Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
Unbelievable! You'd think that, with the daughter of the nation's best-known and most respected atheist civil rights activist in the class, the teacher and the school and the school district would be a little bit more careful about not teaching the kids in that particular class to pray and then having the teacher lead the students in prayer every day.
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My 10-year-old daughter, Dawn, attends fifth grade classes at our local public school here in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. Dawn signed up for the extra-curricular chorus class.
Over the weekend, I asked Dawn what songs she had been taught in chorus. Dawn said that she would sing one of the songs for me:
"Hashkiveinu ! Hashkiveinu ! Adonai echod !" I stopped her at that point.
My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe it. Having been Bar Mitzvahed on my 13th birthday, I knew what "Adonai echod" means. "Adonai" is Hebrew for "The Lord," as in God. "Echod" is Hebrew for "One." The grammar composition of the Hebrew language drops the Be verb (is, am and are) from present-tense sentences, so "Adonai echod" means "The Lord is one." This phrase was included in Judaism when the religion was created several thousand years ago to differentiate it from polytheistic and idol religions. Adonai echod is a central principle of the Jewish religion and is repeated in numerous prayers throughout Jewish religious services. It is strictly a religious phrase and a statement of religious belief.
"Hashkiveinu" means "Cause us to lie down (in peace)." It is recited or chanted (sung) as the second benediction after the Shema during the Maariv evening religious service. The Hashkiveinu prayer is directed at the Jewish god, Jehovah. One of Jehovan's nicknames is Adonai. The person saying the prayer is asking Jehovah to enable that person to go to bed at night without being perturbed by stressful, troubling thoughts, and that Jehovah ensure that the person survive through the night without anything bad happening to him during the night, like getting ambushed and killed by an Arab. That's why Hashkiveinu is part of the evening prayer.
"Hashkiveinu, hashkiveinu, Adonai echod" follows the standard structure of Jewish prayer. That structure consists of combining a request to Jehovah with a praise of Jehovah, the theory being that if you say nice things about him, maybe he will grant your prayer. That principle also works very well in marriage when you ask your spouse or children for something.
I asked Dawn why her public school chorus teacher was teaching the class to chant a Jewish prayer. Dawn responded that she asked the teacher the same thing, but the teacher assured her that it was alright, saying, "You don't have to believe in the words of the prayer in order to sing the prayer." I asked Dawn whether her chorus teacher sang the prayer with the class and Dawn said, "Yes."
Perhaps Dawn's chorus teacher thinks that the way to sneak religion into a public school classroom is to do it in a foreign language where the kids don't understand what the words mean, so the parents won't find out about it until after the kids are indoctrinated in the practices of that religion. Unfortunately for Dawn's teacher, I didn't sleep through all of my Hebrew School classes. Some of that stuff sunk in and stayed with me, specifically, a basic understanding of the Hebrew language and an understanding of the structure of both the language and the religious services.
First thing this morning, I will be visiting upon my daughter's public school to meet with the principal. I will demand that Dawn's chorus teacher be immediately suspended for teaching the students to pray in the teacher's religion during a public school class and for leading her public school students in prayer at each meeting of the class. I will also demand that the teacher be promptly fired by the school board for violating the students' and parents' right to a secular public education.
You may wonder why I don't simply ask for a discontinuance of the practice. Doing so would send a very wrong message. It would send a message that, if you are willing to stop violating the rights of students and parents after you get caught, it's OK to violate their rights until you get caught.
I want to send a very different message. I want to send the message that if you violate the rights of students and parents in a way that you clearly should have known better, you put your job and your career in jeopardy.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com