Tommer Shani ’05

Posted on September 27, 2024

“The foundation of… education is our belief in humanity, in the future, and in the possibility of renewal and sublime beauty.”

My name is Tommer Shani (2005). I live in Jerusalem and teach at a regional high school in Jerusalem’s rural periphery.

The Bereaved Teacher

On September 1st, we began the new school year. Returning from summer vacation is always challenging, but this year we started already feeling depleted.

The war is weighing on all of us. Some of the staff are in the reserves or will return to reserve duty soon; many others have spouses or children who’ve been drafted; and of course, many of our graduates are now soldiers. Occasionally, a graduate visits the school, and I find myself looking for different ways to ask them, “Where are you in life?” and “What have you been doing lately?”. Sometimes their answers reveal things that are hard to express. It’s unsettling knowing that many of them are now carrying traumatic – defining – experiences that I have not lived and will never understand.

In the last year I have started to think about the victims and the fallen – young lives violently cut short – as someone’s students. The term ‘bereaved teacher’ echoes in my mind every day as I check the morning news. We train ourselves to say goodbye to these young people at the end of 12th grade, but we still feel a sense of responsibility for them. To sleep at night, I have to push from my mind the awareness that our former students are now in the Gaza Strip and on the northern border. With all my reservations about the military’s operations in this current war and in general, I am aware they are risking their lives to protect our society and defend the State.

I fear that the values-based education I seek to instill may not actually serve my students well. By encouraging meaningful service, compliance with the law, and self-sacrifice for others, I may be putting them at both physical and mental risk. So I’ll continue to dread hearing the news in the morning even three years from now, when they will be the next generation of graduates.

Choosing My Words

Right now there is a general crisis of trust in the relationship between us as a society and our leadership. It is clear that sometimes one must take risks to protect family and country; but are we heading in a direction I believe in, one that I think will benefit the people this youth will grow up to be? As a teacher in this current political climate, it is a question not easily asked publicly. There have been several cases reported in the media where a teacher who expressed a strong opinion that differed from the consensus, privately or in front of students, became a target for public condemnation and attempts to have them removed and fired. Israeli society has never been known for calm public discourse, but with the increasing polarization in recent years (here in Israel, as in most Western countries), and especially this year with the war, everyone is on edge. I don’t feel personally persecuted but I do feel that I need to take much more responsibility for every word I choose to say.

I opened the year with a passage from Psalms that ends with the statement:

ִֽמי־ָ֭הִאיׁש ֶהָחֵ֣פץ ַחִּ֑יים ֹאֵ֥הב ָ֝יִ֗מים ִלְר֥אֹות ֽטֹוב׃ ְנֹ֣צר ְלׁשֹוְנָ֣ך ֵמָ֑רע ּ֝וְׂשָפֶ֗תיָך ִמַּדֵּ֥בר ִמְרָֽמה׃ ֣סּור ֵ֭מָרע ַוֲעֵׂשה־֑טֹוב ַּבֵּ֖קׁש ָׁש֣לֹום ְוׇרְדֵֽפהּו׃ )תהלים לד13-15,(

Who is the man who delights in life, who desires to see good days? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.
(Psalm 34:13-15)

What does “pursuing peace” mean right now? I gave the students examples from daily life and from the Midrash. I explained that the Mishnah ends with the teaching that “peace is great”. But outside there is war, and in the past year we have been exposed to human evil on a scale that we hadn’t wanted to imagine. We discussed how sometimes, those who “love life” and “desire to see good days” need to do more than merely refrain from speaking evil.

When preparing this lesson it was very clear to me that anything I said about the pursuit of peace had to be strongly anchored in the Biblical verses, or at least framed very clearly, in case the classroom discussion got out of hand. I also continually think about ways to convey my message that will allow even the students whose views differ greatly from mine to feel comfortable in class, to listen, and to participate in the discussion. Perhaps, as part of that educational process, they may even reconsider positions they have held before. I am careful with my words, but I don’t base the educational processes I’m trying to implement on the question of what others will say.

Belief in Humanity

Recently I ran a limmud for the school staff. Discussing educational goals, challenges, and opportunities at the school felt a bit peripheral in relation to the escalating reality outside the institution’s walls. I included a few lines from Shaul Tchernichovsky’s poem “I Believe”, which was proposed as a candidate for the national anthem of Israel. (I learned to read and understand it for the first time in a Bronfman seminar):

ַׂשֲחִקי ִּכי ָבָאָדם ַאֲאִמין, ִּכי עֹוֶדִּני ַמֲאִמין ָּבְך. ]…[ ַאֲאִמיָנה ַּגם ֶּבָעִתיד, ַאף ִאם ִיְרַחק ֶזה ַהּיֹום ]…[ ָאז ִׁשיר […] ָחָדׁש ָיִׁשיר ְמׁשֹוֵרר, ְלֹיִפי ְוִנְׂשָּגב ִלּבֹו ֵער

Laugh, for I will have faith in mankind / For I still believe in you […] I will believe in the future / Though that day be far away […] Then a new song the poet will sing / His heart aware of beauty sublime…

With these lines, I asked of my colleagues that we remember that the foundation of the act of education is our belief in humanity, in the future, and in the possibility of renewal and sublime beauty. We must look ahead and help our students to do the same. Tchernichovsky’s poem was written over 120 years ago. It doesn’t solve challenges in the classroom or give us clear answers, but I believe it can remind us that – even in dark, difficult times – there is still room for hope, camaraderie, and perhaps even peace.