on top of the world

Yesterday I was on one of the world’s roofs – the world TED stage.

According to what they say,

I am the first person in the world to give 2 Ted lectures

in the interval of a few months from each other.

The process for this lecture was fascinating, educational and also very stressful.

Suddenly, after I have been used to giving a lecture of an hour and a quarter for years, suddenly I have to reduce and be precise to just a few minutes. Here, the whole world is listening, so I want to say as much as possible, but it’s impossible – I only have a few minutes to give my contribution to the world on this important stage.

It was a very welcome and important growth process for me.

And suddenly I’m sitting with people to whom I raised my eyes as an admiring child, such as Prof. Yuli Tamir, who was Israel’s Minister of Education, and with Yaakov Hecht, who was the founder of the first democratic school in Israel, and with Prof. Yoram Harpaz, who is a great thinker in the world of education – and we work together, Strengthen, encourage and correct each other.

Sitting together over a couple of bottles of 2017 vintage red wine and a pot of mushrooms and chestnuts and talking about the state of education until midnight.

When I got off the stage yesterday, Violi took me to the side and said to me: “Yonathan, we have a lot to learn from you!”,

My heart blushed and grasped with satisfaction, thanksgiving and intense enthusiasm.

Soon the lecture will be uploaded to the Ted Global website and I will share a link here of course, but I want to share the thing that was most exciting for me yesterday. I was most moved that Liat, my instructor from boarding school came to see me, and was there for me in the crowd.

Once upon a time, when I was a 17-year-old rock idol in a boarding school, there was a part where I was probably arrogant, and I disrespected some request that Liat asked me then, probably something related to a performance at the boarding school.

Oh yes – she wanted me to sing an ethnics song – black BMV. This is what suited the performance at the Shabbat reception according to the show she built for our group. And I flatly refused.

I will sing ethnics?! Wow wow.

And in the midst of the stormy debate we had there in the hallway in the group, Liat told me a gift sentence that goes with me to this day – “You are talented. You can reach the top of the world. I know that. But you have to be careful that you don’t get there and find yourself there alone!’ Well, that was a strong punch on her part – and in the picture that followed immediately after – I was on stage and lovingly sang the song by Ethnics at the Shabbat reception. Later, I understood Liat more and more, who wanted to teach me that you can be as talented as you are – if you are not connected to the essence of giving from your heart to the world – your success will be worth as much as a garlic peel. Liat was my biggest inner compass at the beginning of my journey when I became a boarding school instructor myself. And yesterday when I went on the roof of the world, I wasn’t there alone. And I looked at Liat almost the entire lecture. “look at you! From the last room in the corridor – to the biggest stage in the world!’ she called to me.

A moment in life. mine and hers

That’s how it is in education. Every letter is important.