God's Secrets

...I just set it up...

...And if Mr...

...Everybody got to take home something good, and we raised almost 70 dollars...

...The tree has 30 leaves, but they are white, not green...

...They discuss their reasons, and, finally, compare their order with Maimonides...

...Last year, one weekend was devoted to tz'dakah, and the students heard representatives of various agencies, then had to determine their own priorities as though they were an allocations committee...

...Something different happened in the sixth grade...

...In Kansas City, an Orthodox school has a program called the Mitzvah auction, in which students earn points by doing good deeds, and use them to bid on toys and games...

...I will never forget that day," Adelman recalls...

...There are dozens of related activities in the National Federation of Temple Youth (Reform) with its "Mitzvah corps," the Zionist movements, with their concept of hitnadvut, and many others...

...Those parents had lived with problems all their lives...

...Also, when you give money, you are obligated to see that it reaches its final destination in the way that you intend...

...In Chicago, under the energetic leadership of Sara Feinstein, director of Jewish education and culture at the Jewish United Fund, a summer course for a select group of teenagers has been created...

...The money is counted, and a second letter is sent home, announcing the total amount, and listing some recommended recipients...

...When he ran his own school, Akiba, in Philadelphia, it was a place where tz'dakah and social action permeated the curriculum...

...The students collect money, and actually help to purchase athletic and other equipment, sent to Israel by a friendly travel agent...

...It's strange," adds the owner of a large Jewish bookstore in New York...

...for others, it's simply one of many topics for discussion...

...It's terrible," he says...

...That was no small matter...

...No, she explains, we are to bring in five cents whenever we can, and she will give us a little green paper leaf to paste in the white spaces on our trees...

...This summer, United Synagogue Youth will send 700 teenagers to Israel, where they will study tz'dakah with Danny Siegel, who will take them to visit some of his favorite places in Jerusalem, places where good deeds are performed daily, where old people are given meaningful work, where the retarded are cared for...

...Youth groups are yet another part of the tz'dakah story...

...It is easy to see why this model is so popular with teachers...

...The kids must understand why they are giving, and where it is going...

...This must be the lowest crime in the world, stealing from people who were so poor that they needed our spare change...

...At the end of the year, the class makes a contribution to the agency it has studied...

...On the local level, however, some federations have become active in the teaching of tz'dakah in the schools...

...I prefer to think of the process as I was first taught it...

...If we do this right, she tells us, a tree will grow in Israel...

...The game is impressive...

...But as soon as he left the room I grew anxious...

...The term is generic, and is usually a fund collected in school, allocated to various causes by a committee of students from each class...

...It's true that the only nationally available material is about fund raising," says Daniel Margolis, who directs the middle school program at the Solomon Schechter Day School in Boston, "but it's important to remember that whatever else tz'dakah is, it's also the giving of money...

...But Siegel and other educators point out that there is a real danger in overreacting to this syndrome...

...The subject is almost completely absent from the school curriculum...

...In the spring, the boxes are returned to school...

...It was a tremendous moment for them, and I think they felt a renewed hope that day...

...In the issue of the noshrim (those Soviet Jews who leave Russia and go to places other than Israel), he sees a classic dilemma of two competing principles...

...As Daniel Margolis puts it, "this means doing something for other people, selflessly and gracefully...

...The thirteenth mitzvah is the act of being called to the To-rah...

...Cohen is concerned with moral education...

...Most of these projects are simple enough, but even the most basic ideas require forethought and planning...

...Last year, the United Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education decided to make Tikvah the program it would support in its schools...

...We think it's the best thing around, but we've lost a fortune on it...

...The little coin box is still in use, often as part of something called keren ami—the fund of my people...

...In more traditional schools, the material is presented and discussed, the implicit question being, why did Maimonides make these choices...

...Recently, an unusually exciting project has taken hold there...

...Siegel conducted the auction for more than an hour, and we made so much noise that the whole school was jealous...

...There is even a role for the disgruntled young person who is instructed, "You are a student at college in Metropolis...

...6. giving after one is asked...

...It has become a cliche of Jewish education to complain about the lack of curricular materials for tz'dakah...

...Siegel, spoke to the audience about Israel and used the word "we" instead of "they...

...There is the harrowing story of a group of eight-year-olds who were delighted at the prospect of singing at a nursing home...

...Recalls their teacher, "The kids were freaked out...

...A kindergarten class recently participated in a program about za'ar ba'alei chayim, the concept of sensitivity to the suffering of animals...

...Jerry Benjamin works in a small school in the Boston area...

...Siegel...

...She tells the students about the Garden of Eden, explaining that since the expulsion the world has had serious problems...

...I hated Misha Baker for what he might have done, and when he returned, with what looked like a smirk on his face, I transferred my hatred to the teacher for so stupidly allowing this to happen...

...Says the principal, "The kids rise to the occasion and seek out responsibility...

...Before anyone could object, it was operating...

...suddenly the worst cliche in Jewish life had been elevated to something almost profound...

...I have never seen anything like it...

...Nobody in that room would ever take bar mitzvah for granted anymore...

...In Philadelphia, David Bedein, a social work student, visits Jewish schools and tells the students about the plight of Israeli youngsters in development towns...

...There's a lot of lip service in Jewish education regarding the teaching of tz'dakah," says one educator, ' 'but there are no national programs for use in the schools...

...8. giving grudgingly...

...the other 12 are divided along the traditional categories of Torah, avodah (service) and g'milut chassadim...

...Designer Alvan Kaunfer reports that it works best on weekend programs...

...The Ramah camps have always been involved in social action...

...Siegel organized an auction for the class, with the proceeds going to Israel, I believe...

...However, most kids do become aware of it, in one way or another...

...The game provides detailed descriptions, budgets, and arguments that might be helpful...

...The material is mostly good, and the pages on tz'dakah are helpful, and include Talmudic quotations such as, ' 'Charity outweighs all the other commandments together," or the intricate idea that "Even a poor person who receives charity must in turn give charity...

...Students are members of the allocations committee of Metropolis...

...Typically, kids are asked to allocate funds...

...Now, as director of the Bureau of Jewish Education in Boston, he tells parents, "Our purpose is to teach kids to lead a decent life...

...The annual campaign is over, and the committee must decide how to apportion the funds...

...A game developed at the Dolores Kohl Foundation in Chicago gives each student eight cards, which they have to arrange on a ladder...

...7. giving less than one should, but cheerfully...

...He cannot understand why it is not made use of by Jewish educators...

...Suddenly they entered a community of several hundred people who were all familiar, at least on some small level, with what they were going through...

...It is called Tikvah (hope), and is a program for brain-damaged, perceptually handicapped, and learning-impaired Jewish children...

...Noam Zion, a teacher at the Schechter School in Boston, has established a simulation game different from the one that is usually played...

...Misha was a tough kid— there were rumors that he sometimes went without breakfast— and the teacher was probably glad to be rid of him for a few minutes...

...In addition, they met with a professional fund raiser, and studied some traditional sources...

...Most of them hated the trip, and would resist going again...

...The class had put bread and fat out for birds on a snowy day...

...Later we would learn about this in a more abstract way—the idea of k'lal Yisrael (the unity of the Jewish people...

...Another school has developed a Thirteen Mitzvot program, an optional part of the Bar Mitzvah year...

...Maimonides' system of priorities, in descending order: 1. giving a person a loan, or setting him up in business, or helping him to become self-sufficient...

...Twice a year, Mr...

...The Eight Levels is hardly the only Maimonidean material suitable for children...

...They study social service agencies in Chicago, and then in Israel...

...actually, we didn't pay much attention to where the money was going, only with how we were going to raise it...

...A spokesman there says, "Yes, it's something we ought to be more concerned about, but I guess it's just not high enough a priority...

...They try to understand the framework and restrictions on a welfare family...

...Tikvah was started in 1970 by Donald Adelman, then the director of the Ramah Camp in Glen Spey...

...Marshall Devor's father, said Mr...

...When it was over, everyone broke into a spontaneous demonstration of song and dance that went on for hours...

...You could see the empathy— and I don't mean sympathy—on the face of every 13-year-old in the room...

...One morning, Mr...

...In other schools, the question is phrased differently, and the students are asked how they would order these same categories...

...Dilemma requires preparation and hard work, and is, perhaps, most suitable to youth group programming...

...5. giving directly before one is asked...

...I'm not in such a hurry to give up the pushke...

...We talk about hunger, disease, and poverty...

...The student asks some tough questions about the Jewish nature of federation work, and complains that the hospital receives too high a percentage of the total...

...The worst thing is to collect money in a vacuum...

...There had been no preparation...

...Maimonides provides a succinct summary of the classical sources, in fairly easy Hebrew...

...I remember imagining all those bare, wintertime trees, just waiting for Mrs...

...For several weeks we brought in toys, games, sports equipment, even candy and clothing...

...We had finished passing around the blue keren kayemet box, and most of the kids in the class had put some coins in...

...I didn't ask permission...

...The tradition is full of material—in the Bible, Talmud, throughout Jewish history, and of course, in Maimonides, who put it all together...

...It depends—too much— on the interests of the particular teacher...

...Each week, we would bring in our nickels, and gradually we filled the tree with bright green leaves...

...Misha Baker volunteered to take the box to the office...

...Siegel, had done something good and important...

...Burt Cohen, national director of the Ramah Camps, has a strong interest in the teaching of tz'dakah...

...Then, a tree cost $1.50 (somebody counted) and that seemed right, because a tree was a pretty big item...

...And we have an example right under our noses—Soviet Jewry—yet how many educators bother to draw the connection...

...Collecting money is far more common a practice than studying the sources, which happen, on this subject, to be richly suggestive, inspiring, and easily accessible...

...Cohen has produced the first draft of a syllabus making use of this material, and has used it at several Ramah camps...

...A havurah school in New England sends money to Kibbutz Ge-zer, which is settled by young Americans...

...Then there was the service...

...Marshall Devor's father, said Mr...

...He explains, "I was struck by the way he stresses the issue of pidyon sh'vuyim, the redemption of prisoners, calling it the highest priority...

...The pushke...

...Morton Siegel, Director of Education for United Synagogue, thinks the first option may be preferable to the second...

...In addition, students learn that more than half the city's Jews live in the suburbs, that the Jews who live in the city tend to be older and less affluent, that over 800 Russian families have arrived in the past five years...

...3. giving so that the giver knows the receiver...

...Students may elect to study a particular federation agency, or to tutor, or to volunteer at a hospital, among others...

...Maybe that's why it hasn't sold," snaps Isaac Tobin, director of the American Association for Jewish Education...

...They decided to hold a group bar and bat mitzvah, and invited parents to come to camp for the occasion...

...What if Misha Baker was stealing from the box...

...Money is a mystery to them...

...The program will be repeated this year...

...Rubin, my first grade teacher at the Associated Hebrew Day School in Toronto, distributes to each of us a small, colorful poster of a tree...

...2. giving so that giver and receiver remain unknown to each other...

...Each student represents a specific agency, and his job is to convince the others of its merits...

...This may have to do with lack of promotion, or the fact that the teacher or group leader needs to be somewhat familiar with the basic issues and the process of federation allocations...

...In our game, the kids are poor people on a budget...

...Rubin's first grade to dress them in green, leaf by leaf...

...Each student is given his own coin box to take home, so that the project can embrace the whole family...

...In more ambitious schools, it is supplemented...

...GOD'S SECRETS TEACHING CHILDREN TO GIVE WILLIAM NOVAK Mrs...

...Adelman recalls that a week into the camp season he was approached by Herb Greenberg, the Tikvah director, who was concerned that some of the teenage kids had never become bar or bat mitzvah...

...It includes a brief description of each agency, and asks that each family hold a meeting to cast a vote on allocations...

...At worst, tz'dakah in the schools is either ignored, or is relegated to an administrative procedure: a memo from principal to teachers saying we're collecting for this or that cause, a perfunctory response from the teachers...

...Naomi Katz teaches first grade in an afternoon Hebrew school...

...There, in Ontario, reported to have more trees than Israel and all of Europe together, we were buying trees, leaf by leaf, for a country that didn't have enough of its own...

...Someone asked a five-year-old in the class what she had learned from the experience...

...He was the only male teacher under 50 in our school, and we loved him for that, and also because he was kind to us, and not incidentally because he was a good teacher...

...A brief survey of some Jewish schools across the country reveals the following examples of tz'dakah activities: • In Jacksonville, Ephraim War-shaw, principal of the Schechter School, has arranged for some of his students to befriend and tutor the five-year-old daughter of a newly-arrived Russian family...

...For some of us, it was the first time we had ever seen our names in print...

...And then, on the big day, Mr...

...There is nothing in the world like the first grade...

...For some of the regular campers, this means a closely supervised program in which they tutor Tikvah campers...

...It takes place in the midst of the camps (there are two programs now), and on one level or another, it involves everybody who spends the summer there...

...The project alternates with one in which each class adopts a particular agency, such as the home for the aged, or the Jewish Braille Institute, and collects information and literature about the group...

...For most campers and staff members, it means their first close-up experience with people who are usually hidden away behind closed doors...

...When traditional sources are used, it is Maimonides who leads the list, and this almost always means the famous "Eight Levels of Charity...

...But how difficult would it be to devise them...

...Contact with the righteous is a transforming experience," Siegel says...

...We must get away from the notion of simply magnetizing the money out of their pockets...

...Nothing much has changed with regard to the teaching of tz'da-kah...

...And when all the spaces were green, we would receive a real tree certificate signed by the principal...

...4. giving so that the receiver knows the giver...

...Lou Newman, one of Ramah's founders, is another educator interested in moral development...

...You can't really have tz'dakah without community...

...Chicago has also developed a 72-page booklet, Learning About Tz'dakah through the Jewish United Fund...

...A similar exercise exists in a simulation game for high school students called Dilemma, commissioned several years ago by the American Association for Jewish Education, published by Behrman House, and designed by Alvan and Marsha Kaunfer...

...A caller to the United Jewish Appeal who asks for the department of education is referred to the office of public relations...

...At Rabbi Pesach Sobel's school in Randolph, Massachusetts, for example, a letter is sent to parents and students early in the school year, explaining that tz'dakah is traditionally given at certain times, including just before the lighting of Shabbat candles, on birthdays, yahrzeits, and holidays...

...He told us this in Hebrew...

...To this day I'm not exactly sure why Israel needs trees, and I have always been too embarrassed to ask...

...Siegel told us that he had heard a fund raising speech for Israel, given by the father of Marshall Devor, our classmate...

...Keren ami is a modest operation, and is often regarded as the symbol of a minimalist, uninspired program...

...You are struck by it before you can define it...

...I remember being struck by my grandmother's description of tz'dakah in the shtetl," he says, "It was a series of little societies, each with a specific purpose, such as visiting the sick, arranging for a dowry, taking part in a minyan, or saying psalms for a sick person...

...In the third grade we had Mr...

...To most educators, even if they don't act on it, tz'dakah goes hand in hand with g'milut chassadim, the performing of good deeds...

...It transforms the trip into a pilgrimage which leaves a deep impression on the kids, who really respond to it...

...anything that we were willing to part with...

...That was more than 20 years ago, and in the meantime I have heard all the jokes about American Jews who come to Israel to see "their" trees, and I always feel a little awkward about those jokes...

...I found out that kids have no idea how much things cost," says Zion...

...In our school, we've made an attempt to set up committees, with kids free to choose their particular form of involvement...

...The older campers had been invited, and as each kid finished his or her part, there was a great sense of joy and relief...

...Not surprisingly, the cards are rarely arranged in the same way by any two students...

...Siegel was moved by it, we figured it must be worth being moved by...

...For some it's a mitzvah to introduce the students to tz'dakah...

...In Los Angeles, there is an enrichment program called Halutz, a series of four weekends for high school students...

...God's secrets," was the reply...

...Keren ami is not the name of a particular project, although the American Association for Jewish Education tried once to create one...

...You feel that the priorities of the Jewish establishment are drastically out of line...

...From there, I lead them into a tz'dakah project...

...The people were very old, and sick, and hard of hearing, and they grabbed at the kids, who were frightened and resentful...

...Rubin explains that we will be planting trees in Israel, not all at once, but one leaf at a time...

...I looked at Hilchot Matanot L'Evyonim," he says, "and I discovered that the Eight Levels is really the smallest part of it...