Dancing Around the Issue

Friends and colleagues in the field of education frequently approach me and ask why am I continually focusing on our relationship with God and developing the awareness of our spirituality.

I tell them it’s because of Roger.

I once had a student named Roger. About 23 years old, from England. Very sharp and very cynical. He never really connected to what was going on in the classroom. The year was moving along, and Roger was kind of floating along with it. Not really engaged, aloof.

One day he approached me in the hall. He called me over and I expected another one of his biting comments.

“It seems to me,” he started, “that we’re dancing around the issue.” Caught by surprise, I didn’t know what to say. Roger continued, “It seems to me that we’re learning about all kinds of stuff – Torah, Talmud, Halacha – but we’re really dancing around the issue most of the time.”

“What’s ‘the issue’?” I asked him.

“God. That’s really the center point isn’t it? Everything in Judaism is circling around the God issue, isn’t it? Until we nail that one down, everything is kind of floating in the air, isn’t it.”

That conversation happened 16 years ago. It’s rare that I remember any conversation with the students for even a few months. There are so many of them, and my memory isn’t getting any better.

Yet that moment with Roger stands out with full clarity. I can remember where we stood. I can remember that aloof look in his eye, as if he wasn’t fully there, though for that moment he certainly he was. His question is fully etched in my psyche.

My memory of my response to him is cloudy. Caught off guard, I didn’t have a good answer. I think I nodded. I remember feeling as if someone had just emptied me out. As if I were a standing shell, hollow. Exposed. A fraud. Speechless. You see, I, too, was dancing around the issue.

Why does this conversation continue to haunt me?

Roger wanted to reach the core issues of Judaism. And I didn’t know what to say. I was dancing around the issue. For a moment, this cynical and distant student broke through and wanted something real, and I failed him.

The Ayeka approach and organization was created as a response to Roger.