When Mia, the famous Bronx Zoo Cobra, slithered her way to temporary freedom in a corner of the reptile house, the irony was simply amazing. Afterv all, a cobra adorned the headdress of the ancient Pharaoh’s, including, in all likelihood, the Pharaoh of the exodus story we will tell in a few days. Snakes show up in yet another way in the story of the exodus: When Moses and Aaron came before Pharaoh, they demonstrated a sign of their Godly mission: Aaron threw his staff to the ground and it became a snake. Not to be outclassed, Pharaoh had his magicians create snakes. But the snake of Aaron and Moses was on top of the game, and swallowed the snakes of the magicians. So, the snake was first a symbol of slavery, appearing on Pharaoh’s head. But then became a powerful symbol of freedom -- exhibit A in the demonstration of the power that would become fully manifested in the exodus of the Israelites. Our contemporary Cobra too, became a symbol of freedom. Within hours of the her escape, Mia had a fan base rivaling any rock star. People began using social media to represent her and her (mostly fictional) exploits. The Bronx Zoo Cobra captured our imagination in her dash for freedom. We cheered her on, hoping she would find fulfillment (just not in our home). The drive towards freedom and fulfillment is powerful. Yet, in our world, there are those who are not fully free. Our world has human slavery, totalitarian rulers, and prejudicial laws and systems that prevent people from living full lives. And Pesach, along with the snakes, both ancient and modern, reminds us that we need to use our power to work for freedom in our world. Wishing you and yours a Happy and Inspiring Pesach, Rabbi Arnold D. Samlan

Professional Learning Communities for Teachers by Jamie Faith Woods

The DeLeT Alumni Leadership Group presented at the Jewish Day School Leadership Conference, January 17th-19th in Teaneck, New Jersey. Below are their reflections of one participant.  Jamie FaithWoods of Jewish Community Day School of Rhode Island (Brandeis, Cohort 1):

“I was asked only a couple of weeks ago to be on a panel at a presentation about Professional Learning Communities, by Naava Frank . I was one of three panelists. I sat alongside Jared Matas JCDS (Brandeis, Cohort 2) and Maureen Mintz, the director of professional development at South Area Solomon Schechter , a DeLeT site school from its inception. When preparing for this presentation, we all shared our stories over the phone. Maureen spoke about how the PLC at her school really began when a DeLeT alum approached her with a new idea. You see, she had just returned from a conference and attended a presentation about the values of PLC and how to get started. I was curious about who this alum was and which conference she was referring to. Unbeknownst to Maureen, as we uncovered minutes later, it was actually my presentation, entitled “Enacting the ‘L’, ” at last spring’s DeLeT alum conference that this teacher had attended. From there she returned to her school inspired, and with a proposal. SASSDS has since institutionalized this work in a very impressive way. While it is certainly significant to inspire change on any level, the ripple effects, particularly at an event such as this conference, are what I’m feeling most hopeful about at this moment in time.

Administrators who attended the session looked to us to help guide them in making a formal PLC work at their schools. They listened as we spoke earnestly about how to listen to their teachers.

DeLeT’s reputation preceded us....Early on a participant chimed in to say how she didn’t find it coincidental at all that the beginnings of this movement (in day schools) came out of a DeLeT alum conference. She spoke highly of DeLeT’s reputation in regards to preparing teachers to be reflective practitioners and to make their work public.

Cross-posted with permission of the author, Jamie Faith Woods from the DeLeT Alumni Network Blog

Sustainable Congregational Learning

Congratulations to our client, Congregational Beth Israel on the write-up in Reform Judaism Magazine of this wonderful program.

Funding: Unlikely Dollars, Unfettered Dreams


by Debby Waldman

The leadership of Congregation Beth Israel (CBI) in Charlottesville, Virginia needed help. Many of its members who lived in this university town felt homesick during family-oriented holidays. They’d say, “I want to have a seder, but my parents aren’t here and I don’t have anyone to do it with” or “I want to get together with people for Shabbat, but who? And how?”


At first, Ellen Dietrick, director of the temple’s early childhood education program, was puzzled by such comments. “I was thinking, ‘They have a whole community—ours,’” she recalls. “But they weren’t thinking of it that way.”


They are now, thanks to Shabbat Connections, an innovative program CBI was able to initiate thanks to two Legacy Heritage grants of approximately $25,000 each. Since 2007, nearly 80 families—about 20% of the congregation—have participated in Shabbat Connections, meeting regularly in small groups at each other’s homes for holidays, and at least once a month for Shabbat.



Creating such a program might sound easy: simply encourage families, couples, and single adults to sign up; help them identify their goals for celebrating Shabbat and holidays; divide them into groups of four to seven family units; provide them with a book and a CD; and have a mentor check in with them from time to time as needed.


But, “you wouldn’t believe how difficult the matchmaking was,” Dietrick says. “We worked with a paid consultant, an expert on community-building, for two years to put together mini-communities of people who would enjoy spending time together, learning from each other, and supporting one another’s Jewish quests.”



The first step was to survey interested families to learn about their Jewish backgrounds, Shabbat practices, and goals. From there, CBI formed mini-communities—among them seniors, empty nesters, families with elementary school children, and young adults—who expressed similar needs and desires for Shabbat and holiday observance.




Shabbat Connections no longer receives funding, but nine groups continue to meet regularly—as do other groups of families who were inspired by the model. “When I go to services on Friday night or to Torah study or High Holidays, I really know many of these people,” says Shabbat Connections participant Lisa Colton. “I’ve been in their homes, helped their children build with blocks, and listened to them bless their sons and daughters at a Shabbat table—and that makes those relationships so much more meaningful. When I walk into the synagogue building, I’m not thinking I’m a customer of an institution charging me $1,500 a year in dues. It feels like my home, my community, my space.” CBI’s preschool children share in the enthusiasm, greeting each other on Friday mornings by announcing, “I’m coming to your house for Shabbat tonight!”


Reprinted from Reform Judaism Magazine with permission of the author Debby Waldman and the Magazine editor.  To read more about this fascinating project see the CBI White-paper on the Knowledge Communities Web Site.

Working with lay people, supervisors, and parents: setting agendas, getting buy-in, and making decisions

Join the Panim Institue for Jewish Service-Learning Professional Development session is Thursday, May 6th at 1:00 pm. 

Dorene Blair, of Lexington Youth Theater and Knowledge Communities will be sharing her expertise on how to build a volunteer program that "runs itself."  Dorene has years of experience running a family based theatre program that engaged volunteers of all ages. 

Click here for more information about the Panim Professional Development Network. http://www.bbyo.org/jslpd



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The PANIM Institute is proud to offer ongoing professional development offerings for Jewish educators, service-learning professionals, and youth workers. Our sessions include guest teachers to share their expertise, pre-assigned community members to share their personal stories both for feedback and to share best practices, discussion of the issues most raised as of interest to practitioners, and - of course! - time for questions and sharing your best practices. I hope that we will build a strong community of learners and facilitators!

May’s session will bring in guest teacher, Dorene Blair from the Lexington Youth Theater (lytlexington.org) who will lead us in a session focusing on working with lay people, supervisors, and parents: setting agendas, getting buy-in, and making decisions. As always, our session provides the opportunity for discussion, questions and learning from the best in class practices of our peers in the field.

Where: It's a Webinar - you can participate from any Internet connection. Phone-only access is also available.

What Else?: Please consider joining our Jewish Service Learning Yahoo group to continue the conversation. Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jewishservicelearning and click on “join this group” to join in the conversation!

We will be using a website called WebEx to facilitate the conversation. If you have not participated in a WebEx Webinar before, please plan to sign on about 5 minutes prior to the call, so that the program can initialize on your computer. If you have any questions, let us know!

"See" you soon!

Rachel Meytin

Each person has a piece of the soul of the other

Each person has a piece of the soul of the other.
This is the foundation of all foundations:
to recognize that all Israel is one soul.
This foundation we must keep repeating throughout our lives.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner citing Rabbi Moshe Cordovero and the Ar"i.

May we be blessed with responsibility for one another.

Thank you to the Nesiya Institute for this wonderful holiday blessing.

Being Great Connectors by Marci Mayer Eisen

Those of you who work with me know that I am most motivated by creating connections. Social group work sees the small group experience kind of like a mini society – a place to not only develop friendships, but to also learn leadership & decision making, acquire new skills, enhance self-esteem, and on a very basic, human level, help create a sense of meaning and belonging. These theories can apply to all types of groups from a kids’ summer camp cabin to a board of directors.



This past summer I attended the International Association for the Advancement of Social Work with Groups in Chicago. We talked about the potential, the power of the small group to change lives. At the conference we also heard from one of the top influencers of the Obama campaign and his take on the reemergence of group work values and skills. You simply can’t talk about large scale community change without exploring the power of the small group to impact that change.



I worry that we rarely teach our staff to be great connectors. Oh yes, we work hard to help people connect to our organizations, but do we do our best to help participants connect with each other?


Malcolm Gladwell in the book Tipping Point has an entire chapter on Connectors. He describes them as people who help others connect up with the world. Research confirms that it’s hard to feel connected to a community - or even an organization - without having your own small group or groups through which you are strongly engaged. And it’s sure much easier to get people to make commitments, including time and money, when they have multiple connections.



I even recently learned about research that training “sticks” better when those in attendance feel connected to each other. And we all realize that Partnerships and collaborations flow so much more easily when the relationships, communication, mutual support and trust are already in place.



The more that technology isolates us, the more we want basic human connections. Just think about Facebook and Linked-In and other sites.



We, the Jewish community professionals, can create connections for so many. No matter your professional role – every single one of here has the ability to be a Connector. Let us think about our opportunities - and our responsibility - to take the initiative to help each person who walks through our doors (or calls us or emails us or messages us) find those experiences and relationships that will directly lead to a feeling of belonging and deeper sense of what it really means to be part of a community.

Marci Mayer Eisen
Professional Excellence Project/JProstl
www.jewishinstlouis.org/jprostl

CoP Facilitator as Talent Scout

I was thinking of facilitation this week as I had occasion to listen to Rabbi Yaakov Jaffee of the Maimonides School in Brookline talk about this week's Torah portion.


Exodus, 25 verse 2: 2 'Speak unto the children of Israel, that they take for Me an offering; of every man whose heart maketh him willing ye shall take My offering.'


According to Rabbi Jaffee, Bezalel is described not only as the gifted artison of the Mishkan but also the kind of leader who recognized the individual gifts that each Israelite was moved by his heart to bring for the Mishkan and was able to foster the coming together of these diverse talents and gifts to create the magnificant and holy mishkan.

As a community of practice (CoP) facilitator I see part of my role as that of talent scout. My job, like Bezalel's, is to:


a) identify the gifts and talents of each member of my CoP -- their passion for technology, their ability to lead others, their writing skills, their ability to see and organize the details, their out of the box thinking, or their logical clarity.

b) help members recognize how their talents can make a significant contribution to the community -- pointing out the opportunities and needs of the community as they arise

c) motivate, coordinate and facilitate the collaborative efforts of many talented members toward collectively building the knowledge and practice of our community.


After assembling the talent in the community, my role (much like in corporate talent management) is to review the needs, talent and skills of the community and ask "what is missing?" What expertise do we need to have in our community in order to allow us to tackle the kinds of problems we need to in our field? And then to continue the search to bring in the appropriate talent, skills and knowledge to move our community forward.

Technology Adoption - a look under the hood

I want to thank Deborah Fishman of Present Tense Magzine for her recent article in eJewishphilanthropy sharing honestly, openly and clearly the technology adoption process experienced when the Present Tense Magazine staff adopted Googlewave. I am sure that many in the audience recognize this process — the benefits and new possibilities — along side the steep learning curve and the challenge of recreating our daily work habits.

We are likely to see and experience this exact same process again and again in the years to come. Lisa Colton of Darim Online mentioned in a recent Boston talk that experts estimate we are 10 years into the 50 year revolution emerging from the radical changes in technology.

How will we endure? Here are a few of my thoughts:
a) let's be realistic, its hard work getting a workforce up to speed on a new technology – make sure we calculate training, support and time into the plan before we get wowed by the next ‘technology superfix.’

b) let's build the capacity of our workforce for ongoing learning and support. Break down silos, form learning communities, support the informal conversations through which professionals become more competant on a daily basis

c)let's begin thinking about the role of a technology steward – someone whose job is not just to select a technology solution but to take into account the realistic learning needs of users and help those users master the technology so they can realize the potential gains the technology holds.

For more information on technology stewardship see the book Digital Habitats and accompanying blog or the Tech Stew blog by Caren Levine.

Naava Frank

Ten Tips on Managing Volunteers - from Hazon

This week I spoke with Judith Belasco the Director of Food Programs at Hazon, whom I met recently at a meeting for Covenant Foundation grantees. Hazon holds an annual food conference and bike ride that are entirely run by volunteers. I have always been eager to learn more about the wisdom of managing volunteers since a big part of what community of practice facilitators do is manage volunteers. Judith mentioned that the founder and Executive Director of Hazon, Nigel Savage, has a background in volunteer organizing that he learned from Limmud UK.

Below are a few key points that I learned from Judith.

1. We work hard to help people feel that the more they take on the more they are influencing the outcomes. Volunteering is an opportunity for them to learn new things, build new relationships and be changed by the process.
2. My approach is to understand ahead of time what the tasks are that need to be done and then invite volunteers in to help make things happen. That is in contrast to other approaches where you first ask a volunteer to engage with you and then figure out what they can do.
3. We have a document that lists all the various roles that we are looking for. We first show them the various options before we invite them to participate in any particular role.
4. It’s an ongoing job scouting for outstanding volunteers, when we hold a conference staff and current volunteers are told to "keep your eyes out for people who are amazing who should we have on the executive committee."
5. You don’t know who will say yes unless you ask. On average half of people say no or cannot do the job as needed so you need to have a long list of possible volunteers.
6. I ask people that I would like to work with. We will be spending a lot of time together so it’s great to enjoy the people you are working with.
7. Volunteer positions come in many sizes: from the chair and members of the executive committee who have 2 meetings per month ,a mandatory planning retreat in CA and work an average of 1 to 5 hours a week, to people who volunteer to call members to find out if they would be willing to read the Torah for the event.
8. Be clear about what you are asking from them, give people a clear sense of the time and financial commitments. Our volunteers are all also paying participants of the programs they plan. Be sure to raise the money issue even if they do not.
9. Develop templates and timelines and re-use documents from previous years so you get smarter and more efficient every year.
10. Staff works with volunteers to prepare agendas and organize monthly meetings, which is often a significant piece of work. If the meeting is well structured with clear next steps a lot of work will happen during the month.

Let us know what your tips are for managing volunteers! Do you think these tips all apply to your work managing volunteers in a community of practice? In what ways do they apply and in what ways do they not?

Naava

Sharing Anchors Community

A recent blog posting by Harlene Appelman, Director of the Covenant Foundation, quotes Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody on the notion of "sharing anchor[ing] community." Harlene, thank you for calling our attention to this concept.

What I find particularly exciting about how "sharing anchors community" is that the process is a spiral that builds community strength step by step, over time.

When one person shares and is well received, it helps others feel more trusting. When others feel safe and trusting it encourages them to share. As more people share, more people feel comfortable and share in turn, and so the cycle goes on.

What is going on? Why does it work? Often we do not share for fear of being judged, thinking something along the lines of "I wonder what others will think of what I am doing?" But once someone shares and is received well others realize "oh, I have something I can contribute to others." We all like to be recognized for what we do and to be validated for our accomplishments.

Over time, community members begin to share more deeply and readily, and over time a spiral of sharing leads to trust, which leads to more sharing, which leads to more trust -- creates a sense of community. Above is a diagram that captures the cycle.

So what can you do to help build a trusting community? Even the smallest step is important.

• Share something you know with someone or a group who might benefit from it.
• Express gratitude to someone who shares -- drop them an email or mention something the next time you see them.
  

As in a row of dominoes, you may set off a chain reaction of trust and sharing. And the world certainly needs much more of these!

Naava

Looking over each other's shoulders

The Kehilliyot CoP is exploring ways we can “look over each other's shoulders” to learn about community facilitation from the practice of peers. We are grateful to Darim Online, who recently invited Kehilliyot members to join the webinar "Foundations of Social Media" to learn about how Darim presents to their CoP members.

Several Kehilliyot members, including myself, joined Lisa and Caren on the webinars. We found it enlightening and useful. We learned alot from watching how Darim used the Webex software to share the desktop, use PowerPoint, and chat -- all in real time -- thus keeping up a variety of stimulating modes of conversation and interaction. The Webinar showed us some great examples of how some organizations are succesfully using social media.

One interesting concept we took away from the seminar was the notion of official and unofficial "outposts". Our Facebook profiles, Twitter feeds and other accounts on third party social networking sites are all examples of “official outposts.” When we comment on someone else’s blog, in their space, we are creating an “unofficial outpost.”

Participants felt they learned quite a bit from the session. Naomi Less (Storahtelling, Evaded Issues in Jewish Education,
Jewish Chicks Rock) said, “Amazing call.. I learned a great great deal. I was also struck by the "outpost" concept.”

Thanks Lisa and Caren. Great job! If you want to find out more contact them at info@darimonline.org. For information about becoming a Darim member, check out http://www.darimonline.org/capabilities/users_group.php.

Community Weaver Role for Kehilliyot

This is a protocol for a Kehilliyot Community Weaver Role. It was created on 8-17-09by Naava Frank of Knowledge Communities and Elana Rivel of Jewish Outreach Partnership based on the "Greeter Program" created by Jewish Outreach Partnership. We welcome your experimenting with this role and sharing your feedback.

Goals:

1. Help strengthen the community
   
2. Help individuals members get to know each other
   
3. Help new or peripheral members connect with the community and its tools
   
4. Help the community fine-tune its learning activities to meet the needs of members

Role: Two-Parts

Part I. 15-20 minute phone call

Talking points

• What CoP work do you do?
  
• Let me tell you what I do? A practice I am proud of, a challenge I am facing.
  
• Share 2 or 3 ways I use Kehilliyot
  
• How are you using Kehilliyot? Are you comfortable with the technology? Are learning activities working for you? Phone calls, Topics? Listserv?
  
• Who else do you know or are you contact with from Kehilliyot?

Part II. 2-3 contact points over the next 2-3 months (over email or phone)

Suggestions

• Connect over a resource shared (what did you think of the last email… I thought it might apply to your work)
  
• Ask how is it going?
  
• Send a resource you think might be of help
  
• Summarize a call they missed
  
• Share a problem or success of yours
  
• Inquire/follow-up about a problem they shared in the first conversation
  
• Respond to their posting
  
• Introduce them to someone else
  
• Ask to be introduced to someone else

Possible Hebrew terms for this role:

• Kashran (connector)
  
• Arev (a responsible community member – traditional Judaic texts)
  
• Oreg (weaver – modern Hebrew translation of weaver)

Let us know if you try this and how it works.

Naava

Your First CoP Meeting of The Year

Many of you (like myself) are planning or have just completed the first meeting of the year for your CoP. It would be neat to pool our knowledge about good strategies for starting the year. Maybe some ideas for having 'fun' as well.

In one local CoP for educators, Reuven Kimelman is addressing the group on strategies for teaching the Rosh Hashanah Davening.

Other ideas:

· Have the group brainstorm topics for the year and prioritize them
· What did we like about our CoP last year and what do we want to do differently?
· What does quality look like in our field? members give examples
of quality they experienced in other arenas.
· What are the problems we want to address together?
· What do we want to contribute to the broader field this year?
· Do we want to do any joint projects? writing, blogging, a conference, a presentation?

What was your first CoP meeting like? How did it work?

How to weave a tighter community

How to weave a tighter community

Posted using ShareThis

Advice on meeting reminders

It’s the beginning of the academic year, and Naava and I are busy finalizing our schedules for 2009-2010! As our calendars filled, we began to wonder about the most effective way to distribute meeting reminders to maximize awareness (and attendance). We don’t want to send only one announcement and expect meeting attendees to save it in the chaos of their email inbox, but we don’t want to send so many that it becomes annoying and they stop reading our communications altogether.

We came up with the following tentative schedule:

-- 1 month before: first communication, hold-the-date

-- 1 week before: reminder

-- 1 day before: another reminder

-- possibly one final reminder on the day of the event

Naava suggested we ask Kehilliyot members what they did when they were leading and organizing meetings, as well as what kind of communication worked best for them when they were the invitees. We received many helpful responses.

Naomi Sayegh of BJE writes, “I did some research on conference calling. It was suggested sending out reminders on all the times you noted. In addition, they suggested the day of the meeting—a half hour before the meeting.” She continued, however, “If the meetings are at the same time every month then there is no need for so many reminders. I appreciated the time when there was a reminder the day of a meeting.”

However, Rebecca Egolf pointed out a possible technological snag: “The problem with any reminders that are sent out the day of the meeting is that if you are getting messages from Google Groups in a digest then you don't receive it till the end of the day after it is too late. Day of messages would have to be sent directly by email and not in GG or many of us miss them.”

Thanks to everyone for the great advice!

The Broadest Playing Field Possible

The recenty eJewishPhilanthropy Journal Cites the following quote from Lynn Schusterman in The Jerusalem Post:

"In a world like ours that is diverse and diffuse, there is no way for us to know exactly where or what types of programs to invest in. It is becoming clear, however, that the days of investing in one singular institution are over and to be effective one must be everywhere and into everything. You need to be on the broadest playing field possible."

When individuals from dozens of organizations come together in a community of practice and speak about their successes and challenges a picture of the whole system emerges. Paying attention to the strengths and weaknesses of the system allows the community to address changes that can have an impact of dozens of institutions.

When dozens of communities of practice together in a meta-community of practice called Kehilliyot (sponsored by the Covenant Foundation) the possibilities for impact are profound.

The Kehilliyot community of practice recently tackled the topic of evaluation and accountability for improving the professional practice of our members so they become more efficient and effective in their work. And Kehilliyot continues to experiment with Web 2.0 tools to impact our constituents and help them impact their constituents. As each individual and each community works to improve their practice, the change has ripple effects that affect a few thousand Jewish professionals and many thousands of Jews.

To use Lynn Schusterman's language, a community of practice gives the community members, the community sponsor and the community facilitator insight and access to a very broad playing field. How can Kehilliyot and its constituent communities of practice partner with donors to achieve our shared vision for the future of a vibrant and engaged Jewish community.

On the Closing of PLP - The Potential of Networks

As I read about the closing of PLP, Professional Leaders Project. My thoughts are with my terrifically talented colleagues Rhoda Weisman and Sarah Meyers. I deeply believe that the impact of PLP and other network focused organizations like it, will be felt for a long long time in the Jewish community. Though a program closes, the relationships that were created will continue to bear fruit.

I wonder if funders and stakeholders realize that with a small sustained investment, by way of a network weaver http://networkweaver.blogspot.com/, the community can continue to harvest the fruits that have been cultivated during the years of operation.

I hope that organizations can take the time to articulate and honor their future legacy and maybe even put in place simple self-sustaining mechanism for these networks to live on be it a self-sustaining facebook group, a delicious tag or other electronic connection.

In a day of self organizing communities and social capital garnered from long term ongoing connections, the story is just beginning to unfold.

Stay in touch!

Naava

Putting Power in the Hands of Your CoP

Many Kehilliyot members have expressed interest in how to build internal leadership within a community. The citation below, from an article on eJewish philanthropy - includes tips for putting power in the hands of your community. How can we adapt these to CoP? some of my thoughts [in red] below

http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/put-the-power-in-the-hands-of-your-community/

"Here are just a few of the ways BBYO is building a movement by putting power in the hands of our community:

§ We’re asking our stakeholders to submit stories, photography, videos, logos and t-shirt designs. We’ve learned that authenticity is much more important than production quality or perfect branding.

collecting stories, tools and documents for sharing - we do this in a CoP, can we do it better?

§ We’re tapping “alpha” stakeholders, and encouraging them to mobilize their networks. In other words, we’re identifying individuals within our community who love serving as BBYO brand stewards and giving them the tools and resources to help them do it better.

have we identified our internal leaders? Bruce Hoppe and the work of SNA helped Kehilliyot members understand the significance of hubs (here called "alpha stakeholders). Are you tapping your leaders?

§ We’re sharing ideas, campaigns, videos, logos, etc. with our community members. We’re asking their opinion, and we’re listening. If they’re not fans of what we’re creating (and they’re not always!), we just ask them to do it!

Listening…. listening…listening. Backchannel conversations and ongoing communications are critical. Is this a part of your practice? If not can Kehilliyot help you develop this part of your practice?

Be brave enough to relinquish control of your brand. Put control in the hands of your community. They will reward you by moving your mission forward."

Questions unite people

Questions unite people, answer divide them.

Eli Weisel (Jewish Funders Network Conference, 2009)

Proverbs 15.14-15

The discerning heart seeks out the deepest wisdom...and the joyous mind is always feasting.