This past summer, several Bruriah faculty members had the opportunity to participate in the Quest for Teaching Excellence Fellowship: Fostering Deep Listening and Mental Well-Being in Greater MetroWest Day Schools, a project of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest. They gathered for an intensive three-day Deep Listening Institute, facilitated by a team of psychologists from the Stanley H. King Institute where they were equipped with the skills to listen deeply and foster meaningful relationships with their students. Inspired by their deep listening work, Bruriah Grade Advisors Bracha Avraham, Kayla Broth, Rena Teitelbaum, and Amy Tropp crafted a beautiful yom iyun to delve into the idea of personal development through deep listening and how this is a skill that can be refined and perfected. Broth explained the impetus behind this yom iyun: “We as teachers provide all these wonderful ideas for personal growth and development to our students, but we wanted to make sure they are able to actually tap into these ideas and prime them for future growth.”
The yom iyun entitled “Growth Begins with Making Space,” was a beautiful exercise in connecting to oneself. Students explored together the question of how to make room for all of the opportunities at Bruriah for spiritual growth and self improvement. Students spent some time immersing themselves in art, music and writing to practice priming themselves for new ideas and concepts, utilizing these as vehicles for personal growth. Students were also privileged to hear from Rabbi Avraham Kener, LMSW, who contextualized all of this personal development within a Torah framework, asking the question: What is the Torah view of self- reflection? Rabbi Kener helped students recognize the integral role that self-reflection plays in their halachic experience, to meditate over their actions and think deeply about what they are doing.
The institute and year-long fellowship in deep listening have been made possible by a generous grant from the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, and Bruriah is grateful to the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest for partnering with them to continuously and thoughtfully nurture students’ and faculty’s growth and development.
