How a Donkey Can Make You a Better Person

Excerpt from Echoes of Eden: Sefer Shemot by Rabbi Ari Kahn, pages 165-166
Close examination of this law may give us insight into much larger questions of Torah law and philosophy. The verses speak rather amorphously of "the one you hate," and "your enemy." There is no explanation of these negative feelings, no backdrop to the animosity. Possibly the object of these negative feelings is a sinner, who is undeserving of our love. His own shortcomings cause others to distance themselves and reject him. Another possibility is that we hate because of our own shortcomings; we lash out at the innocent, projecting our self-hatred elsewhere. If the latter is the case, and our hatred is due to our own shortcomings, we can readily understand why the Torah would instruct us to transcend our own pettiness.

Even in a situation where there is justified hatred between us and the individual, we are told to help him. Note this comes as part of a broader discussion. Suppose two people need help with their two animals. One animal needs to be UNLOADED and one needs to be LOADED with its burdens/ packages. Which comes first?
The rabbis say the animal that needs to be UNLOADED due to Tzaar Baalei Chayim.
But then comes a very counterintuitive passage.

Excerpt from Echoes of Eden: Sefer Shmot by Rabbi Ari Kahn, pages 169-170
The rationale offered for this ruling is not immediately apparent: how does the evil inclination come into the picture? If there is a mitzvah to help unload an animal's burden, why would the evil inclination need to be suppressed?
Let us consider the psychological or emotional state of the protagonist of these hypothetical cases: A man sees two people who need hsi help. One is his friend, who needs help unloading a heavy burden from his donkey, and the other, his enemy, needs help loading a burden onto his donkey. This should be a very simple decision: help the friend (and the suffering animal). But the Talmud goes deeper, examining the emotions behind the action: How does our "hero" feel when he is not helping his enemy? Would he feel that he has missed out on something he would very much have wanted to do because the Torah commanded him to unload another's burden, or would he feel justified in his feelings of hatred? Would his yetzer tov, his good inclination, be at work helping his friend, or would his yetzer hara, his evil inclination, be satisfied that his enemy is left to fend for himself? Would helping his friend and fulfilling the letter of the law, while reveling in his enemy's distress, help create a more refined human being?
It is not hard to imagine this man's amusement and satisfaction with the "beauty of Torah" as he helps his friend unload the donkey, all the while aware of his enemy laboriously loading a heavy burden unassisted. Would his seemingly righteous act bring him closer to God, or would it reinforce the selfish and self-righteous tendnecies that all men possess, distancing him from God?
The Talmud's answer is clear. Even when serving God, even when fulfilling a Torah commandment, we must always strive to perfect ourselves and thus become closer to God. If the evil inclination is strengthened by the performance of a mitzvah, something has gone fundamentally wrong. Thus, in this case, although there is a commandment to help unload the donkey, there is a higher consideration: the purpose of all of Torah is to perfect man and society.

Excerpt from 'By His Light' by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, page 249

Excerpt from 'Covenant and Conversation- Exodus: The Book of Redemption by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, pages 163-164
What makes the law of the over-laden donkey significant, however, is the creative way in which it uses an occasion of distress to heal wounds and overcome animosities. And it works. For this, we now have the evidence of the most fascinating research exercises in social science, the study carried out in 1954 by Muzafer Sherif, known as "The Robbers Cave Experiment."
Sherif wanted to understand the dynamics of group conflict and prejudice. To do so, he and his fellow researchers selected a group of twenty-two white, eleven-year-old boys, none of whom had met one another before. They were taken to a remote summer camp in Robbers Cave State Park, Oklahoma. They were randomly allocated into two groups. Initially neither group knew of the existence of the other. They were staying in cabins far apart. The first week was dedicated to team-building. The boys hiked and swam together. Each group chose a name for itself- they became the Eagles and the Rattlers. They stencilled the names on their shirts and flags.
Then, for four days the two teams were introduced to one another through a series of competitions. There were trophies, medals and prizes for the winners, and nothing for the losers. Almost immediately there was tension between them: name-calling, teasing, and derogatory songs. It got worse. Each burned the other's flag and raided their cabins. They objected to eating together with the others in the same dining hall.
Stage three was called the "integration phase." Meetings were arranged. The two groups watched films together. They lit Fourth-of-July firecrackers together. The hope was that these face to face encounters would lessen tensions and lead to reconciliation. They didn't. Several broke up with the children throwing food at one another.
In stage four, the researchers arranged situations in which a problem arose that threatened both groups simultaneously. The first was a blockage in the supply of drinking water to the camp. The two groups identified the problem separately and gathered at the point where the blockage had occurred. They worked together to remove it, and celebrated together when they succeeded. In another, both groups voted to watch some films. The researchers explained that the films would cost money to hire, and there was not enough in camp funds to do so. Both groups agreed to contribute an equal share to the cost. In a third, the coach on which they were traveling stalled, and the boys had to work together to push it. By the time the trials were over, the boys had stopped having negative images of the other side. On the final bus ride home, the members of one team used their prize money to buy drinks for everyone.
What Sherif had done in stage four was essentially to replicate the situation of the over-laden donkey by creating problems that neither group could solve alone, but could be resolved by both groups working together. The conclusion is nothing short of revolutionary. The fault-lines between enemies are not, as it had often been thought, an inexorable fact of human nature, hardwired into our genes. [...] But the boundaries can be redrawn so that erstwhile enemies are on the same, not opposite, side of the table. All it takes is a shared task that both can achieve together but neither can do alone.

5 Strategies to Deepen Student Collaboration
by Mary Burns, published on Edutopia
Link: www.edutopia.org/article/5-strategies-deepen-student-collaboration-mary-burns
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Most of us who teach believe in the power of collaboration and frequently engage our students in collaborative activities. But how many times have we put students in groups only to watch them interact with their laptops instead of each other? Or pursue their own individual goals instead of consult with one another? Or complain about a lazy teammate?
Promoting real collaboration is hard to do well—and it doesn’t just happen on its own. If we want real collaboration, we need to intentionally design it as part of our learning activity. These are five strategies to encourage effective collaboration.
Create Learning Activities That Are Complex
Students need a reason to collaborate. If the assignment is too simple, they can more easily do it alone. At most, they may check in with each other or interact in superficial ways. The real reason to collaborate is because the task is complex—it is too difficult and has too many pieces to complete alone.
Complex activities are challenging, engaging, stimulating, and multilayered. Complex activities require “positive interdependence” (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008), a situation in which attaining the goal, completing the task, being successful, and getting a good grade require that the team work together and share knowledge.
One way to do this is through rigorous projects that require students to identify a problem (for example, balancing population growth in their city with protection of existing green spaces) and agree—through research, discussion, debate, and time to develop their ideas—on a solution which they must then propose together.
Prepare Students to Be Part of a Team
Collaborative groups can’t be assigned—they have to be built and nurtured. Students often need to learn how to work effectively with others and as part of a team. We have to help students understand the what, why, and how of collaboration. We can do this in several ways:

• Help students understand the benefits of collaboration and what successful collaboration looks like.
• Guide students through the stages of team building (forming, storming, norming, and performing).
• Give students time and opportunities within the activity to develop leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict-management skills.
• Establish expectations and norms for working together.
• Design, or have students design, protocols for handling conflict disagreement so they can resolve issues within their teams.
• Teach students active listening skills.

Minimize Opportunities for Free Riding
When students complain about collaborative groups, it often has to do with the free riding of one member who lets others do all the work and then benefits from the group grade. We can eliminate free riding in a number of ways:

• Create small groups of no more than four or five people. When there is less room to hide, nonparticipation is more difficult.
• Ensure a high degree of individual accountability (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 2008) by assessing students both individually and as a group. For example, at the end of the day give students an individual quiz based on the intended outcome of their collaborative activity.
• Design meaningful team roles that relate to the content and to the task. Roles like time keeper are episodic and don’t intellectually engage students in the content, and this can encourage free riding. In contrast, more meaningful roles such as manager, monitor, and leaders for each subtask of the activity give students ownership in the process and allow the teacher to assess students based on successful completion of these roles.
• Have students evaluate their own participation and effort and that of each team member and triangulate those assessments with your own

Build in Many Opportunities for Discussion and Consensus
Many group projects are based on efficiency, dividing labor to create a product in the most effective way possible. This focus on the product means that we often ignore the process of collaboration. Rich discussions that connect students with the experiences of others, that engage them deeply in a shared intellectual experience, and that promote coming to consensus are essential to collaboration.
For instance, students can come to consensus around a solution or decision where they must defend or propose a common vision or develop a set of beliefs or principles. This focus on discussion and consensus builds both academic and social skills—students learn to defend their ideas through evidence and analytical reasoning, to negotiate meaning, and to argue constructively.
Focus on Strengthening and Stretching Expertise
The challenge of designing good collaborative activities is ensuring that all students, even those who struggle, play an important role. Collaboration should not just strengthen students’ existing skills but ensure that their interactions stretch existing knowledge and expand one another’s expertise. If, for example, a student is much stronger in one skill than her peers in her group, she can teach others and her grade can be contingent upon how much her peers learn.
In collaborative activities, we want to ensure that students don’t just occupy the same physical space but that they share an intellectual space—that they learn more, do more, and experience more together than they would alone. As teachers, we can promote real collaboration by shifting our role from instructor to coach—promoting team autonomy, checking in on students and providing instant feedback, and helping them increasingly learn to work together productively to attain a common goal.
Reference:
Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., & Holubec, E. (2008). Cooperation in the Classroom.