Last year a senior member of the UJA asked me, “If you had a magic wand, what would you change to help day schools?”. I said that it wouldn’t be money (though that would be a big plus, and the one that comes up most frequently). Rather, it would be that the community truly valued…
Reading People
A big part of why I read (and learn Torah) is to make sense of the world. Fiction or nonfiction, both help me clarify what I see outside, or as often, understand myself and my inner life. And because of this strong inner-drive I have to ‘make sense’ of things, reading is something I turn…
My Charge to the Netivot Graduates
Over the last few months I’ve been part of a working group that’s trying to address the shortage of Jewish Day School teachers across North America. During one of the sessions, a person in school leadership shared that he was inspired to go into professional Jewish education because at his graduation, his principal made a…
Patrick Lencionni – Silos, Politics and Turf Wars (and how it connects to our work at Netivot)
I struggled to decide which of the two books I’d recently read should be shared as my ‘last’ book of the 2022-2023 school year. I came down on the side of Silos, Politics and Turf Wars, by the management consultant Patrick Lencionni, and I’ll explain why below. I’ve written about Lencionni’s books before, which I…
Rav Rimon
Part of my daily learning seder includes halacha. I’ve learned different sefarim over the years, most often classics like Mishna Berura or Shmirat Shabbat Ke’Hilchata. But more recently, my favourites have been the books of Rav Tzvi Rimon (having just finished his volume about Sefirat HaOmer and laws around the bracha for newly flowering trees…
Tim Urban – What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies
I cannot give enough praise to Tim Urban’s recent book, What’s Our Problem: A Self-Help Book for Societies. It is exceptional, and a profoundly important book, in two ways. First, it is an outstanding and clear diagnosis of the social and intellectual ills in our society today – both on the ‘left’ and the ‘right,’…
Asael Lubotsky – From the Wilderness and Lebanon: An Israeli Soldier’s Story of War and Recovery
A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of interviewing Asael and Avital Lubotsky for our Humans of Netivot Instagram page. In too short a time I heard about his story of injury during the second Lebanon War, and his story of recovery. Afterward, they were kind enough to gift me the memoir about…
Why Mission Matters
Schools talk a lot about the importance of mission and vision, though understanding the ways in which this matters in practice is more subtle, and frankly, took me quite a while to appreciate. Many schools I’ve seen can function pretty well without a clear mission or vision. Sometimes it’s because they have a legacy culture…
John D’Auria – Ten Lessons in Leadership and Learning
I was at a planning meeting for the Day School Leadership Training Institute, a program for upcoming or new Heads of Jewish Day Schools, where I am a mentor. We were doing some ‘get to know you’ questions, and one of them was, “What book have you read more than once?”. The person who chose…
Samuel Lebens – A Guide for the Jewish Undecided: A Philosopher Makes the Case for Orthodox Judaism
I took a first year philosophy class in university which went chronologically from the ancient Greeks to the modern Europeans. The medieval philosophers were very interested in God-proofs, which I found entirely uncompelling. This wasn’t because I was so sophisticated, or understood the weaknesses in their arguments (which I have since learned are many). It…