Page 9 - Demo

training session for Jewish and Christian religious educators, and in 1999 in Cambridge at the old divinity school, we all came together for 3 days of Godly Play Core Training with Jerome. Unfortunately, I became ill during the rst day and had to leave my colleagues behind. But I was not daunted. Over the next few years, I worked with Jewish educators to promote Godly Play, but
contacted The Rev. Cheryl Minor, Ph.D. and organized the rst ever training for Jewish educators in Boston. We got a remarkably big group to do some of the Core Training of the Hebrew bible stories, including Sandy Sasso from Indianapolis. It heralded a wonderful new beginning for our work over the next six years. One synagogue in Lexington,
only two educators managed to set up fully developed classrooms, one of whom emigrated to Australia and rebuilt his classroom in his Melbourne synagogue! I attended the rst Godly Play lecture given by Rebecca at Westminster Cathedral and met many of the Christian educators beginning to come into Godly Play UK.
Jerome and I discussed the
suitability of Godly Play for
Jewish settings, and it took some time to fully realize how it could t into Jewish Education. The very methodology of contemplative reading and telling was unknown in Jewish Education, and its role as an opening for spiritual wonder did not square with our very instrumental approach which emphasizes knowledge,
skills, and values. It needed
more thought to understand
its place in our work. Very
few Jewish educators even
knew of Godly Play, but
one insightful rabbi and
storyteller had built a
classroom in her synagogue
and was using the scripted
stories. Jerome invited me
to join with Rabbi Sandy
Sasso at a consultation
about Godly Play for Jewish
Settings in Denver in 2005. Godly Play US Trainer The Rev. Dr. Rosemary Beales led this consultation where we discussed the theological, midrashic, and liturgical implications of Godly Play. It got me thinking anew about why it was so important to expand the very de nition of Jewish Education to incorporate social, emotional, and spiritual learning—and how crucial it was to introduce it properly and authentically to the Jewish community.
In 2011, I was called to take up my current position as Dean of the School of Education at Hebrew College in Boston. I left no time to waste and within six months of arriving had
Massachusetts decided to build two classrooms and train all their teachers. Somewhat shy of the word ‘God’, they decided to call their practice ‘Torah Play,’ and a wonderful team of educators came together to make it a reality. Personally, I thought ‘Godly’ was the most important part of a new paradigm for Jewish education and decided our o cial name would be ‘Torah Godly Play’. We formed a group of Trainers,
all of whom had worked with Cheryl, and established a Facebook group and Community of Practice and a set of materials stored at Hebrew College. We have trained over 100 Jewish educators, and there are Torah Godly Play classrooms in over a dozen synagogues, community centers,
and Jewish Day Schools from Boston to Rochester to Cincinnati to New York City. Each year we o ered training in Boston—once led by Jerome himself and most recently by Cheryl—and now it happens twice a year.
At the opening of each academic year at our rabbinic school student retreat, I o er a story. My faculty colleagues, my students, and
I wonder about the telling over what seems like hours. We wonder about the sacred narratives of our tradition, and as the year begins, we are all invited to enter a journey of discovery of our texts. I now o er a graduate school course on ‘Spiritual Development for Jewish Education’ at Hebrew College where our rabbinic, cantorial, and education students all are researchers in searching for old and new methodologies to transform Jewish Education and spiritual growth.
Our most recent project is to ne-tune Jerome’s stories for Jewish settings and create new stories for Jewish
Pictured left, above, below: Godly Play Training in Cambridge, UK, 1999.
A GODLY PLAY QUARTERLY PUBLICATION 9