For part of the time that I was studying for my semikha I had a roommate whom I admired for his faith. It was pure, simple, genuine, rock solid. My friend never seemed to question, to waver. I sometimes challenged him, but he was unfazed. I often wished that some of that would rub off on me. Nope. He remained steadfast; I remained struggling.

Ever since then I’ve wondered if faith could be taught or learned. I sought role models for myself and read a lot about other people’s search for faith. I was torn between being comforted or frightened to hear about others, great luminaries in Jewish thought, who struggled with faith questions. As an educator, I wondered how I would constructively communicate my own grappling with my students in ways that would be helpful for them.

I’ve experienced moments of a profound sense of God’s presence in which all questions became irrelevant, moments so powerful that I lost my breath or broke down in a confusion of joy and terror or felt like I was soaring or could not restrain my urge to burst out in ecstatic song. The memories of those experiences sometimes carry me through difficult times, when things don’t seem clear at all. And I still wonder if that is something which can be taught or learned or had to be experienced firsthand—and what role the educator can play in preparing students for those moments or supporting them afterwards.

This issue of the journal brings a range of voices from across a broad swath of the faith spectrum. It includes voices of those like my roommate’s with their unshakeable and unquestioned faith to those who explore doubt with their students, voices from early childhood educators through those teaching students about to graduate high school. Each one taught me something—about faith and about educating for faith.

We live in challenging times and face great existential uncertainties. As individuals, and as a people, we search for faith, and for hope. And our students are looking for models—of a variety of flavors—to help guide them through the changing and challenging world in which they live and in their own quest for what to believe and in what to believe. It is to that sacred task that we, as educators, have that this journal is devoted.

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Jewish Educational Leadership was launched 25 years ago, and this is our 50th issue. It began as a dream to bring together best practices in Jewish education as well as serve as a vehicle for translating current practices and research from the broader educational world to the world of Jewish education. The world has gone through dramatic changes since then, as has the Jewish educational world and the journal. In technology we’ve seen smartphones, Smartboards, social media, and AI; we endured Covid and are living through a world war which nobody wants to call it yet; Israel is still grappling with the trauma of October 7th, as the rest of the Jewish world reels from an earth-shaking wave of antisemitism.

All of these have affected and continue to impact on Jewish education, and almost every one of them has been a journal focus. We are heartened by the responses we get from readers, by the range of proposals we receive for each issue from an expansive swath of the Jewish community, by the number of articles—even from older issues—being accessed regularly, and by the number of teachers who tell us how significant reading the journal was even as they were assigned readings in graduate schools.

These responses impel us to continue and redouble our efforts to bring you articles which are thought-provoking, practical, readable, and sometimes inspirational. We hope that you and your colleagues will continue to read, to share, to contribute, and—most importantly—to continue your life-long dreams of growing as Jewish educators so that your students can become the best that they can be.