David Bernstein is Director of Machon Pardes.

“The three-fold cord shall not quickly come undone” (Kohelet 4:12). About 15 years ago, my friend and colleague Dr. Simcha Pearl (Head of School at the WeberSchool in Atlanta, GA) taught me a new meaning to this verse, one that is at the crux of educating towards commitment. If we can harness cognitive, affective, and experiential education (actually practicing Jewish rituals and life) together, we will provide our students with the strongest possible ties (pun intended) to Jewish life. Teaching one, or even two, without the third element is usually less rich, and less “sticky.”

We all know that we reach some students better through academic study, and others through informal education, and still others through regular practice. Of course, no one person is a “ pure type;” our learning preferences/ styles do not exclude totally the possibility of learning, or reinforcing what we have learned in other ways. But how do we create educational curricula that incorporate all three? I would like to challenge all of us (including myself) by presenting a model, one that perhaps can be replicated in other areas, and shared with the rest of the Jewish educational community.

The model is a rather simple program I have been using for more than 20 years. I call it a “Practical Teshuva Workshop,” and have taught it generally in the days between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. In all of my 30+ years of teaching, I have had the most vocal positive feedback from students about this lesson – former students who are now teaching in community junior high and high schools have asked me for it and told me of their success with it in their educational settings as well (including at the Greenfield Hebrew Academy in Atlanta, the Community High School of the Bay Area, and the Brand Jewish Community School in Kansas City).

It began when I was director of Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem, a “gap year” program for young women who had just graduated yeshiva high school, mostly from the U.S. and the U.K. For many of them, Zeman Elul at Midreshet Lindenbaum was different than any beginning of the school year they had experienced before. The learning was quite focused on the upcoming holidays and on themes of teshuvah (repentance). Whether learning Maimonides’ Laws of Repentance, Rav Soloveitchik’s writings on teshuvah or the Book of Yonah, the students were surrounded by an emphasis that had been absent from their modern Orthodox high school experience. Over my last 13 years at the co-ed Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, whose students are university graduates and older adults from across the Jewish spectrum, Zeman Elul has had a similar emphasis, and here, too it is different from most students’ prior learning experiences.

I had noticed that all of the study of the texts connected to teshuvah was of great cognitive benefit. For some, it dovetailed well with the saying of Selihot and the daily blowing of the shofar. But for many students in both institutions, the lofty concepts of teshuvah remained exactly that – lofty, abstract concepts that sounded beautiful. What was lacking was a personal connection, a how-to guide that helped students bring those ideas into their own lives. So I developed a 40-minute exercise for students, with the focus on personal self-evaluation.

The exercise is entirely confidential, and I encourage students to spread out over the room so that no one will be looking over their shoulder at what they have written. Most of the time is spent without speaking, as students write answers to 13 very simple, directed questions, such as “ Two ways I could be a better son/ daughter,” or sibling; or “ Something I’m proud I did this past year,” followed by “ Something I’m ashamed I did this past year, something that does not reflect the “ real me.”

While in the first years I would ask students to first think, and then put pen to paper, I discovered (by doing the exercise myself) that some thoughts seem too scary to actually write. I then made two alterations in the program. First, I began to introduce the exercise by quoting one of the ba-alei musar, who (on the mishnah which urges us to give others the benefit of the doubt, Avot 1:6) observes that we always giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt to rationalize our own behavior; the innovation of this mishnah is that we should treat others as we usually treat ourselves! I ask them – for the purpose of this exercise – to try to be more objective about themselves than we usually are, as heshbon ha-nefesh (soul searching) involves a more critical stock-taking of ourselves than we are used to.

Second, I ask them not to think before they write, as I have learned (from my own experience doing this exercise) that my brain will begin to censor what first comes to mind, which is often the truest of truths. Instead, I ask them to put their pens physically on the paper, and to begin to write immediately, without a second thought, so as to avoid the trap. (This has been termed “freewriting.”) Despite the fact that they do not take the time out to think before they write, students report that this is one of the most thoughtful learning experiences they have ever had, and that the quiet, the questions, the writing, the very personal nature of it all, and the total anonymity, allowed them to think more deeply about themselves than they usually do, certainly in a school setting.

While I have considered having students “share” some of their thoughts at the end of the workshop, I have (thus far) decided that it is precisely the anonymity (which I tell them in advance) that frees them to think, and write, something more honest than if they felt they might have to share something with their peers, or with a teacher.

At the end of the session, I review with them Rambam’s three stages of teshuvah – recognizing the sin/ misdeed, feeling badly about it, and resolving to change behavior in the future. I tell them that most of them probably achieved the first stage, some of them the second, and some even the third stage of teshuvah. (Actually, I have little doubt that many of them have actually achieved all three!) It is precisely this thoughtfulness, and the application of lofty principles learned from texts to oneself, that allows students to engage in a very ancient Jewish practice – critical self-evaluation and finding ways to improve our personal behavior – that can speak meaningfully to post-modern teenagers and young adults. Below is a copy of the program, which I welcome others to use and adapt.

More importantly, I would like to challenge all of us to find other such workshops/ programs that help build on the cognitive, affective, and experiential (i.e. practice) sides of our education, and to share them with the rest of us, to make the Jewish education we give our students as holistic as possible. With the thrice-bound cord of Kohelet, we can increase the chances of educating towards greater Jewish commitment.

Below are my notes for conducting this workshop. Feel free to contact me at if you have questions, or suggestions!

Notes for running a Practical Teshuvah Workshop

Bring a pen, paper, and an open view of yourself. Confidentiality assured.

The purpose of this workshop is to bring all the lofty concepts down to earth, and down to you and your life.

Usually, we remind ourselves of our good points. This is one time we want not to judge ourselves generously. Tonight we will each try to judge ourselves the way we usually judge others – without rationalizations, without excuses.

I will ask questions, you write down 2 or 3 responses. (Note: Wait about a minute after each question; keep eye on them to see if need more or less time.)

1. Two ways in which I can be a better daughter/son.

2. Two ways in which I can be a better brother/sister.

3. Three ways in which I can be a more serious student.

4. Three ways in which I can be a better roommate.

Rambam, Hilkhot Teshuva (2:9)

Two kinds of people we ask forgiveness from: those who love us, and those who do not. Both categories very important to ask forgiveness from; but much easier to ask from first category – after all, they love us. Much harder to ask from people we have wronged who don’t love us. For next question:

5. Two people I must ask forgiveness from (from each category)

Tell story of Marc Sackin, a”h. (This was a young man who died in a car crash at the end of his senior year at the Yeshiva of Flatbush H.S. He was a camper of mine, and had grown enormously in his character, and I never got to tell him that. Use your own example.)

6. Someone I need to tell something to.

7. Two mitzvot I didn’t do well, or didn’t do enough, or at all.

8. The two things I did this year that I am most proud of.

A woman named Sarah Rigler recently wrote:

We could have been magnanimous. Instead we were petty.

We could have been generous. Instead we were stingy.

We could have been honest. Instead we told self-serving lies.

We could have buoyed up others with kind words. Instead we wounded them with deprecations.

We could have esteemed our parents for their ongoing contribution to our lives. Instead we made them feel useless and outdated.

We could have made our homes sanctuaries of love and peace. Instead we degenerated into bickering and blaming.

We could have spent our spare time studying the profundities of the Torah.

Instead we opted for cable TV.

We could have become the person God created us to be. Instead we settled for a mediocre imitation.

The same Sara Rigler wrote: The “sins” we do teshuvah for on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are the instances we fell short of our full potential self. One word for “sin” in Hebrew is “het,” which means “missing the mark.” The disparity between our full potential and our present reality can fuel our teshuvah.

9. Write two things I’m ashamed I did last year, 2 things which you think don’t reflect the real you.

10. Three one-sentence goals I’ve set for myself this year.

Has anyone ever asked you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Usually, they don’t mean what they are saying. They really mean: “What do you want to do as a profession when you grow up?”

I want to ask the question in a more literal way: “What do you want to BE (i.e. be like) when you grow up?”

11. What do I want to be (not do) when I grow up? What are the most important personal qualities that I want to develop so that they will characterize me?

12. How can I go about it – become the kind of person I want to be.

13. Two people I look up to – and what it is I admire about them.

This last question may say as much about you as it does about them – what your values, goals and aspirations are. You may even want to tell them what it is you admire about them.

May you have a meaningful rest of Aseret Yemei Teshuvah and Yom Kippur, and may we all be granted forgiveness and be granted a good year.