in pandemic times. Knowing our school was taking every possible precaution brought a sense of relief to the decision but more so than that I saw how they were teaching our children a fundamental value of Judaism in their approach – that sacrifices like masks and other protocol was all worth it to save a life.
On one of our first parent Zoom calls about the plans for the school year I asked why it was they were bothering with a seemingly endless list of precautionary changes – having separate play spaces and sensory bins, having Shabbat singing outside etc. Wouldn’t the kids all inevitably exchange some germs and shouldn’t we just accept the pros and cons of ‘podding’ up as a preschool class? In answer to my confusion our administration told me this – the goal first is to do what we can to protect our children, but second it is to educate them. Part of that education is that in a global pandemic, we act differently. We cover our faces, we stay home with a sniffle and we wash our hands whenever we can. Our children are learning to be compassionate and caring members of the community through each of these actions even if there might be small missteps along the way.
Thank you to all the educators and communities teaching the whole Torah this year.
Marion Haberman is a writer and content creator for her YouTube/MyJewishMommyLife channel and Instagram @MyJewishMommyLife page where she shares her experience living a meaning-FULL Jewish family life. Haberman is the author of Judaism and pregnancy book “Expecting Jewish!” She is also a professional social media consultant and web and television writer for Discovery Channel, NOAA and NatGeo and has an MBA from Georgetown University.
