Rabbi Moshe Kurtz serves as the Rabbi of Congregation Sons of Israel in Allentown, PA. He is the author of Meoros Moshe (Aleh Zayis, 2025), a Pirkei Avot anthology of scholarship and stories about HaGaon HaRav Moshe Feinstein zt”l. Rabbi Kurtz writes about contemporary and Halachic issues in forums such as the Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society (RJJ Journal), OUTorah, The Lehrhaus, Torah Musings, and Jewsih Action. He hosts the the As I Walk Through the Valley podcast, and is currently working on writing a book based on unpacking the Iggerot.

Gems:

• Education is an area of Halacha that is very important that nobody asks questions about.
• Never give up on a child!
• When there is a child who is disturbing the class, remove him from the class and pair him with an older student, if possible.
• Jewish education is not just about giving over information, and it also can’t just be experiential.
• Jewish education needs to be conveyed through a Rebbe/Talmid relationship, this is how the mesorah is passed down.
• There needs to be respect for Rebbes.
• Learning Torah and Jewish education needs to be first and foremost, and everything else revolves around it.
• Educators must exude that the Torah is our life and length of our days, we must feel it deeply that we live for.
• Is the Torah driving our agenda, and are we being that example to our students?
• Parents have an obligation to educate their chilren.
• Though keeping Torah and Mitzvot are hard, it shouldn’t be a question whether parents are going to observe them, and children pick this up.
• What’s the message we’re telling our children?
• Impress upon children the importance of being an honest, upright Jew.
• There are certain things we do even when we don’t feel like it, or don’t like to do it.
• What is the will of Hashem?

*Rabbi Daniel Korobkin

*Joanna Powers

Support the show

Gila Ogle is the Head of School at The Silver Academy in Harrisburg, PA where she is committed to fostering a thriving, mission-driven learning environment built on strong community partnerships. A social studies teacher at heart, Gila began her career in charter and public schools in New York and Miami before transitioning to Jewish education. She is passionate about empowering students with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to navigate an ever-changing world with integrity and purpose. Through her leadership, Gila strives to create a school culture that nurtures curiosity, critical thinking, and a deep sense of responsibility for the future. She is, most importantly, a proud wife and mom of three amazing kids.

Gems:

• Keep your mind open about what you can become and what you can share with the world.
• Think about what we would like our students to get out of what we’re teaching.
• Make efforts to allow students to interact with each other.
• Help children examine the world and find their place in it.
• One of our roles is to examine what we learn from children and find ways to guide them with the knowledge they already have.
• Empower the child to understand what they bring to the world.
• Find the spark in the child.
• Focus on building the relationship with the child first.
• Find colleagues and mentors.

Support the show

Rabbi Jonathan Rietti – a descendant of the Sephardic leader the Ben Ish Chai and son of the famous British actor Robert Rietti, known as ‘The Man of a Thousand Voices’ and ‘King of the Dubbers’ – received his rabbinical diploma from Gateshead Talmudical College, England, after which he helped establish the now flourishing Kollel in Gibraltar. Having received a master’s in education, he has practiced for over thirty years as an educational consultant to parents of gifted children and those with ADD. With Montessori training, he has developed a curriculum which dovetails a Torah education with Montessori methodology. He has authored over two hundred lectures on topics including inner growth, health, parenting and Jewish identity, and draws upon his background in the film and advertising industries to entertain the listener while sharing powerful insights on love, happiness and ‘emotional intelligence. Rabbi Rietti founded Breakthrough Chinuch in 2009 with the goal of offering a “hands-on” curriculum to compliment the traditional Chinuch system for teachers, parents, schools, and homeschooling parents. https://www.breakthroughchinuch.com/

Gems:

• It is critical to learn Chumash through the prefixes, suffixes, and shorashim (root) letters.
• Allow ample time for review of what your students are learning.
• If you don’t learn sequentially from beginning to end based on actual skills, then there won’t be a strong chance of covering ground and knowing what you learn.
• The first thing we as educators have to recognize is that we must observe the child first, and then we can educate according to their strengths.
• Once a child masters the shorashim, and prefixes, and suffixes commonly found in Tanach, it makes it much easier to learn.
• Children have the ability to figure things out for themselves.
• We are causing the wisdom that’s already within the child to come out.
• The greatest teachers are ones who facilitate learning.
• A Rebbe has to have a lot of ways to reach his students.
• The Torah is written so that we ask questions, and the answers are in the Torah She’Be’al Peh (Oral Torah).
• When you know the Shorashim, prefixes and suffixes, you gain access to most of Bereishit.
• Find the strengths of the child and use that to teach any subject you want to teach.
• There needs to be constant back and forth in the classroom.
• Provide the skills and the connection to Torah.

Support the show