12th Grader Response
By: Sophia Katz
On October 30th, each grade listened as various speakers, from the Heschel community and from outside, shared their teachings related to the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin. Jeremy Kalmanofsky, a Heschel parent and Rabbi at Ansche Hesed, spoke with the twelfth grade. Kalmanofsky has been invited to speak to the seniors for the past several years during senior seminar, a program at the end of senior year.
While Kalmanofsky recognized the tragedy of the assassination, he spent more time discussing the current issues relating to extremism in Israel. He first noted that sinat chinam or "senseless hatred" led to the downfall of the first temple. He then handed out excerpts he had taken directly from a recent book published by many Jewish extremists. They used the arguments of the pursuer, or rodef to justify killing Palestinians and Arabs in Israel when they feel any slight threat.
In the wake of Yitzchak Rabin's death, it is unfortunate that many radicals are providing rationales for killing people. Kalmanofsky concluded his talk by suggesting that through loving, particularly by means of hesed, can we hope to combat acts of sinat chinam and work to achieve peace within both the Jewish community and the larger world.
10th Grader Response
by Sara Serfaty
"But if a day before the murder we would have said proudly, 'See what we have produced,' We must say it now as well – 'See what we have produced!'"– Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein on Yitzhack Rabin's assassination.
On Thursday, in honor of former Israeli Prime Minister's, Yitzhack Rabin's, 20th yartzheit, Heschel High School students gathered by grade to hear speakers from the Jewish community. They then discussed and reflected on this experience in inter-grade groups.
The speaker for the sophomores was Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, the Dean of Students at Mechon Hadar, a Jewish educational center on Amsterdam Avenue. After a brief introduction, Rubenstein read and explained excerpts from the previously quoted speech by Rabbi Lichtenstein following Rabin's death.
The speech focused on the responsibility the Jewish community that educated Yigal Amir, Rabin's assassin, faced in the wake of his actions. Lichtenstein stressed the collective and individual guilt of the Jewish community through Talmudic sources, and highlighted some issues within Jewish education.
He first highlighted the religious hierarchy often seen between more- and less- observant sects, and then the disparity often seen in religious education, namely the promotion values that either emphasize interpersonal relationships or one's relationship with God, but not an in-between. He then discussed the promoted "simplicity and shallowness," as opposed to "complexity and deliberation," within the Jewish educational system. Finally, he said that students have been taught to be weary of others; "One who doesn't agree with us is criminal, not merely mistaken..."
The discussion questions asked about the significance of these critiques being said by a Jewish leader, as opposed to an outsider, Lichtenstein's taking responsibility, and how to relate these lessons back to our time, 20 years later.
Students were then asked to write down one takeaway from the speech, and something a question they had, on an index. They used these to guide their inter-grade discussions.
