“A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image.”
The author of this quote is unknown, but the sentiment behind it is universally understood by educators. It also resonates with students, which is why our alumna Rebecca Weintraub gave a photo frame bearing these words to Rabbi Harry Pell when she graduated back in 2005. Rabbi Pell, Associate Head of School and who oversees Jewish life and learning K-12, is also a teacher of Talmud and Israel studies in the Upper School. He taught Talmud to Rebecca Weintraub in his very first year with us, some fifteen years ago.
A self-described lifelong spiritual seeker, Weintraub states, “My dedication to creating a more compassionate world made me fall in love with Torah and ultimately led me to study at Hebrew College Rabbinical School in Newton Centre, MA, where to my own disbelief I just started my final year.”
Remarkably, Weintraub is one of four of Rabbi Pell’s students in that same first class who have aspired to become rabbis themselves. While Weintraub is completing her studies, former student Ben Varon has just embarked on his third year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, after graduating from the University of Maryland in 2011 with a BA in government and politics. He says his early Jewish education was pivotal “in creating the foundations of who I am and the path I am on today.”
With a master’s degree in education from Yeshiva University, Jordan David Soffer is now the Head of School at Striar Hebrew Academy in Sharon, MA, after three years as the Rabbi-in-Residence of Carmel Academy in Greenwich, CT. Rabbi Soffer lives in Sharon with his wife, Marti, and their two daughters Maayan and Reiut Libi.
And Alex Hecht studied in the semikhah program at Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and at the Azrieli Graduate School of Education and Administration. Today he lives in Toronto with his wife, Judith and two children, Tehila and Zev, where he’s been a member of the YU Torah MiTzion Beit Midrash Zichron Dov. He’s also been Rabbinic Assistant at Clanton Park Synagogue since August 2018.
Rabbi Pell remembers them all fondly. “It’s pretty cool that four kids in my Talmud class are contributing to the world of Jewish education and practice, and that they’ve all chosen their own path — Modern Orthodox, Centrist Orthodox, Conservative, and in the case of Rebecca, Pluralistic/Renewal practice,” Rabbi Pell says.
And, he adds, this exemplifies our school’s mission: “Once we set forth our shared values through our teachings, our students have the confidence to go out into the world and be the kind of Jewish leaders they want to be, blazing their own paths as Jews.”
There’s nothing more rewarding for our teachers than that.
