Rosh Hashanah Eve, 5768/2007 “Who Needs Jewish Education?”
Rosh Hashanah Eve, 5768/2007
“Who Needs Jewish Education?”
Rabbi Julie Hilton Danan, Congregation Beth Israel, Chico, CA
Many of us have daily or weekly “To Do” lists. But more and more people are creating “To Do” lists of goals for their entire lifetime. According to a recent article in the New York times, the latest self-help fad is the “Life List.” Books like “1,000 Places to see Before You Die,” or “101 Things to Do Before You Turn 40,” point to the new popularity of making and pursuing lists of personal goals to be fulfilled in the course of a lifetime.
I would like to make a suggestion: how about creating a Jewish life list with 10 things you want to do Jewishly? Otherwise you might get through life and never learn to read Hebrew, or lead a Seder, or visit Israel. You might never get around to becoming an adult Bat Mitzvah or visiting historic Jewish sites in Europe. You might never realize that you really wanted to study the Kabbalah, read the entire Tanakh-Jewish Bible cover to cover, attend a Jewish meditation retreat or take a course on Jewish history. That Jewish Life List might include building your own sukkah, learning to bake challah, attending a summer Hebrew Ulpan in Israel (or San Francisco) or studying the Mishnah. If many of our members created Jewish Life Lists like this, it would help our community to become a congregation of learners.
Education has always been important to Jews. Woody Allen once joked, “What’s a Jewish drop-out?”
His answer, “Someone who just has a B.A.”
In truth, American Jews are among the most educated of all ethnic groups in this country. We have taken our ancient passion for learning Torah and Talmud, and translated it into gaining academic and professional degrees.
Therefore, it’s painfully ironic that Jewish education for Jews in this country peaks at age 13, at Bar Mitzvah. I hope that most of us reject the outmoded idea that Jewish education is to learn a few prayers or how to decode the Hebrew aleph-bet so that one can have a special ceremony at age 13 and then quit the synagogue and community, thus negating all the values for which that ceremony stands. Bar or Bat Mitzvah is not about “having.” It is about “becoming”-becoming an active adult member of a community and a people.
So who really needs Jewish education? All of us, from birth to 120. Children are the future of our community, but focusing solely on the education of the young leads to pediatric Judaism. Children will learn best when they see that their parents and other adults in the community are actively engaged in Jewish learning and life.
According to Dr. Isa Aron of the Union for Reform Judaism, “a congregation of learners is a center for authentic Jewish learning-
learning that is viewed as a lifelong endeavor, that grows out of the life of the community, and which, in turn strengthens the community. The congregation of learners is both a means to an end and an end in itself; it is an instrument for enculturating individual members into active participation in Jewish life, but it is also a model for Jewish community.”
Such a congregation, according to Dr. Aron, would of course offer formal classes, but “also informal discussion groups, art workshops, and story-telling, as well as lots of one-on-one tutoring…learning would be the norm rather than the exception…everyone would be a potential teacher, from the history professor buff teaching a course on the Golden Age of Spain to the teenager tutoring youngsters in Hebrew, and the amateur singers who lead song sessions…” Learning would be part of every aspect of congregational life, from educational items on the bulletin board to links on the congregational website. Members would explore Jewish sources together when deciding on social action projects or making important policy decisions.
Why? Because for Jews, learning is not just “an acquisition of knowledge, but rather the process of engaging continuously” with the incomparably rich sources of our tradition. An example can be found in our own congregation, where we have an Adult Study group on Shabbat mornings at 9 AM. For the past few years, have explored many and varied Jewish texts together, but we are not just acquiring knowledge. We are exploring and expanding our own spiritual paths through an in-depth encounter with our texts and a dialogue with one another. We also have a delightful Book Club that uses Jewish fiction as a springboard for learning. We have a marvelous resource in our own community university scholars who teach us at Shabbat services, and we have some great Torah discussions at Shabbat services. We have the foundations of being a congregation of learners, and there are so many ways that we can grow as more people become engaged in teaching and learning.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the luminaries of American Jewry wrote, “It is wrong to define education as a preparation for life. Learning is life, a supreme experience of living, a climax of existence.” For a Jew, learning is life’s very essence. It is a primary spiritual path. “Learning Torah equals all the other mitzvoth,” according to the Talmud (B. Shabbat 127a). “Torah” means much more than the holy scroll in the ark. In its expanded meaning, Torah means not only all of the Bible, but also the Talmud, Midrash, and historical sources. It also means all of our sacred spiritual “teachings” from the Bible to the present day.
Think about Jewish services and rituals. The center of every Jewish service is a public reading and teaching. The central holiday of Passover centers on a Seder meal in which we teach the next generation about our history through all kinds of hands-on activities and experiences. Jews are encouraged to study, to question, and to debate. Learning is an integral part of our identity.
This concept of becoming a Congregation of Learners is linked to our congregational pursuit of the “three paths”-head, heart and hand.
For learning has three aspects. We may read books or study texts and gain knowledge and understanding-the head. We may explore our own spirituality or master religious rituals-the heart. And we can learn in order to develop practical skills, create artistic expressions, or serve others-the hand.
During these Days of Awe, I am speaking on a variety of topics. But really, every topic that I address comes back to one central theme: building community from the inside out. We are an intentional community in a world that is increasingly alienated and fragmented. This is something very precious. In our congregational president, David Halimi, we have a visionary leader who wants to help us take our community to the next level. His first goal was to have a rabbi committed to a long term relationship with the congregation. His next goal centers on expanding our physical home and with it our presence in the local community for generations to come.
At the same time that we build with funds, bricks and mortar, we also have to build from the inside, with increased knowledge, spiritual growth, skills, and especially in building an intentional community in which people learn together, grow together, and have a loyalty and commitment to everyone in the community. One of the key ways that we can do this is by orienting ourselves toward learning for all ages.
And what of our children? When does Jewish learning begin? With the increasing recognition of the early childhood years as important moments for the formation of a child’s identity, we know that Jewish education should begin at birth. We are so blessed to have our Menchkins program led by Lisa Rappaport, growing and expanding from year to year. Families with children from birth through kindergarten enjoy play groups, family Shabbat dinners and services, holiday celebrations, and our summer day camp, Camp Katon. Tonight, let us expand our early childhood vision for the future. We have almost a minyan of babies under age two. Imagine that in a few years we open a school for young children, where being Jewish and celebrating Jewish holidays and Shabbat is part of the children’s everyday formative experience. I believe that this is in our grasp, although it will be a lot of work and effort. It will have tremendous dividends for the children, the families and our entire community, if we invest the effort.
Who else needs Jewish education? Children…It’s obvious to most of us that school children need Jewish education. We already have a wonderful Religious School under the direction of Fran Halimi, a creative, nurturing place where kids are really glad to be. Witness the fact that many of our Religious School graduates come right back and start acting as “madrichim,” or classroom assistants. They love being there. But Religious School is only the beginning. The way to maximize the few hours that we are able to offer Religious School is to round out our children’s formal Jewish education with rich and meaningful Jewish life experiences. One of the most powerful things that we can do for our children’s Jewish education is to send them to Jewish summer camps when they are young, and on program in Israel when they are teens and young adults. I can say for myself that attending a Jewish summer camp at age 12 was the turning point in my Jewish identity. Just last week, we heard a presentation from several of our students who have been to Camp Tawonga, near Yosemite (thanks to the Pressmans for organizing). I think that no one heard Everett or the younger kids speak and went away unmoved. We are blessed to have the Gert Lenner fund to help our students have these life-changing experiences.
Most importantly, we need to educate and empower are parents, because parents are the primary educators of their own children. We need to expand our offerings for parent and family education so that our children are growing up in strong Jewish environments and entire families are learning and growing together in community. Many synagogues are orienting more of their religious school programming to parents and families learning together with their children.
Who else needs Jewish education? Our teens. When I was researching my book for Jewish parents a few years ago, I learned that research indicates that “continuation of Jewish studies through high school is considered by some researchers to be one of the critical predictors of adult Jewish identification and observance.” Some have even argued that our customary religious schools can have only the most minimal positive effects on Jewish involvement unless continued through high school. We have begun the efforts by establishing a number of Jewish teen programs in Chico, starting with Confirmation class for post-B’nai Mitzvah students. Next week we are inviting the parents and the kids to come together to help us come up with new ways to make our program even more relevant and supportive to each and every teen. We are offering a teen camping trip on the weekend of Sukkot, led by Jeremy Miller, as a further way for our teens to bond as they camp and learn about the environment. And finally, we have BBYO to engage our kids socially and to get them involved with a much larger Jewish peer group in the “big Jewish world” outside of Butte County. We need to prioritize continued Jewish involvement for our teens at least much as the other “extra-curriculars” to which we willingly devote so much time, money and energy.
Ultimately, the question of “Who needs Jewish education?” is much bigger than any program or even than our community. Our society has become polarized in many ways. Moral, social and spiritual issues are seen as black and white. Judaism and the vast resources of the Torah have so much to offer, because they display nuanced thought and show that there are many sides to every issue. The Hebrew Bible teaches morality-the centrality of right and wrong, of justice for the weak and the oppressed. The Talmud teaches us that every question has many sides, and that it is a holy thing to sharpen our minds and to debate different opinions for the sake of G-d. Jewish mysticism, teaches that behind the multiplicity of life is a sacred whole, and that we are all a part of it. By studying and learning from our sacred sources, we will not only be more knowledgeable Jews, but we may potentially become more fulfilled people and more engaged citizens.
Who needs Jewish education? We all do. From making a Jewish life list to thinking outside the box and integrating learning into every aspect of our community life-head, heart, and hand-we can build a stronger, more intentional community from the inside out.
I wish for everyone that we may all fulfill at least one goal on our Jewish life lists this year, and that our learning programs for all ages, from Menchkins to Sages, will blossom and flourish as we increasingly become a community of learners.
Thanks to mentor Rabbi Liza Stern for sharing her thoughts on “intentional community.”
