We are celebrating: A chapter has been added to the growing corpus of written teachings of Memizrach Shemesh. The Last in Deed yet First Conceived ["סוף מעשה במחשבה תחילה"] workbook, with a year's lesson plan for the Ba'Machshava – Social Beit Midrash for Community Service program, has left the printing shop to join the other publications in our Beit Midrash library.
The Ba'Machshava Beit Midrash is geared to young people who choose to volunteer for a year's civil service - between the completion of high school and entry to military service in the IDF - in order to contribute to the community and to the state. The Beit Midrash seeks to generate a meaningful personal and group process through study that concerns the identity of participants and the many challenges they face during their year of service and through the development of a shared group language. Based on the thoughts and emotions that are revealed during the study encounters, we try to provide additional depth to the Civil Service Cadets term of service and to engage them in change that begins from within and has long-term effects.
Approximately a third of Israel's cadets participate in our program, and the positive feedback we receive shows that the program provides them with a meaningful opportunity. "Studying with the group gave me strength," one of the participants told us, "and encouraged me to think on how I can affect Israeli society, how I can create change that impacts people." This is the type of reaction we often receive from participants at the end of the year.
The workbook presents the personal and group processes through which the cadets go and advances from discussions of each individual's unique identity to the study of heritage and of its place in our lives, and from the geography of inequality to its role in the education system, keeping the development of a meaningful, deep and effective year of service for the volunteers and their surroundings uppermost.
Our congratulations to Tamar Zaken, Director of the Civil Service Cadet program, who leads the way for the dozens of cadet groups that participate in the program; to Tamar Elmaliach, author and editor, and to Haya Neeman, Head of the Department for Study Materials Development at Kol Israel Haverim – Memizrach Shemesh, who devotedly toiled on the workbook's production. May Last in Deed yet First Conceived grace us in adding to the effectiveness of our educational work and in spreading the word of Memizrach Shemesh to us all.