Adam Simon

Wordle is an amazing tool that I have used in the graphic design part of my life…I didn’t realize that it had great applications for education as well.

Wordle creates word clouds based on word usage frequency in a body of text. All you need to do is paste in the text and click “Go” to create a beautiful and data rich graphic which can be used in multiple settings. I created the below for the Chumash (Five Books of Moses) and plan to use them in teaching these text. The visual representation of the text by word frequency allows students to easily identify most frequently used words and concepts.

Using Mechon Mamre and Hebrew Books, you can create word clouds for just about any Jewish text and allow students to build their own vocabulary study guides…let me know of any projects you come up with in the comments!

I recently tried Second Life as part of a course I am taking on Educational Technology and, although I felt that the whole thing was very weird, immediately saw the benefits for education. I did, however, feel that the dangers and shortcomings outweighed them and therefore wrote Second Life as an educational tool.

Until today…

The biggest problem with Second Life is the  fact the lack of privacy control and the lack of control for a teacher or parent. You are essentially handing students the keys to a world where they can go anywhere, meet anyone and do anything without leaving there bedroom. (I understand that this is essentially the same thing as the internet, but the nature of interaction and the fact that it runs through a separate client make it fundamentally different.) With this amazing opportunity for learning, also comes a tremendous dark side, and the current system doesn’t allow for much control and oversight.

OpenSim can potentially do for Virtual Worlds, what the Apache Server Software did for the internet; create an open network of worlds that anyone can host, operate and control. This type of environment allows for better focus and oversight in the educational application of this technology.

OpenSim, short for Open Simulator, is a platform built on the Second Life platform, which is open source. It runs on multiple Operating Systems and allows for import and export from Second Life and other Virtual Worlds. The goals being the creation of a “grid” of virtual world which avatars can pass between seamlessly much in the same way that we pass between websites today. This vision of the future is far more intriguing to me as an educator than the current model of Second Life and other exclusive Virtual Worlds. It allows for more control, age restricted access and private areas for work and simulation.

Imagine a virtual school built on OpenSim in which students and teachers from all over the world could collaborate to learn and virtualize educational concepts…

I don’t really use Wikis in my classroom. In fact, for a while, I couldn’t understand the hype about their application for education; and then it hit me, most of the educators I interact with (online) teach large groups of students spread out into multiple class groups. This type of set-up is an amazing opportunity for using a Wiki, it allows students from across the various class groups and even within the same large group of students to interact, communicate and collaborate…but in a school which has only 3 or 4 students per grade, like the one I teach in, a Wiki doesn’t really have much value. Or so I thought.

The standard application of the Wiki in education is that of a connector, allowing students to collaborate and experience the “Hive Mind” made up of their peers. It can be used to create study guides, show mastery of material, or just to bring large groups together on a specific topic. But there is another application in education that is rarely discussed, its value in terms of differentiated instruction, and this is the application that is valuable to small groups and large ones alike.

When you create a Wiki, you create a community and within any community there exist various responsibilities and jobs that must be accomplished for the community to thrive. In our case, we have contributors (those who write articles), editors (those who edit articles), formatters (those who make sure articles are properly formatted), fact checkers (those who verify articles for accuracy and add sources), administrators (those who supervise all aspects of the site and police activity), and I am sure you can come up with many more. Each of these roles carries with it certain strengths and foci, while at the same time they still interact directly with the content, making them perfect for an implementation of differentiated instruction.

A student who is a natural leader, can be made administrators, on who is very critical can be made editor (and the teacher can work with him to teach him how to be constructively critical), one who loves trivia can be a fact checker, and the student who has an eye for design can be formatter. Assigning student their roles based on their strengths allows each student to enjoy learning and feel a part of the team. Even putting personalities and strengths aside, this different roles also allow the teacher to vary the workload based on the student’s abilities without making that student seem like any less of a contributor, the editor may do far less work than a contributor, but will still interact with the material and learn from the experience, and not be made to feel any less a part of the team than his peers.

I will certainly be implementing a Wiki in my classroom this year to allow my students to shine, each in his own way, and I hope you will too!

Everybody knows that there are hundreds of words for snow in the Eskimo language for snow (which may not be entirely true) and that there are many words to describe the nuanced differences of pasta dishes in Italian (and as the joke goes, hundreds of nuanced words for an idiot in Yiddish), but in Hebrew one of the concepts which has many words attached to it, in order to grasp the various nuanced differences, is communication.

There are two distinct words I would like to discuss today: amira and haggada. Each of these words, technically, means to tell or say, but their deeper meaning is very significant to attaining a better understanding of communication and education.

The word amira from the root אמר carries the connotation of assimilating speech, or combining divergent parts into an assimilated whole. This understanding is drawn from the word’s phonetic cognates: עמר – to collect and חמר/המר – to heap. This is very important type of communication and it is a very high level of understanding. A person, while learning must see all things they learn as part of a ‘big picture’ and assimilate all new facts into this picture.

The word haggada from the root הגד, on the other hand, carries the connotation of separating an assimilated whole into its individual components. This understanding is drawn from the word’s phonetic cognates: גדד – to cut and גדה – to separate. This is also a very important type of communication and is crucial to a basic understanding of anything one learns. A person, while teaching, must always break each concept down to its core components for his/her students.

While teaching it is crucial to constantly be breaking concepts down into their core components and then showing students how these core concepts fit into the ‘big picture’.

This is the main difference between Prezi and PowerPoint and once we look at these two tools from this perspective it become clear that one is much better for use in education.

Prezi allows a teacher to work on one big canvas, zooming in and out to show relationships between ideas and how they all fit into the ‘big picture’, while PowerPoint is just a series of slides that show no context and no relationship. PowerPoint does not allow an educator to break concepts down into their individual components and show their relationship with the assimilated whole as Prezi does and this leaves much to be desired for an educator.

PowerPoint does have some cool animations though…

This post was cross-posted on YU 2.0.

Google Docs is a tremendously powerful tool for use in and out of the classroom.

The first layer of its awesomeness comes as a function of its creator’s software-philosophy, namely the fact that it – and all the files a user creates and edits – live entirely in the cloud; this makes it accessible from anywhere with internet access (and hopefully soon, with the re-introduction of offline mode, just anywhere – hint hint, Google) and means that work is never lost to crashes, hardware damage or even the occasional ravenous canine.

The next layer of awesome comes in the form of Google Docs’ real-time collaboration, which means that students and teachers – whether they are sitting next to each other or half-way around the world – can work on a document at the same time, see each other’s work and chat using the in-document chat module. This is also an amazing tool for teachers to monitor student work and catch mistakes as they happen rather than only after the project has been turned in, it reduces the number of necessary revisions and allows students to learn in the moment – when they can actually make use of the lesson – rather than hours or days later, when the lesson may no longer be relevant to them and therefore may not  be internalized. This nifty feature also comes with an unexpected bonus, revision history, which allows users to see all the revisions made to a document by any of the users who are editing, this makes reverting back to an old version of the document a snap and allows teachers to see who has been logging the most hours on a given project and when those hours have been logged (“I know it looks like I just did it this morning, but I swear, I worked on it all weekend!”).

Finally, for the Judaic classroom, Google Docs has the best RTL and Hebrew support I have seen in a non-Israeli word processor. It always gets the orientation right from a copy-paste and nearly-always gets the nikud correct from copy-paste text. It is so good, that I often use it as a filter between Hebrew websites and other inputs (like Smart™ Boards or Powerpoint).

Using these and other awesome features of Google Docs, I have crafted three tools to be integrated into lessons for use in the classroom:

Beginner

By leveraging the collaboration and commenting features of Google Docs, I developed a lesson for teaching textual skills with a strong focus on root-word identification and sentence structure. I have implemented this lesson for teaching Chumash and Rashi skills to high-school freshman.

Goal: Get students to work together to translate texts and learn how to use root-words to aid their ability to do so.

Preparation:

• Identify the text you want to use and find it on mechon-mamre.org.
• Copy the block of text you want to use and insert it into a new documents. (Tip: hold down ctrl/cmd+shft+’v’ to insert text without any formatting)
• Divide the text up into logical sections based on the number of groups in your class. Insert page-breaks after each section, placing each section on its own page. Now title each section with the name of the group or students who will be working on each section.
• Make the document accessible to your students. You can either make the document open to anyone with a link (which means that some students may edit the document anonymously, but makes getting started easier) or share with students individually to their Google Account. See here: https://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=180199 for more on sharing.

In The Classroom:

Once you have all the students in the classroom and logged in to the document, explain to them the basic premise of the exercise and how root-words can aid in translating texts. Now show them the three things which they will be required to do:

1. Locate the verbs in the text
2. Identify the root-word of those verbs and translate them using the comment feature (highlight the word and hit ctrl/cmd+alt+’m').
3. Translate the entirety of the text beneath the Hebrew.

These three things must be done in order and should be done as a team, the classroom should be loud and students should be arguing over what is and isn’t a verb, what the root-word is and what it means.

While the students are diligently working on their group’s section, you should be viewing the document as well. You should be keeping a careful eye on what they are doing and their comments, trying to catch incorrect work as it happens.

Intermediate:

By using the same features as the above lesson, as well as hyper-links and nested comments, I was able to create a virtual chabura and hyper-text document for students to study together.

Goal: Create a document which would allow students to learn a text in context, to see the primary sources being quoted, and emulate a chabura learning environment virtually.

Preparation:

• Identify the text you want to study and enter it into the document. In this case we used Iggeret Ha’Ramban.
• Identify primary sources used in the text (eg. psukim, quotes from the talmud) and locate them online (good sources are http://mechon-mamre.org/ and http://hebrewbooks.org/shas.aspx).
• Link the quotes to their primary sources using hyper-links.
• Make the document accessible to your students (see above).

In The Classroom:

Once you have all the students in the classroom and logged in to the document, explain to them the basic premise of the exercise, and introduce the text. Show the students how to use the comments feature (see above) and instruct them to begin learning the text on their own, leaving comments where they feel appropriate, also encourage them to comment on each others comments and ask and answer questions in the comment section. This should lead to an organic conversation about the text.

As before, involve yourself in the conversation, but do not be as heavy-handed as the last lesson. This is a place for students to discuss and learn on their own to learn from each other, you can guide the conversation, but let them shine!

Advanced:

The final lesson is actually fairly basic from a technological perspective, it doesn’t really use any of the advanced tools of Google Docs, outside of real-time collaboration, but it’s subject matter is more advanced than the previous two exercises. Based on Hirscian linguistic theory that words which share phonetic similarity (phonetic cognates) also share core meaning, I devised this lesson to visually show high-school seniors word structure based on phonetic linguistics.

Goal: To have students dissect a text collaboratively based on the phonetic breakdown of words and visually show them the connection between words.

Preparation:

• Identify the text you want to use, or list of Hebrew words. Enter it in to the document.
• Assign each student (or group of students) a category of Hebrew letter and color. The 5 categories are:

1. Gutturals: ע – ה – א – ח
2. Palatals: ג – י – כ – ק
3. Dentals: ד – ת – ט – ל – נ
4. Labials: ו – ב – פ – מ
5. Sibilants: ר – ז – ש – ס – צ

In The Classroom:
Once you have all the students in the classroom and logged in to the document, explain to them the basic premise of the exercise, and introduce the concept of phonetic cognates. An amazing resource in this area is The Etymological Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew: Based on the Commentaries of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch.
Now, have the students begin highlighting their letters in the respective colors. Soon they will begin seeing patterns emerge from the text, encourage them to discuss these theories. Close the lesson with a discussion of the patterns they identified and the significance of core meanings and phonetic cognates.

I hope this post opened you up to the possibilities of Google Docs in your Judaic classroom, please keep me posted with your innovations in using this phenomenal tool in the comments below!

This post was cross-posted on YU 2.0.

The ISTE Conference is winding to a close and all of us are delirious from exhaustion, but I can honestly say this was some of the most valuable time I have spent in a while. Today I only attended one session, which was very educational and engaging, and spent the rest of my time interacting with fellow cohorts, vendors, presenters, and other conference goers. The time spent interacting was tremendous and I hope I can capture some of the magic in this post.

The Session – Show Me the Money: Learn the Tips and Tricks to Grant Funding

I got to this session early, expecting it be packed – being the only session offered on how to actually secure funding for EdTech, but there was plenty of room. Boy, did they miss out! This session, sponsored by MIMIO and presented by Magen McGahee, was, like the other MIMIO sponsored session I attended, was polished, well articulated and very informative. The content was relevant, helpful and resonated, not to mention that it was presented with confidence, expertise and poise. Magen not only presented participants with a number of resources for where to find grants for EdTech (she will be posting them online and I will add them to this post, so check back), she explained some of the complex details regarding government funding and also gave very practical grant-writing pointers and skills. Here are some of the highlights:

• There is difference between what we want and what we need. Don’t write a grant asking for what you want (like an interactive whiteboard) but for what you need (like improved student achievement).
• Always develop a plan first. Make sure the first step of your plan is identifying the need and make sure that everything goes back to that need.
• A good grant is Clear, Concise and Unique.
• Being unique is key, especially in the first 1-2 paragraph. 9/10 grants aren’t read all the way through because grant readers aren’t interested.
• How can you be unique? Don’t just talk about the short-term small picture impact, but rather show how this money will affect the community and the future of those involved.
• The first sentence should be your goal, stated clearly and eloquently. Make sure that the rest of the grant supports this first sentence.
• Always have only one person prepare the final copy, to avoid Frankenstein-style grants.

The most important message that was expressed in the session, however, was a the very end: don’t apply for grants that don’t fit! Grant writing takes time, maximize your time by find the right grants & writing them well.

I must say, MIMIO has certainly impressed me, the model they adopted to sell their products of showing educators how the products work in a real teaching environment, while teaching valuable information (and teaching it well!), as opposed to just displaying the technology while talking about the very same technology at an expo booth.

The Everything Else

I met and interacted with a lot of interesting people in the second half of my day, here are the highlights:

• Terry Shay of North Tama County Community School showed me a technique called “Transmedia Storytelling”, in which students tell different perspectives of a story using different mediums. So, for example, telling the story of a bank robbery, one group would make a video from the perspective of the security guard at the bank, a second group would make comic book from the perspective of the robbers, a third group would compose a song from the perspective of the teller, and a fourth group would create an audio story from the perspective of the police. Very cool!
• Intel has amazing FREE professional development tools for teachers, which are available at http://www.intel.com/teachers. The tools are really easy to use, intuitive and contain a tremendous amount of information. They also have an online community for teachers: http://engage.intel.com/.
• Cranium Core is a very cool social game-show which teaches literacy. I spoke to the creator about developing something similar for Jewish Education. Check it out here: http://www.craniumcore.com.
• Comic Life  by Plasq is a seriously awesome comic book creator and I definitely want to use it in my classroom instead of the current option. It is cross platform (even iPad), supports exporting to PDF and even to Facebook, allows for drag-and-drop content adding and has a range of art tools. It looks like a great product, even if I don’t win a free copy and an iPad…
• Thinkmap, makers of the Visual Thesaurus, have a whole host of awesome data visualization tools that can link in with a number of databases and even databases you/your school subscribe to (like encyclopedias, etc.).
• Desmos is the maker of the amazingly cool online graphing calculator that I posted on Facebook recently. I met the Founder and CEO, who is a super-nice guy and invited me and my students to come check out his new office in San Fransisco this summer!
• The last booth I visited (and I only did so because on my way out of the expo hall they threw a free t-shirt at me) was Spoon. Boy am I glad they threw that free shirt at me! Spoon is one of the cooler things that I saw while at the conference, it is basically like Dropbox but for applications. You install all your applications and licenses on their server and then you can run them from any computer in the world, without having to install! This is valuable for large schools because it helps them avoid having to install software on 100s of machines and updating those machines as new versions come out. It is also valuable because you can purchase fewer licenses for expensive software and only load them up on the machines being used, so if you have a 1:1 program and want to have students using Photoshop, you only need to buy 20 licenses for those who are in the class at the time, rather than a license for every machine. Also it is awesome for personal user (like myself) who want to be able to cut the cord and live in the cloud…

At some point, while walking the expo hall, I stopped off at the Google booth again for a tutorial on Android App Inventor. After having attended a session the day before on AgentSheets, I was intrigued by the idea of using Android apps as a way of teaching in the classroom and it seems that the App Inventor makes this a snap. I am definitely excited to try this out and explore the powerful features of this tool…to bad it isn’t entirely web-based!

The last, and probably most valuable part of the day (and each day of ISTE) was my conversations with fellow AVI CHAI cohorts. We talked about all sorts of things, like why interactive whiteboard are so popular, and a docucam is different from a webcam (I have no idea), and of particular interest, educational standards in Jewish Education…something which is sorely needed and I hope to help contribute to in the coming years.

All in all, the ISTE conference was an amazing opportunity, I learned a lot from the sessions, the exhibitors, my colleagues and everything else that went on there, but I have to say, I think the most valuable part of the conference is what is yet to come. The relationships that I built there and the tools that I learned about have yet to blossom into their full form, and I am very excited for the future! (not to mention the fact that next year’s conference is in San Diego)

To keep updated with what the future holds and for more EdTech resources, you should follow @theadamsimon on Twitter.

This post was cross-posted on AVI CHAI Educational Technology Blog and YU 2.0

Today was as amazing as, and yet very different from, yesterday. I only attended two actual sessions today and spent a significant amount of my time checking out the Exhibit Hall and the Showcase Tables. So let’s start with the sessions, both of which were incredible:

Session 1 - Beyond Words: Using Infographics to Help Kids Grapple with Complexity

This Bring Your Own Laptop Session, led by Jane Krauss and Diana Laufenberg, was awesome and helped clarify lots of great design principles for communicating data visually, the presenters also gave very specific advice on how to implement, not just infographics, but infographic creation in the classroom. The session started off with a really cool exercise: we were all shown the following infographic and asked to identify what it was describing…in spite of the fact that it is not in English and over 150 years old.

If you couldn’t figure it out, it is a map of Napolean’s Russian Conquest of 1812 and his “diminishing returns”. The key lesson this graphic shows us is that juxtaposing data and showing correlation visually is key to properly expressing data. By taking two data-sets, the location of the troop and the number of men, and juxtaposing them, the artist was able to illustrate the data in a way that encouraged us to learn and made it easy to visualize. These two data-sets could just as easily have been two columns in a spreadsheet, one containing long/lat coordinates and the other containing population data, by making that juxtaposition visual, the artist allows us to better understand the data at a glance.

Another valuable point about infographic creation, before I get to practical application in the classroom, is intuitiveness. If you can avoid a key, or anything which only serves the function of explaining your design or data, do so. Your design should speak for itself and shouldn’t need any outside help, not to mention the fact that often times extraneous elements or “chart junk” are not just neutral but make things more difficult understand and detract from your design .

Now onto the practical classroom applications! Although infographics serve as a great teaching tool on their own, by illustrating complex data-sets in an easy to understand and intuitive format, that is only a small part of their value in the classroom. By helping students to create their own infographics educators can encourage better research and comprehension and pique their curiosity.

As mentioned above, the key to a quality infographic is juxtaposition of data, so if you give students half of the data you can pique their curiosity and encourage them to do research and create a graphic to explain the data. For example, the chart on the left represents a data-set of immigrants to the US by decade. What happened in the 1930s that caused that anomaly? What data could you juxtapose with this data to give context and explain the data better?

Finally, one of the greatest lessons I took from this session: Don’t use infographics at the end of your lesson to crown your teaching, use them at the beginning to engage students and pique their interest so they pay attention to what you have to say. If you lecture for two hours about WWII and then show them a graphic showing the correlation between the war, the economy and immigration, they will likely be asleep before you get there. However, if you show them the graphic to the left and get them asking questions, they will be listening for the answers and suddenly the correlation between WWII, the economy and immigration is fascinating (Side note: that is why the Haggada begins with the 4 questions, the best educational model is one in which all teaching is just an answer to a student’s question).

Here are some additional resources from this session:

• tinyurl.com/iste2011infographics
• http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html
• http://www.gapminder.org/

Session 2 - Teach Your Students Game Design in One Week

This session, by Alexander Repenning, was awesome, not because of the content (although the content was mind-blowing, I’ll get there soon), but because of the ideas it got me thinking about and the potential cross-discipline lessons I now have in mind to create.

This session was a fairly nerdy one about how to use a graphical object oriented programming tool called AgentSheets to create your own version of Frogger in under an hour. It was one of the coolest and simplest things I have ever participated in and has shifted the way I think. Computers function through if/then statements and that is the basis of programming, tell the computer that if X happens it should do Y and you have written your first program. The first step to creating a program is to identify what it is going to do, for our purposes (creating a Frogger game) it was as follows:

You are a frog. Your task is simple: hop across a busy highway, dodging cars and trucks, until you get the to the edge of a river, where you must keep yourself from drowning by crossing safely to your grotto at the top of the screen by leaping across the backs of turtles and logs. But watch out for snakes and alligators! (Sega, 1980).

The first thing you have to do is identify the objects in this description (I have highlighted them in blue) and then the relationships (verbs) between these objects (I have highlighted them in green). This analytic skill, on its own, is a valuable tool for our students to develop. Not just for computer programming, but in all areas of learning, particularly Gemura learning and logic. After you have identified the objects and their relationships, creating if/then statements to reflect these relationships is easy, but also leads to divergent thinking. For example: if a frog gets hit by a car, then it dies, but how do we express this statement for the computer? If FROG OBJECT sees CAR OBJECT on left, then FROG OBJECT dies? If CAR OBJECT sees FROG OBJECT on right, then FROG OBJECT dies? Both answers are technically correct, but the fact that students can discuss and use logic to determine which one should be used is a tremendous skill to develop, again especially for Gemura learning.

After coming out of this session, I am will to put money on the idea that if we teach our students graphical object oriented programming at a young age, it will improve their Gemura and reasoning skills tremendously.

Here are some additional resources from the session:

• http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu/
• http://www.agentsheets.com/

The Exhibits

I spent about 4 straight hours in the Exhibition Hall and only made it through about a quarter of what’s there. Granted, I did spend almost an hour at the Google booth talking to every Google employee there, and here is the run-down:

• Google Docs – Met a developer from the Google Docs team, who wanted to see how I am using Google Docs in the classroom. I showed him some of the things I have done (collaborative Chumash study, hyperlinked Jewish Philosophy text, etc.) and we talked about Hebrew support in Google Docs (which is amazing) and he let me in on a little secret about one of the Google Docs products being relaunched in a few months
• Chrome OS – This was obviously exciting for me, with my shiny new Chromebook and my time spent hacking around with the open-source code…We spoke about the potential of bringing a 1:1 Chromebook program to my school and he told me about a really cool feature that Citrix is developing to allow in-browser remote desktop from within Chrome OS, that is a game-changer.
• I also spoke to Google Apps guys, Google Earth and Maps guys (and discussed some lesson plans for Tanach using Google Earth and Maps), and a few Google Certified Teachers about some of their implementations in their classrooms.
• I hope to go back tomorrow to meet with one of the lead developers on Google’s App Inventor and get an inside look into using it create Android apps in the classroom.
• I got a free Google beachball and sunglasses! How did they know I’m from San Diego?

After Google, I wandered around the exhibits for a while, talking with different vendors about solutions for NCSY, JSU and SCY High until I overheard what definitely sounded like an Israeli accent…it was. I met Ami Dror, founder of a company with a really nifty idea for 3D implementations in the classroom. His technology allows students and teachers to easily create and share 3D content in the classroom, without the need for expensive equipment. His software works with existing tech and integrates with PowerPoint, all you need are his glasses and software plugins to make it work! I hope to meet up with him in Israel to get a better feel for the technology and perhaps bring some of the tech back to SCY High. He also has an online database of 3D presentations for the classroom, which teachers can upload/download lessons to/from and share content. He was very intrigued (having grown up daati) by the idea of Tanach, Gemara and other Jewish content being made 3D.

After that, I wandered around, entered lots of raffles, considered getting into the interactive whiteboard business and met a few more cool vendors, here are some highlights:

• Edistorm – a Canadian start-up that allows teachers and students to create collaborative work environments using virtual post-it notes, it also generate wicked reports about student interaction, visit http://www.edistorm.com/ISTE for a free account and 50% off sign up before September 15th.
• DYKNOW – Classroom management software for 1:1 school environment, very robust features, such as allowing teachers/admin to monitor all student monitors wirelessly or take control of the computer to regain focus, even restrict what windows can be opened…probably expensive. http://www.dyknow.com/
• ToonBoom – Very cool animation technologies for the classroom, they even have a free iOS application and different level of software from anyone from K-Graduate School. http://beta.toonboom.com/
• SparkFun – An awesome online electronic component shop for DIY projects. They have curricula for many of their projects, ranging from simple circuits to robotics…this is great for PBL and not just electronics classes. http://www.sparkfun.com/

At some point during my travels, I also ran into an old friend from Yeshiva, Harris Zvi Goodman, who is now a VP for an awesome company that makes virtual laboratories which I hope to bring home to SCY High. Check them out http://www.latenitelabs.com/.

Dinner and the End of the Night

Once again, AVI CHAI provided us with a fantastic dinner and a very well facilitated discussion amongst the cohorts. We discussed lots of things, but those which stood out to the me the most were our conversations on interactive whiteboards and getting around roadblocks to integration of EdTech in our schools and communities. Some great points were exchanged. I am of the opinion that interactive whiteboards will soon be a thing of the past, being replaced by personal learning devices (1:1 computers, tablets, etc.) and networked collaborative working spaces (Google Docs, SynchTube, etc.). In this type of environment all students can participate and the class can truly collaborate and learn as a group, it also allows more control over classroom mangement (contrary to what some might think) in that teachers can see what all the students are doing in one glance. I am also of the opinion that the best mode of attack to get past roadblocks is not a direct attack, but a flank. Don’t argue with people’s objections to EdTech, just show them the value of it and show them that it is the best solution to their teaching problems and their objections will melt away.

It was a great day and I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow!

For more updates on my time at ISTE, you should follow @theadamsimon on Twitter.

This post was cross-posted on AVI CHAI Educational Technology Blog and YU 2.0

Today was my second day, but my first full/real day at the ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, PA and I am so thankful/happy to have this opportunity. First of all, a very huge thank you to the AVI CHAI Foundation and NCSY for making it possible for me to be here; next, a big thank you to Causil for organizing everything, ensuring we are well fed and that everything runs smoothly for our group.

Now on to the wrap up…

First Night

After watching a live-stream of the keynote speaker and throwing away a bunch of free junk from my ISTE registration bag, I headed out to grab dinner with my fellow AVI CHAI group members. It was great to meet and collaborate with everyone. After dinner I met up with Matt Barr of Bible Raps to discuss some collaboration ideas and future projects. What he does is cool, alive and engages teens in text-study, I loved it and hope to collaborate with him and his team soon.

First Session

The first session of the day which I attended was at 8:30am which means that I had to wake up fairly early in the morning (around 6:30am) to daven, grab a bowl of cereal (thanks to my lovely wife) and walk over the convention center. Having only gotten about an hour of sleep the night before, this was a fairly big deal, but I felt it was justified because this session was right up my alley and I hoped to gain a lot of valuable information from it. To be blunt, I was less than happy to have woken up early for this session. That isn’t to say I didn’t learn anything new, because I did, it was just more basic and introductory then I expected, especially for someone who has already integrated QR Codes into the classroom and was looking for new and different ways to do so…But, as I said before, I did learn a few things from this session:

The presenter broke down the “Allure of QR Codes” into 4 points:

1. Cannot be misinterpreted
2. Compact
3. Easy to use
4. Inherently Encrypted

The big “aha moment” for me was number 4, I never thought about using the QR Codes’ inherent encryption as an educational tool. One suggestion is to use this for differentiated instruction, students with different needs or at different levels can be given different reading assignments or quizes without anyone knowing that their work is not the same because the naked eye can’t interpret a QR Code. Another idea, which I brainstormed with Peter Eckstein after the session, is using QR Codes for peirush in a siddur or other text, keeping the content hidden until it is needed prevents the additional content from distracting from the main text.

Here is a link to the slides for a full overview of how to create and use QR Codes:
https://isteconference.org/conferences/ISTE/2011/handout_uploads/KEY_60757836/Tedesco_ISTEPresentationEmail.pdf

Second Session

The next session I attended was on “Teaching in the Interactive Classroom” sponsored by MIMIO, a company which makes EdTech hardware, and, in spite of the underlying pitch for their hardware, was actually very enjoyable. I found the presenter, Stevan Vigneaux, to be a very knowledgeable, thoughtful and engaging speaker, probably because he is a professional salesman (perhaps educators should take some tips from the sales world…), and his points well illustrated. One story which was particularly striking and inspiring was about an Army Colonel who was in charge of training new recruits on how to change tank treads. He was purchasing millions of dollars of video production software from the presenter, when asked why he needed the equipment he explained that he understood “that either I teach them the way they learn or they won’t learn”, the way they learned (having grown up on MTV) was through professional quality music videos, and that is just what he made to teach them how to change tank treads. The key is, although how to change a tank tread hasn’t changed, the way to teach it has to or no one will learn the information. That really resonated with me. I also raised the question of why we need specialized EdTech hardware and software instead of leveraging existing real-world tools, such as iPads, Twitter and Facebook. I didn’t really get a satisfactory answer, but I look forward to hearing anyone who has one (please comment on this post).

Third Session

The third session I attended was not at all what I expected, but incredible none-the-less. I was expecting a session on “Creating a Digital Culture”, ie. how to create a digital culture in the school, the community and beyond…what I got was “Creating Digital Culture” ie. creating culture (art, music, etc.) in the digital space…serves me right for not reading the description, but in the end, this was one of my favorite sessions of the day. The presenter was Roger Wagner, a San Diego local, and creator of an amazing software called HyperStudio. HyperStudio allows you and your students to create amazing rich-media content mashups easily by dragging content into the editor and manipulating it in tons of different ways. The key is that HyperStudio makes it easy to create projects because as the creator puts it, “Project creation should be simple, if they spend the whole time getting content into the project, when are they learning?” It has a host of really cool features and it seems the creator is actively involved in further development (like integration with Arduino boards to add robotics to projects and HTML 5 export to allow cross device use), not to mention that I got a free copy for attending the presentation. All in all, I was really impressed with the presentation and the software. One thought to leave this session with: 1 laptop is equal to 5000 pencils, we had better make sure that what we use technology for in the classroom is more valuable than 5000 pencils. I thought that concept was very cool and put things into perspective.

Fourth Session

Google to the Max: The Power Users Guide with Howie DiBlasi was my next session and although I learned a few new things from this session, it was definitely not a “Power Users Guide”. Did you know that the Google logo and simple homepage was originally a function of the fact that Google founders didn’t know how to code HTML? Neither did I! But that isn’t all I learned in this session…First cool thing was Google Science Fair, which I had no idea about and am excited to push my school to get involved in, second was a list of Google alternatives, not something I am ordinarily fond of [the author typed quickly on his Google Chromebook], but some of them actually offered some features which Google has yet to offer:

• FactBites.com – Pull search results from encyclopedia data, like Wikipedia and Encarta (it still exists!)
• Quintura.com – Presents search results in deep-linked wordclouds
• Clusty.com – Presents search results in hierarchical clusters

Finally, the presenter presented a Google Lab which I didn’t know about, Google City Tours, which creates tours of a given area and timeline for tourists. And yes, it does work in Jerusalem…

Bloggers’ Cafe and Impromptu Brainstorm/Workshop

After 4 straight sessions, I needed a little break and headed over to the Bloggers’ Cafe to recharge (electronically and emotionally) and connect with some of my fellow Jewish Educators (electronically and emotionally). I had an amazing impromptu session where I showed off some of the tech I use in the classroom and brainstormed some cool ideas with colleagues. Some of the resources we shared are below:

• http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ – A QR Code generator
  • Use bit.ly links to create QR Codes, this generates less ‘noisy’ codes and allows you to track scans
  • QR Codes have a 30% error correction built in, this means you can remove up to 30% of the code and it still scans, this makes for great custom codes and projects (use an image/vector editor)
  • Use QR Codes as a “poor man’s augmented reality” by embedding rich media into worksheets, bulletin boards and by allowing students to create projects to share their creations. More on my QR Code timeline project in a separate post.
• http://alternativeto.net/ – An amazing database with alternatives to popular software, a great way to find a free open source version of a commercial software or find a version supported by your platform (Mac, PC, etc.)
• http://issuu.com/ – Online PDF publisher/viewer used to create beautiful online books or magazines, see an example here: http://issuu.com/adamsimon/docs/melachim_aleph
• http://softwaretopic.informer.com/html-image-map-software-mac/ – a list of some Image Map editors
• http://www.w3schools.com/TAGS/tag_map.asp – W3Schools <map> tag page, learn to create Image Maps with HTML coding

This was a particularly enjoyable hour in that I had the opportunity to meet fellow Educators (not just Jewish ones) and interact, brainstorm and share.

Fifth and Final Session

The last presentation was probably the most enjoyable, Nancye Blair was engaging, entertaining and passionate. Her presentation on Engaging Education was enlightening and tremendously thought provoking, in spite of the fact that I came in only half-way through and it was geared to Elementary Education. She presented a number of tools, all of which can be found at her website: http://www.engagingeducation.net, many of which I have used, but was shown new ways in which to use them, and many of which I have never used before but am now planning on integrating into my lesson plans for the coming year. This was truly one of the most inspiring and passion driven presentations I have seen, to leave you with one remark from Nancye that struck me, “By creating live audiences for our kids we show them that what they are creating MATTERS!”

Birds of Feather Jewish Educators and Dinner

At the end of the day I had another tremendous opportunity to interact, network and share with my colleagues. First was the Birds of a Feather Workshop for Jewish Educators, facilitated by Phil Liff-Grieff, Associate Director of Builders of Jewish Education in Los Angeles , which was a phenomenal opportunity to share with and meet others in the field as well as supporters of our work. Some highlights included:

• http://lexicon.cet.ac.il/ – Great Hebrew resource
• http://www.mikledet.com/ – Online Hebrew keyboard
• https://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=65166 – RTL Support in Google Docs
• A great back and forth with David Bryfman Ph.D of The Jewish Education Project about how to create more effective tools for Jewish educators. My take, cutting out the middle man and collaborating with developers and funders directly.

After the Birds of a Feather session, the AVI CHAI group headed over to our catered Kosher dinner where we exchanged ideas and shared our best (and worst) moments from the day. Here are some of my highlights:

• An educator must have 2 goals: 1. Make students passionate about learning 2. Teach them how to learn…that is all. Every project you do should be accomplishing one or both of those goals.
• Flip Thinking
  • Can an interactive Tanach or Gemara class ever be flipped? Don’t flip what doesn’t need to be flipped. Flipping is used to make sure that content which requires collaboration is done in a collaborative space and content which doesn’t require collaboration doesn’t eat up that valuable time.
• http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=19793 - Moderate Facebook Pages to allow teachers and schools to use them more safely
• http://rubistar.4teachers.org/ – A rubric creator for PBL lessons

After the dinner and sharing was done, I got some one-on-one face-time with Dave Weinberg of Causil and FOJNP, which was tremendously enjoyable and enlightening. I hope it leads to future collaborations and conversations.

Today was a great day at the ISTE Conference and I am looking forward to another amazing day-and-a-half!

For more updates on my time at ISTE, you should follow @theadamsimon on Twitter.

This post was cross-posted on AVI CHAI Educational Technology Blog and YU 2.0

Microblogging (such as Twitter) can be a great tool in the classroom. But the place it can be an even more amazing tool is outside the classroom.

I often assign a video for students to watch at home, or an online article to read and reflect on. This can sometimes be difficult, it can be cumbersome for me to email students links to the posts or videos, as well this doesn’t lead to good discussion and collaboration.

I have found that using a platform like Twitter or even Facebook (which has elements of microblogging in its “Status” feature) can be a great way of assigning students (and remind them about) interactive or rich-media homework assignments. All you need to do is post a link to the service and instruct students to visit or subscribe to it. Now, every time there is content you want to “send home” it is already there, and students can publicly reflect online, right in the platform. The public nature of the response, raises interest from other students, forcing students to learn and teach each other, and fosters discussion amongst students. It also provides a central repository for all the student’s reflections for easy grading and to look back on over the year.

Here is an example of this: https://www.facebook.com/thesimons/posts/203821972989603

Using this platform is a great way of reaching students for rich-media assignments outside of school, without the cumbersome, closed infrastructure of email and a great way to foster discussion and student interest. Not to mention that this is the method they use to communicate with each other, so it is more organic and easily remembered than email or assignment books.

This post was cross-posted on YU 2.0

What is Chanukah? This question was posed by the great sages of the Talmud thousands of years ago and continues to be asked by children and scholars to this day.

Why is this question plaguing? Why does no one ask this question about Purim, another Rabbinicaly decreed holiday?

First, we must understand the differences between Chanukah and Purim. It has been said that Chanukah is the story of a physical rebellion to defeat a spiritual threat, and Purim is the story of a spiritual rebellion to defeat a physical threat. but on a more basic level than this, there is a stark difference between the two stories.

The Purim story reminds me of “The Big Lebowski”, the story starts off  with a goal, getting back the Dude’s rug, or in the case of the Purim story, getting back the Beit Hamikdash (this is indicated by the story starting off with the feast in which the vessels from the Temple are used), both of which, might I add, really tie the room together. In the course of the story, with all its twists and turns, we are taken on a wild ride of wealth, sex, scandal and power, and in the end of the story we feel a sense of accomplishment, like the story is concluded. Very few people realize that at the end of the story, nothing has been accomplished! The Dude never gets he rug back and we never get the Beit Hamikdash back…The story of Purim is false sense of accomplishment, yes we didn’t die, but we also didn’t advance we are left in the same place we started from.

Contrast this with the Chanukah story, which begins with a clear problem: the Syrian-Greeks, and ends with a resolution: Jews attain autonomy, push the Syrian-Greeks out and purify the temple. Now, that is a good story!

From the above, it would seem that the question that should be asked is “What is Purim?” and not “What is Chanukah?” But when we zoom out and look at the big picture, we realize that everything is not as it seems. The story of Purim which seemingly has no satisfactory ending, leads to the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdash and redemption(the son of Achashverosh and Esther was Darius, the king who allowed the Jewish people to return to Israel and rebuild). Whereas the Chanukah story, which appeared to be satisfying, later ends in tragedy; the last remaining daughter of the Hasmonean dynasty kills herself and the Jewish people fall into civil wars, which lead to the destruction of the Temple.

When we look a the big picture, it is clear why the question of “What is Chanukah?” is such a good one. What are we celebrating? The fleeting victory of the Maccabees? In the end it leads back to the same place, destruction of the temple ans civil war!

This is the message of Chanukah. Our great sages, knew that this time of year is a dark one, both physically and spiritually. We are all in need of some light. And this time of year is also prone to miracles, as we say in the blessing over the candles; “she’asa nisim la’avoteinu, ba’yamim ha’hem, ba’zman ha’zeh – Who did miracles for our forefathers, in their days at this time” We celebrate Chanukah, even though we need in the end, the Hasmoneans lost, because we take inspiration and light when we need it regardless of whether or not it will last forever. “It is not upon us to finish the task, but it is not in our power to desist from it” Each night of Chanukah we take one step forward, one step toward perfection, one step toward lighting up the world, even though we know the task may be futile, even though we know that perfection is un-attainable, even though we know that we will at some point stumble and sin. But right now, we have light and right now we will make progress and right now we will improve the world.

Just because the wave will crash, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ride it.

That is Chanukah.

I noticed a very interesting subtlety when learning the parsha a few weeks ago. In Parshat Lech Lecha, Breishit 17, God makes a covenant with Abraham (then Abram) and changes his name and the name of his wife (Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah). However, in doing so God changes his wording and teaches us a beautiful lesson about the difference between men and women.

When changing Abraham’s name God  says:

 וְלֹא-יִקָּרֵא עוֹד אֶת-שִׁמְךָ אַבְרָם וְהָיָה שִׁמְךָ אַבְרָהָם כִּי אַב-הֲמוֹן גּוֹיִם נְתַתִּיךָ

And you should no longer be called by the name Abram, and your name will be Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations.

Contrast this to the wording used when changing Sarah’s name:

 וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים אֶל-אַבְרָהָם שָׂרַי אִשְׁתְּך לֹא-תִקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמָהּ שָׂרָי  כִּי שָׂרָה שְׁמָהּ

And God said to Abraham, “Sarai, your wife, do not call her ‘Sarai’ because ‘Sarah’ is her name”

When renaming Abraham, God tells him, “your name will be Abraham” as opposed to renaming Sarah, when God says, “Sarah is her name”. This teaches us a fundamental difference between Abraham and Sarah, and between men and women in general.

Abraham started out as a certain person, and in his life he changed and evolved into a different person like when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. This change required a new name, he was no longer Abram, but a new entity to be known as Abraham.

Sarah, on the other hand, was always Sarah, and in her life peeled back the false outer-layers known as Sarai like removing the in-edible peel of a fruit. When she peeled back the layers and revealed her true-self God informed Abraham that he had been calling her the wrong name all along.

Abraham needed to change himself, Sarah needed to reveal her true-self.

Men are born with no reproductive capacities. Only when they reach puberty does their body wake up and start producing sperm cells. A man’s body creates billions of new sperm cells during the course of his lifetime. Each time he uses them, his body creates more. Women, on the other hand, are born with every egg cell they will ever use inside their ovaries. Over 1 million egg cells are inside the ovaries of every healthy baby girl and over the course of her life, she will not create one single new egg cell.

Men need to change to become the person they are meant to be, while women only need to reveal that which they already have.

This relates to my previous post about birkot ha’shachar, In Defense of the Bracha. Men, who need to change to develop, need outside rules and guidance to do so, whereas women who need to merely reveal that which they already have, need to appreciate themselves and learn to be confident in who and what they are.

There has always been chatter about the third bracha of birkot ha’shachar lately. Specifically, “she’lo asani isha – that He did not make me a women” (which is said by men) vs. “she’asani kirtzono – that He made me according to his will” (said by women). I do truly believe that anyone who views this bracha split as somehow sexist is missing the point.

This bracha has nothing to do with being grateful with for which gender I am. It is all about appreciating those things which I need to appreciate in the world and often overlook. Just by looking at the context of the other blessing we can understand this. We thank God for giving us eyes to see, shoes to protect our feet and strength to carry out His will, amongst other things. No, this bracha has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with gratitude for things that we may not naturally be grateful for.

Now, before moving forward, it is crucial to note that men and women are different, if you don’t accept this you need to revisit high-school biology. The genders are intrinsically different and each one has different things with which they struggle. Men, for the most part, struggle with being told what to do, with rules, order and structure. To be frank, we don’t like being told what to do (on the surface) and therefore we struggle with Mitzvot or God’s commandments. Therefore, the bracha for men is “that you did not make me a woman” or ‘I am grateful to You for making a man, who has to fulfill many positive commandments from which women are exempt’ – men, who by nature would not be grateful for being told what to do, are forced to repeat this mantra daily in order to soften that iron-will and get them to be more OK with being told what to do. Women, on the other hand, struggle with self-worth, confidence and being happy with who they are* and so the mantra they must repeat, day in and day out, is one which re-affirms their own value and self-worth. The Jewish women repeats each day that God, in His infinite wisdom, created her according to his will and took special care in doing so, thus building her up into the confident women she should become.

Let’s not tear down our Jewish women by teaching that their bracha is some throw-away alternative to the “man’s bracha“, don’t teach them, “Well, you are not a man, but God wanted it that way…”, because that is the anti-thesis of what this bracha serves to accomplish and it is counter to our core values as Jews. Let’s build up our Jewish women and realize the true nature of these brachot.

*I make this sweeping generalization based on years of interaction with many women and girls and although I know it is just that, a sweeping generalization, (and the same is true for my statement about men above) but we have a concept in Judaism that we follow the majority, and for the most part this is true. It is a more masculine trait to be opposed to being told what to do, and a more feminine one to have self-worth issues.

In Parshat Ki Tetzeh (Devarim 22:1-3) the Torah tells us that we must return lost objects to our brethren, and that we should not space out and ignore the lost object. When describing this it lists various objects in a seemingly strange order, which is divided up.

First it lists:

• Oxen
• Sheep and goats

On Pesach we eat the “Hillel Sandwich” or “Korech”. This is done to remember how Hillel used to accomplish the essence of the mitzvah of Passover which is, as the Haggadag tells us: Pesach, Matzah, Maror – The Pesach Offering, Matzah and Bitter Herbs.

Why are these three items the essence of Passover and why did Hillel wrap the Pesach and the Marror in Matzah and accomplish this idea in this way?

The whole goal of Passover is to teach us how to properly transition from slavery to freedom, from obscurity to fame, from rags to riches. How does one transition from one point in life to the next? He must embrace freedom (Pesach Offering), while still feeling the pain of those who are oppressed (Marror) and remembering where he came from. This is a tremendous challenge.

In order to both embrace the amazing glory and prestige that comes with being a servant of God, and maintain a sense of grounded-ness with where we came from and feel the pain of others, we must have humilty.

The Matzah symbolizes humility and this is why it is the binding agent of these two foods.

Humility allows us to embrace the amazing glory of being God’s servants, while maintaining a connection with the oppression that exists in the world.

Hillel’s main focus was loving our fellow man, and his sandwich is part of the Seder to remind us that the only way to truly love our fellow is through humility.

In two previous posts, I have discussed the idea of food and how we absorb energy in this world, I also connected this to olive oil and its expression of light and energy in this world.

I would like to take it even deeper.

The word for oil in Hebrew is שמן – shemen. This word shares a root with the Hebrew word for the number eight, shmoneh or shmini, which is generally accepted as representing that which is exists beyond the standard everyday physical stuff (the world was created in seven days, eight is one more than seven; boys have their brit on the eigth day; Chanukah, the holiday of miracles and oil is eight days long). There is an inherent connection between this concept of eight (shmoneh) and that of oil (shemen), as I outlined in previous posts, oil brings light into the world.

Taking this connection and all the connections we have made regarding sustenance and its parallel to bringing light into the world further, there is a correlation to Parshat Shmini (eight) and these concepts. Shmini discusses the laws of kosher foods and lays out for us what we may and eat and not eat. Unless we understand the connection between light, oil and food, this seems like a complete non-sequitur in the parsha, but once we understand the underlying connection between using spiritual light and food it become clear.

The parsha begins with the consecration of the altar on the eighth day of the temple inauguration  which is immediately followed by the death of Nadav and Avihu, who are killed by God for mis-using fire in the temple service, “bring a strange fire”. This is then followed by the laws of Kashrut, which outline for us the sanctity of food and eating.

Why is Purim’s central point wine?

Aside from the fact that it is a central point in the story (the various parties thrown by Achashverosh and Esther) and the fact that Purim is about revealing the hidden (which wine does in spades) and not even only because of the fact that wine represents royalty, which is a central theme of the holiday.

There is a much deeper reason, which is at the very core what makes wine, wine and what makes the Purim story unique amongst the Jewish holiday stories.

In order to better understand, we first need to zoom out of the Purim story and look at the big picture. The Purim story happens in the middle of the Babylonian/Persian exile, after Cyrus had allowed the Jews to begin rebuilding the temple, but before it was actually rebuilt. What happened? Cyrus allowed the Jews to begin rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem and the construction was subsequently halted due to some complaining neighbors (the Samaritans) a few years later, Darius the Second allows the Jews to continue rebuilding the temple and the finish it, ushering in the Second Temple period. The story of Purim happen just after the construction was halted by the Samaritans and just before Darius II allowed it to continue. What you may not know is that Darius II was the son of Esther and Achashverosh! That’s right, a Jewish king of the Persian empire…no wonder he let the Jews rebuild the temple!

The real story of Purim, as you can see, is not just about the Jews of Persia being saved from destruction by Haman, it is about the ‘first flowering of their redemption’ the chain of events that take place in the Purim story are all put into motion so that the Jews could eventually return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple.

Purim is the holiday of process.

Purim is about realizing that things take time and that everything is part of a bigger picture, part of a process. Wine is the exemplification of this concept. Wine is the ultimate in appreciating time and process. To make wine, one must plant a vineyard, harvest the grapes, crush them, strain them and finally let them ferment and mature until they are ready to drink. Wine is the only of the Sheva Minim that requires this type of time to reach its perfected and ultimate state and that is why it is associated with Purim, to remind us that sometimes things take time and are part of a bigger process.

Purim and wine, it’s all about the process.

In a previous post, I discussed the idea that the way we get physical energy from food is a beautiful parallel to the method of attaining spiritual sustenance. The sun is a source of light, which is the purest form of energy, but we cannot make use of this energy, so we rely on other organisms to process this energy and derive our energy from these filters which allow us to make use of this pure, powerful energy.

Pure olive oil is the method of choice for any sort of light in Judaism, whether it be Shabbat candles, Chanukah or the Bet Hamikdash. Olive is the purest expression of this process, or actually the reverse of this process. Olives take the pure light from the sun and convert that energy into oil which is stored in the fruit. We then crush this fruit and extract the oil, light it ablaze and re-release this pure light energy into the world. This is a beautiful parallel for our purpose in the world. We have the ability to spread the Light (with a capital ‘L’) to the world just as the oil does.

This is why olive oil is used in so many rituals, because light and the reversal of the process by which this light enters the world is at the core of our purpose in this world. This is particularly true in exile, which is why Chanukah revolves so heavily around olive oil, it is the last holiday created before our final send-off to exile and provides us with the tools for lighting up our dark night.

The Hebrew word for olive, זית – zayit, is a phonetic cognate of זקן – zaken or elder, because just as an olive stores the light allowing it to be re-released to the world when needed, so too an elder or sage stores the Light and re-releases it to those who need it.

Many of us already recognize the tremendous value that can be found online in the form of audio (and even video) shiurim. These shiurim have rapidly taken the place of the Torah Tapes of our youth and continue to offer thirsty students of Torah the opportunity to enjoy a quality learning experience no matter where they find themselves, anywhere from Brooklyn to Barbados and everywhere in between.

Audio shiurim can be found in a number of places online, two of the best repositories of consistently updated shiurim can be found at YU Torah and OU Radio. These are the two site we will focus on for today’s Mobile How To.

As mentioned above, most of us are aware of the amazing value of online shiuirm, but there is an incredible feature that most of us are probably missing out on: Podcasting. Podcasting is basically just an RSS Feed consisting of MP3 files instead of articles, but the magic of Podcasting is revealed when its features are married with those of today’s always-connected smartphones; with their powers combined they allow the end-user to stream audio shiurim from just about anywhere, without having to download or check for updates. Once you find a class, topic of teacher you like you can use Podcasting just as you would TiVo (chas ve’shalom) to capture new classes automatically and view or listen at your convenience, and using your smartphone (we will focus on Android in this article) you can stream, not download and play, those shiurim from anywhere, whenever the mood strikes or you have a free block of time…think: on your daily commute, waiting in line, waiting for the bus, while at the mechanic…anywhere, anytime.

“How can I set up this magical TiVo for shiurim?” you ask? In about 3 steps and 5 minutes you will be up and running and listening to shiurim wherever and whenever.

Things you’ll need:

• Android Smartphone (any smart phone will do, but we will be using Android for this How To)
• Computer
• Google Account (If you don’t already have one: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount)

Step 1 – Set Up Google Listen:

Open the Android Market and search for Listen, visit http://listen.googlelabs.com or scan the QR Code to the right with your Android phone to download Google Listen.

Once you have downloaded and set-up Google Listen be sure that it is linked to your Google Account and proceed to Step 2.

Step 2 – Set Up Google Reader:

Open your browser on your computer and goto http://www.google.com/reader. When you set-up Google Listen and link it to your Google Account it will automatically create a new folder in Google Reader called “Listen Subscriptions”; this is where you will add the Podcasts you want to subscribe to.

Goto to your Reader settings page (by clicking the gear in the upper right-hand corner and clicking “Reader Settings”) and click over to the “Goodies” tab. Now, scroll to the bottom of this page and follow the instructions for adding the “Subscribe” bookmarklet to your browser.

Step 3a – Find Your Shiurim and RSS Feed:

For YU Torah: First, find the topic, speaker or series you want to subscribe to, next click-through to the actual shiur page and you will see a line of icons (RSS, Podcast, Apple logo, envelope), roll over them and click “Podcast”, next select the number of shiurim you want displayed at a time and click “Go”. A new window should now be open with the XML code of the RSS feed of your series of shiurim. Proceed to Step 3b.

For OU Radio: Visit http://www.ouradio.org/podcasting, find the series you want to subscribe to, click the little RSS icon and proceed to Step 3b.
>Step 3b.

Whether you use this tool for professional development, personal learning, to stay in touch with your students or to keep up to date on a class when you can’t be there, podcasting is an amazing tool that will help us all stay a little closer to Torah learning no matter where we find ourselves…happy streaming!

While writing my post, Hebrew for Android, I went to reference an article I (thought) I had written on Mikledet (http://www.mikledet.com/) the amazing online Javascript based Heberw keyboard, but the article was nowhere to be found! I don’t know how I could have forgotten to share this amazing tools/resource with my fellow Frumhackers, but apparently I did. I guess it is right in time for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur to do teshuva!

The Mikledet keyboard is and amazing tool, it is basically a simple web-based application that allows you to type in Hebrew without any special software of settings, the Javascript “hi-jacks” your keyboard and whatever key you hit while your cursor is in the text area is converted to the corresponding Hebrew character. It even has an on-screen keyboard for reference which lights up as you type. The app also allows you to switch from the classic Hebrew keyboard layout to phonetic layout. It is really awesome for those times you need to write an email response in Hebrew or do a quick Google search. There is even a Facebook app which allows you to access the keyboard from within Facebook for convenience while communicating with Hebrew speakers.

Mikledet is developed by Chen Levkovich, and Israeli from Tel Aviv, here is a quote from the about us page:

I created Mikledet.com mostly for myself (and my wife). We lived in Munich at the time, without any P.C. at home. I connected to the Internet mostly from Internet cafes, which of course had no Hebrew support. We had no possibility to send Hebrew emails, until I created Mikledet.com (well at the beginning the name was e-vrit and then just Mikledet). I wrote all the initial code at the easy Internet cafe next to Munich’s central station, and at the time I used my home page at geocities.

He has also developed 2 other amazing apps, http://skypetranslate.com/, an app to translate Skype conversations to and from Hebrew, and http://www.muftah-alhuruf.com/, an Arabic keyboard similar to Mikledet (very useful for doing searches of Gaonic Literature in the original Arabic ).

Now that I have written the article that I (thought) had written before, I can tell you that Android 2.2 (Froyo) which I just updated to supports Hebrew and supports the Mikledet mobile and regular keyboards!

[Mikledet] [Mikledet Facebook App]

I just got the Android 2.2 (Froyo) update and, amongst other really cool new features, it features Hebrew support! I was able to access Mechon Mamre’s library (http://www.mechon-mamre.org/) and lots of other Hebrew sites and content. I can even now see Hebrew in my Gmail app and in various other apps throughout the phone. If you have a Droid (like me) and want to get the Froyo update before it gets pushed to you OTA, check this article out for a quick and easy way to get the update without breaking any rules.

[UPDATE: I would recommend using the "ללא ניקוד" (non-vowelized) versions of Mechon Mamre (Tanach is available chaser (בכתיב המסורה) and maaleh (בכתיב מלא), because the vowel support isn't that good (read: doesn't work)]

Also be sure to check out our previous articles about Judaism and Hebrew on the Android Platform: [http://www.frumhacks.com/2010/03/android-apps-i-would-love-to-see/] [http://www.frumhacks.com/2010/02/android-rundown/]

We’ve all been there, out and about, about to take a bite of our snack or lunch when we realize, “Wait, what is the bracha on quinoa?” or “Do I say a borei nefashot after rice, or al ha’michya?”, if only we could all carry Halachos of Brachos in our back pocket. Well now you can! Thanks to an amazingly well built web app, Brochos.com, we all now have access to a breadth of knowledge on what the appropriate bracha is for a given situation. Whether you have a smartphone (Andriod, Iphone, Blackberry, Palm, etc.) or not you can access this database via its wonderful mobile site, touch site or by sending text messages and receiving automated responses, including sources.

The database covers a wide array of foods, from Ale to Zwieback, and has sources, which range from Mishna Berura to Halachos of Brachos, to back up its claims. Additionally, most database entries include pictures of the food in question to guarantee that we are talking about the same item, the actual text of the bracha for easy reference and articles about the proper shiur to be consumed to require an after bracha.

The database features an easy to search interface, with search (and autocorrect), alphabetical and food type references. All in all, it is well designed, very useful and intuitive and provides of wealth of neccesary information to the Frum consumer.

Well Done!

A new tool I discovered the other day called Preceden (http://preceden.com) creates really beautiful timelines simply and easily. It has tons of uses, I’m sure, but check out a sample timeline I created for the Jewish History class I teach (at SCY High School) http://preceden.com/timelines/2954-jewish-history it is still “under construction” but feel free to poke around and let us know some of the other uses you find in the comments below…

I have officially had my Droid for enough time to start getting demanding. I have been using the thing and still absolutely love it, but have come up with some (seemingly) easy to build apps that I would love to see come into existence for the Android OS Platform.

I recently got an Android phone (Motorola Droid for Verizon) and I am loving it. I was a Blackberry person for over 5 years and I even tried making the switch to the G1 about a year ago, but now with the new Droid I haven’t looked back. It really does do everything I want in a phone (or net-book for that matter!) and more. Here’s a look at some of the apps that I have been using so far (both Frum and not):

Image via Wikipedia

Image by audioeric via Flickr

We only have one oven in our kitchen and it is Fleishig (for meat), but I love pizza…the classic Kosher Kitchen Dilemma. Recently, after a late night post-shabbaton food party, I discovered the solution, stove-top tortilla pizza.

Song Stuck In Head: Undies Theme Song
Artist: UOTO (Undies On The Outside)
Link: MySpace Music Page

An interesting question came to my attention recently, it is one that I have pondered in the past but never heard a spiritual approach to. This question also got a song stuck in my head that I haven’t heard since high school…

I rock the undies on the outside!
Who rocks the undies on the outside?
We rock the undies on the outside!

This song is the theme song for “Undies On The Outside” a Los Angeles based band from the early 2000s, and it expresses a certain mentality, one that reflects this generation’s mentality:  ’What is normally on the inside, we show off on the outside!’ Undies are a thing that are usually private and yet, express a certain part of our souls, they reflect a lot about a person’s individuality and personality, as the song says “I rock undies in three different shades/I rock five pairs just in one day”. People will also often spend lots of money on undies, different brands “Gucci, Gap and Calvin Klein/Get ‘em while they’re hot and buy the whole line”, etc. but this extreme expenditure and focus on undies would generally be a private thing. This song is an anthem for those who have an extreme desire to express the inner parts of their souls, things that are normally kept private are made public and flaunted to the world.

Many people would condemn this mentality as having a lack of tzniut. Tzniut, often translated as modesty, is generally taken to mean covering up that which is attractive or which draws attention. People take this idea to mean that a person should cover up their insides – their pnimiut - and keep those things which make them special private. This could not be further from the truth! Tzniut is supposed to cover up those things that we share in common with others, those things that distract us from our pnimiut - essence or insides – and that would end up blocking our individual expression.

The mentality of ‘undies on the outside’ is a very healthy Torah mentality. To better express this, let me present the question that I mentioned in the first paragraph. “Why is the male reproductive organ of mammals on the outside of the body? This seems to be ‘unintelligent design’! This organ which is responsible for the perpetuation of the species should be the most protected, not most exposed.” First of all, not to enter the Intelligent Design vs. Evolution debate (of which I don’t really see a debate, in my mind both opinions could work in harmony…) but those evolutionists who use this question as a proof against intelligent design are asking an equally damning question on their own theory. If the placement of the organ seems “unintelligent” than according to survival of the fittest the species with this placement should have died off, and if it is evolutionarily sound than the placement must have some intelligence to it…I heard a video tour online of a zoo with a rabbi recently who expressed a very interesting idea, he explained that the briah - creation – is here to teach us. There is something to be learned from all the seemingly insignificant parts of creation (see intro post) and he applied this idea to the placement of this organ. He explained that the organ was placed in this way to teach us that, in a spiritual sense, our creative aspect, the part of us that has the greatest potential to contribute to this reality must be on the outside, not hidden or protected from view. This is the lesson to be learned from male mammals in the zoo.

(For those who are interested, a very satisfactory scientific answer to the above question is that having the sperm in a more hostile environment creates a mini-survival-of-the-fittest situation in which the weaker and/or lesser quality sperm cannot survive, leaving only the top-notch cells to make the journey and perpetuate the species)

So, to sum up, rock your undies on the outside (in a metaphorical sense)! Don’t cover up and hide the parts of your soul that make you who you are and/or are the parts of you that are creative and can be used to contribute to the universe.

There is an ancient Jewish tradition, dating back around 2000 years, it is quoted in the Talmud (Brachot 60b), “אמר אביי…כי נפיק אומר ברוך אשר יצר את האדם בחכמה וברא בו נקבים נקבים חללים חללים גלוי וידוע לפני כסא כבודך שאם יפתח אחד מהם או אם יסתם אחד מהם אי אפשר לעמוד לפניך – Abaye said, when a person leaves the restroom he should say, ‘God is the source of all blessing, He created man with wisdom, and built in him openings and cavities, it is clear before His holy throne that if one opened at the wrong time or closed at the wrong time a person could not live.’”

As we have discussed before, every action is a spiritual action, every action that we take can be something to connect us with God and our Jewish heritage. There is an ancient Jewish value that is being transmitted to us by this blessing that Abaye instructs us to say. It is a value that many people forget about and that many people neglect to incorporate as part of their Jewish outlook. This is the value of looking for the small miracles in life. The very fact that we exist and are alive and our bodies function properly is a miracle. Thanks God, we are surrounded by healthy people and it is easy to forget this…check out this quote from Dr. Kenneth M.Prager, M.D.,

“It was not until my second year of medical school that I first began to understand the appropriateness of this short prayer. Pathophysiology brought home to me the terrible consequences of even minor aberrations in the structure and function of the human body, At the very least, I began to no longer take for granted the normalcy of my trips to the bathroom. Instead, I started to realize how many things had to operate just right for these minor interruptions of my daily routine to run smoothly.”

Today’s Jewish mission is to use the bathroom and appreciate the small miracles in our lives.

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Over the last 2 months we have been discussing the importance of fully experiencing Shabbat and the various aspects of properly experiencing it. We outlined that their are 4 general categories that encompass the experience and amazing gift that is Shabbat, Honoring Shabbat, Enjoying Shabbat, Remembering Shabbat and finally, Keeping Shabbat. The final category being the one that most people identify with and that most people have a hard time dealing with. The final category is the one most people identify with “restrictions” and while this is true on the surface, the act of ‘keeping Shabbat’ does require that a person abstain from doing various actions, on a deeper level these ‘restrictions’ are what make up the very essence and secret of Shabbat’s special power for the Jewish people and their Heritage.  Asher Ginsburg (Ahad Ha’am), the founder of Cultural Zionism said it best, “More than the people of Israel have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the people of Israel.” What was meant by this statement is that although keeping Shabbat may appear at face value to be a list of restrictions, it is in reality a much deeper and powerful thing which allows us to fully appreciate and enjoy the awesomeness of Shabbat. We don’t keep the restrictions, they keep us.

This mission is going to be a little different than the missions we have had in the past, because properly keeping Shabbat and internalize its amazing power can be a lifelong pursuit. Learning new things and understanding all the rules takes study, focus and thought. But we always need to start somewhere, so I am going to try and give a brief introduction and try to refer you to some resource to start and continue this journey.

The Torah tells us (Exodus 20:9), “וְיוֹם, הַשְּׁבִיעִי–שַׁבָּת, לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ:  לֹא-תַעֲשֶׂה כָל-מְלָאכָה – and the seventh day is a day when you should stop for God, do not do any melacha.” In order to understand what is meant here, we must have a proper definition of the word melacha, which is generally and incorrectly translated as ‘work’. The word melacha refers to a specific type of creative action, these actions are identical with the actions that they Jewish people accomplished in the construction and maintenance of the Tabernacle in the desert and are outlined for us in the Torah. This inherent link between Shabbat and the Tabernacle is very telling as to the special power of Shabbat to act as a connector between the Jewish people and God and to bring the Jewish people together as a united group. There are 39 categories of melacha that are outlined in the Torah and enumerated by our ancient sages, I will not list them here, but they are the basis for everything when it comes to keeping Shabbat. Based on these 39 broad categories their are many sub-categories that exist. I would reccomend getting a copy of the book The Sabbath: A Guide to Its Understanding and Observance, by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld as a starting point. It is a great book and is very short (under 100 pages) but manages to pack a whole lot of important details into that small space. If anyone is interested in borrowing a copy, comment below or send me and email or Facebook message. For the more advanced reader I would recommend The 39 Melochos: An Elucidation of the 39 Melochos from Concept to Practical Application, by Rabbi Dovid Ribiat, it is a massive 4 volume set and is probably the most comprehensive and complete as well as well footnoted book on the subject that exist in English.

So, today’s Jewish mission is to try to start the journey or learning about and trying to keep Shabbat. This Shabbat and in the future, try your best not break the, so called, restrictions of Shabbat and try to learn as much as you can!

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Have you ever heard the expression, “He’s such a menstch“? or in Hebrew, “Act like a ben-adam!”? What do these phrases really mean? The Yiddish word, menstch, literally means man and the Hebrew word, ben-adam, literally means “son of Adam” or “son of man”. What is meant when we use this expression? Well, you see, in the Torah we are told a story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They were conned by a snake into eating a fruit that they shouldn’t have, this is where the mis-conception happens, they weren’t punished for eating the fruit, as much as they were punished for how they reacted when confronted about it. Rather than taking responsibility for their actions and saying they were sorry, they passed the blame on to the next person (or snake as the case may be) and this really pisssssed God off.

Ever since then, human kind (the sons and daughter of Adam and Eve) have been trying to make up for that. One of the main driving purposes of our lives is to just fess up and take responsibility for our actions. So when we use the term, mentsch or ben-adam, we are reminding ourselves of what it means to be a person, what Adam and Eve should have done, to take responsibility for our actions. That is exactly where the English expression, “Be a man” comes from. It has nothing to do with sexism or manliness, it has to do with the crucial characteristic of Mankind which is taking responsibility for our actions. The characteristic that Adam and Eve neglected to bring out and the characteristic that we are responsible to work on.

Today’s Jewish mission is to “be a man” or be a member of mankind and exemplify this characteristic of mankind, based on the shortcoming of Adam and Eve, and take responsibility for your actions.

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God says in Parashay Vayera (Genesis 18:19), “כִּי יְדַעְתִּיו, לְמַעַן אֲשֶׁר יְצַוֶּה אֶת-בָּנָיו וְאֶת-בֵּיתוֹ אַחֲרָיו, וְשָׁמְרוּ דֶּרֶךְ יְהוָה, לַעֲשׂוֹת צְדָקָה וּמִשְׁפָּט – Because I know Abraham will command his children to follow in his way, and preserve the way of God, to be just and do the right thing.” Generally the word צְדָקָה – tzedakah is translated as charity, which people take to mean as something nice that we do that is above and beyond our normal responsibility. However, this isn’t the case. The word צְדָקָה comes from the root word צדק meaning ‘justice’. The true meaning of the word צְדָקָה is doing the right and just thing, the thing that is supposed to be done, not the above and beyond thing to do. So, when we talk about charity it isn’t something that is supposed to be done only if we have the means, time or ability, it is something that is a responsibility for all the “children of Abraham (all of us)”. It is our responsibility, our heritage, our legacy. Doing the right thing for the Jewish people is a matter of course.

So, what does that mean for us? It means no excuses. It means that just because you are a teenager and don’t have enough money to go the movies isn’t an excuse for not doing “charity”. This isn’t an optional thing we do if we are able, it is our Jewish responsibility to help other no matter what our situation is. In fact, our ancient Jewish sages teach us that even a person who receives charity, must give charity to the person who poorer than him.

But how? If you don’t have money to give then what should you do? This is another big misconception about charity. Money is not the only way to give charity. You have many other things that you can give and use to help people. Your skills, your time, your creativity and so much more. Money isn’t the only thing in the world. You could volunteer, try to raise money, or use your skills to help someone out.

Today’s Jewish mission is to raise some money for charity, or find another way to help and give charity the Jewish way, not by giving only when it is convenient and not by only giving money, but by giving of yourself.

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The fifth of the Ten Commandments read (Exodus 20:11), “כַּבֵּד אֶת-אָבִיךָ, וְאֶת-אִמֶּךָ–לְמַעַן, יַאֲרִכוּן יָמֶיךָ, עַל הָאֲדָמָה, אֲשֶׁר-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לָךְ – Honor your father and mother so that you should live a long and happy life”. We see throughout the Torah how valuable this instruction is. In fact, even those characters who are regarded as evil and bad still honored their parents. From Esau to Reuben, now matter how evil of a person or how great and amazing the person, they each honored their parents. But why is this so important? We have discussed before the importance of being in awe of God and realizing how awesome He is, this concept relates to our parents as well. Parents form a partnership with God to bring us into this world, together they actually create us and nurture us, so we have to be in awe of all 3 parties. My Rabbi always says, “Your parents are equal to God, you need to treat them like they are God!” why? Because they are partners with God in creation, they form and nurture us and take care of our needs when we are incapable. This applies even to a parent who only gave birth to us, or an adoptive parent who only raised us.

But how do we honor our parents? Our great sages have discussed this a lot, but one of the key things we can do to honor our parents is to show them that we want their love and care. To show them that we appreciate all they have done for us and that we, now, as self-sufficient creatures have internalized the messages that they taught us of nurturing and providing. One of the prime examples of this is making food. By cooking a meal and providing this food to them, we are showing them that we know what it means to be like them, and just as we have said before that it is crucial to emulate God, it is also crucial to emulate the objective values of a true parent, giving, nurturing and providing. This emulation is the best way to show them that we appreciate and get what they are doing.

By providing food, you are providing life, and honor and showing your parents that you get it.

Today’s Jewish mission is to prepare a meal for your parents. Something that will enjoy, but most of all something that will show them that you appreciate, honor and respect them and that you get how amazing it is that they partnered with God to create, nurture and provide for you.

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We are told about Elisha the prophet (Kings II 3:15), “וְהָיָה כְּנַגֵּן הַמְנַגֵּן, וַתְּהִי עָלָיו יַד-יְהוָה – when the musicians played their music he felt the presence of God”. It is clear from this line that there is a very heavy spiritual power to music, in fact, we know that the Chassidic Masters over the last few hundred years have used the power of music to tap into the soul. Music is a very powerful tool in raising our spiritual awareness and bringing ourselves closer to God and our Jewish Heritage.

The Kabbalah teaches us that “music is the language of the spiritual world”. What does this mean? Why is music such a powerful spiritual tool? Well, as we have said before, God gave us the power of creation and he “uploaded” into us all of our creativity and power. Every expression of this creativity is an expression of God’s love for us and an expression of our creative abilities, which are a gift from and emulating God. Music is no exception, in fact it is a much higher level. Our mouths are a very special, the power of speech is what separates us from the animal world. However, when we speak, things can be taken one way or another, and we can use words to convey positive or negative messages. But when we sing a tune, or a niggun as it is known in Hebrew, there is no negative possibilities, only the pure essence of our soul.

So, today’s Jewish mission is to listen to some music, preferably something Jewish, and try and connect to God and your Spiritual Jewish Heritage through the music.

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In parashat Va’era, after Abraham is recuperating from his circumcision, God comes to visit him and comfort him. Our ancient sages teach us that from this story we learn that it is a big deal to visit and help the sick. Why? Because, as we know, we are supposed to “love our neighbor as ourself” and obviously when we are sick, we need help.

But there is much more to this “big deal” than just doing something for someone who is in need. Helping the sick is a way of emulating God. As we saw in the above story, when Abraham was in need, God came to comfort him. We have discussed in the past the Jewish emphasis on being a giver and that God, being infinite, is the ultimate giver being that he cannot “take” from anyone. We have to strive to see opportunities when people are in need as opportunities for us to be givers and emulate God.

So, today’s Jewish mission is to be a giver and help someone who is sick. Here are some ideas:

• Visit a patient in the hospital/nursing home, or visit the homebound.
• Call a homebound senior before Shabbos.
• Bring food to a family with a new baby.
• Drive someone to a doctor’s appointment.
• Help a child, whose parent is hospitalized, with homework.
• Say psalms together or on behalf of the ill.
• Take someone’s car to be filled with gas.
• Bring gift certificates from places which deliver food, so a family can make its own food choices and not feel dependent on what others cook for them.
• Call when you are at the store, and say “I am here. What can I pick up for you?”
• Share your hobbies, such as baking, singing or writing.
• Smile.
• Listen.

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The Torah tells us (Deuteronomy 16:19), “וְלֹא-תִקַּח שֹׁחַד–כִּי הַשֹּׁחַד יְעַוֵּר עֵינֵי חֲכָמִים, וִיסַלֵּף דִּבְרֵי צַדִּיקִם – Don’t take bribes, because they blind the wise person and mess up the words of the just.” The literal understanding of this line is pretty straightforward, don’t take a bribe, pretty simple. However our ancient wise men taught us an additional way to understand this line. Each and every one of us is considered a judge, and each and every second of our lives we are making judgments and decisions about what to do with ourselves and how to act. When we are judging these choices, we must be very careful not to take bribes, whether they be from other or from ourselves.

A person is always going to be blinded by his own wants and desires, he will naturally go toward what is more comfortable for himself. What the Torah is telling us is that we need to be careful when making judgement calls throughout our lives, careful not to be blinded by our own subjectivity, not to be blinded by the flashy things around us, but to realize that we cannot always be objective and adjust our perception based on that knowledge.

Today’s Jewish mission is to try to realize when we are being blinded by our own bias and adjust our sights accordingly.

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Over the last few weeks, on Fridays, we have been discussing the various aspects of Shabbat and making it a real part of our lives. We have been talking, mainly, about how to enjoy and respect Shabbat in ways outside of what most people consider Shabbat Observance, but which are a very large part of the true Shabbat experience. This week, I want to talk about one aspect of Shabbat that many people don’t associate with Shabbat – Havdala. As we have said in the past, Shabbat has 4 categories to it, Honor, Enjoy, Remember and Keep, and one of the key ways of remembering Shabbat is by making a separation between it and the rest of the week. When you have something special, something that you enjoy very much, and something that is very valuable, it is important to make sure that you maintain that things specialness. One way of doing this is by making it clear where that thing ends and other things begin.

Shabbat is no different. Shabbat is a very special part of our lives and we need to cherish it, we also need to make a clear distinction between Shabbat and the rest of the week. This also leads us to a deeper insight about life in general, it is always important to be able to distinguish between things, between those things which are special and not, those things which are holy and not, etc.

So, today’s Jewish Mission is to gather your family and friends and after having an amazingly inspirational Shabbat, say goodbye and make a clear distinction between Shabbat and the rest of the week. For more details on making Havdala see the video below (I know, its a little cheesy…).

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