I must confess. I am deeply torn about spirituality. I have gone through extended periods during which I experienced deep and profound connection with God. Music, tefillah, mind-expanding Torah-study, cloudless starry nights, awesome thunderstorms, staring at a single flame, witnessing a birth, being present at the moment of death, and running a marathon in Jerusalem have each inspired me to sense that I was in the immediate, intimate, and terrifying presence of God. As a shaliah tzibbur leading tefillah on Yom Kippur I have been transported into worlds I cannot describe.

Alan Brill is the Cooperman/Ross Endowed Chair in the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program in the Department of Religion at Seton Hall University. Rabbi Dr. Brill specializes in interfaith theology, mysticism, and comparative theology. Jewish Educational Leadership is pleased to share with you excerpts of our discussion with him.

“I raise my eyes to the Heavens” (Psalms 121). We raise our eyes upwards and strive to feel closeness and connection to an infinite, hidden source. We long to hear a clear voice calling our name, confirming for us that our words arrived, traversing the space between Heaven and Earth.

We can feel a sense of belonging to one another in the merit of our shared search for God. The searching movement brings us together, we know how to seek one another, and we know how to seek the way. We know how to walk together to great lengths, even as God hides.

I come into class and students have already set up the desks in a circle. I take my place, as much as a participant as the teacher, and, on cue, each of us in turn shares their mispar nokhehut, a number from one to ten that captures our presence at that moment. I take mental note of those whose number is particularly low or unusually high or very different than the previous week. In the course of a minute or two, I have my hand on the pulse of the class and how much they are present with me. I share my number with them so that they can measure my presence as well.

Although I have been a parent at my school for the past five years, in August, I became the Associate Head of School of Oakland Hebrew Day School, a Modern Orthodox, Bridge-K through eighth school in the Bay Area. One of my first responsibilities was planning the teacher in-service week. As I was approaching the transition from a place of observation and learning, I relied heavily on the structure of the previous year, which quickly resulted in my ruminating over the fact that the past year’s schedule had ten minutes of mindfulness beginning each day. I could feel my own insecurities and self-consciousness rising as I asked myself what it would mean as a leader to ask my teachers to engage in a practice with which I personally didn’t feel comfortable.

Imagine a world where every Jewish child is filled with the joy and purpose that comes from the knowledge that we are each a unique creation. Imagine a world where Jewish children feel fortunate and blessed to be a privileged part of a nation which partners with the Creator of heaven and earth. While dreaming big is always a virtue, accepting the hard fact that most children do not feel this way, in many instances, is the first step in rectifying the painful reality of the challenges we face as parents, educators, and leaders.

“Mom, I don’t like school!” These words are familiar to many parents. Sometimes they result from nothing more than quotidian tantrums, but they may be indicative of something that is happening—or not happening—in their school experience. Small tweaks and corrections can often reinvigorate the joy that should be innate to learning, and many of those touch on an entire spectrum of experiences that can be identified as spirituality, even amongst the youngest students. We can incorporate spirituality into most classrooms in an interdisciplinary fashion and ensure that our education systems more readily prepare our kids for the tasks of being well-rounded thinkers and Jews.

“God doesn’t exist,” I told my grandparents before my bat mitzvah. I still wanted to have my bat mitzvah, and I did find meaning and joy in Jewish life. So why did I upset my poor Bubbe and Zayde right before our simcha? The short answer…I was 13.

I was in grade 2, and our librarian was reading a picture book to our class. One of the images presented us with a white-haired, bearded man holding a paper scroll. I immediately thought of God, holding the Sefer haHayim (the Book of Life). This realization came along with internal struggle and chastisement. Jews do not picture God as any thing. Jews do not worship idols.

If cultivating spirituality means creating the drive to unify the self with God, to see God’s hand in one’s life, and to transcend the self to connect with others, then literature presents myriad opportunities to experience that transcendent sense of unity. In fact, E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952) may be a child’s first literary encounter with the foundations of this experience—friendship, which is woven of loyalty, kindness, compassion, and sacrifice. Interestingly, the spiritual nature of these four elements, i.e., transcending the self to empathize with another individual, is embodied by the web itself.