Eighth grade is often a time for students to take leadership in their schools. Many schools have student governments, led by eighth graders. Other elementary schools have their older students running programs for the younger ones. At the Ostreicher Religious Yeshiva of Northern Japan, each eighth grader was given a service responsibility. The eighth-grade responsibilities at ORYNJ included reading to preschool students, collecting tzedaka, helping teachers with tasks and organizing the seforim in the beit midrash, among other jobs. At the start of the year, students would submit their top three choices, and the two assistant principals, Rabbi Gordon and Mrs. Davis, would decide on each student’s personal responsibility.
Every year, no matter the number or quality of students, a few eighth graders ended up disappointed. Some were expecting to end up paired with friends, while others were sure they would receive their first choices. And every year, Rabbi Gordon and Mrs. Davis (and the assistant principals before them, and the ones before them) would try to solve these problems. Sometimes they could, and other times a student hoping to help serve lunch ended up cleaning the guinea pig cages in the nursery. As our parents have each told us a million times, life isn’t fair.
This year, the situation was a little different. As with each year, some students were happy with their assignments, while others felt disappointed. However, this time, the girls who received their first choices really felt bad for those who didn’t. Maybe this was because the grade was very close, or maybe it was because the guinea pigs had been replaced by donkeys. Either way, Mrs. Davis needed to figure out what to do about the situation.
First, Mrs. Davis decided to wait a few days to see if the protests would die down. (They didn’t.) The next step was to speak to the disappointed girls to get them to change their minds. (This didn’t work.) Finally, after davening one morning, Mrs. Davis asked the eighth-grade girls to remain behind for a conversation. She began by explaining how and why she and Rabbi Gordon assign the eighth graders, and then took comments.
The first girl who raised her hand was Tamar Hartman. Tamar was one of the girls who did not get her first choice. “Mrs. Davis, first of all thank you for letting us express our opinions. I think we should just let everyone rotate through the jobs. There is enough time for everyone to get a chance to do everything.” Mrs. Davis paused for a moment to think. Her brow furrowed, she frowned, shook her head, nodded to herself, and then looked up with a smile.
“First off Tamar, you’re welcome. I understand your suggestion, and although I don’t think it’s a great idea, I’m happy to go with it if at least 80% of the girls agree.” With that, the girls all closed their eyes for a silent vote. Almost every hand went into the air in favor of rotating, so that was it. Mrs. Davis announced the decision and (more than 80% of) the girls cheered.
That Monday, the rotation began. It wasn’t that complicated. Mrs. Davis simply laid out all the jobs on a chart with the dates of the next few months, and filled in names. She didn’t get any complaints about who got to go first for which job, and things seemed to be off to a good start. Mrs. Davis went back to her regular routine and put any worries about the eighth-grade girls out of her mind.
Two weeks later, Mrs. Davis was walking in the building when Morah Esther, a preschool teacher approached her. “Leora, I need to talk to you for a second.” Mrs. Davis stopped and walked to greet her friend. “Hey Esther. What’s up?”
Morah Esther began. “Last week, the girls didn’t all come to read to the children. On Monday one of the girls was missing, which wasn’t a big deal; we just made the groups bigger. But on Thursday, half the girls were missing, which made it very difficult. Can you find out what happened?” Mrs. Davis frowned. The girls knew they needed to find a substitute if they couldn’t make it. There was even a set group of substitutes each week, and even seventh graders who served as substitutes for substitutes. This shouldn’t have happened.
After tefillah, Mrs. Davis reminded all the girls what to do if they couldn’t make it. The guilty girls came on their own to apologize, and Mrs. Davis hoped that was it. (Spoiler alert: that wasn’t it.) However, that wasn’t it. (See!) The following Wednesday, Mrs. Davis got complaints from three other teachers about girls not showing up or girls not doing their jobs properly.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Davis felt she had no choice but to go back to the original system. She rounded up all the girls, explained the situation and reminded everyone what their permanent jobs would be.
Lesson learned. But what lesson? It can be found in this week’s parsha. In Parshat Bamidbar, we are reminded that before Shevet Levi worked in the Mishkan, the job belonged to all of the firstborn sons. The advantage of the firstborn was that it gave each tribe representatives in the Mishkan. No tribe could say, “Not fair.” However, after the Chet Ha’egel, the job was given to Shevet Levi. Why?
During the episode of Egel Hazahav, Shevet Levi stood up to protect Hashem’s and Moshe’s honor by refusing to participate. This intense care is exactly what is needed to take care of the Mishkan. There is something nice about letting everyone participate and have a chance. However, such a setup doesn’t allow for the connection that one group can create by it being their job. Sometimes, we have to step back and let one person or group do the job. And when a responsibility comes our way, we should give it our all.
By Yair Daar
