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LENSES
JECEI Lenses: An Introductory Statement
The work of the Jewish Early Childhood Education Initiative (JECEI) is rooted in foundational Jewish ideas and values through which we view and experience our world. We have grouped these core concepts, drawn from Jewish wisdom, into seven interconnected categories, which we call lenses. These lenses provide an ethical model for living, a set of resources designed to help us experience increased sanctity in an increasingly confusing, commercial, and difficult world, and a language through which we can articulate a shared vision that we want to pass on to future generations. For each lens there is a Hebrew word which captures the essence of the lens, a literal translation of the Hebrew, and a more interpretive word or phrase which illuminates JECEI’s understanding of the core value within each category.
The lenses are:
- Masa – (Journey) – reflection, return and renewal
- B’rit – (Covenant) – belonging and commitment
- Tzelem Elohim – (Divine Image) – dignity and potential
- K’dusha – (Holiness) – intentionality and presence
- Hit’orerut – (Awakening) – amazement and gratitude
- D’rash – (Interpretation) – inquiry, dialogue, and transmission
- Tikkun Olam – (Repair of the World) - responsibility
The lenses open windows to transcendent Jewish values, serve as foundational and transformative guides, and are lived in the classroom as well as the extended school community.
These lenses articulate our approach to our work, and beyond that become our very paradigm for being. They are ideally manifest daily in each of our early childhood centers - in the ways in which we structure our time, our curricula and our classrooms; the quality of our relationships with our students, our faculties, our host institutions; and the partnerships we forge with the families in our communities. They improve and sharpen our vision, and enable us to see our world more clearly and in a particularly focused way.
The internalization of these lenses by those who partner with JECEI is crucial to our approach to Jewish early childhood education. We seek to provide bridges between inspiration and information, the concrete and the abstract, the intellectual and the emotional, the individual and the community. JECEI places unparalleled emphasis on the importance of deep Jewish engagement on the part of the entire family and community. We hope to empower our partners of all ages to see themselves as capable Jews who look at the world through a unique set of lenses that will actually make a difference in their lives and in the world. Our Hebrew and English labels reflect the Jewish tradition of continual intellectual tension and discussion as a source of growth and learning. Independent of one’s upbringing, denomination, beliefs, or practice, we believe that interaction with Jewish texts and a deep understanding of the foundational vision of Judaism provide invaluable opportunities to enhance awareness of what is essential in everyday life, to forge stronger webs of communal relations, and to celebrate sacred time. We believe that this kind of engagement can transform the face of the families and communities with whom we are involved.
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