Tapping Students' Passions about their Judaism through the Inquiry Beit Midrash

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Tapping Students' Passions about their Judaism through the Inquiry Beit Midrash

Three years ago, as part of the Hakaveret initiative, in which the Mayberg Foundation brought together teams of educators to design innovative models, Michal Smart, Rina Hoffman and I developed The Inquiry Beit Midrash (IBM), a project-based learning model for Judaic Studies. I have had the good fortune to bring this model to life at the Idea School in Tenafly, NJ. The idea behind IBM is to find out what the students are passionate about in their Judaism and to use that passion project as the basis for some of their Judaic learning.

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Change and Transition are Not the Same Thing in Innovation

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Change and Transition are Not the Same Thing in Innovation

When an organization is facing a big change - the arrival of a new leader, a shift in strategy, rapid growth (or decline) - one often hears the well-worn reminder that “change is not an event, it is a process.”  Well-intended advice, perhaps, but not helpful.  It is not helpful because when change is at hand, hard work is needed, not sage advice.  It is not helpful because with all new pressures, we have to focus on the work, not words.

And it is not helpful, most precisely, because it is not true. 

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