Nearly 200 students injured in French schools protests as clashes with police continue – as it happened as reflected on by Rabbi Miriam Levin
News reports show tear gas swirling around high school gates in France. Accounts detail nearly two hundred teenagers injured in clashes with police. This brings an immediate ache to anyone who cares for young people. Here in Highland Woods, our suburban streets feel quiet. Nevertheless, the emotional tremors of a fractured world reach our kitchen tables daily. Parents in our congregation often confide their struggles. They guide teenagers who feel society’s institutions have stopped listening. Consequently, these young people feel anxious, angry, and distrustful of the future. The events of the French schools protests resonate deeply.
Education as Sacred Ground in Troubled Times
Jewish tradition has always guarded education as sacred ground. In Tractate Shabbat, the Talmud makes a startling declaration. Our sages teach that the entire world is sustained only by the breath of school children. Our ancestors understood this profound truth. They knew a civilization’s moral vitality depends on how faithfully we protect those learning to be human. When schools become battlegrounds, a fundamental covenant between generations breaks. Classrooms shutter behind riot shields and barricades. We then fail our primary duty. We must provide a sanctuary where youth can grow, question, and flourish without physical harm.
Civic passion among the young is not an aberration. Instead, we should guide this instinct. The Hebrew prophets were never comfortable conformists. They were disruptors. They railed against complacency, demanding justice for the vulnerable. Furthermore, they insisted on accountability from leadership. When young people protest, they often voice deep moral anxieties. These concerns involve their dignity, their futures, and the stability of their world. Responding to their outcry primarily with baton strikes and tactical suppression misses the point. It mistakes a righteous yearning for mere public disorder.
Rebuilding Trust After French Schools Protests
Our tradition insists upon civil order. It recognizes that chaotic violence inevitably devours the vulnerable first. Pirkei Avot teaches us to pray for the welfare of the government. Without boundaries, people would swallow one another alive. However, lawfulness can never be sustained by force alone. True order is born of justice, mutual restraint, and open ears. When state authorities meet youthful grievance with escalating force, they do not establish peace. Instead, they merely seed cynicism and alienation. This will bear bitter fruit for decades, impacting future generations.
In our suburban synagogue, we frequently gather across lines of difference. We practice what our tradition calls machloket l’shem shamayim. This means argument for the sake of heaven. It is an arduous discipline. It requires confronting deep disagreements without dehumanizing the person across the table. Adults, especially those in power, must listen with humility. They should avoid rushing to defend their authority. Civil authorities must remember a badge and uniform exist to defend human dignity. They do not exist to conquer children who have lost patience with the status quo. The French schools protests highlight this crucial need.
Every injury sustained by a student in the street is a collective wound. When two hundred young people are bruised, bleeding, or traumatized while demanding to be heard, society must look inward. We must ask what broke down long before the stones were thrown. The task of tikkun olam, repairing our broken world, begins with rebuilding trust. This trust must form between the generation holding power and the generation waiting to inherit it. Repair cannot happen through intimidation or tear gas. It demands a humble willingness to open doors, lower shields, and listen to the trembling breath of our children.
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