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From Kibbutz Life to a Torah Way of Life
Message from From Kibbutz Life to a Torah Way of Life
BY HELGA ABRAHAM
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In addition to academic excellence, one of the central pillars of AMIT’s educational vision is Torat Chaim, the goal of which is to inculcate in students the values of Torah as a way of life. “Our aim is to create a spark in the eyes of students — a spark of meaning, depth, and joy,” says Elad Bar Shalom, Director of the Torat Chaim program at AMIT.
Surprisingly, one of the ways in which Bar Shalom and his team are making Torah studies more meaningful to students is by adopting concepts from the secular world. “In order to make religious studies more relevant to students we use tools from psychology, coaching, and group therapy, and we encourage teachers to be more like facilitators and mentors,” he says.
At the same time, AMIT is working to bring the values of Judaism and belief in the land of Israel to secular students, as a way to bridge societal divides in Israel and unify communities. In recent years, more and more secular schools have joined the AMIT educational network and there is a need to help these students better understand religious concepts and values.
Bar Shalom, 46, is uniquely suited to the task. “I come from both worlds and I live in both worlds,” he says as he describes his very secular upbringing. “Secularism is steeped in my family. My paternal grandfather left a comfortable life and a flourishing career as an engineer in the Czech Republic to till the land on a kibbutz. He was a true pioneer who believed in social equality and unity.”
Religion was not part of his grandfather’s life; he did not have a Bar Mitzvah, nor did Bar Shalom’s father. Both of his parents grew up on the kibbutz and were raised in children’s houses, where the children of the kibbutz lived together under adult supervision, rather than in their parents’ homes. They suffered from this and from the strict rules that regulated every part of their lives, he says.
Bar Shalom recalls an incident that exemplified this period. “A neighbor of my parents was sent a color TV by relatives abroad, but the kibbutz
did not let them watch it because everyone else only had a black and white TV. A meeting was held to discuss the problem and it was decided that the family could keep the TV set but they were not allowed to use the color option.”
By the time Bar Shalom was born in the mid-‘70s, kibbutz life was more normative — there were no more children’s houses on the kibbutz and much greater freedom. But secularism still reigned and Bar Shalom grew up with no religious education and did not have a Bar Mitzvah. “Having a Bar Mitzvah was not even an option for me since neither my father nor my grandfather had had one,” he says.
But as a teen, he took an interest in the human spirit and soul. As he followed the traditional Israeli trajectory of army service, traveling abroad, and college studies, he began to study the Bible, Jewish philosophy and Hassidism, while practicing meditation, yoga and Tai Chi. By his mid-thirties, Bar Shalom was wearing a kippah, keeping mitzvot, and raising a religious family.
The process of becoming religious led to a major change of career for Bar Shalom — from marketing to education. After teaching for several years in a yeshiva high school, he joined AMIT’s Torat Chaim program, bringing fresh ideas for how to teach Jewish studies in innovative and meaningful ways. “We want students to feel that the Torah is a life model,” he says, where each student can find his or her personal spiritual path.”
Bar Shalom believes that the more young people feel connected to their faith and Jewish identity, the more they will be able to connect with other streams of Israeli society. “My vision is to create a society where all streams talk to each other, respect each other, and complement each other.”
