Moshe Abelesz - "Love every Jew"

 

Moshe was born and bred in England, but has been living in Israel since 1998. Moshe has had a successful career in Jewish education for over 25 years, teaching in high schools in both England and Israel, and then working at The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in Bar Ilan University. Moshe now works as a property manager. Moshe lives in Bet Shemesh with his wife, Helen, and four wonderful children.

 

1.        What was a place, person or event that transformed your ideas, thinking, or perspective?

 

Strangely enough it was a Shabbaton when I was in yeshiva in Israel organized by Yavneh Olami for British students - must have been 1987.

They brought over this rabbi that none of us had ever heard of before. His name was Jonathan Sacks.

He was obviously, very impressive. He told us about his fears for the Jewish people and gave us two messages, about securing the Jewish future, that he wanted us to work on.

Firstly, he told us that we all needed to get married, have children and to raise them as Jews. We all had an embarrassing giggle, but he went on to explain the seriousness of his point.

Secondly, he told us that we needed to go back to England and become rabbis, teachers and lay leaders of the Jewish community. He urged us to take over the reins of Anglo Jewry.

His words had a major impact on me and started me considering becoming a teacher

 

2.         What Jewish message does the world need to hear?

I think there's a Jewish message that Jews need to hear, as well as a message for the rest of the world to hear.

Firstly, we must be very proud about being Jewish and understand the incredible impact the Jewish people have had on the world.

We must be very proud and unashamed about talking about God, about being religious and the beauty that is Judaism. We need to understand what it means to be the chosen people, and what our mission here is.

We also need to love and show love to every single Jew, whoever they are, whatever their political and religious opinions are.

At the same time, we need to be more modest and less certain that we have the answers to all of life's problems.

We need to recognise that we have failed in many areas. We have failed with welcoming converts, we have failed with agunot, we have failed in our tolerance and our respect to those who are different, and in many other areas too.

We have given fellow Jews very good reasons to move away from Yahadut.

We need to take responsibility for these areas. We need to be brave and to start fixing them. We need to show how God and Judaism is relevant to our lives and to the complex modern world.

As for the world, at least the western world, we need to talk about God more. We must show how relevant God is for the twenty first century and how religion can help deal with some of the world's problems.

 

3.         What was a turning point in your life that led you to your current path?

Strangely enough, moving to Israel was a big step backwards for me career-wise.

In England, I was a very well-respected teacher, with a lot of managerial responsibility and very good prospects for career growth.

In Israel, I was just another one of hundreds of Jewish studies teachers, but one whose Hebrew wasn't fluent, and one who came from a different educational culture.

It was difficult, if not impossible for me to adapt and after three years, it was made very clear to me that I had no prospects for promotion.

So I took on a new track, and joined the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education, in Bar Ilan university. Rather than working with kids, I began working with teachers and schools on different educational projects.

I very much loved the work I did there, but at the end of the day, I really missed the classroom and the daily interactions and actual teaching I used to do with the kids.

 

4.         If you were to give advice to your younger self, what would it be?

To never shout in anger, in fact, to never shout at all. To never criticise. To always be positive. To smile a lot more and to show more love and compassion.

5.         What is one way that you spoil yourself a little?

I'm partial to going to Katsefet and getting a chocolate milkshake.

6.         How do you get back on track if you have had an unproductive or distracted period?

I'm someone who needs a routine. When I get out of routine, I let things slip and I need to get back into it asap. I set aside specific time every day for my daf yomi, parshat hashuva and reading time, and need to start doing that for exercise too.

 

7.         What is the best advice you ever received?

To love my children, and that if I was unhappy with them, to love them even more.

 

8.         What do you consider as your biggest achievement in the last 5-10 years?

I finally completed the daf hayomi cycle. I had started a number of times previously, but this time I actually completed it.

 

9.         What area do you see that Rabanim/teachers do not stress enough?

Firstly, I don't think we give our rabbis and teachers enough credit for the wonderful things they do do.

I think we need to stress more that the world is broken, that many people are broken and that all of us have the opportunity and the ability to fix the parts that we can.

10.       What part of Jewish learning is your main focus or favourite? How would you recommend people to get more deeply into it?

I really enjoy Tanach study. I am always pleasantly surprised by how many times I learn the parsha, and there's always a new insight there.

You have to choose what you love learning most. Whether it's Gemara, Tanach or even the touchy feely areas. Find what you love most, open the book and learn.

 

11.       I have often thought that we in the modern orthodox community are walking a tightrope between different worlds both of which we want to belong to and be active in which may detract from our full attention to one or the other particularly to the Jewish side. Can you give some ideas or direction how to connect more deeply to the Torah and Hashem? (Books, ideas, programmes, activities)

I don't think there's an easy answer to this question. Jews have been walking this tightrope for many centuries, and painfully, many of us have gotten lost on the way.

I think we need to be listening more.

Listening to what people have to say, and we have to show empathy, understanding and love, to everyone.

I don't have answers on how to make things better, but we just need to be there for those who are struggling, can't cope and who have lost their way.