Is this what it means to be Jewish?
A portion of this post can be a lesson plan for Jewish teens, with the image above as the trigger.
It would be an interesting exercise and not entirely out of context as a beginning to a discussion about Jewish values (that is, if Google defines our context).
The photo came up in a Google Image Advanced Search (free to use or share) for “Why be Jewish?” and struck me immediately as a conversation starter for this topic.
So, if showing this on a projector to a group of Jewish teens, some introductory questions to ask them would be:
What is your first reaction to this image? What strikes you about this picture?
How does this image make you feel?
What does this image say to you about Judaism? Jewish life? (the whole concept of talking about life within the framework of death is a teaching moment in itself). (Psalm 90:12, Psalm 39:5, The Kaddish, etc.)
What are some of your thoughts about Jewish belief?
It might be interesting then, to move from the image toward their personal beliefs about being Jewish.
What defines them as being Jewish? Push hard on this question…don’t accept answers that are superficial and have been called “bagels and lox” Judaism.
For us as parents and Jewish educators, answering this question for ourselves is primary, and not at all an easy task.
List at least seven things that define your identity as a Jew, and you might ask the teens to do the same.
It would make for a very rich conversation.
With that completed, you might move on to your responses to why should our teens be Jewish?
It’s a basic question that we will need to grapple with for several reasons:
1. In today’s open society, Jewish values resemble good old-fashioned American humanistic values.
Kindness to animals? Check.
Respect for the elderly? Check.
Caring for the environment? Check.
Social and humanitarian causes? Check.
Well, you get the idea. Our teens are so much a part of the American (Judeo-Christian) value system, that selling them on Jewish values is tough.
Not only that,
2. Jewish teens don’t perceive themselves as different from their friends, nor do they want to be different.
Then the hard bare reality might hit——many of us don’t want them to feel different either….since we may well remember what that felt like. (So, what do we do with that? )
Among most teens that are not in day school, religion is pretty much a non-issue among their friends. In high school, most kids aren’t staying up into the midnight hours talking theology.
Chem? Yes.
Advanced Physics? Totally.
God? Don’t think so.
3. Jewish teens aren’t so much interested in doing things that are devoid of personal meaning, and many rituals connected with Judaism have not passed that test for them.
What’s been missing is context.
Ritual without it is pretty empty, since there isn’t the automatic compulsion to follow ritual for halachic (Jewish legal) reasons.
You can try this. Just ask them how important it is for them to….say Kiddush. Motzi.
Thought so. (We’re talking about most Jewish teens here, not those for whom a context has been provided).
4. Back to the God thing. In high school, Reason is King. They haven’t delved far enough into the sciences to really, really comprehend the mystery of it all, which when they do, (later, in college perhaps) can be an awesome and spiritual experience.
Yes, they’ll talk string theory, and quantum physics, but won’t really be able to absorb all of its implications. (Check out an earlier post: Thinking about Religious Truths and Scientific Lies, ). In short, they’re not there yet.
So, we have a job to do.
Far more than even worrying about Bar and Bat Mitzvah drop-off.
We have to get them to want to be Jewish. They need to Love Being Jewish.
The very first step, is making sure our top seven answers are substantive.
Then we need to let our teens see how much we love it.
Photo credit: wikipedia.org
This post is an updated version of a previous post called “Why should our teens be Jewish?”
Related articles
How We Are Shortchanging Jewish Teens (ruthschapira.wordpress.com)
How to Make Jewish School Cool for Jewish Teens (ruthschapira.wordpress.com)
He Said / She Said: Engaging Synagogue Youth (ejewishphilanthropy.com)