Rabbi Eric Rosin
Temple Beth-El, Richmond, Virginia
December 27, 2003

As I have said before, there are parts of my job that I absolutely love and about which I feel pretty competent. I love doing weddings. I love officiating at b'nai mitzvah. I love teaching adult education classes. I won't say that I love writing sermons, especially when it's Friday morning and I'm still looking for something to talk about, but I do love having a good sermon written and delivered and hearing people's reaction.

But, of course, there are also other elements of my job. I won't say that I don't love these other parts of my job, but I will say that I don't feel like I've quite mastered them yet. Chief among these areas that are still a challenge for me is teaching the confirmation class.

Let me start by saying that, in my opinion, teaching the Confirmation class is one of the most important things that I do in the course of my week. I don't think that I would have become a rabbi had I not had some very important Jewish experiences in high school. Because of those experiences, I became a Judaic Studies major at Yale and I immersed myself in Yale's Jewish community. And because I was so fascinated by everything that I encountered at Yale, I maintained my Jewish involvement after graduation. The truth is that I probably decided to become a rabbi sometime shortly after my confirmation year, and that decision was continually reinforced until I graduated from college and descended into ten misguided years of denial and the practice of law. But, finally, here I am serving as your rabbi, and all because of my synagogue's version of Hebrew High school.

Developmentally, the high school years are disproportionately important to our Jewish education because high school is the first time that students are mature enough physically and mentally to really understand the important issues of what it means to be Jewish. Until high school, we teach stories and skills. Starting in high school, we teach ideas and concepts. At Temple Beth-El, we don't offer any structured educational programming for students after Confirmation, which takes place in the tenth grade. Therefore, we take the newly adult minds of our students and, in the space of a few Sunday mornings during a couple of short years, we try to cram enough of the adult concepts of our tradition into their heads to last them for the duration of their adult lives.

So, I approach every Sunday morning with a sense of urgency and responsibility. I try to teach in a way that will both command the attention of the students and also to clearly impart to them the important concepts that are unique to us and our tradition and which I hope will propel them to Jewish involvement through the rest of high school, into college and beyond.

Well, to put it mildly, the students don't always have the same agenda as I do.

One day in class we went around the room and each student answered the question, "Why are you in the Confirmation class?" There were some very rewarding answers, like, "In order to learn about Judaism." There were some responses that were admirable in their own way, like, "Well, I've been coming to religious school my whole life, and I intend to finish." And " Both of my parents have confirmation pictures on the wall at the synagogue and I want to get my picture on that wall too." And there were even some answers that were wholly understandable and reasonable like "I come here to see my Jewish friends."

Nevertheless, the first time I saw a paper airplane fly across the room, the first time I had a student jump on my back and yell, "Give me a piggy back ride, Rabbi," the first time I was ignored when I asked a student to wait until called upon before speaking, and the first time I asked a student to report to Ms. Rubin's office only to learn that he had spend the morning wandering the halls instead, it occurred to me that despite all of my hopes and ambition and energy, this was going to be a tougher job than I had thought.

The last week that I taught the Confirmation class was a particularly tough class. In addition to the usual chaos of 15-year-old girls who hadn't seen each other since the end of their last class . . . fifteen minutes earlier, and in addition to the chaos of 15 year old boys who had to prove their manhood with the volume of their indifference to learning, I also had to contend with a chorus of cell phones ringing. Of course the students know that they aren't allowed to have their cell phones on during class but each week they need to test the rule in order to make sure it's still in force.

So, slowly but surely, I built a respectable collection of confiscated cell phones in the front of the room until one of the students loudly informed me that the cause of our electronic chaos was that one of their classmates, hiding his phone under his desk, had been surreptitiously calling each of his compatriots in turn. Wondering if Rabbi Akiva had had to deal with similar disruptions in the Bet Midrash in Yavneh, I turned to this student and asked if he would like to add his cell phone to my growing collection. He looked back at me with wide eyes and a cell phone shoved visibly into his pocket and responded, "Cell phone?" What cell phone? I don't have a cell phone."

I gave him the disgusted teacher look that I'm still perfecting and, reluctantly, he withdrew his hand from the pocket of his jacket and handed me his phone.

Now, I've interacted with this student in a number of contexts and he's not a bad guy. In fact, he's a bright and charming boy who is usually smiling in a way that makes you think that he's just done something that was a little unexpected and probably very entertaining. So I chalked our little encounter up to a case of the particularly virulent strain of testosterone poisoning which claims so many of our 15 year old young men and I waded back into the fray of trying to guide the class back into our discussion of mediation and negotiations as a way to understand the complexity of the conflict in the middle east.

I really didn't think about the incident again until this last Saturday night when I dropped by the USY bowling night. Outside of the context of a class room, the kids were behaving in much the same way as they did inside of the classroom, with the urgency of teenagers who needed to tell each other everything that they were thinking and with a buzz of energy that eliminated the possibility of sitting still for more than thirty or forty seconds at a time, but in the bowling alley all of that seemed completely appropriate.

So after I bowled a few gutter balls and cheered on the teenagers who were making me look truly terrible with their strikes and their spares, my cellular antagonist from the previous Sunday looked up at me and said as non-chalantly as possible, "Sorry about the way I acted on Sunday, it won't happen again."

What a moment. My first impulse was to simply to downplay his apology and say, something like, "That's okay. It's perfectly natural to call of all your friends, who are in the same room as you are, and while the rabbi is teaching class." But I realized that the moment was more important than that, and that he was offering to be accountable for his actions. So instead, I looked at him appreciatively and accepted his apology.

I have thought about this moment quite a bit. Why was this young man, who is really a pretty nice guy, so willing to act up in class, in front of his friends and so anxious to apologize in a less formal setting. And, more importantly for me and for my teaching, how can I teach effectively and maintain order in the classroom in a way that will inspire students to be accountable for their actions and focused on what we're discussing?

I was thinking about that interaction this week while I was reading the Torah portion. This week's Torah Portion, Miketz provides us with two distinct models of how people in authority interact with people in subordinate roles. The parsha opens with a description of Pharaoh's dreams. As I'm sure you all remember, Pharaoh has two dreams. First he dreams about seven robust, healthy cows that are consumed by an equal number of scrawny, thin cows. Then he dreams of seven healthy stalks of wheat which are consumed by seven, wind-burned and sickly stalks of wheat. Pharaoh is understandably confused and upset by these dreams, but what is interesting to me is the way that he responds to them.

Upon waking up, Pharaoh shares his dreams with his court. The text tells us that, "He sent for all the magicians of Egypt and all its wise men and Pharaoh told them his dreams." None of the denizens of Pharaoh's court were able to interpret the dream, so Pharaoh enlarged his search, finally, on the advice of his cup bearer, summoning Joseph from prison. So when Pharaoh, the source of all political authority in Egypt, is upset, he clearly expresses the source of his discomfort. He engages the help of all of his advisors, all of his stewards, the man who carries his cup his table and even a Jewish prisoner in order to address his discomfort. And this method seems to work. Joseph is able to interpret the dreams in short order and Pharaoh delegates the leadership of his kingdom to Joseph so that he, the Pharaoh, can continue on living his comfortable life.

The other model that we're given is that of Joseph, and this a much more problematic model. After Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dream, Joseph is granted the position of authority, governing the allocation of Egypt's resources both during the seven bountiful years and during the seven years of famine which follow. During those seven years of famine, Joseph's family back in Canaan does not share Joseph's good fortune. Jacob, Joseph's father, and all of Joseph's brothers suffer from the famine and are unable to eke sustenance from the land around them. Jacob, therefore orders his sons to Egypt to petition the Egyptian throne for food. They are brought as supplicants before Joseph and Joseph recognizes them immediately, although they do not recognize Joseph.

This entire parsha is constructed upon the discomfort born of that dramatic irony. We, the readers, know how uncomfortable Joseph is, but the brothers do not. And, again, what is interesting is the way that Joseph reacts to this discomfort. We read that Joseph twice leaves their presence so that he break out into tears as a result of his confusion about how to react. We read that Joseph, far from speaking plainly to his brothers about his discomfort, does not even speak directly to them. Instead, he speaks through an interpreter, pretending not to know them or their language.

This made me think about the way that I dealt with my discomfort at the chaos in my classroom. In the same way that I tried to address my discomfort with various pedagogical techniques, like walking around the classroom, dividing the students into small groups, asking open ended questions, Joseph tries to address his discomfort with a number of oblique tests. He accuses his brothers of being spies and watches their reaction. He imprisons them. He asks them about their family. He hides gold and chalices in their sacks. He asks them to put one of their brothers at risk to see if they have matured since the time that they had beaten him and cast him into a pit.

Just as my techniques often fail, none of Josephs ploys or tests seem to assuage his discomfort. He continues to cry. The tension will not be abated until next week's reading when he simply and straight forwardly reveals his identity to them.

So what do I learn from this. Paradoxically, my model for addressing my discomfort about leading a class has to be Pharaoh and not Joseph. Looking at Pharaoh, I learn that as I try to lead a class of unruly high school students, I shouldn't worry about technique as much as I worry about being honest about my goals for the class and what is bothering me. I learn not to be apologetic, and simply to be clear. I learn to ask the class for help in making the course a success. Perhaps that is why my student was able to apologize to me in a bowling alley, where were talking as two individuals and not in the classroom where our relationship was obscured by my efforts to control the classroom. Perhaps in the classroom, I allowed my pedagogical efforts to obscure my honest frustrations and concerns. Of course that doesn't mean that I don't intend to collect all of the cell phones in the room next Sunday morning at the very beginning of class.--Rabbi Eric Rosin