Elana Sztokman

The Jewish world lost a gem last week. Dr. Aryeh Geiger, founder of the pioneering Reut School in Jerusalem, founder of Ometz Hinuchi for principal independence, creator of the Gidonim project for the renewal of Eastern European Jewish cemeteries, died last week after a long and uphill battle with cancer. But his long list of amazing achievements does not capture what made him truly great. His greatness was who he was as a person. Aryeh Geiger embodied kindness and care as an entire world view. He built relationships and institutions on the same principle of spirituality as human connection. He never veered from these unwavering beliefs, and dedicated every ounce of his life to transmitting this love for humankind.

I had the privilege of interviewing Aryeh Geiger last year, right after he called a meeting of the staff, students, and parents in Reut, to announce to the community that he was stepping down due to his illness. “I am lucky to be able to prepare for my departure from the community,” he said with tragic calmness. This was a man for whom life and death formed a challenge and an opportunity. I’m reprinting the interview below from Jewish Educational Leadership.

May his memory be a blessing. It already is.

Aryeh Geiger: Spirituality in Leadership
Aryeh Geiger, unlike the people around him, does not think of himself as invaluable in the Reut community. “Do we really bring anything uniquely new to the planet?” he reflects. “A lot of innovative things have been attributed to me, I don’t know if they’re that innovative.”

Indeed, Aryeh has been at the forefront of many pioneering educational initiatives, including: his leadership at Pelech, the first religious-feminist girls’ school in Israel; his work on peacemaking and conflict resolution in education; his work on new ways in Holocaust education; as one of the founders of Meytarim, the “third stream” of Jewish-democratic education in Israel, under whose banner Reut exists; and most recently as co-founder of Ometz Hinuchi (lit, Educational Courage), that advocates for autonomy for school principals – or as Aryeh says simply, to “let the leaders lead.”

But Aryeh’s outlook is that he is not an innovator as much as a listener. “The Hasidic perspective of the planet is more one of horadat klipot – revealing layers – to the extent that if one can take the layers off, eventually you reach the source of the kedusha,” he explained. “I think that I have been committed not only to action but that I can listen, I’m not afraid to act upon my intuition, upon things I see… But even in all these things, there is nothing new under the sun.” Aryeh believes that the fact that others consider his work remarkable is “more as a negative reflection on the system than as a great testimony to what we’ve done.”

Certainly Aryeh has reason to be critical of the educational system in Israel. His struggles to enable free-thinking in the religious system, as well as the battle to create the Reut school – which eventually came to the Supreme Court – often affected him personally. “There have been many difficult moments,” he recalled. “When we created the school, many people within the normative Orthodox community – I was not held in high regard, that would be the diplomatic term.” Still, he had a lot of support from family and friends, including MK Rabbi Michael Melchior, as well as “role models in the past who were not exactly submissive individuals – including my own mother.”

Despite these battles, Aryeh has no regrets, and is in fact educating Reut students to develop this same courage to promote social change. “I think that significant change assumes risk taking, assumes stretching oneself. It assumes the ability to think and to act out of the box. In that regard students have to go out there and they’re out on a limb. The benefits for them far outweigh what they will pay. ….Graduates and people who emulate the same kind of risk taking, they pay a price in the present. But in terms of the timelessness of things and in terms of life, then the benefits for them far exceed whatever price they pay.”

The theme of timelessness is especially potent right now as Aryeh struggles with cancer, the fourth recurrence. The 52-year old father of three addressed the school in late November to announce that he was taking a leave as principal. “He told the kids that in order to fight the cancer, he can’t be principal and battle for his life at the same time” Dina painfully recalled, “He talked about the sanctity of life as a supreme value, and that’s what he’s going to fight for. But he also said that while he hopes that he will win his battle, that if G-d has decreed otherwise, then that’s okay, too.”

The impact on the school is profound. Students and staff are sad, subdued, and according to one parent, visibly depressed. “It’s so sad, so very, very sad,” 16-year old Tamir reflected. “We’re like a family, we are his family.” Many students, and staff, have trouble even talking about it.

“We are going through a very difficult time right now,” assistant principal Avital – who considers Aryeh her teacher, as well her children’s adoptive grandfather – explained. “When Aryeh is here, it’s great, and when he’s not, there is a gaping hole. We try to continue the routine as much as possible, but it’s very hard.” Avital, like so many others in the Reut community, feel personally connected to Aryeh, not just as principal. “I feel like he raised me,” Avital said. “He made me who I am, professionally and personally.”

Perhaps most remarkable is that Aryeh, even through his illness, considers the educational and spiritual aspects of the situation, always caring for those around him. “For Aryeh, all of life is a search for meaning,” Dina explained, “and he even uses his illness to teach kids that that’s what we do.” The way Aryeh has used his illness to teach the kids about spirituality, concurs Avital “is just huge.”

Aryeh considers himself fortunate that he has had the opportunity to work with the staff and students through what he calls his “probable departure from the community.” He says, “I was blessed with an opportunity that I knew I was ill a few years ago, and it came upon me in a way that gave me a chance to do some soul searching and look at how I wanted to do things, look at issues of continuity and separation, talk to people, get advice, communicate about it. It came about in a way that I was blessed with the opportunity.”

He describes the process that the staff has gone through with pride. “I think I’m most proud of the fact that now, when, in all probability I have to leave the community, I know there will be continuity. I have a co-principal and an administration and a group of teachers and a group of students that all share in the responsibility and have a pretty good understanding of what makes a school like this tick. I feel confident that it’s not centralized just around one person and that there will be continuity.”

Aryeh’s characteristic minimizing of his own presence is also reflected in his description of the students. “My satisfaction in olam haba,” he said, “is going to be in what they do, what kind of families they brought up, when they get to be my age what kind of parents or grandparents they are, what they have done. That will be the reflection of any impact I’ve had on their lives…The legacy is passed down by actions, not by more words. Whatever I’ve had to say to them, I’ve done it as time goes by. I believe more in education through doing than through verbiage. All I care about is that they know that I care.”

I asked Aryeh, if he had all the money and all the time in the world, what would he do, and he replied, “Probably, knowing me, I would probably go out into the forest somewhere, have a good daven and ask G-d what he wants me to do with it. Or she.” The rest of us, in the meantime, are praying that he gets that opportunity.