By COLlive reporter
Members of the Batsheva women’s organization recently met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) for a private breakfast in Washington, DC, and discussed education matters.
The meeting was organized ahead of the women-only Global Early Childhood Conference for educators and mothers, organized by the Philip Berley Preschool of the Arts, a school run by the Chabad Center for Jewish Discovery in Gramercy Park, New York.
The conference, aiming to be a global exchange of innovation, ideas, and best practices in early childhood development and parenting, will take place on Wednesday, July 25 and Thursday, July 26 at the Four Seasons in scenic Whistler, British Columbia.
Mrs. Sarah Rotenstreich, organizer of the conference and founder of Batsheva, emphasized the Rebbe‘s broad vision on education and how his birthday is annually designated as Education Day USA.
“The Rebbe taught us that the Bedrock of society is education,” she stated, explaining that “when we encounter an issue, we need to go directly to the source, not the symptoms.
“If we are seeing a decline in the actions of our country and our youth, if we are witnessing school shootings, bullying, teen suicide, drug overdose and confusion with our youth, then we must go directly to the educational system and take a look at it carefully,” Rotenstreich said.
“The Rebbe advised that we introduce a ‘Moment of Silence’ into our schools,” she said. “The Rebbe taught that schools now are responsible not only for the academic growth of their students but for their moral growth and skills. Unfortunately, our students are graduating with the former but not the latter.”
Rotenstreich said that over 30 years ago, the Rebbe explored the question of preventing moral aimlessness that causes an individual to walk into a school and kill innocent children and adults.
“Humans are subjective, the Rebbe explained. Our perception of right and wrong can fluctuate and become unmoored. The only way to teach morality is when morality is anchored on something that is unchanging and that is that there is an ‘eye that sees and an ear that hears.’
“The Rebbe implored that if we institute a Moment of Silence, it will encourage each student, before they begin their reading, math and writing, to take 60 seconds to contemplate that there is a higher being. And it is this higher being that sees all and holds them accountable for their actions and interactions with peers.
“The Rebbe told us that this would not be religiously based, as each parent would guide their child about what higher being they wanted them to focus on at this moment, and if a parent did not want their child to think of ‘any kind of higher being’, then in this moment the child’s parent can instruct them to think of morality and justice. Not to steal, not to kill, not to take something from others.
“That our first responsibility in this world is to be a ‘mentch,’ a human being,” she added. “What a simple but powerful step: only 60 seconds a day to potentially change our world.”
Speaker Pelosi paid close attention to the idea presented and began her remarks by thanking Sarah Rotenstreich for the inspiration and for effort in solving the critical issues the country is facing and “improving the communication between the different ideologies in our country by having women leaders unite this country.”
Pelosi invited and encouraged all women to participate at the Global Early Childhood Education Conference at the end of July, and said she felt that this conference of empowering Jewish women leaders and educators was going to have great impact.
Pelosi was thanked for her support of President Donald Trump‘s commutation of Sholom Mordechai Rubashkin from the harsh sentence he had been serving.
