"And You Shall Teach Them Diligently To Your Children ... And To Yourselves."

This summer I met @Moosh2, an online friend. She was working at Crane Lake Camp while I was at Eisner Camp. Her name in RL is Marci Bellows the rabbi at Temple B'nai Torah in Wantagh, NY. She also writes a regular column inn the New York Jewish Week. We grew up in the same community and have a lot of friends in common, and yet we had never met!

When I saw this article, I thought it made some very important points in our ongoing discussion about what we should be doing in Jewish Education today. Let's discuss!

“When I was in junior high, and all my friends were having their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs (sic), I just enjoyed celebrating with them. It didn’t really occur to me that I wasn’t having one of my own. It wasn’t until college that I really began to regret it…” 

With these words, Jessica Yanow, my best friend since we were eight years old, began reflecting on her own Jewish upbringing and education. Growing up in Skokie, Illinois, it was impossible not to feel, at the very least, culturally Jewish. There was a bagel store in every strip mall, and a synagogue every few blocks. 

Jessica’s grandparents belonged to a Traditional synagogue, and they encouraged Jessica’s mother to enroll her in Sunday School there. Though the level of observance differed from what she was seeing at home, Jessica attended for a few years. When she was in second grade, her mother gave her a choice – she could keep attending Sunday School, or she could stop. Jessica explained, “At that age, I would guess that most children would choose not to go to any additional school. There was no discussion, as far as I can remember, with regards to later implications, like the fact that I wouldn’t have a Bat Mitzvah. So, of course, I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go to Sunday School.’” 

I cannot express how much this one story has affected my rabbinate. I often hear young parents wrestling over whether or not to “force” their children to attend religious school. Likewise, I hear students bemoan the fact that they are “stuck” going to religious school every week. And, yet, I inevitably share Jessica’s story with them all, for this reason: Now that she is an adult, she deeply regrets not attending religious school, not building her Jewish identity from a younger age, and not celebrating Bat Mitzvah at 13. 

Interestingly, and perhaps not consciously, Jessica found other ways of engaging in Judaism as a teen. Jessica was active in our local Kadima chapter in junior high, and then we were all board members of my temple’s Youth Group in high school. She took Hebrew as a foreign language at our public high school. She traveled to Israel during the summer before college, and then we both began our studies at Brandeis University (where feeling Jewish is unavoidable). 

Surrounded by Jews of all stripes, Jessica was now confronted by her lack of Jewish knowledge and personal connection to her heritage. For the first time, she truly regretted her decision to halt her religious education. Thus, she continued studying Hebrew, added three semesters of Yiddish, and read as many Jewish books as she could. 

Fast-forward to now, and she is living in Phoenix, married, and mother to an amazing four-year-old son (who calls me “Auntie Marci,” which makes me giggle ALL the time). She and her husband have chosen to send their son to a pre-school at a local Reform synagogue. She hopes that they will become more involved in the coming years, and perhaps she will study towards Adult Bat Mitzvah. I asked her how she feels now that she is the parent. 

She delights in spending every Friday morning at the preschool’s Tot Shabbat celebration. She loves learning more about the holidays alongside her son. She was pleasantly humbled when he came home one day, looked at the family’s dormant candlesticks, and asked, “Mommy, why don’t we light Shabbat candles on Friday nights?” 

Jessica is but one case, but she exemplifies so many adults in today’s Reform congregations. For a variety of reasons, we have men and women who feel detached, alienated, or lacking in some way. Some of these adults will never set foot in the temple except to send their kids to religious school and then leave as soon as their youngest child turns thirteen. 

However, others are longing for connection, and they wish desperately that someone would reach out to them. These folks may be intimidated by adult education offerings, fearful that their lack of learning will be a source of embarrassment. To all of these people, I say, you are welcome here! You belong here! You are a crucial part of the fabric of the Jewish community, and you needn’t be afraid! Jewish learning is possible throughout our entire lives, whether or not we started our learning when we were young. 

As adults, it is our job to model the importance of a strong Jewish education – not just by sending our children to religious school, but by finding ways to continually enhance our own understanding of Judaism. Imagine how little we would understand about the world if we had stopped our secular studies at age 13! This month, the Union for Reform Judaism is highlighting various ways of approaching Lifelong Jewish Learning, and I encourage you to look for inspiring ideas and topics on their website: http://urj.org/learning/. I’m sure that, with a bit of searching, you will find something that works for you. 

Oh, and, by the way, Jessica will not be giving her son a choice. He will go to religious school through Bar Mitzvah, at the very least. No doubt about it.

Cross-posted to Welcome to the Next Level.

How Do We Talk About Israel in Our Schools?

I am currently in Tel Aviv at the final meeting of the Jim Joseph Foundation Fellows at the Lookstein Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora at Bar Ilan University. Stuart Zweiter is the director of the Lookstein Center and coincidentally (to our being here) posted this observation to the Lookjed listServ (an e-mailed forum for Jewish Educators facilitated by Shalom Burger, director of the JJF Fellowship) on December 7. I think he asks some vital questions that I hope you will join me in discussing in the coming weeks. The original posting is archived here. You can reply there or here. I will copy comments here to the Lookjed list. If you would like to subscribe to Lookjed - and I recommend that you do, go to the on-line form at http://www.lookstein.org/register.htm.

This past Friday night Natan Scharansky told a few of us sitting  around the Shabbat table with him that he had found in his travels to  North American college campuses that Jewish students were uninformed  as well as scared to speak up for Israel, scared that if they were to  actively defend or speak positively about Israel it would impact  negatively on their academic career as well as their future professional career.

This morning in a discussion I had with the head of a major Jewish Foundation I was told that during a visit she recently had at a very  large Jewish high school, she found the students preparing for an  internal school debate on the topic, Israel: Is it an apartheid state? In an informal discussion she had with several students at the same  school, she was told by them that they love Israelis but do not like Israel.   

This evening I read a piece in the JTA concerning the vote taking  place this week at Princeton University on whether to ask the  university's dining services to provide an alternative brand of  hummus. Why? Because the current brand being offered is Sabra, which  is half-owned by The Strauss Group, which has publicly supported the  IDF and provides care packages and sports equipment to Israeli  soldiers.   

We all know of many similar examples. I am mentioning these because  they all occurred in just the past few days.   

This post is not an invitation to debate political issues related to  Israel. Rather, we are very interested in learning how Jewish high  schools and junior high schools of all stripes are educating their  students regarding Israel. It seems particularly important during this  period in which there is increasing de-legitimization of Israel. How  much time do schools invest in this critical issue that all of their  graduates will face on college campuses? Is it dealt with in a serious and systematic way through formal and informal educational  programs? Where does it fit into your school program? 

What does your  school do? We are hoping that through the Lookjed list the Center can  raise consciousness of and attentiveness to this issue and that the  thousands of subscribers to the Lookjed list can learn about the  different efforts and programs that are being implemented in schools.   

This question, of course, touches on how we prioritize what is  included in our school programs and how schools allocate and divide up  the time that is available. That itself is an important question for  reflection and deliberation by school principals and teachers. All  schools make choices regarding what is in and what is out? Where does  this issue fit in?   

Stuart Zweiter  

Director, the Lookstein Center

Instilling Jewish Pride in the Next Generation

Last week, as my son and I were doing some last minute Hanukkah shopping, we found ourselves staring face to face with an aisle devoted to Christmas. You can imagine how appealing these items were to a five year old, and I have to admit that I found myself staring at them quite a bit as well, as they were a remarkable display of the holiday season. When he asked me what they were, I told him that they were for Christmas and we moved on to the next aisle. A few aisles later, we found the Hanukkah section, and it included a pretty small selection of items compared to all that we had seen just a few aisles back.

Unlike the merchandising selection at this department store, we can't let Hanukkah, or any Jewish holiday for that matter, be seen as the smaller or less significant stepchild of a more popularly held holiday. It's critical that we not compare Christmas and Hanukkah as if they are in competition. Each holiday stands on its own merits, and in their true celebration express very different theological messages. Hanukkah's central theme is the courage to maintain one's religious convictions in the face of persecution. When we light our hanukiah and place it conspicuously in our windowsill, we are actively engaged in publicizing the miracle of Jewish survival and are linking ourselves to thousands of generations of Jews who have fought for the right to practice the faith of their ancestors.

Often, Jewish professionals use the term "December Dilemma" to refer to the struggle that interfaith families have in navigating the challenge of satisfying the needs of both partners during the holiday season. However, Julie Hilton Danan, a Rabbi and Professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Chico suggests in her book The Jewish Parent's Almanac, that the term might also apply to "the range of uncomfortable feelings that many Jews, in particular Jewish parents, experience while most of the rest of the country is celebrating Christmas. It’s as if the year’s biggest party is going on, and we’ve decided not to be invited…"

Indeed, although my family leads a very active Jewish life, my children occasionally feel that they have been left out of the mainstream, and want to "taste" what they are seeing on television and at shopping malls throughout Houston. What might be the solution to this "December Dilemma?" In my opinion it is making Judaism compelling year round. The more our children feel a sense of pride in being Jewish, the less they will look longingly at other traditions to fill a need their Judaism isn't providing.

On this issue Rabbi Danan continues: "I think that the people who experience the most problems with children and Christmas are those for whom December is practically the only time of year in which their children feel distinctively Jewish…When family observances revolve around the Jewish calendar, we know who we are, not just who we aren’t."

Hanukkah is just about to begin and Christmas is right around the corner. With four opportunities to celebrate Shabbat in addition to celebrating the Festival of Lights before Santa makes his yearly visit, consider ways to make your kids feel so happy to be Jewish that Christmas is just another day of the year.

A Jewish Take on World Issues

This blog was supposed to be published on Wednesday but I was still thinking about what to write. Over the past ten days I have been directing a ten-day scholar in residence program at the Jewish Community Center of Houston (where I work) entitled A Jewish Take on World Issues. The scholar, Dr. Alick Isaacs is a professor at the Melton Centre for Jewish Education at Hebrew University and a faculty member at the Hartman Institute. The series included lectures both at the JCC and in private homes. Each night Dr. Isaacs explored a Jewish take on issues such as Universal Humanity, Community, Peace, Progress, Feminism, and the role of the State of Israel in the Modern World. The program was well received and every night participants went home with a little bit of a brain ache from working hard to understand the challenging ideas presented by our presenter. Since I attended all ten lectures I had a lot to think about and so this post is late.

In the lecture entitled A Jewish Take on Progress, Dr. Isaacs shared with us the Western understanding of progress as a linear development that will inevitably results in an improvement of conditions. He then proceeded to explore a Jewish understanding of progress, in which traditionalist and anti-traditionalist movements support one another in the mutual development and conservation of Judaism’s most important ideas and ideals.

In the lecture A Jewish Take on Feminism, Dr. Isaacs explored how the modern Feminist tradition is at odds with Judaism while a reading of Jewish texts supports a Feminist ideology based not on rights, but responsibilities both for men and women. Dr. Isaacs is an ardent feminist, and one of the founders of Congregation Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, where women lead portions of the service and read Torah in an Orthodox environment.

The big idea I took away from this series is that I am guilty of trying to make an accommodation for Judaism to fit neatly into the Western tradition. I need to work harder to explore Judaism on its own terms and not as a tradition that can so neatly fit into the surrounding culture I wish to belong. I walked away recognizing that Judaism at odds with a Western tradition can serve as form of protest against a tradition that needs a genuine critique in order to maintain its own authentic voice. In this way, both Judaism and the Western tradition are forced to evolve.

THE “LOST” CONNECTION

I can’t stop thinking about the “Lost” finale.

(Even if you’re not a fan, stay with me, I promise there’s a larger point. And if you DVR'ed it and haven't watched it yet, consider this your spoiler alert.)

I loved the show from day one. It was thrilling, mesmerizing, can’t-wait-for-what’s-next TV, and at the same time the action was always secondary to the character development. Through flashbacks about a different character each week, by the end of the first season we knew these characters very well. Virtually all of them had flaws, but they were like family members—you loved them, warts and all.

I loved the finale, even though it didn’t answer all the questions. After it was over I found myself not wanting to let go. I re-watched some of the most poignant scenes, when various sets of characters in the "sideways" universe (a sort of parralel existence that wasn't explained until the very end) suddenly remembered their time on the island and reconnected with lost loved ones, all in the same instant. The emotional intensity of those moments, built upon six years of relationships—their relationships with each other, viewers’ relationships with the characters—was overwhelming. (This was the best of them, in my opinion.)

So what does the “Lost” finale have to do with Jewish education and community? Everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For starters, the finale touched upon several religious themes. Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune, in her review Sunday night, laid out three key themes that strike me as quite Jewish:

• It's never too late. You can always remake your fate (or take a run at resolving your issues in another Sideways life, brutha).
• No one is eternally good or bad. You can revise or redeem your character through your actions.
• No one can go it alone. It takes a village and all that.

Secondly, the show, and the finale in particular, demonstrated the power of the emotional connection. I’ll defer again to Ryan, simply because after I read what she wrote, I thought this is exactly how I feel. Noting the distinction between the “structural mode” and the “emotional mode” of watching the show, she writes:

“The structural mode has to do with the filling in of answers and with puzzle-solving… It's the more analytical part of being a ‘Lost’ fan, and it can be a lot of fun (or incredibly frustrating, depending on what happened in that week's episode)….

“But then there's also the emotional, ‘here and now’ mode of enjoying the show. That has to do with how the show makes me feel within that hour and the feelings and reactions it elicits in the moment. I love it when any film or movie or performance reaches down into the pit of my heart or soul and creates visceral, physical reactions -- fear, tension, tears, joy, elation, sadness.... So, here's how the finale landed for me: The emotional part of the finale worked so well that I don't care much about the analytical/structural stuff.”

I can’t help but think that this is how participants in Jewish education break down their own experience, distinguishing between the structural and emotional components (even if they don’t think of it that way.) For some, the focus on the nuts and bolts of Jewish life—prayers, tzedakah, chesed, holidays, Hebrew, life cycle, text study, culture, food, music, and so forth—resonates a lot. It offers easily identifiable symbols that people, and children in particular, can latch onto.

For others, however, none of that matters nearly as much as the emotional connection. One person might define their Jewishness by the positive emotional experiences they have within it; another may step away from Jewish life entirely because of a negative emotional experience.

In the field of informal Jewish education, we spend lots of energy going after exactly what Ryan is describing: reaching down into a teen’s heart and creating emotional reactions (albeit aiming for more joy and elation, and much less fear and sadness). By setting up environments and experiences that trigger emotional responses, we believe we’re increasing the likelihood of deeper and more profound connections—among participants, between participants and staff, and of course the connection the participant has with the experience itself (prayer, Israel, performing acts of tzedakah, and so forth.)

It makes me wonder, though, if as educators we could choose only one connection, structural vs. emotional—which would we choose?

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Finally, there’s a third parallel from the “Lost” finale that resonates with the work my Jim Joseph Fellowship colleagues and I are doing to build online communities of practice. “Lost” dumped a group of strangers on an island, and we watched as over time they became a community, learning to trust, rely on, and at times, even save each other.

At the end of the finale, Jack, the main character, has a dialogue with his deceased father, that speaks directly to the idea of building community:

“The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people,” Jack’s father told him. “Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them, and they needed you.”

Sounds like the foundational idea behind a good community of practice.

Put Your Own Oxygen Mask On First, And Then Help Your Children

Taking A Year Off

This past fall many Jewish educators encountered a newish phenomenon. Some families in our religious schools were “taking a year off” from Religious School and in some cases synagogue membership. If these were families whose youngest child recently became Bar or Bat Mitzvah, we might wring our hands and say “Ri-i-i-ight. Taking the year off. We’ll look for you next fall.”

But most of these families in my synagogue and in those of colleagues who have told me they have encountered the same conversations have children who are much younger. They tend to be in Gan (K) through Kitah Gimel (3rd). In fact, our enrollment from Kitah Chet (8th) through Kitah Yud Bet (12th) is at an all time high. If pushed, some parents will say it is a temporary economic decision. They indicated the economic realities of the fall of 2010 and a belief that their child’s Jewish identity will not be irreparably damaged by a break in their studies. And they absolutely did not want to discuss financial aid – either they were too uncomfortable with the topic or they didn’t feel things were that bad. They promised to come back. And in some of the conversations I am beginning to have with these hiatus families, they are telling me that they are absolutely coming back. From their mouths…

Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?

I am nearly finished with a book call Linchpin by Seth Godin.[1] I am a Godin Junkie. I first met Seth’s work in the pages of Fast Company, another of my addictions. Both are from the world of business, not Jewish education. Both have taught me so many things about how to make Jewish education happen. I cannot recommend them enough. I could write ten articles about this book, beginning with how it was marketed. I am reading it with a small moleskine notebook next to me so I can take notes. Yes, it is that engaging.

At the heart of the book is a redefining of the American Dream: “Be remarkable. Be generous. Create Art. Make Judgment Calls. Connect people and ideas. And we will have no choice but to reward you.” He challenges the reader, regardless of your field, to be an artist, which he defines as “someone who changes everything, who makes dreams come true…someone who can see the reality of today and describe a better tomorrow…a linchpin.”

A linchpin. The pshat or plain meaning is the piece of metal that slides through the axle that keeps the wheel from falling off the wagon, or through the arm and the hitch to keep the trailer attached. It is a simple device yet it keeps things together and makes their proper function possible. Godin suggests that in our work, each of us needs to be a linchpin, someone who is indispensable to their company. Not a line worker or a rule follower, but an artist – someone who stretches possibilities to allow growth and change. He gives great examples.

Al Tifrosh Min Hatzibur - Do Not Separate Yourself From the Community
So why am I bringing this up while talking about the interrupted life of our students? I believe we need to do a better job of making the school and the synagogue (and the Jewish educator) linchpins in the lives of our families. I think that twenty years ago, no one would have considered “taking a year off.” That generation might have considered the financial ramifications when joining a synagogue. Once in, though, I am convinced that like their predecessors, they would not consider leaving – at least not before the youngest child’s Bar/Bat Mitzvah. I think that we have witnessed evidence of a paradigm shift in the mind of some of our parents. And because the synagogue is no longer a linchpin for some, they are making choices we have not seen before.

Much has been written about what needs to happen to make the synagogue and formal Jewish education more relevant. And some of it may be right on target. But before we go exploding all of our existing institutions, I have a thought. We need to be linchpins. By “we” I mean the synagogue, the school, the clergy, the directors of education/lifelong learning/early childhood/family education/programming/fill-in-the-blank, the teachers and the lay leadership.

In 1989 United Airlines ran a television commercial showing a conference room. “A manager announces they have just lost a major long-time client, one too many. It's time for a "face-to-face" policy, in other words, not just call the customer, but also meet him. He starts handing out plane tickets to the other employees...” [2]


They had the idea exactly right. We need to focus our energy on each adult, one family at a time. It’s not an easy task, given the size of some of our congregations. It is not a one-person job. I intend to become an evangelist, recruiting those who already feel that being a part of a congregation – learning, praying and coming together for ma’asim tovim (good works) and for fun – is not something to be weighed against other household expenses and youth activities. We need to get them join us in reaching out, one family at a time, and helping those families come to the same conclusion. We have to lose the model whereby the educator focuses on the children and that leads to families becoming more connected.

Put Your Own Mask On First…
Finally, I want to share the teaching of Harlene Winnick Appelman, the director of the Covenant Foundation. Harlene was one of the first winners of the Covenant Award, and was one of the first people to take the idea of family education and develop it into something more comprehensive than a special program on a Sunday morning. Her sessions at CAJE conferences were a must-attend for those who wanted to be on the cutting edge.

She reminded us of the safety speech that flight attendants used to give before takeoff (now it is usually on a video). They would say that in case of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks would drop from the ceiling. After instructing us how to put it on and start the flow of oxygen, they would tell us that passengers traveling with young children should put their own mask on first and then help their children. Harlene taught us what should have been (and should still be) obvious: If you put the child’s mask on first, we might not be able to breathe well enough to take care of ourselves. And what if our children need us after getting the mask on?

We need to get the parents to put on their Jewish learning and living masks. Otherwise we will have a generation of adults with the Jewish identity and connection of at best a thirteen year old. We need to get them to understand that they need to belong to a synagogue and send their children to religious school (or day school) because that is something that is vitally important to them. And we can only do that through personal relationships. We need to be artists.

I have some ideas. More on this soon.

Cross-posted to Welcome to the Next Level




[1]Seth’s blog is at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ and his books can be found at http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/books.asp. I have taught about The Idea Virus and the Purple Cow, and recommend them!

[2] Thanks to http://www.airodyssey.net/tvc/tvc-united.html" for the description of the ad and the link to the Leo Burnett Ad Agency site for the clip.